Backcountry paddlers, meet your next bucket list destination!
Solace Provincial Park is the perfect spot to get away from it all. Recharge, destress, and experience a truly stunning landscape.
Here are five reasons to visit this remote backcountry park:
1. Serenity, solitude, and solace!
Looking to get away from it all? You’ve come to the right place. It’s right in the name: Solace!
This park is remote and quiet, where visitors can experience the calming sounds of nature, stunning dark night skies with glittering stars, and unending opportunities for rejuvenation.
2. Remote and rustic
This waterway-class park has no roads and no services. The only maintained facilities are portages and backcountry campsites.
It is part of Temagami’s rugged backcountry canoeing region and one of five remote, interconnected provincial parks that protect significant natural, cultural, and recreational values, including more than 600 km of remote canoe routes.
3. Visit a unique landscape
Solace bounds a remote and scenic chain of lakes surrounded by a mix of classic Temagami pine forest mixed with southern boreal forest.
The land here is rugged. Temagami’s backcountry parks occupy some of the highest elevations in Ontario, including four of the top ten! Summer comes a bit later to this area because of the elevation, which encourages that mix of northern and southern tree species.
The tall White and Red Pine tower over the primeval-looking Black Spruce, Jack Pine, and Balsam Fir. White Birch and poplar provide bright green swathes of deciduous forest spread amongst the conifers.
4. Paddle to your heart’s content
The park’s mostly north-south oriented lakes are linked by portages that are thousands of years old, creating a linear route both east and west.
Smaller loops can also be paddled in a day, made from chains of small lakes and streams.
These two short loops made from chains of lakes and connecting streams can be done as day trips from the larger lakes or incorporated into your paddling route.
Solace Lake can be the basecamp for a day trip that loops north through Einar, Biscuit, and Broadbent Lakes, curving southeast to Maggie Lake, then portaging back to Solace Lake.
These are beautiful routes made of pretty little lakes that few people see.
Having trouble picturing your paddling route? Purchase a Temagami Canoe Routes map on our online store!
5. A bucket list trip
This is a roadless part of the Temagami backcountry. Solace can only be reached by several portages and at least a couple of days of canoeing…
…or by flying in via floatplane.
Temagami contains Ontario’s most southerly fly-in canoe routes. You can fly into lots of places, but they aren’t remote like Temagami is.
At least one fly-in canoe trip should be on every avid paddler’s bucket list!
Imagine flying into a remote lake in a floatplane that’s part of this country’s heritage, like the classic Canadian DeHavilland Beaver.
Planning a visit?
Solace is very remote and can only be reached by portage from other canoe routes (like the Sturgeon River) or by floatplane.
There is no cell service in this area, so physical maps and a satellite communicator are essential (i.e., satellite phone or messenger device — a SPOT device is useful in any emergency situation).
Backcountry campsites are very rustic – some tents spots, a fire ring made from stones, and usually a pit privy (also known as a thunder box) are the basic amenities.
Pick up this waterproof Temagami 4 map to aid in your planning. More resources are available here.
Finding Solace
Road access to the Sturgeon River is via the Portelance Road from Sudbury and Capreol – access point A7. The Portelance Road is a gravel forest access road.
A GPS is strongly advised as the network of forest access roads is not well signed and can be confusing.
You can make it a loop by going down the Sturgeon River, through Solace including the loop north of Maggie, and then exit through Reagan Lake in the North Yorston Conservation Reserve, to Hamlow Lake (Sturgeon River Provincial Park), and line/walk your boat down the Sturgeon River back to A7.
Flying in by floatplane provides lots of options. Start at the west end and paddle east, or vice versa. Make a longer trip by flying into Paul Lake on the Sturgeon River, travel through Solace and portage into scenic Florence Lake in Lady Evelyn-Smoothwater Provincial Park, the largest of the five backcountry parks.
Visitors can also basecamp on Solace Lake and do day trips from there — there are plenty of options!
A floatplane service in the village of Temagami is the closest fly-in access. There are also outfitting services in Temagami Village, renting canoes and gear, and other canoeing tripping services.
Groceries, gas, and other supplies are also available in the village, which is right on Hwy 11, an hour north of the City of North Bay.
Solace Provincial Park is open until October 27, 2024.
