Sleeping Giant Provincial Park — Attraction in Unorganized Thunder Bay District

Absolutely beautiful! Remote, stunning and gorgeous. I highly recommend Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. If you like the remote wilderness, camping, mountain biking, or hiking (especially hiking); this is the place for you! I stayed for several days in the Marie Louise campground; it was absolutely stunning. I extended my stay to add an extra day/night because my family loved it so much. There is so much to explore here, miles and miles of trails around the Peninsula of Lake Superior and Thunder Bay. Be warned, some of the trails can range from moderate to very difficult. Some trails are upwards of over 70km, some only a couple km round trip. If you wish to see the sleeping giant, it's quite a trek; save yourself 4-6 hours. It's around 7-8km to the base of the summit, then a grueling 4-5km more of steep vertical climbs to the top. Make sure you get a park/trail map immediately, then plan your routes and days accordingly. Be advised that the maps don't do any justice to the duration and distances of the trails (definitely NOT to scale scale, lol). We attempted mountain biking some trails, and let me say this: Middlebrun Bay Trail is impossible to bike unless you carry your bike and walk it in several kilometers until it becomes smoother, it's full of massive tree roots, large rocks and large steep rock hills. The Sibley Creek trail is not as bad but also very difficult to bike due to the path and tree root systems. The Kabeyun Trail takes you to the giant and can be biked, but it's intense with a number of bumps, rocks, and inclines. It can absolutely be done, but biking or hiking; be sure to bring adequate drinks and snacks for your journey. The lookouts and areas in this park are out of this world beautiful, we'll be making this an annual family camping trip as there's just so much to explore and do. Large beach area at Marie Louise with two playground structures and a beautiful swimming area. Washrooms, showers, and laundry on site are available. FOR BETTER OR WORSE: THERE IS ZERO CELLULAR OR DATA RECEPTION IN THE PARK, no wifi, and all payphones are out of service. The only area you'll get is cellular service and hit/miss data is at the Marie Louise Beach. Fantastic if you want total freedom of mobile services, not so good if you need to make a call/text/email back home. The Marie Louise campground is a 40-minute drive south from the trans canada highway. I highly recommend this place, I never knew in my wildest dreams that Ontario had this type of scenery...

I've been to a ton of state parks but Sleeping Giant is very much a crown jewel. We did the top of the giant trail for the views and while it was worth it, this was a pretty intense and somewhat painful hike for two active but overall out of shape adults. We're both in our late 30's and while we really enjoy hiking, our physical fitness isn't great and we took about 7 and a half hours to complete the whole hike. We didn't go all the way to the gorge and only spent enough time at the top to take in the views and quiet while we scarfed down some deli meat tortilla wraps.

Tips from our experience: PAY YOUR DAY PASS AHEAD OF TIME. We completely didn't think about the fact that the day pass reservation system for the park is 100% online and while they have QR codes at the trail heads to take you to the site, we were well outside of cellphone coverage there and had to backtrack about 10-15 minutes to pull the site up on our phones, pay our way, and then drive all the way back. Do yourself a favor and get your fee taken care of before you leave. Pack yourself a roll of TP. If you plan on going to the top, you're looking at approximately 13 miles and the better part of 10 hours. Nature will call on this trip. Be aware that you'll be in black bear territory here. You're not likely to have any run ins but just be aware of it. Bring water and food/snacks. We both had hiking packs that had 2L bladders and we refilled ours with some extra bottles we packed at the top of the giant. Trail mix would be a good idea for quick calories whenever you need them but I highly recommend bringing something for a midway meal. We packed some deli meat tortilla wraps and they were perfect. If you have the option and can, I would highly recommend bringing your bikes to get you to the top of the giant trail since there's an area where you can park and lock up your bikes before setting off on the top of the giant trail. While the trail from the parking lot to the top of the giant trail is fairly flat, it's really rocky so bring a mountain bike or a fat tire bike. With how taxing this hike was, I wish I could have biked my way back to the parking lot. If you're in similar shape as us, make sure to bring some sports drinks and ibuprofen for when you get...

Wonderful trails and beaches! But a couple of issues.... We were group camping for Girl Guides and one of our cars was charged twice because there was a mix up over the driver's married vs maiden name being different on the reservation and what she told them when she arrived separately from us. Then her ticket fell off the dash and the wardens charged her another $30 for illegally parking. Funny they couldn't look up her license plate. Then a bear attacked our site while we were away hiking, broke a car window, mirror, windshield wiper and window frame and trashed 2 tents. He was clearly acclimatized to people and searched my vehicle specifically for boxes/coolers. There were hotdog buns in the car but he went for the boxes, ripping even ones that were empty. He returned that evening and wouldn't leave despite our honking and yelling at him. . No staff in park came to help despite 30 min plus of honking and yelling. No response to my phone message about it the next 2 days either. VERY AGGRESSIVE, CONDITIONED BEARS. DO NOT LEAVE FOOD IN CAR, ON SITE, OR ANYWHERE. I guess you shouldn't bring any food if you like your vehicle the way it is now. Or maybe the park could invest in some bear-proof food storage lockers.

Otherwise we had a wonderful trip and the girls loved their hike to...