Oastler Lake Provincial Park — Attraction in Seguin Township

We booked a camping trip this weekend at Oastler and were very excited! Based on the pictures online it looked beautiful and we had a site right on the lake (site 120). We got there Friday at about noon, and got set up right as the sun came out. It was as beautiful as we had hoped. The sites are a little open so you get to know your neighbours, but being right on the lake makes up for it. We we able to swim out right from our site and spent a good couple hours swimming around. The closest bathroom to us wasn't great, just two small stalls almost like an outhouse. But the next comfort station wasn't too far and was clean and open so it was great. We made dinner and while we were cleaning up we saw a storm approaching. It didn't look too bad, just some sheet lightening, no rain yet. We decided to bunker down in the tent for a bit to ride out the rain, because according to the weather network it was only supposed to be a 40% chance of a storm. By about 10pm the story had changed completely, there was four of us in our tent holding the wall up as the wind pushed our tent in on us. Our poles were breaking and the hail was hitting against our hands so hard it felt like rocks. The wind picked up our fly and the rain and hail was pouring in the top and sides of the tent we were soaked in seconds. We didn't know if it was going to be better to run outside to the car or wait it out. The next thing we knew our tent gave way and the right side had a giant hole the size of our door. My friends were all out of the tent before I could think. We darted for the car and squished in. Soaked and freezing cold we waiting the storm out. A little while later the hail stopped and we cleared the windows to see if everything was okay. It was not. The site in front of us we see a car covered by trees. We immediately jump out of the car to check on them. It's still raining but people are everywhere checking on each other. There were trees everywhere, including across our entire campsite. It was something no one had experienced before. It was not long before the camp superintendent was on site checking on everyone. He checked in with every site and the staff were attending to the sites with the most damage. There was no way out, huge trees were covering every exit. The camp office had a generator and they were asking anyone without a place to stay or who needed to calm down or get some power to congregate there. We decided to clean up what we could, put on some dry clothes and try to just sleep in the car. The camp staff came around every hour to check in on everyone make sure everyone is still safe and okay. We could hear trees falling all around throughout the night but we could hear the chain saws, emergency tractor and staff going around and working all night. We couldn't sleep much so we were up before 5. Power and sewage was still out so we had to go to the office to use the bathroom. The staff was up and figuring out a plan. They also had done a timmies run and there was coffee, croissants, danishes, and muffins for everyone. Because we were up so early we were ready to go, we were told to leave anything that was broken or garbage. We had to leave half our campsite, our broken tent and our kitchen tent with most of our stuff in it that was under a giant fallen tree. The park was being evacuated by 9am and then they would have to individually attend to any campers with stuck vehicles. On the way out they had a guard we had to give them the names of everyone on our site, a list of damages, our original dates, if we were planning on making a claim and if there were any injuries. We were the first ones out so I can't imagine how long everyone was there for but at least no one was seriously injured.

It was so nice to see such attentive and friendly staff after the very traumatic night. They really went above and beyond the call of duty to care for everyone. I give this place 5 stars for the beautiful site (pre-storm) but I wish I could give them a thousand stars for their fantastic staff. Truly a weekend...

BEWARE (camped July 2019) 2 stars only for the beauty and being able to find a waterfront location. I would rate the staff, facilities and showers as a 0 if I could. We were at sites 136/137 which were great. Away from neighbours, on a hill overlooking the water and very little bugs. Caution on 136 as you have to carry everything down the hill full of roots and rocks. It isn't suitable for anyone with disabilities or if you plan to be more than tipsy. Trains were not bothersome on this side of the park. You could hear them, but nothing worse than city white noise so I didn't even notice it sometimes.

The bad: -Only 1 shower facility which is NOT CLEANED. If you manage to land shower #1 than you get the hot water... down the line it gets colder and good luck at the end. My shower was colder than the lake. On the first night I opened a shower and saw a forgotten pair of mens underwear so I used a different shower. The next night, the underwear was still sitting there. How hard is it to send in someone to clean them!! -Our site was a bit of a distance away from the shower facility so on the second day we drove to it. There is a no parking sign out front of the showers so we drove around the corner and parked on a large grassy shoulder of the road (which clearly showed signs of being parked on). Within a couple of minutes 2 rangers (1 with an ego and 1 in training) started writing us a ticket. We ran back to the car and apologized, and asked for clarification. They said that we were parked in a no parking area and will get a ticket. I asked why because this area has clearly been parked on and it isn't marked but the Ranger said that if he put a sign everywhere it would ruin the nature, when in fact around the corner is a no parking sign. There were no good reasons and he refused to let us off with a warning. After it was done, we were told we could pay the ticket at the office. I have no problem with tickets being used to help enforce rules, but this was issued clearly as a revenue stream as we were told to pay at the office. -Forget about renting canoes. We picked this park because we wanted to rent a canoe and do some fishing. The website and newspaper all say you can rent canoes at Oastler Lake as part of something to do... you can, but you can't use them at Oastler Lake!! Canoe rentals are only to be loaded onto your car and taken away into the Massassauga area. At Oastler Lake you can rent paddle boats, kayaks and knee boards for this lake. The point was for us to rent a canoe for 2 adults, a dog and go fishing. no thanks. FALSE ADVERTISING. -The outhouses near our site were horrid. There are outhouses... and then there are outhouses. They are need of repair or probably ready to be sealed up and a new hole dug. You are better off walking 5 minutes to the flush toilets. -The dog beach was somewhat small, but clean and sandy. Still wear your water shoes but we enjoyed it. The problem is that it is pretty centrally located so I had some campers come to this beach when I was with my dog instead of using the main beach at the entrance. Unfortunately my dog will chase little kids if they are running which is harmless but can be scary for the families. I had to politely remind them that this is an offleash dog beach and my dog will be offleash here if they plan to use this section. I'm sure other dog owners appreciate the lengths we can go to find a designated sandy dog beach as they can be few and far between. If you don't have a dog, please use the public swimming area. Finally, if you've purchased Provincial Park wood before, you will know it is pretty bad, damp and not dried out. This isn't new to me, just remember to pack some form of firestarters and kindling... you will need it.

Overall, we still enjoyed our time here and loved being able to see the water from our tent. But the canoes and ticket were a serious let down. Before the drama, we were planning to change our August reservation to this park but now we will definitely not be...

Quite a beautiful park overall. Water is clean and the trees were marvellous, especially now in Fall. That’s why I’m not just giving it 1 star. However, we had an extremely bad experience dealing with the canoe rentals, and the rest of this review is explaining why. We were charged 60 dollars as a late fee. Normally yes, we understand that we must pay a penalty for it, however due to several circumstances, we believe this is unfair in our particular circumstance. I hope Ontario parks improves their process and policies, but I don’t have high hopes.

No verbal warning was given about being late, nor the fees associated with it. We were only told about it after coming back. Never shown nor told what happens when you’re late. Compare this to private canoe rentals, who make it very clear what happens after you’re late and explicitly communicate that verbally. We were not allowed to take our the canoe for 4 hours, because there wasn’t enough time for a 4 hour session. However, we are allowed to go for 2 hours, and any time after that gets charged 30 dollars per half hour. That makes no sense whatsoever. Just let us take a 4 hour session and only use it for 3 hours then. Inconsistent rule enforcement within different parks: In pinery and silent lake and plenty of other parks, we would pay for the extra time taken if we’re were late based on the session time. This is the first time in literally 10 years that we’ve been charged like this. There shouldn’t be different policies in different parks. When we talked to the warden, he said that there are different park sections within Ontario parks, who each enforce this separately. This makes absolutely no sense, and visitors should not be on the receiving end of bad management practices. Spirit of the law doesn’t apply here: the reason you have late fees is to discourage people from renting out canoes longer than the session time, to allow other people to rent it afterwards. Since there was only an hour left after we should’ve returned it, there’s no way for someone else to rent it (min time to rent is 2 hours). We confirmed this with the staff. We’ve also retuned it before the park closed. The equipment is in good shape. That means that literally no one was affected by us being late, which makes the very high late fees a result of an overbearing and clumsy policy. General notes about improvements to Ontario parks: A) you should have a formal complaint process. When we wanted to escalate this, no staff member knew what to do. There isn’t a clear process for handling complaints. The staff spent quite a bit of time going back and forth trying to figure out what to do when we said we want to escalate this complaint to the higher ups. B) a staff member told us we were lucky to pay 60 dollars and that we should be happy with it, because when we requested to file a complaint, it ran past 4pm, which meant that they could’ve just left and taken our deposit because the park was now closed. This was a threat, and it was extremely rude and unprofessional. I’ve worked in summer camps and dealing with customers a few minutes past closing is part of the job. Threatening to unlawfully take their deposit money should not...