The main feature of this park is the rushing Englehart River, with a waterfall, several series of whitewater rapids, rugged rock outcrops and deep ravines. The park has been called a photographer's delight for these photogenic waters, mixed forests, and colourful wildflowers that flourish on the flats below the falls where the river bends.

The action of the river has exposed more than two billion years of the earth's geology, visible in the walls and floors of the river valley. The lowest layers are among the oldest rocks in the world. An intermediate level contains fossilized records of early life forms, and those toward the top show the effects of the last Ice Age.

The park sits on the northern edge of the Little Clay Belt, one of the richest farming areas in northern Ontario. Although the park is in the boreal forest, its aspen, birch and red and white pine grow alongside white elm and black ash, species of trees more usually found in the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence lowlands.