Our first stop on a weekend spent exploring the Central Frontenac and Lennox-Adington region was Puzzle Lake Provincial Park. This is an area that my mother surveyed years ago and thanks to her work it was made into a Provincial Park. There are no facilities in the park but there are a few campsites that are only accessable by canoe.
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| Puzzle Lake, Ontario |
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| Puzzle Lake, Ontario |
Puzzle Lake itself is the first lake that you would launch your canoe on. This connects to other smaller lakes including Gull Lake, Loyst Lake, Norway Mud Lake, Norway Lake and Little Norway Lake. Small portages link all the lakes together. The portages are flat and quite easy to transverse.
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| Portage from Puzzle Lake to Loyst Lake, Ontario |
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| Loking out onto Norway Mud Lake, Ontario from the portage |
Typicaly lakes experience a mixing between surface and deep
waters at least once a year. A dimictic lake is one that mixes twice a
year and this can be noticed by a change of temperature of the water in
spring and fall. Loyst Lake is a
meromictic lake surrounded by high cliff faces. Meromictic lakes have no physical mixing between the surface and the deep waters. A meromictic lake may form because the basin is unusually deep and steep-sided compared to the lake's surface area or because the lower layer of the lake hase a high salinity (salt content) and denser than the upper layers of water. Other examples of meromictic lakes in Canada include McGinnis Lake in Petroglyphs Provincial Park and Pink Lake in Gatineau Park.
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| Cliffs on Loyst Lake, Ontario |
The lack of mixing between water layers creates radically different
environments for organisms to live in. The bottom layer of meromictic lakes are higher in salinity, devoid of oxygen and high in phosphorus and notrigen. The lakes are often a beautiful clear green colour from the presence of algae or bacteria and have very little vegetation growth.
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| Loyst Lake, Ontario |
The day we visited Puzzle Lake Provincial Park was a miserable cloudy day with threats of thunderstorms. We didn't let this sway us from making the trip and it also didn't affect our mood during the day.
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| Puzzle Lake, Ontario |
Despite the terrible weather we had an amazing day botanizing around the lakes. We saw so many cool plants I won't try to speak too much about anything since we saw to much to go into details about each plant but this list is of some of what we saw:
Lesser Spearwort
(Ranunculus flammula) lined the rocky riparian edges of the lakes in green mats with little yellow flowers.
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| Lesser Spearwort
(Ranunculus flammula) |
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| Lesser Spearwort
(Ranunculus flammula) |
Naked-flowered Tick-Trefoil
(Hylodesmum nudiflorum)
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| Naked-flowered Tick-Trefoil
(Hylodesmum nudiflorum) |
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| Naked-flowered Tick-Trefoil
(Hylodesmum nudiflorum) |
Densetuft Hairsedge
(Bulbostylis capillaris)
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| Densetuft Hairsedge
(Bulbostylis capillaris) |
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| Densetuft Hairsedge
(Bulbostylis capillaris) |
Rock Harlequin
(Capnoides sempervirens)
Merritt Fernald's Sedge
(Carex merritt-fernaldii)
Fireweed
(Erechtites hieraciifolius)
Broad-leaved Helleborine
(Epipactis helleborine)
Rock Polypody
(Polypodium virginianum)
Leatherleaf
(Chamaedaphne calyculata)
American Groundnut
(Apios americana)
Swamp Milkweed
(Asclepias incarnata)
Cardinal Flower (
Lobelia cardinalis) is a very aptly named plant for its beautiful cardinal red colouration. It is one of my favourite native plants.
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| Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) |
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| Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) |
The spike of red flowers is t the top of a tall stem. This was also found on the rocky riparian edges of the lakes.
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| Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) |
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| Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) |
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| Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis) |
Common Pipewort
(Eriocaulon aquaticum) is an odd looking shoreline plant that grows in the water along the edges of the lakes. They have odd looking white flowers at the top of a stem that emerges from the water. The leaves are under water.
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| Common Pipewort
(Eriocaulon aquaticum) |
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| Common Pipewort
(Eriocaulon aquaticum) |
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| Common Pipewort
(Eriocaulon aquaticum) |
Swamp Loosestrife
(Decodon verticillatus)
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| Swamp Loosestrife
(Decodon verticillatus) |
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| Swamp Loosestrife
(Decodon verticillatus) |
Flat-topped Goldenrod
(Euthamia graminifolia)
Yellowseed False Pimpernel
(Lindernia dubia)
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| Yellowseed False Pimpernel
(Lindernia dubia) |
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| Yellowseed False Pimpernel
(Lindernia dubia) |
Dwarf St. John's Wort (Hypericum mutilum)
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| Dwarf St. John's Wort (Hypericum mutilum) |
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| Dwarf St. John's Wort (Hypericum mutilum) |
Slender False Foxglove
(Agalinis tenuifolia)
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| Slender False Foxglove
(Agalinis tenuifolia) |
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| Slender False Foxglove
(Agalinis tenuifolia) |
Little Green Sedge
(Carex viridula)
Fraser's Marsh St. John's-Wort
(Hypericum fraseri)
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| Fraser's Marsh St. John's-Wort
(Hypericum fraseri) |
Side-flowering Skullcap
(Scutellaria lateriflora)
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| Side-flowering Skullcap
(Scutellaria lateriflora) |
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| Side-flowering Skullcap
(Scutellaria lateriflora) |
White Meadowsweet
(Spiraea alba)
Three-way Sedge
(Dulichium arundinaceum)
American Bur-Reed (Sparganium americanum)
Striped Maple
(Acer pensylvanicum)
Eastern Teaberry
(Gaultheria procumbens)
Harebell
(Campanula rotundifolia)
Bear Oak
(Quercus ilicifolia) is a small almost shrubby species of oak that grows on granite rock barrens.
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| Bear Oak
(Quercus ilicifolia) |
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| Bear Oak
(Quercus ilicifolia) |
The leaves of Bear Oak are light coloured and hairy on the underside.
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| Bear Oak
(Quercus ilicifolia) |
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| Bear Oak
(Quercus ilicifolia) |
Rather than camping in the rain we stayed overnight at a cottage on Sharbot Lake. The weather had cleared and we started spotlighting fish from the dock and had a Stinkpot Turtle go past. I had really been hoping to see one that weekend so it was a perfect ending to an amazing day.
On our way back toward the GTA we stopped in for a hike around Sheffield Conservation Area. This conservation area also is granite rock barrens with wetlands and lakes. The trail we did was a beautiful loop. We saw much of the same things we had seen at Puzzle Lake Provincial Park.
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
There were a few asters blooming including White Flat-topped Goldenrod
(Solidago ptarmicoides). Shining Sumac
(Rhus copallinum) was a frequent low lying shrub on the rock barrens.
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| Shining Sumac
(Rhus copallinum) |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
The trail was lovely and fairly easy to walk but had some breathtaking views from the open rock barrens. It took us a while to do the full loop since we stopped a lot to look at things but I am sure you could probably do it in an hour or two if you wanted to go faster.
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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| Sheffield Conservation Area |
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