Fitzroy Provincial Park — Attraction in Ottawa

July 2022: BEAUTIFUL PARK, QUIET and PEACEFUL, especially the Pinegrove Campground. We've been going there since 2005 and love this park!!

Now, having said that, there are still PROBLEMS (some majors, others less).

1. ONCE YOU ENTER the Campground (Pinegrove) there are no directions (ONE WAY, DO NOT ENTER, etc...) as to which way to go for each of the roads. You have to guess which road to take and hope that you will not (with your/camping trailer) get a face to face with another vehicle/camping trailer.

2. it would resolve that problem if campsites numbers would be indicated for each road. It is very frustrating, annoying and inconvenient that ONCE YOU ARE IN THE CAMPGROUND (i.e.: Pinegrove) there are absolutely no indications whatsoever of any sites numbers for each road (i.e.: sites 1-25, 26-47, 48-82, etc....). If you have in hand a map of the Fitzroy Park, you can manage somewhat but you still have to guess which way to go (one way? do not enter?). It's a guessing game each time. We saw many campers with big enough trailers (25+ feet long) going around a few times in the park trying to figure out which way to go and crossing fingers you won't meet another trailer (Who's going to back up, them? us?).

3. PLEASE trim tree branches (big branches) in any turning roads. Trailers have a hard time (not all the time, but often) when they turn at roads or crossing roads - fingers crossed you won't scratch or damage your trailer.

4. If Wardens would do their rounds more often, maybe it would help or resolve the issues with owner's that let their dogs bark at all times. VERY FRUSTRATING and ANNOYING when you think you made that trip to enjoy the nature, camping and resting. Nope!!!! You have these idiot campers that let their dogs bark or children screams AT ALL TIME!!! RESPECT on the part of these owners/parents would be welcome, appreciate and appropriate!!

5. SLOW DOWN... Speeding in the park!!! Yep, you heard me... That includes campers and, yes, especially WORKERS driving with their LOUD maintenance "bugies" about 15x a day.

6. Washrooms, Showers, Laundry, VERY CLEAN. We were impressed!

Thank you, I've...

Nice park considering how close it is to Ottawa. I've stayed at the Pine Grove campground twice. Sites vary a lot - some very nice sites beside the river, some open, grassy sites along the far road. Privacy varies a lot. The comfort station is nice and pretty clean. The two outhouses are not terrible but can get quite smelly at times and the smell can waft over areas of the campground depending on the wind. Some sites in the Two Rivers campground are on the Ottawa River but with views of the massive hydroelectric dam. Sites are not cleaned well between campers. I spent 20 min picking up small pieces of garbage and cigarette butts from my site when I arrived.

The beach is large with nice, soft sand. There are some weeds that have floated in but no weeds growing in the beach area. The water gets quite deep before the buoy line. It gets very busy on weekends with people coming in for the day. Behind the beach is a large grassy area with lots of trees and picnic tables and a lot of groups camp out here for the day and have barbecues. As a result, the beach itself is not very crowded.

You can rent boats. The area to paddle in is nice but limited unless you go into the Ottawa River where the current may be strong due to the hydro electric dam. The hiking trails are very nice, though short at 0.75 and 1.5 km. Morris Island Conservation Area is a short drive away and offers more extensive trails, though parking is $7.

The store serves ice cream cones and sells some groceries and a lot of items that you may have forgotten to bring. They even had a camp stove. Hours were quite limited in September, closing at 3:30 pm on weekdays.

There are a ton of deer. I saw five just in or around the campground.

This campground gives the illusion of wilderness. In actuality, it is very close to farmland and Fitzroy Harbour residential area. If there's construction or someone using a chainsaw, you can hear it. You can also hear traffic...

We had campsite #2 at the Pinegrove campground. I liked that it led down to the water. Keep in mind, it’s more of a swampy stream. But kids still had fun walking in it and we saw deer crossing twice in our 3 days there. There are 2 nice beaches nearby. Both stay shallow a ways out, so great for young kids. One was walking distance and the other a short drive. There are a couple walking trails and you can rent a canoe for 4 hours min for $35 (wish you could do less time bc kids only lasted 1 hour and also the river is super rocky, so you can’t really go far w/out getting stuck in rocks and having to keep a constant eye out). Bathrooms could be more clean (they were cleaned once in our 3 days there). Liked that there were lots of showers and free to use. There’s A LOT of wildlife, including seeing a skunk in our campsite and we had raccoons open our closed storage totes and steal bags of chips at night. Suggest keeping all containers/coolers with food in your car at night! I truly wish there were more electrical sites available. It was high 80’s-90°F when we were there and it didn’t cool down very much at night. Was definitely wishing for a fan and also had to ask other ppl to use their electrical to put air in our air mattress. Came home with poison ivy, so definitely be careful of that. All in all, I would still recommend for a family vacation with a 2 year old and 8 month old. There’s a Tim Hortons & Dairy Queen 15 mins away, if you want to grab a treat away from...