Tent camping on the Pickerel River in Ontario

This past weekend we spent camping on the Pickerel River in Ontario. I made the post of our trip on our travel blog (which has been sitting fairly quietly since our 4 1/2 month trip. When we are out camping I will post on the travel blog but will link here with a post in case you want to go check out our travels too.

HERE is my post on Operation Explorations of the camping trip but I'll share a few things here with you about our experiences while camping.

We learned that you can enjoy tent camping with kids even after trailer camping for years. This was our first tent camping experience for our girls and they loved it. The pictures here may be water marked with operation explorations but I guarantee they are my photos I just do not want to go edit them all again for this blog post. Here is our camping area above the rocky river.

We learned that this prehistoric looking creature we discovered was called an Eastern Dobsonfly. We also learned that this one is a female due to the sorter mandibles and that she can inflict a painful bite. I am thankful she didn't feel threatened by my holding her.

We learned that this sweet spotted caterpillar we found was a Gypsy Moth caterpillar and it is an invading species to Ontario. He was so pretty to observe and I loved watching his hairy suction cupped feet.

We found toads and made habitats for them to observe while camping.

 Charlie even tried to kiss one but it didn't turn into a prince.

As well as getting up close and personal with toads, caterpillars and a Dobsonfly, they also got to observe a dragonfly.

and a fish. This one Sierra caught herself.

Aayla caught the first fish... on her first cast...talk about beginners luck! We let hers go right away though as he was too little to keep to eat.

I was the only one who got to see the Northern Watersnake...which I could have done without seeing.

Aayla loved foraging for wild blueberries... every chance she got.

Almost as much as this chipmunk did! He scurried around those blueberry bushes so fast that I didn't think I got a picture of him so when I found this picture of him stuffing his face when I got home I was very happy.

To keep the kids busy while camping was easy...they played and played and played in the water.

They climbed rocks and explored...

We fished, we canoed, we chased butterflies.

we gathered firewood and cooked all our meals over the camp fire.

and played, played, played from dawn to dusk.

The kids also had fun pretending to be puppies and playing in Kali's kennel.

Kali didn't mind...she preferred to be out exploring herself too.

Don't forget if you want to see many, many more photos from our camping trip to pop over to my other blog HERE to see and read more about our adventures or see our hike at the French River Provincial Park HERE.