Adventures you can have around here
Real places in Lambton County and things to actually do when you get there, plus a couple you can do in the backyard.
Before you head out
Tell a grown-up where you're going and take them along for anything with water, roads or a drive. Bring water, wear real shoes, and leave every place looking like you were never there. (Grown-ups: the playground and splash pad guides live on Lambton Family Hub.)
Canatara Park Quest
Sarnia's biggest park has a beach, a forest, dunes, an animal farm and a mini train, all in one place. This is a list of ten things to find, in any order. Photograph each one to prove it.
Backyard Bug Safari
Mark out one square metre of grass, dirt or garden, then count every kind of creature living in it for fifteen minutes. Most people find more than ten. Some find thirty.
Geocaching: Your First Find
People have hidden small waterproof boxes in parks, on trails and behind signs all across Lambton County, and posted their GPS coordinates online. Your job is to find one. There's a logbook inside to sign.
Grand Bend Beach Day
The main beach at Grand Bend is a long stretch of sand with a boardwalk, a splash pad, a playground and lifeguards in summer. And at the end of the day, the sun goes straight down into the lake in front of you.
Rock Glen Fossil Hunt
There's a waterfall in a gorge near Arkona where the rocks are packed with fossils from when Lambton County was the bottom of a warm tropical sea. You can pick them up. You can take one home.
Find the Big Dipper
Seven bright stars in the shape of a saucepan, visible from Lambton County on any clear night of the year. Find it, then follow two of its stars to the North Star, and you'll never be lost in the dark again.
Pinery: Dunes and the Channel
Pinery Provincial Park has real sand dunes, a slow river full of painted turtles, an oak savanna that only exists in a few places in the world, and a beach that goes on for ten kilometres. You cannot do it all in one day. Here's how to do the best of it.
Howard Watson Trail Ride
A 16-kilometre trail on an old train line, flat the whole way because trains don't do hills. Bike or walk as far as you like, from the middle of Sarnia out past ponds and prairie toward Camlachie, then turn around.
20 minNature Colour Hunt
Choose six colours and find one small natural object for each one.
30 minLand-Art Picture
Make an animal, pattern, or imaginary place with things you find on the ground.
40 minBuild a Tiny Village
Build tiny houses, paths, and gardens, then invent names for your village.
30 minMud Paint Studio
Mix soil and water to make different shades of paint for pictures and patterns.
30 minNature Weaving
Make a little frame and weave grass, leaves, and flowers into it.
15 minListening Map
Draw a map of the sounds you hear around you.
45 minMake a Nature Museum
Collect a few fallen treasures, sort them, and give someone a museum tour.
20 min+ an hour between tracingsShadow Tracing
Trace a shadow, turn it into a picture, and see how it changes later.
30 minStick Maze
Build paths and dead ends, then guide a small object through your maze.
25 minNeeds a grown-up for part of itMini Nature Boats
Build a tiny boat, test it in shallow water, and change the design if it tips.