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Have you ever been to Wheelers Pancake House? We hadn’t, and we were feeling up for a road trip. So we headed out to Perth late in March this year to check out the trails, and the pancakes, at Wheelers.
There are a few trails of different lengths to choose from at Wheelers. We decided that Woksis Run, listed on their website at 3.5 kilometres, would be the perfect length.
When I was little, my family used to tap the trees on their property. But I’ve never been to a full on “sugar bush” as an adult. I was excited to see what it was all about.
Dogs are allowed on all the trails at Wheelers. We left ours at home though, because we knew we were going to be spending some time inside eating. And we thought we might make a few stops in Perth on the way home.
Very cool sap line maze on the Woksis Run Trail behind Wheelers Pancake House.
Getting There
Wheelers is northeast of Perth, so it really is a bit of a drive from Ottawa. There are sugar bushes closer to home, but of course we wanted to check out the one with hiking trails, so we made the trip.
We used Google Maps on our phones to give us driving directions. You can use these coordinates to get there: 44.927919, -76.541680.
As soon as we were on Highway 7 in Perth, there were signs on the side of the road giving directions to Wheelers. As we got closer, the signs got bigger, and then there was a huge sign at the side of the road where we had to turn to enter Wheelers. There was no way that we could have missed it.
We thought, because of how far away it was, that it wouldn’t be very busy. Were we ever wrong though! We drove up a long dirt road, and when we reached the Pancake House, we saw at least a hundred cars parked there.
The Pancake House itself was the big building in the middle, and when we stood facing it, the “Maple Museum” was to the right.
Starting Out
We had looked at the map of the trails online, and knew they started by the Maple Museum, so we headed in that direction. There were signs beside the building that showed us where to go next.
Trailhead signs and sap lines beside the Maple Museum building.
After having walked only about a hundred metres, we came to a platform where there was a big sign with a color coded trail map. We agreed again that Woksis Run looked like the best trail, and carried on.
Trail map near the beginning of the route.
We had only hiked three hundred metres total when we came to a split in the trail. Here, going left would have taken us on the “Ridge Trail,” which cut right behind the building and was only a kilometer long.
We stayed to the right to continue on Woksis Run. The trail was wide enough for us to walk side by side for the entire length of it. It was also pretty flat, and all in all it was a really easy hike the whole way.
Because we were walking through a sugar bush, most of the trees were Maples. That meant they were still naked, so the scenery wasn’t as beautiful as it could have been. However, it was really cool to see how the operation was set up.
Sap Lines
Back in MY DAY, you tapped a spout into the tree and it drained into a bucket. Then you had to carry the bucket a hundred miles to wherever the sap was being boiled. These guys had lines set up all over the forest though! It was crazy to see how everything was connected.
Look at these newfangled spouts!
There were a few times when we were walking along the trail that sap lines were crossing the path, which is something I’ve never experienced while hiking before. None of the lines were low enough that I could have run into them, but someone taller than me might have had to duck on a few occasions!
Let me just scoot this line out of the way…
The trail was really well signed and easy to follow. There were little green arrows on the trees to help guide us in the right direction, and a few times where the trail split there were signs that let us know that the split was just a service road, and not to follow it. There were also distance markers along the trail, placed about every .5 kilometres, so we always knew how far we had gone, and how far we had left to go.
Easy to find trailmarkers on an easy to follow trail.
There were also a few neat signs along the trail that helped to educate us as we walked along. A few examples were signs letting us know how old certain trees were, or one spot where a porcupine had done damage to a tree but it (the tree!) was still living.
Heading Back
After hiking for about 1.5 kilometres, the trail started to run parallel to what looked like an old logging road. I think it was the K and P Trail. Then, 100 metres later we followed the trail for a short while and came to the split for the “Halfway Trail.” It was well marked, and told us that it would bring us back to the Pancake House in under a kilometre.
We stuck with the Woksis Run Trail though, and found ourselves walking next to a couple of beaver ponds before heading back into the forest.
We had only hiked 2.95 kilometres when we finished by walking up a small hill and arriving back at the parking lot, on the opposite side from where we had left it. Hiking the entire length of the Woksis Run Trail only took us 48 minutes.
Not surprisingly, there were NOT a lot of evergreens along the trail.
Hanging Out
Immediately, we headed over to the Pancake House. It was SO BUSY. We put our names on the waitlist, and were told it would be about an hour. We were thinking to ourselves that we should have put our names on the list and THEN gone for our walk through the woods. This will definitely be our strategy for next time.
It was actually pretty easy to kill an hour at Wheelers. They had two neat museums to check out, and some very cute animals. We spent some time petting the horses and looking at the alpacas and sheep. We also enjoyed watching kids use the nearby zip line and hit the crash pad at the bottom of the route full force. They looked like they were having a ton of fun! I was kind of wishing they had an adult version of the zip line available.
This guy helped us pass the time waiting for our pancakes.
Final Thoughts
The hiking trails at Wheelers weren’t the most spectacular we had ever seen, but getting to walk through their sugar bush operation was a completely unique hiking experience for us.
Plus, we had an order of pancakes and an order of French toast at the Pancake House and they were absolutely DELICIOUS. Totally worth the wait, and if we had spent that wait hiking it would have been even better.
I have no doubt we’ll be back, to hike the longer Maple Trail, and to eat more pancakes.
I’m not a huge breakfast food person, but the french toast was honestly the best I’ve ever had. And the pancakes were pretty awesome too.
I hope this trip report has enough info to get you there too. Let me know in the comments, or share and tag a friend to start planning your next adventure!
Maps and Elevation Gain
Our GPS map of the Woksis Run Trail. We started at the green pin and finished at the orange pin.
The Woksis Run Trail feels almost completely flat when you’re hiking it.
Whenever I’m hiking somewhere new, I tend to wonder about who was on, and who took care of that land before me. I’ve enjoyed using this website as a place to start learning more about the indigenous people whose land I’m on: Native-land.ca.
Gear We Brought
- Hiking Boots
- Crampons
- Base Layers
- Spring Hiking Pants
- Fleece Sweaters
- Spring Jackets
- Mittens
- Buff Merino Wool Headband
- Cell Phones
- Nalgene 32 Ounce Bottle
