ALGONQUIN PROVINCIAL PARK

For Immediate Release
May 02, 2007

ALGONQUIN PROVINCIAL PARK
Backgrounder

Algonquin Provincial Park was Ontario’s first provincial park, established in 1893.  The park covers 7,700 square-kilometres, and is the third largest provincial park in Ontario – larger than Prince Edward Island.  It is classified as a Natural Environment Park and is managed for protection, heritage interpretation, recreation, tourism, and use of resources.  

All activities within the park are guided by the Algonquin Provincial Park Management Plan.  The plan defines zones including nature reserve, wilderness, historical, natural environment, development, access and recreation-utilization, which guide the range of activities in the park.  The recreation-utilization zone is the largest, covering 78 per cent of the park.  

Ontario Parks Board

The Ontario Parks Board of Directors is a minister’s public advisory committee.  The board provides advice on the management of Ontario’s provincial parks, including matters such as policy, planning, and business strategies.  The board has a chair and 12 directors, a diverse group of representatives from across Ontario.

Recreation

Algonquin Park receives close to a million visits each year, primarily from North America but also from around the world.  Park attractions include the visitor centre, logging museum and art centre.  A park interpretive program provides internationally renowned public wolf howls, guided walks, presentations, spirit walks, and a wide variety of children’s programming. 

Hundreds of kilometres of trails are located throughout the park for hiking, mountain biking, backpacking, cross-country skiing, and dogsledding.  The park also contains multiple day-use areas, thousands of campsites of various types, and over 2,100 kilometres of canoe routes.  In addition, the park has four research stations, three park lodges, and six youth camps.

Natural Heritage

With its vast interior of maple hills, white pine forests, rocky ridges, spruce bogs, and thousands of lakes, ponds and streams, Algonquin Park is biologically diverse.  The park contains over 1,000 plant species, 272 bird species, 45 species of mammals, 14 species of reptiles and 16 species of amphibians, including species at risk such as the bald eagle, wood turtle, eastern wolf and Blanding’s turtle. 

The park is famous for opportunities to view wildlife, especially eastern wolves, moose, deer, beaver and black bears.  Public wolf howls – offered by the park’s natural heritage education program – provide visitors an opportunity to appreciate the call of the wild.

The park contains 2,456 lakes in 19 watersheds and protects the headwaters of several major river systems.  The park boasts 149 lake trout lakes and contains the largest complex of naturally reproducing brook trout lakes in the world, making it a renowned trout-fishing destination for thousands of anglers every year.  

Forestry

Logging began in the area before Algonquin Park was established and has continued since.  With its significant forest resources, the park is an important source of wood for the local forest industry.  The park supplies approximately 40 per cent of the Crown wood supply for central Ontario.  It employs over 420 people in forestry activities and over 2,400 people in the mills that process wood, making its forests a significant contributor to the area’s economy.

The Algonquin Forestry Authority is the Ontario Crown agency responsible for sustainable forest management in the park.  Logging is allowed within the recreational-utilization zone, as set out in the park management plan.  The authority’s forest management plan guides how the logging takes place.  While 56 per cent of the park is available for logging on a periodic basis, only about 1.5 per cent of the park area is harvested annually. 

The authority is also responsible for the harvesting and distribution of wood products to mills.  In 2005-2006, the value of forest products sold by the Algonquin Forestry Authority was $25.5 million.  Currently, 13 mills receive a portion of their supply from the park on a regular basis, while another five to 10 mills receive periodic supplies.  Based on the current average annual harvest of 520,000 cubic metres, the Algonquin forest contributes approximately $170 million to the Ontario economy annually.

For More Information

Peter Henry
Forest Management Branch
705-945-6572

John Winters
Algonquin Provincial Park
613-637-2780

General Enquiries

Natural Resources Information Centre
1-800-667-1940
TTY 1-866-686-6072 (Hearing Impaired)