“The heavens wheel around you, displaying to you their eternal glory and still your eye is upon the ground.” – Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy
Many of us live in areas afflicted by light pollution, which prevents us from gazing at the heavens whirling around us.
However, most of our northern and many other parks afford visitors a spectacular view of the cosmos, rich in stars and the Milky Way.
Continue reading Colours in the cosmos: where the beauty of nature meets the science of the cosmos
Art and nature go together like columbine flowers and hummingbird tongues.
Indigenous artists express their relationship to land through art; Canada’s Group of Seven found inspiration in several Ontario Parks; parks offer residency programs, and our park visitors find many artistic ways to capture their memories. We love it when visitors share their artistic creations with us.
However, a new trend is starting to cause problems province-wide: the painted rock.
Today’s blog comes from Zahra Ebrahim, Lake Superior Provincial Park’s 2022 artist-in-residence.
It was spring of 2022 when I got a phone call from the Friends of Lake Superior Park to let me know that I had been selected as one of the two 2022 artists-in-residence.
Lake Superior has played a huge role in my life.
When I was young, my family immigrated to Canada from Kenya and established Vancouver as our home.
Growing up, the Pacific Ocean was a companion, helping me feel a deep sense of place and belonging in a city and community that hadn’t yet understood how to embrace intersectional, racialized families.
The waters of the Pacific provided a connection to the coastal waters of the Indian Ocean that my family grew up on, serving as the backdrop to some of our most memorable moments.
Fifteen years ago, I moved to Ontario and adventured through its spectacular landscape. But it was only when I first camped on Lake Superior that I felt that same sense of place and belonging as I do on the west coast.
Continue reading Befriending the beings of Lake Superior Provincial Park
Have you ever wanted to explore the great outdoors, create a masterpiece, or go to space?
You’re in luck!
Our FREE Discovery Kit rental program is designed to help you do all those things while visiting a park.
Continue reading Let out your inner explorer, artist, and space traveler with a Discovery Kit
Today’s post comes from Jess Matthews, a Chief Park Naturalist at Rondeau Provincial Park.
A change was needed at the Rondeau Visitor Centre and we wanted it to be big.
We worked with three different local Indigenous communities over five years to generate something amazing.
Today’s blog comes from Megan Picknell, a customer service assistant for Ontario Parks. Her love for nature and educational background in fine arts has created wonderful synchronicity in her parks career.
Oftentimes, when someone thinks of art and Ontario Parks, they think of the Group of Seven.
You know, the group of artists that were inspired by the Canadian landscape and made famous the windswept trees in Killbear Provincial Park or the many landscapes painted in Algonquin Provincial Park?
Your art education may have even dabbled in recreating their art, like mine did in high school!
However, there are SO many artists that visit our beautiful parks to this day, to create masterpieces from their experience in nature.
Art is therapy, and so is nature! What a fantastic combination the two make.
Continue reading Painting the picturesque: a guide to art in nature
As the busiest provincial park in the province (with 1.5 million visitors annually!), Wasaga Beach Provincial Park deals with A LOT of garbage.
We want to encourage our visitors to dispose of their trash in appropriate areas, and protect our natural spaces.
That’s why we’re proud to share our new partnership where garbage and art collide: art barrels!
Continue reading Creating art out of garbage… barrels that is!
Today’s post comes from Marta Stares, the Friends of Lake Superior Provincial Park‘s first artist-in-residence.
In 2021, Lake Superior Provincial Park and the Friends of Lake Superior Provincial Park established its first Artist-in-Residence program.
I was honoured to be selected as the park’s first ever participant, and to be able to paint and capture the stunning landscape of the park.
With its rugged coast, tall cliffs, remote beaches, waterfalls, and scenic lookouts, it’s easy to see why generations of artists have found inspiration here.
Continue reading My experience as Lake Superior’s first artist-in-residence
Today’s post comes from Taylor Bottoms-Cau, a second year Discovery student at Samuel de Champlain Provincial Park.
You’ve likely heard of the Group of Seven, artists who travelled the remote landscapes of Ontario to capture their rugged beauty by brush.
But they weren’t the only artists who travelled rough and painted what they saw!
Fifty years before the Group of Seven, Frances Anne Hopkins was roughing it in a voyageur canoe between Lachine (Montreal) and Fort William (Thunder Bay).
Continue reading Frances Anne Hopkins: documenting the lives of voyageurs through art
In today’s post, Assistant Discovery Program Leader Emma Dennis invites us to reflect on Killarney Provincial Park’s landscapes, past and present.
When I was young, we used to play a game where we would stand or sit in one spot, and use our imaginations to create an idea of what might have happened there years before us.
At that age, our ideas were that perhaps dinosaurs roamed in that same area or the princess kissed the frog in that same place hundreds of years ago (and they lived happily ever after!).
Today, I find myself playing a similar game as I explore Killarney Provincial Park.
However, my record of historical events is slightly more accurate.
Continue reading Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Group of Seven
