Killarney

John H. Gryfe is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon practicing in
Toronto.

To the uninitiated, Killarney Provincial Park appeared in 1964, although
it served as a tourist destination, fur-trading area, and home for 130
years. Nestled into the north shore of Georgian Bay, opposite Manitoulin
Island, this hikers’ and canoers’ retreat abounds with limitless
beauty and challenge. The subject of numerous interpretations by
Canada’s Group of Seven, its rugged quartzite terrain has been molded
and shaved by global convulsions, leaving Silver Peak as the area’s
picturesque high point following the departure of the last Ice Age
glaciers.

Like the provincial park he’s writing about, Callan has here created
a diversion that may interest the reader for an hour or for days. The
first 40 pages of Killarney inform and entertain, displaying the
wilderness beauty in tasteful photography and divulging many of the La
Cloche region’s historical vignettes. For the more active, the author
re-creates a series of hiking and canoe trips that reveal both the
park’s charms and the author’s expertise.

To Callan—a forest technician, nature columnist, and recently
Ontario’s Wildlife Habitat facilitator—this rich landscape (which
includes such colorful landmarks as Notch Creek, Whitefish Falls, and
Log Boom Lake) is truly “Ontario’s Crown Jewel.”