S07E09 Finlayson Point Provincial Park Review

This is the 2nd park in a 21 day, 7 park trip in northern Ontario along the Boreal Route. We camped at Finlayson Point Provincial Park from Sunday July 27th to Wednesday July 30th, 2025. Sue & John and Kelly & Jamie are on this adventure with us. We explored the park and the town of Temagami. We kayaked in Lake Temagami. We checked out the nearby Temagami Fire Tower and amazingly Cheryl climbed to the top. She was white knuckling it the whole way up and down but she did it! We are also introducing a new segment to some of our videos, called Kelly’s Cookout. Kelly will be showing us some simple recipes for camping.

00:00 Intro
01:42 Arriving at the park
02:24 Dump/fill station
03:14 Our site 105 South Campground
04:36 Park Map
05:40 Checking out campsites
08:03 Park facilities, comfort stations, boat launches, beaches, rentals, fishing
09:44 Kelly’s Cookout
13:17 Temagami Fire Tower
17:14 Outfitter Bar & Smokehouse
18:29 Jax’s Paws & Play Review
19:37 Cell phone service
20:39 Cheryl’s Loo Review
21:57 Kayaking on Lake Temagami
24:58 Coles Notes
31:32 Park Rating
32:37 What’s coming up. Closing

Kelly’s Cookout – Produced and hosted by Kelly Kurtz. Filming, editing and music production by Michael Ferguson
MEDITERRANEAN CHICKPEA & VEGETABLE SALAD
Serves 4
Dressing Ingredients
Make at home, at camp, or use bottled Greek vinaigrette dressing!
3 Tbsp red wine vinegar
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 ½ Tbsp honey
1 ½ Tbsp mustard (I like Dijon – use what you like!)
1 ½ Tbsp dried oregano
3/4 tsp salt
Instructions
Whisk together all dressing ingredients. If making at home, keep refrigerated until ready to use.
Salad Ingredients
1-2 pints cherry tomatoes, cut in half
1 small red onion, sliced
2 peppers, seeded and chopped (1 green + 1 red/yellow/orange)
1 – 19 oz/540 mL can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 – 6 oz/170 mL jar marinated artichokes, drained and cut into bite sized pieces
1 cup black kalamata olives, pitted (NOT canned – no flavour!)
pepper (freshly ground if you have it)
Instructions
1. Pour dressing into large bowl. Add salad ingredients one at a time (except pepper), mixing after each one.
2. Serve salad on its own, or over lettuce. Season with pepper. Salad can be made ahead.
Refrigerate leftovers and continue to enjoy!

🍺 Buy me a beer: https://buymeacoffee.com/campingwtcoles and for $5 we will send you a Camping with the Coles fridge magnet and sticker set.

🧢👕👚WE GOT MERCH!!!!!👚👕🧢
To check out our Camping with the Coles t-shirts, sweatshirts, sweatpants, hoodies, ball caps, touques, PJ bottoms, buffs, backpacks – click on this link: https://campingwiththecolesmerch.itemorder.com/shop/home/ OR head on over to our website campingwiththecoles.ca and click on Merch. All profits go back into making more videos like this for you.

CHECK OUT OUR AMAZON STOREFRONT: This is where we show all the Amazon products we use when camping and making these videos:
https://www.amazon.ca/shop/campingwiththecoles

📷Thumbnail by: https://www.allisoncolesphotography.com/📸

– Get help with booking your parks with Campnab: https://campnab.com/r/kcley9

Engwe L20 2.0 e-Bike – https://amzn.to/47SQWV6
Bluetti AC200L Power Station with PV350 Solar Panel: https://amzn.to/3RSEdLE
Bluetti AC180T Power Station and MobiCooler: https://shareasale.com/r.cfm?
BougeRV Aspen 40 Pro Portable Fridge/Freezer – https://bit.ly/4f48HnS
Vatrer 12V 300AH Bluetooth LiFePO4 Lithium Self-Heating Battery – http://bit.ly/3GBEkZ4
Tireminder RV Air Compressor: https://amzn.to/3PZcdFZ
Strongback Chairs: https://strongbackchair.ca/aff/2/
Nomad Mattress: https://nomad-mattress.com/aff/2/
Bigfoot Bushcraft Fire Plugs: https://bigfoot-bushcraft.com/?ref=Coles discount code “COLES15” for 15% off your entire order: https://bigfoot-bushcraft.com/?ref=Coles
Outdoor Master Shark II and Whale electric SUP pumps: https://tinyurl.com/2rwuvwe4 Discount Code “COLES10” for 10% off your entire order
Olight Perun 2 Flashlight/headlamp: https://www.olightstore.ca/s/XXG2NJ
Olight Perun 2 Mini Flashlight/headlamp: https://www.olightstore.ca/s/W78XBC
discount code “Coles10” to get 10% off of your purchase

DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that we provide we may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you! Thank you for supporting Camping with the Coles.

#campingwiththecoles #martenriver #ontariocamping #borealforest #borealroute
@rvlifestylemagazine

Follow us:
website: http://www.campingwiththecoles.ca
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CampingwiththeColes/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/campingwiththecoles/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jumpingjaxcoles/

This YouTube channel is for entertainment purposes only. We are not camping or RV experts. We simply share our opinions and what works for us. As always you should do your own research and make your own decisions.

Wait. Yeah. This is not good people. Welcome to Finlayson Point
Provincial Park on Lake Temagami. Join us as we explore the lake. We explore the park
and the nearby town of Temagami. Finlayson Point Provincial Park is located
approximately one kilometer south of the town of Temagami,
100km north of North Bay, and 440km north of Toronto. It is on a peninsula
in island dotted waters of Lake Temagami. It is a recreational park. So it is July 27th, 2025. We have just left Marten River
Provincial Park and we are on our way to Finlayson Point Provincial Park. It says we’re going to be there in 27
minutes. That’s my kind of drive day. Yes, a nice short one. We’ll see you there. See you there. Bye. We just checked in. Very nice gatehouse. Yes. Very welcoming and washroom right there. Looks nice and new.
Now we’re heading to our site. We’re going to fill up on
the way to our site. Site number 105. There’s one dump fill station that’s very close to the one
hundreds in the park. It has one dump spot. The hose is not threaded and it has two
fill spots, but it’s really only one spot. It’s just, with two towers, so you can fill in either side. If you are dumping
and there is somebody filling, you can’t bypass the person filling. You’re just going to have to wait. If you do pull in
and there is somebody dumping, you can actually drive up to the garbage
area and around that person dumping and get to the fill spot, and the fill
hose is threaded, both of them. Keep comin. Okay. That’s probably good. Let me check. That’s good. And this is us. Site number 105 in South Campground. It’s an all gravel site. It’s a pull through. It fits our truck and trailer in it
together. It’s not the biggest of sites,
and a lot of pull throughs aren’t really all that big. It’s fairly level,
so there’s no problem with leveling off. The fire pits in a good location. It rained a little bit here. We can even sit under the awning
and still be pretty close to the fire. We were hoping that right
across the street we’d have water access, but it turns out we don’t it. Just from looking at the map you can’t really tell, but it’s,
got a lot of trees there, and then it goes into more of a swampy area of the lake. And we are right next door to our friends
Sue and John. Jamie and Kelly
there around the bend at site 114. Let’s check out the park. There are three campgrounds for a total of 41 electric
and 67 non-electric campsites. West campground has eight electric
and 25 non-electric campsites. Sites 16 to 30 are generator free. East campground has 17 electric
and 42 non-electric campsites. South campground
has 16 electric campsites. There’s a comfort station with flush
toilets, showers in the south campground, and one with flush toilets, showers
and laundry facilities in West Campground. There’s one cabin called the Temagami Cabin. There’s also a boat launch near West
Campground that also has canoe and kayak racks, docs, canoe and kayak rentals,
a fish cleaning station, and a playground. There are also docks at South Campground
and East Campground, where there is also more canoe
kayak racks. There are two natural sandy beaches
as well as a dog beach. There are no hiking trails in the park,
but across the street is Caribou Mountain White Bear Forest Conservation Reserve,
and it has 17km of hiking trails. There’s one cabin called Temagami cabin that sleeps six. There are two bedrooms with a twin over
double bunk in each room. The kitchenette comes complete
with fridge, freezer, microwave, kettle, coffee percolator, dish pan. Outside,
you will find a barbecue, a portable Coleman stove, picnic table,
fire pit, and two Adirondack chairs on the deck overlooking the lake. Bring your own boat to the park
at the provided dock space, or use the cabin
canoe, paddles and PFDs. What’s happening? I’m just going to walk down beacause it’s pretty steep and gravelly, and
I don’t want to wipe out like that. The whole park is really hilly huh?
Yeah, it’s super hilly. I already, I already slid my
bike out and I’m walking it. There’s a full comfort station
in West Campground across from the docks. It has everything from flush toilets,
showers to laundry facilities, and laundry is $3 per load. And in South Campground, there’s a mini comfort station
with two flush toilets and two showers. And it’s everything you need there. There’s this boat launch here,
which is near West Campground, and there is canoe kayak launches from South and East campgrounds. Canoes and kayaks are available for rent. You can fish on lake Temagami for lake trout, lake whitefish, pike, smallmouth bass, walleye and yellow perch. Oh, that’s a mess. Look at the color. We’ve had quite a few people interested in
what kind of meals and food prep we do for camping.
That isn’t really our thing. So we have our friend Kelly, who
you’ve seen in quite a few of our videos. So, she’s here to share
some of her recipes with us. Kelly, give us a brief intro into your videos. Well, first off, these videos are definitely different
than the last ones I did for you. Okay. So these videos feature recipes
that I hope the viewers will find helpful when planning out
what to eat on their next camping trip. So how did you decide
what recipes to feature in the videos? Well, when we’re camping, I look for
three things when I’m planning out meals. And I use the same principles
when I pick the recipes. So the food has to taste good, and it has
to be easy to make when we’re camping. And then the last thing is
it has to require very little or even no prep at home ahead of the camping trip. Oh, that’s my kind of cooking. Yes. So I hear you had some help
making the videos. I did this time. A big shout out to my son in law, Michael. Michael did all the filming. He did the editing, and he composed the two pieces of music
that are featured in the video. That’s so amazing. He is pretty amazing. My daughter Grace helped and husband
Jamie helped too. We had a lot of fun. Family affair. It was. So we’re going to be sharing some of
Kelly’s recipes in our upcoming videos. And the segment is going to be called
Kelly’s Cookout. And here’s the first one. Hi. Welcome to Kelly’s cookout. Today I’m going to be making
a mediterranean chickpea and vegetable salad. This is a beautiful cold salad
that I’ve made many times before. I suggest that you make
the dressing ahead of time at home, but if you’d like to bring the ingredients
to camp with you, you can do that. Or if you don’t have time for either, just use a bottle of Greek vinaigrette
that you’ve bought at the store. Let’s begin.
For the dressing, whisk together three tablespoons red
wine vinegar, three tablespoons olive oil, one and a half tablespoons
honey, one and a half tablespoons mustard. I like Dijon, but you use what you like. One and a half tablespoons dried oregano
and three quarters of a teaspoon salt. If you make this at home keep it refrigerated
until you’re ready to make the salad. Pour the dressing into a large bowl. Add a container of halved cherry tomatoes and stir. One small sliced red onion and stir. Two seeded and chopped peppers. Any color you like and stir. See the pattern? All the stirring just helps ensure
the ingredients are well coated with dressing. Next, add one can of chickpeas,
drained and rinsed. One small jar of marinated artichoke
hearts, drained and cut into bite sized pieces, and one cup of pitted black olives, just not canned. They don’t have enough flavor. Top each serving with pepper and enjoy. If you’d like to see the full written version of the recipe,
check out the video description. If you make the recipe, we’d love
to know about it, so comment down below. And if you take a picture and post it on one of your socials,
please tag Camping with the Coles. Happy cooking. Happy camping. Okay. That’s cool. You can see the tower right there. That’s, Jamie that’s high. Jamie. How tall is that? Pretty high. Yeah, that’s too high. Oh, my God,
I don’t know if my stomach can handle it. Oh, this could be bad. Washrooms Cheryl. Yeah, I should do that before I go up. Do you know where we’re going to go? We’re gonna go right… Yeah, I know. …up there. I don’t know why I’m doing this because I am terrified of heights. Let’s do it. Oh gosh, the stairs are getting narrower. What if I pass out and fall down? That’s a lot of stairs to fall down. Jamie! Oh it wobbles. Ben don’t!
Do not wobble, I swear to God. I made it!
Yay! Cheryl. You made it. Yes, my legs are shaking. Oh, it’s the tower. And the tower shakes. Where’s our dog? I hear him. He’s right there with Sue and John. Hi Jax! Wait. Yeah. This is not good people. Okay. Don’t look down.
I’m not sure if I can… Approximately two kilometers from the park
is the fire tower on Caribou Mountain. All they ask for is a $3 donation
that you can put in the self donation box at the entrance of the trail,
up to the fire tower. And brace yourself. It’s tall. It’s windy and shaky. How’d you like it, Cheryl? And I don’t like heights. It’s not a good thing. I felt very safe. Oh, yeah. Absolutely I didn’t. That’s why anybody can go up there. Oh it shook a lot
Not for us. Oh it moved a fair bit. Did you feel it?
I didn’t feel it at all. I was swaying up at the top. But then Jamie wasn’t helping this. And I was doing that too. I really started to go. Yeah. Was it just the three of you? Yes. Yeah. What were you doing? Well, it was already moving a little bit,
so then I just did a bit of a shake on the top,
and it kept it going. And that sure got Cheryl going. And she’s yelling “Ben don’t, Ben don’t!” My pulled pork tacos. Korean cucumber. Jax, why do you have it like a cigar, buddy? Hold it like a normal dog. Coop will show you how to hold a stick. Coop’s coming right now. There he is. Tales are wagging. Let’s go play.
Jax the dog will guide the way.
The parks and trails he’s stepping through.
It’s Jax’s Paws & Play Review. So, Jax, what do you think of this park? Well, first of all, there is a dog beach, a small dog beach. There are a lot of,
water access points in the park. There is, off site trails
that you can go on that are dog friendly. Some cons are there’s no off
leash area and there’s no on site trails within the park itself. So, Jax, what do you think? How many, dog paws out of ten
should we give this park? Five? Like, five this week. Do you disagree? Well, I think we’ll give it five. Five dog paws it is. Cell phone service for Bell, Telus, Koodo and Virgin Mobile
and their subsidiaries. It’s not so bad here at all. We’re getting LTE+, 2 out of 3 bars. We’re easily able to text message
each other. Make a phone call. The internet. Like watching videos and stuff. We can do that. Sometimes there’s
a little bit of buffering, and you may have to reduce the,
the quality of it, but it works out okay. As for whether I’d completely rely on it, like working from here
and doing video chats. I don’t know if I’d completely rely
on it, but, for everyday use, it’s still pretty good. So according to the map, there’s a playground near
the main dock area. As we looked at that area, it looks like
the playground has been torn down. We weren’t sure what’s going on with it. And then we came over to the,
recycling and garbage area and the woodlot, and we see that they have some new
playground equipment all wrapped up. Looks like they’re ready
to install a new playground. It’s Cheryl’s Loo Review, Loo Review. Let’s all talk about loos.
Don’t ask Ben. Don’t ask Jax.
It’s Cheryl, Cheryl’s Loo Review. So the vault toilets in the park. I’d say more than half of them
are flush toilets. And they have everything you need. They have, lights. They have soap, running water,
mirrors, garbage can, women’s disposal, On the other hand,
the other ones are vault toilets that are pit toilets,
which are a hole in the ground. They have, running water, soap,
mirror, hooks, garbage can, woman disposal
and not so much light. No, they’re pretty much the green roof. Most of them seem pretty decent. This is the only one in West Campground
that I found to be more stinky than any of them. So overall,
I’m going to give them a flower. Let’s go. Let’s go. Get in. Good boy. This long stretch of Lake Temagami
right behind me, that’s known as an airdrome,
which means that’s, basically an airport
runway for float planes. So float planes come into the area,
they’re allowed to land on this lake, and you’ll see a lot of planes parked at docks at cottages along this lake. Hey hey hey hey hey! No! Stay down! Was it lake trout or bass today? Lake trout. Yeah? I caught my first lake trout on
Lake Temagami. It was very small. Yeah. Last time he caught a minnow. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Okay. Jax, get back in here. Come here! Come right back up. Come on, come on. Don’t sit up there, Jax. Good boy. That’s a good boy. Well, it’s that time again for Coles Notes, and we are at Finlayson
Point Provincial Park. July 27th to the 30th, 2025. So, what did you think of this park? Well, first of all,
this is a very hilly park. That it is. Extremely tight and
windy, up and down, gravelly. We were in the truck
and I could barely see over the dash to see if there was any one in the road
in front of us. And where does the road lead? You can’t see because you’re quite so,
so steep. I’d say if you’re contemplating
on bringing bicycles, you probably don’t really need to because it is really hilly
and especially for little kids. Yeah, unless you have e-bikes maybe. Yeah, if you have e-bikes,
then you can make it. But even like mine, I was I was pumping
hard to get up those hills. The power of the bike wasn’t helping too much. Some people have good cycling
legs. Yeah. So if you have good cycling legs, sure. In South Campground,
where we are, it’s very flat. Yeah, that little spot. But it’s, you know,
it was at 14 campsites. Yeah. So if you had little kids,
they’d be okay with bikes in South Campground. Yeah. This seems to be a big park for fishing,
so. It does. So if you’re into fishing. Yeah. You look at the, main dock area. Lots of room for boats
and the fish cleaning stations there. Yeah. You’re all set. Yeah. And, Lake Temagami is supposed
to be very good for fishing. Cheryl, can you rhyme off all the fish for us? No. Okay. So, on the map of the park, it shows that there’s boat launches in,
all the campgrounds. Well, the boat launches, boat launches
in East Campground and South Campground are not really, like you can’t put motorboats in there. Only the, West campground
can you put the motor boats in. And that’s where all the main docks are. But the other two, they’re just docks. So you can put a canoe or kayak in there. We found that
the one near us in South Campground, you could do that. Unfortunately, it’s not ideal for us
because Jax likes to go in the water first. And the water is, he stirred everything up. Got all muddy, mucky, gross bottom there and he got covered in black,
and it was gross. So it’s not ideal if you’ve got an animal
going in the water, but if you’re just putting a kayak
or canoe in, there’s no problem. You go from the docks there and go. We ended up going to the main one.
The main boat launch. Yeah, it was nice there. Yeah,
that’s a good spot to. Yeah, because they can walk in there
and it’s not stirring anything up. It’s all clean. It’s got a big parking lot
to drive to and park and unload. There’s some nice waterfront sites here and we always like waterfront sites. And along with the waterfront
sites, there’s, multiple places for water access too. Just as you’re going down the road,
there’s a little opening, and sometimes you see people swimming in there.
That sort of thing. Not so much in our sight. You can’t get through. It’s pretty thick. No, we’re on the an a, a smaller bayside
rather than the full Lake Temagami side, where, where the airdrome is. And I tried we tried so much
to get some footage of float planes. It wasn’t working out. The timing,. I know. It wasn’t happening
And when we were on the water we were so hoping that one would be taken
off or landing, but we didn’t get it. Got a picture of one in the sky. Maybe we’ll have to come back in
and get that. Because it happens all the time.
Every day. Yes, planes are taking off
and landing in the in the water. The gatehouse looks pretty new. The gatehouse and store. Oh, yeah, it’s very inviting.
It’s right across from the dog beach. So easy to find. And it has a nice washroom in there. Yeah. Lots of merch. Yeah,
lots of merch for a small little park. You mentioned the dog beach. The dog beach
isn’t really much of a beach. No, it’s just a tiny little yay big. Yeah. But at least a spot, they’ve named a spot
that you can put your dogs in. So we appreciate that. Yes. So the dogs are allowed in there. Looking
at the rules online and on the pamphlet, dogs are always to be on leash at all
times in the park. Talking to, a park employee about the,
dog beach and he said,
you’re fine to let them off leash, but I’m not telling you that you’re fine
to let them off leash. I don’t think that is a rule. He just said to us that we could do that. I don’t think he
speaking on behalf of the park. The dog could easily just go up the hill
right at the road, which is right there. So it’s not the safest. Jax could do it though. Jax is pretty good at recall and he’s,
yeah, he could play there, but but yeah. So, don’t say hey,
the Coles said the dogs can be off leash here. Yeah.
I don’t think that’s how it is. No, no. And it’s it’s there’s not a lot of room
for a lot of dogs there either. So. Yeah. And you can swim with your dog there
if you like. The water seems pretty clean and clear. Yeah the water’s clean and nice temperature. Yeah. Okay. Okay. And the fire tower, that was amazing!. Yeah. Well. Yeah. Yeah. You don’t do well with heights. I don’t. That’s why God built you
so low to the ground. I know I should have just stayed on the main platform,
but I had to conquer my fear. I was stiff and shaky the whole, the whole climb up and down. But if the climb is too much for you,
or if there’s accessibility issues or anything like that, it’s worth going there
and just checking out the platform. from the base.
Oh, it’s a beautiful view from the base. Yeah.
from the platform view. Gorgous view and that would be accessible. Wheelchair can go up to that. Yeah. Yeah. And if that was the only view we got
there, I’d still go. That’s well worth it.
Oh yeah, I’d go back and just. There’s a so a nice little swing there
that you could sit on. It’s a little romantic swing swing bench, a bench swing.
What do you call them? Something like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. But I didn’t like it for the fact
the fact in the tower that stairs got narrower and narrower,
and then they led to a ladder and it was. And then it was the thing was shaking.
That was Jamie shaking it. I know, but I was getting lightheaded
and I was going to fall. It was going to be the end. It wasn’t good. Yeah, it was good though. Yeah. But if you come here,
you definitely have to do that. Yeah. It’s only ten minutes from the park.
10 to 15 minutes. It’s not even that long. I think it’s 2.3km. Yeah, it’s super close from our campsite. So something to something
to check off your list when you come. Yeah. And then there’s a pretty decent
restaurant there, right. Yeah. the smokehouse. Yeah, that was nice. It was on the water
and they had great brisket. Oh, yum.
And there was the dog friendly patio. So you can bring your dogs on the patio.
And there’s a little grocery store. There’s a liquor store. Yeah, yeah.
So you can pick up some supplies. I went to the liquor store Sunday closed. Monday closed.
Those are the two days of the week it’s closed. So that’s when we were here. So. Okay for a rating. Okay for raing for this? Well, there wasn’t,
like, a lot to do in the park itself. Yeah. Like, it’s a nice little park.
But there are no trails in the park. No. But right across
the street is a conservation area that you can go into for free. And there’s a trail that leads from here
right into there. We just didn’t do it. Well,
we didn’t have a chance. It was so hot and too mosquioey. And it was rainy off and on. So that kind of hampered. Yeah. Some of those plans. So still it’s a pretty decent park. Yeah I’d come back. Yeah. It’s a cute little park. Yeah. And the staff seem nice and friendly and they’re busy doing their things
and nice to see activity going on. Yeah. So for a rating. I think a 7?
7 and a half? Seven and a half? 7? 7 maybe 7. You think 7? 7 and a quarter? Do we do quarters. No. No. Okay, we’re going to go with Cheryl
and we’re going to go with a 7. 7 it is. Oh I almost knocked that over. That’s typical for me. That’s typical of Ben. So next where are we heading to? We are heading up up to Esker Lakes
Provincial Park. But on the way
we are going to pop into Kap-Kig-Iwan hopefully and do a quick little hike or something. Yeah. Just to check it out. So in the next video
it will be for Esker Lakes. But we’re going to include that little bit too. Yeah. Yes. Not a full tour of that Kap-Kig-Iwan but we are going
to stop and do that hike because everybody’s telling us you got to go do
that hike. Beautiful waterfalls and rapids. So we’re going to do that. So we’ll see you in that one. Happy camping See ya. Bye.