About Quetico Park - Quetico Facts

Introduction | Quetico Facts | Quetico Geology | Quetico Wildlife | Observation List | Quetico Timeline | Native Pictographs

• The area of Quetico Park is 4,758 square kilometres. Almost 100 Prince Edward Islands would fit inside the Park. Together with the other wilderness parks in the area, this parks system contains over 10,000 square kilometres, an area about half the size of Wales.
• The nearest community to the Park is Atikokan which has a current population of about 4,100. It is known as the Canoe Capital of Canada. Also, near the Park, on the southwestern edge, is the First Nation of Lac La Croix, where about 350 people live.
• According to one Ojibwa legend, the word "Quetico" was borrowed from a Cree term describing a benevolent spirit whose presence was felt strongly in places of great beauty.
• The Park has its own reference library, the John B. Ridley Research Library at the Dawson Trail Campground, French Lake. The Library has many books about the Park and surrounding region, and an outstanding collection of historical photographs, some of which we have featured in our photo gallery. To go to the Photo Gallery, click here.
• The Park has 28 known native pictographs in it, mainly painted on flat rock surfaces just above the water level. It is believed that most of them were painted by natives standing in their canoes. There are pictures of moose, hunters, canoes, thunderbirds, foxes, turtles and even a pelican. For more information about the pictographs, click here.
• The Park has 292 named lakes and about 250 unnamed lakes. Some of the lake names include: Lonely Lake, Batchewaung Lake, Sarah Lake, Wolseley Lake, Beaverhouse Lake, Agnes Lake, Saganagons Lake, This Man Lake, That Man Lake, Other Man Lake, Poohbah Lake and, of course, Quetico Lake. If you know how any of the lakes got their names, send us an e-mail by clicking here. You can adopt a lake by volunteering to clean its campsites and clear nearby portages. Contact the Park office for more information on how to get involved. The Park's address is 108 Saturn Avenue, Atikokan, Ontario, P0T 1C0. To link to the Park Website, click here.
• The Park recently adopted a new forest fire policy which views controlled fires as a natural source of renewal in the northern boreal forests of Quetico.
• In 1797, David Thompson, the famed explorer, trader and surveyor paddled with a crew from Bottle Portage to Grand Portage in 5 days. When George Simpson, the Governor-in-Chief of the Hudson Bay Company, brought his wife Frances west, his crew made it from Fort William to Fort Frances in 6-1/2 days. According to his wife's diaries, his crew sometimes started paddling at 1 a.m. and finished at 7:00 p.m.. In one day, they made it from the Twin Lakes along the Maligne River, through Lac La Croix and finally to camp at Rainy Lake, near Kettle Falls.
• The Park has over 1,400 km of canoe routes and 612 portages. The Park has 6 hiking trails, including the Pines, the Pickerel River and the French Portage trails. There are 2,146 interior campsites in the Park.
• On the shores of Otter Track Lake (in the southeast corner of the Park along the U.S.-Canada border), there are magnetic, iron-rich rocks which may throw off your compass. For more information about the geology of the Quetico region, click here.
• The continental divide runs through the Park.

Sources:
Robert Beymer, A Paddler's Guide to Quetico Park (W. A. Fisher Company, 1994);
V.B. Meen, Quetico Geology (The Quetico Foundation, 1959);
The Quetico Park Satellite Map (Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and The Quetico Foundation, 1999);
K. Denis, Canoe Trails through Quetico (The Quetico Foundation, 1980);
Park staff.

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