What to do there
6 steps. Tap one when it's done.
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.
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The drive, the park fee, and being in the water with you. There are no lifeguards at Pinery.
6 steps. Tap one when it's done.
Pinery's dunes have been piling up for about six thousand years, ever since the lake dropped to where it is now and the wind started pushing sand inland. The oak savanna behind them survives because of fire: without small controlled burns, the maples would move in and shade the oaks and the prairie grass out.
The Old Ausable Channel is the old path of the Ausable River. People rerouted the river in the 1800s to drain farmland, and the leftover channel became the quiet, turtle-filled waterway you paddle today.