Killarney Provincial Park is a provincial park in central

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The park contains just one campground at the George Lake entrance as it is primarily a wilderness park. There are few facilities to allow visitors a chance to experience the solitude and beauty of its undisturbed natural setting. It has a number of hiking trails and canoe-in back-country camping. The canoe routes include well maintained portages between lakes. The campground includes six heated

yurt A yurt (from the Turkic languages) or ger ( Mongolian) is a portable, round tent covered and insulated with skins or felt and traditionally used as a dwelling by several distinct nomadic groups in the steppes and mountains of Central Asia. ...

s which have electric lighting, a power outlet, a propane barbecue and bunk beds. Situated on the north shore of

Georgian Bay Georgian Bay (french: Baie Georgienne) is a large bay of Lake Huron, in the Laurentia bioregion. It is located entirely within the borders of Ontario, Canada. The main body of the bay lies east of the Bruce Peninsula and Manitoulin Island. To ...

in the municipality of

Killarney Killarney ( ; ga, Cill Airne , meaning 'church of sloes') is a town in County Kerry, southwestern Ireland. The town is on the northeastern shore of Lough Leane, part of Killarney National Park, and is home to St Mary's Cathedral, Ross Castl ...

, the park straddles the La Cloche range, large rounded white

quartzite Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tect ...

hills that dominate the landscape. The white peaks and cliffs contrast with the pine and hardwood forests and the boggy lowlands that surround the park's many lakes. Quartzite is weather-resistant and contains few nutrient-bearing minerals. Soils, where present, tend to be shallow and infertile. Very stony sandy loam is the most common soil texture reported.

Podzol In soil science, podzols are the typical soils of coniferous or boreal forests and also the typical soils of eucalypt forests and heathlands in southern Australia. In Western Europe, podzols develop on heathland, which is often a construct of hum ...

profile development is usual in well-drained situations. Mineral-rich rock types such as

diabase Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro, is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-graine ...

and

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms whe ...

occur locally and the soils that have developed over them support some of the park's more luxuriant vegetation. The park lies within the

Eastern forest-boreal transition Eastern may refer to: Transportation *China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai *Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways *Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991 *Eastern Air Li ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

, so there is a wide variety of plant life. The park is home to

moose The moose (in North America) or elk (in Eurasia) (''Alces alces'') is a member of the New World deer subfamily and is the only species in the genus ''Alces''. It is the largest and heaviest extant species in the deer family. Most adult mal ...

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

black bear Black bear or Blackbear may refer to: Animals * American black bear (''Ursus americanus''), a North American bear species * Asian black bear (''Ursus thibetanus''), an Asian bear species Music * Black Bear (band), a Canadian First Nations group ...

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, Ontar ...

bobcat The bobcat (''Lynx rufus''), also known as the red lynx, is a medium-sized cat native to North America. It ranges from southern Canada through most of the contiguous United States to Oaxaca in Mexico. It is listed as Least Concern on the IUC ...

marten A marten is a weasel-like mammal in the genus ''Martes'' within the subfamily Guloninae, in the family Mustelidae. They have bushy tails and large paws with partially retractile claws. The fur varies from yellowish to dark brown, depending on t ...

s, and

beaver Beavers are large, semiaquatic rodents in the genus ''Castor'' native to the temperate Northern Hemisphere. There are two extant species: the North American beaver (''Castor canadensis'') and the Eurasian beaver (''C. fiber''). Beavers ar ...

s along with over 20 species of reptiles and amphibians. Over 100 species of birds breed, nest or rest within park boundaries.

Origin

The origin of the park is owed to the conservation efforts of artists. Canadian

Group of Seven The Group of Seven (G7) is an intergovernmental political forum consisting of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States; additionally, the European Union (EU) is a "non-enumerated member". It is official ...

artist

A. Y. Jackson Alexander Young Jackson LL. D. (October 3, 1882April 5, 1974) was a Canadian painter and a founding member of the Group of Seven. Jackson made a significant contribution to the development of art in Canada, and was instrumental in bringing toget ...

was so alarmed by the prospect that Trout Lake (now O.S.A. Lake) was about to be logged that he petitioned the Provincial government of the day to have it preserved. His letter was received by William Finlayson, then the Minister of Lands and Forests, resulting in a successful conclusion. The lake was taken into trust by the Ontario Society of Artists and its name was changed to O.S.A. Lake. Jackson's efforts were rewarded with the naming of a lake after him on his 90th birthday. The hills and lakes in the Killarney area became a popular place for painting and sketching and over the years several other members of the

worked there including

Franklin Carmichael Franklin Carmichael (May 4, 1890 – October 24, 1945) was a Canadian artist and member of the Group of Seven. Though he was primarily famous for his use of watercolours, he also used oil paints, charcoal and other media to capture the Ontari ...

Arthur Lismer Arthur Lismer, LL. D. (27 June 1885 – 23 March 1969) was an English-Canadian painter, member of the Group of Seven and educator. He is known primarily as a landscape painter and for his paintings of ships in dazzle camouflage. Early life ...

and A. J. Casson. In 1959 the Killarney Park area was set aside as a wilderness preserve. In 1962 Highway 637 opened, connecting the north shore of Georgian Bay all the way from the town of Killarney to the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway ( French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean o ...

. Finally in 1964, with the help of lobbying efforts by the Group of Seven, of

shoreline were set aside as a wilderness reserve, and Killarney became a provincial park. The park has experienced some challenges that threaten the health of its delicate local ecosystems. Owing in large part to its proximity to Sudbury with its nickel mines and smelters, local lakes were damaged by

acid rain Acid rain is rain or any other form of precipitation that is unusually acidic, meaning that it has elevated levels of hydrogen ions (low pH). Most water, including drinking water, has a neutral pH that exists between 6.5 and 8.5, but acid ...

. Pollution caused by the smelting activities associated with

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow to ...

mining between the 1940s and the 1970s, caused many of Killarney's lakes to become acidified, resulting in the loss of fish species,

algae Algae (; singular alga ) is an informal term for a large and diverse group of photosynthetic eukaryotic organisms. It is a polyphyletic grouping that includes species from multiple distinct clades. Included organisms range from unicellular mic ...

and aquatic plant life in many of the lakes. This damage was especially severe in the quartzite areas. Legislation passed in the 1970s forced the industry to improve its emissions standards. Since then, sulphur emissions have been reduced by over 90 percent. To date, water quality has improved in some lakes to pre-pollution levels, while in other lakes the slow process of biological recovery continues. More recently, the lakes have been under threat from non-indigenous

invasive species An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species ad ...

such as the

Bythotrephes longimanus ''Bythotrephes longimanus'' (also ''Bythotrephes cederstroemi''), or the spiny water flea, is a planktonic crustacean less than long. It is native to fresh waters of Northern Europe and Asia, but has been accidentally introduced and widely distr ...

(a.k.a. spiny water flea), which threaten local species. In 2006, the provincial government also created the adjacent but separate provincial park of Killarney Lakelands and Headwaters. In 2015, the

Wiikwemkoong First Nation The Wiikwemkoong First Nation is a First Nation on Manitoulin Island in Northern Ontario. The Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory (nicknamed Wiky, previously named Wikwemikong) is the First Nation reserve in the northeast of Manitoulin Island in Man ...

Manitoulin Island Manitoulin Island is an island in Lake Huron, located within the borders of the Canadian province of Ontario, in the bioregion known as Laurentia. With an area of , it is the largest lake island in the world, large enough that it has over 100 ...

also established the adjacent

Point Grondine Park Point Grondine Park is a First Nations-owned nature park on the northern shore of Lake Huron in Sudbury District, Ontario, which occupies the unpopulated historic Point Grondine 3 Indian reserve. It is a ceded reserve of the Wiikwemkoong First ...

on their own unoccupied heritage territory in the area.

Observatory

On July 17, 2010 the park officially opened the

Killarney Provincial Park Observatory The Killarney Provincial Park Observatory is an astronomical observatory located at the George Lake Campground of Killarney Provincial Park (a 420 km drive north of Toronto or a 100 km drive southwest of Sudbury, Ontario, Sudbury). The Ob ...

- the first public observatory in any Ontario Provincial Park. This observatory is available for both NHE directed programs as well as individual use (please contact the Park directly for information on availability of this facility). As the skies in Killarney Provincial Park are still pristine, this facility is ideal for all those interested in studying the night sky.

Dark-Sky Preserve

In 2018, Killarney Provincial Park was awarded the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada's

Dark-Sky Preserve A dark-sky preserve (DSP) is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts artificial light pollution. The purpose of the dark-sky movement is generally to promote astronomy. However, astronomy is certainly not the only obje ...

designation, the first Ontario Park to do so.

2018 Upgrade

In celebration of 125 years of Ontario Parks and 150 years of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, the

complex was upgraded to include a new observatory facility. This one includes a 16" fully automated Meade LX600 (primary instrument) and a Meade 130mm (5") apochromatic refractor (secondary instrument).

References

External links