The Happy Camper: A New Chapter for Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park
Is Ontario’s Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park cursed?
It’s been ravaged by countless storms throughout the years, the latest big one being on June 21, 2025. Winds over 100 km/h toppled trees looking like a box of pick-up-sticks, cars were crushed, trailers were crunched and tents were blown away with the wind like a scene out of the Wizard of Oz.
It was classed a downburst, not a tornado. But to the park regulars, it didn’t really matter what it was; the transformation of a beloved provincial park known for its towering old-growth forest became an apocalyptic backdrop. Over 300 campers were trapped and waited for hours before rescuers could get to them. Some had major injuries…but surprisingly no one died. The majority of the park was levelled, with hundreds of thousands of trees fallen or snapped in half.
The Canadian Ecology Centre, an outdoor educational facility that is located within the park, also received major damage to their buildings and infrastructure. It’s a non-profit program that already ran on a shoestring budget.
The park was closed for the remainder of the year, and most campers just assumed it would be closed forever.
The opposite happened, however. The staff, an army of forestry workers and Friends of the Samuel de Champlain park embraced the downed canopy of matured trees that had fallen on top of the rows of fire pits and vault toilets. They dedicated themselves to reform the devastated landscape to a more diverse ecosystem that existed prior to when Dorthy and her little dog gave it a visit that Saturday night of June 21.
I went to check out the reconstruction project with good friend and writing/photographer Josie Dinsmore. She’s camped at the park since she was in diapers, and she also recorded countless videos and photos of Samuel de Champlain before and after the storm hit. She’s a local in the nearby town of Mattawa and considered to be the unofficial ambassador of the park.
Josie’s family has endless memories of sleeping under the cathedral-like dome of pine. Now she and I pitched our tents—n and bug shelter—between tree stumps and uprooted rock. It was a hot day, the black flies were biting and it brought back memories of me working in the far north, planting trees where loggers had clear cut or where forest fires scorched the earth.
Josie gave me a tour of the park and showed me where Tolkien-like trails meandered their way through hundred-year-old-plus trees that now were just a pile of debris, dirt and dust. The river shoreline where countless campers floated their tire tubes down the swift rapids were now braided with uprooted tree trunks and a sparse landscape.
Only one of the three campground loops (Babawasse) was open for use. The other two loops (Jingwakoki West and East) are still being cleared and cleaned. Surprisingly, we weren’t alone here. Beside us were massive RVs parked, with generators humming and the sound of kids riding their bicycles between the rubble. It was odd but joyful to see and hear other campers coming back to take it all in.
So, what’s the park doing to go beyond a band-aid solution? Lots!
First, the Government of Ontario pledged $4.75M to not only repair some of the damage that took place, but to extend the operating season of the park so that it operates all year long. That’s great news.
They cut up and hauled out the bigger trees, replanted 500 native trees amongst the sparse landscape to help burst biodiversity, documented what flora and fauna are returning and even taking advantage of the unshelled areas, and they opened up one of the campground loops in May of 2026 to help ease visitors back to pitching their tents and unhooking their trailers in one of the most beloved gems of the Ontario Parks system. And an extra bonus was a plan for a new visitor’s hub with educational exhibits, and a new park store.
This may seem a moot point to most non-campers, but as someone that worked in forest ecology, I witnessed changes already happening while Josie and I camped amongst the scorched earth and decaying trees. Innumerable bird species were taking advantage of the altering habitat. Every type of woodpecker I could identify were hammering away at the decomposing wood, countless warblers were fluttering around and grabbing insects, birds of prey were hovering overhead and taking advantage of the open canopy to hunt and a flotilla of RVs drove in before dusk to set up in this new changed oasis for a night or two.
Nature seems to remind us humans now and then that the familiar can quickly become alien-like. We generally don’t like that feeling of change. Natural disasters like this are heartrending but humbling. Yet if you look at our short time on this Earth so far, compared to when it all started, a windstorm in a favourite Ontario Provincial Park isn’t that big of a deal. How we react to help heal nature after the fact, is.
Check out my video of my recent visit to the park with Josie Dinsmore on my KCHappyCamper YouTube channel. You won’t believe the damage done to the park.
