Canoe Camping at Parc régional du Poisson Blanc

Poisson Blanc is one of the most beautiful places we’ve gone canoe camping. The lake is smattered with islands, and there are stunning lookouts all throughout the park. And as a bonus, its one of the closest to Ottawa as well! We took both our kids at the end of the camping season, but the weather ended up being so warm that we actually got to go swimming on my birthday… Which is on October 1^st!

Canoe camping is a fun way to get out with the family and get to places where you can really feel immersed in nature. But it’s not always easy! Poisson Blanc is a great option, and in a lot of ways they make it easy for you.

Here’s everything we learned on our trip that I think might help you plan yours!

Booking a Campsite

Okay so honestly booking a campsite is the HARDEST part about canoe camping at Poisson Blanc! If you’re reading this right now and you aren’t on their email list, you need to be. Every year they do a random lottery to determine who will get the first chance to book a campsite with them. So it’s also helpful to get yourself and anyone you would be camping with on the list- more emails means more chance you’ll win an earlier slot!

From what I remember, they work their way through the lottery opening up the ability to book every 20 minutes. When I was booking our site, we were basically open to camping any time throughout the summer… but things booked up so quickly that we didn’t end up getting a weekend until September.

As soon as you get the email letting you know you’re able to book, it’s time to book! The emails will keep rolling out, and if you wait I can almost guarantee everything for the season will be booked up.

It’s also helpful to figure out beforehand how far you’re willing to canoe to get to your spot, and how many tents you’ll need for your trip. Campsites at Poisson Blanc only allow a specific number of tents- some have room for 1, and some have room for up to 4. But you can’t put 4 tents on a campsite meant for 3, so knowing these two numbers will help you search for the campsites that will work for you, and book one that will be manageable for you to get to.

Going with another family, we knew we’d have 3 tents and we weren’t prepared to paddle any further than 6 km, so this set our search parameters for when we were finally allowed to book.

There are also fixed trip durations at Poisson Blanc, something I’ve never seen anywhere else and don’t fully understand. On weekends, you must book the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night.

The weekday is split into two blocks, where you can book Monday + Tuesday, or Wednesday + Thursday. If you want to extend your stay you can book two blocks of time one after another.

Rates are incredibly high compared to other places where you can canoe camp. Our 3-tent site cost $109 per night, and since we had to book for 3 nights it ended up costing over $300! So I definitely recommend going with friends and splitting the cost. There’s a full table of the 2023 rates on this page.

Paddling

Paddling to our campsite, we left from the welcome centre at the north end of Lac du Poisson Blanc. You can use these coordinates to get there: 46.094319, -75.673797.

One of the ways canoe camping at Poisson Blanc is so easy is that there are NO portages. The lake is so long that some sites are more than 16 km away, but at no time do you have to carry your boat over land.

At the welcome centre you can sign in for your reservation, at which point you’ll receive a waterproof map, and a few garbage bags to help pack out what you pack in.

We had also rented a canoe for the weekend, and we picked it up behind the welcome centre. Our rental including a bailing bucket, paddles, and lifejackets. We brought our own lifejackets because I find that places will say they have lifejackets that will fit babies/toddlers… but they really don’t.

We had to carry the canoe about 30 metres from where they were stored to the dock where we tied it up in order to load all our gear.

There were wagons available to help wheel our gear down to the dock as well. The hill down was steep though, so if you’re not super strong it might be best to bring your gear in two trips. There’s also 3 stairs to navigate at the bottom which can be tricky!

My husband put himself in charge of booking the canoe rental and ended up booking a canoe that was TWENTY FEET LONG. I gave him a lot of grief, because this thing was massive. BUT, I will say that it was the most stable canoe we’ve ever paddled in. Normally I’m cringing at every single sway of the canoe thinking we’re going to tip over, but this canoe was so big that it barely moved at all- which is really nice when you have two wobbly kids in it. Plus it fit all our gear no problem.

The problem was… that it also didn’t move forward very quickly. So it was a slow paddle to our site. But if you’re a real beginner, who has booked a site close to the welcome centre, and want to feel super stable- I definitely recommend the longer canoes.

For everybody else, they have regular sized canoes as well as kayaks and SUPs available for rent!

Lac du Poisson Blanc is really long, and quite wide in spots. So on windy days it can get quite choppy. And because it’s so big, the scale of the map (or perhaps just my own inexperience) can leave you feeling disoriented trying to figure out which island is which. On top of that, you can usually spot the campsites signs readily from the lake, but you can’t see a number on them. So to use those to orient yourself, you have to spend time paddling closer to the sites.

So my advice is to arrive early, and give yourself lots of extra time to get to your campsite! We ended up not staying over on the Friday night and just arriving early on Saturday- the welcome centre opens at 9 a.m. so that’s the earliest you’re able to get your rented watercraft.

Along the way there are picnic sites set up, so you can also plan to take a break as needed.

The Campsite

We ended up booking site 34, which is designed for 3 tents. Only 4 km from the welcome centre, it took us about an hour and fifteen minutes to paddle there.

Of course, each campsite will be different, but they do all have a few things in common.

First, they’re of course all on the water so the option to swim will be available. Many of the beaches are rocky, so I recommend water shoes if you have them.

Each campsite also has tent pads- ours had 3, and each pad was big enough to accommodate a medium sized tent, about 8’x8’. Each of the pads was perfectly level, which was really nice.

We had two picnic tables at our site, and a fire pit overlooking the water. They were a few rudimentary benches around the fire pit. These were wobbly enough that I was sure one of the kids was going to climb onto it and tip right over, but we managed to catch them all weekend, and mostly used the camp chairs we had brought.

There was an outhouse set back in the forest. A real outhouse, with walls and a door and everything! It doesn’t come stocked with toilet paper, so make sure you bring your own.

Each campsite rental comes with a bag of firewood per night- since we were staying for 3 nights, we had 3 bags included, and we had some left over at the end. And each day, Poisson Blanc staff boat around the lake, dropping off ice and extra firewood if you need it.

Things To Do

Camping at Poisson Blanc, it’s really all about paddling, swimming, hiking, rock climbing, or resting.

On our second day there we paddled out to Trail F. This ended up being a short little hiking trail with an amazing view. We hiked 800 metres up to the lookout, and then sat on the open rock face looking down over the lake while we enjoyed the sun.

On our way back, we stopped briefly to watch the rock climbers working their way up the cliff walls beside the lake.

There are six different spots to go rock climbing at Poisson Blanc, and I can honestly say I’ve never seen anyone go climbing out of a canoe before!

Other than that we swam every day and had a campfire every night, and filled our time making sure the toddlers didn’t take too many tumbles.

There are a couple of longer hiking trails on Montagne du Fort to the north, and I recommend both! They’re long and challenging, but the views are worth the effort!

The Merisiers, Sommet, and Katimavik Trails- A 7.4 km Hike at Parc Regional du Poisson Blanc | Adventure Report

The Desjardins Trail, a 10.35 km Hike in Parc Régional du Poisson Blanc | Adventure Report

Gear We Brought

Since we were canoe camping with no portages, and so many people, we ended up bringing a lot of stuff!

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For Paddling

Waterproof map case
Waterproof Barrel + Level 6 Harness
Level 6 55L Pack with Drybags
Level 6 95L Pack with Drybags
Daypack for hiking.

For Eating

MSR Windburner Stove (for coffee)
Coleman Propane Stove + 2 Propane Canisters
MSR 4 Person Pot + Plate Set
4 Sporks
Biodegradable Camp Suds + Sponge
Small Cooler
Cooking Utensils
Platypus 4L Gravity Water Filter– SO EASY!
Hydro Flask Water Bottles (to keep the baby’s milk cold over 3 days)
Nalgene Water Bottle
Plastic table cloth + clips
Lighter
Garbage Bags

For Sleeping

We brought two tents, so it would be easier to put both kids to sleep. One is a Weanus 4-person tent and the other my MEC Spark 1-person tent (that fits 1 adult and 1 kid!)
3 Sleeping Pads (2 x Therm-a-rest Prolite and 1 Decathlon pad)
Phil & Ted’s Travel Crib for our son to sleep in
3 x Sleeping Bags (-7°C MEC Aquilina, MEC 0°C Bag, and a kids’ Marmot Trestles 0°C Bag)
Baby’s Sleep Sack
Camp Pillow

For Hanging Out

Double Hammock
3 Camp Chairs (we have the Helinox Chair One which is light and fairly small, but the big hit with everyone, especially the kids, was our friend’s Nemo Stargaze Reclining Camp Chair. It’s a major splurge but was also everyone’s first choice so… cost per use might be lower?)

For Safety/Hygiene

Headlamps
Lantern
Garmin inReach + Whistle
Bear Spray
Big Spray
Toilet Paper
Hand Sanitizer
Toothbrushes, Toothpaste and Deodorant
Lifejackets (both kids have their own infant + kid sized lifejackets from Level 6)
Fire starting kit.
First Aid Kit (with infant + kid Tylenol)
Baby Wipes

For Playing

Books
Pail + Shovels
Toy Cars
Markers + Paper
Watercolours + Paintbrushes
Powerbank (for charging phones)
Headphones
Swimsuits + Swim Diapers

For Wearing

(Just the kids’ clothes, I’m sure the adults have already gotten themselves sorted)

1 set of PJs for each kid
3 changes of clothes
3 pairs of underwear
12 diapers
3 pairs of socks
1 pair of shoes/sandals
Sunday Afternoons sun hats
Swimsuits
My favorite  MEC Fireside Fleece sweaters (my son wore his PJs, this sweater, and his sleep sack to bed and was warm enough when the temps dropped down to about 8°C)
MEC Infant Bunting Suit (brought this for bedtime but didn’t end up needing it!)

…okay, I think that’s it! It felt like a lot more stuff when we were bringing it. But we also packed a lot of food. Happy canoe camping!