| Caliper Lake Provincial Park | |
|---|---|
IUCN category II (national park) | |
  | |
| Location | Ontario, Canada |
| Nearest city | Nestor Falls |
| Coordinates | 49°03′40″N93°54′47″W / 49.061°N 93.913°W Coordinates: 49°03′40″N93°54′47″W / 49.061°N 93.913°W |
| Area | 147 ha (360 acres) |
| Established | 1960 [1] |
| www | |
Caliper Lake Provincial Park is a small provincial park in northwestern Ontario, near the township of Nestor Falls. The park occupies 147 hectares (360 acres) alongside Caliper Lake. The facility is open for day use and overnight camping from mid-May to mid-September. The park features 83 campsites, many with electrical hookups, and some which may be rented for the entire season. The park offers many amenities, including a sandy beach, hiking trails, playground equipment, fish cleaning facilities, boat launches, bathrooms, and showers. Canoes, kayaks, and bicycles are available for rental.
A provincial park is a park administered by one of the provinces of a country, as opposed to a national park. They are similar to state parks in other countries. They are typically open to the public for recreation. Their environment may be more or less strictly protected. Argentina, Belgium, Canada and South Africa are among the countries that have provincial parks.
Ontario is one of the 13 provinces and territories of Canada and is located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province accounting for 38.3 percent of the country's population, and is the second-largest province in total area. Ontario is fourth-largest jurisdiction in total area when the territories of the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are included. It is home to the nation's capital city, Ottawa, and the nation's most populous city, Toronto, which is also Ontario's provincial capital.
The park is known for its beautiful red and white pine trees. Fish found in the lake include northern pike, walleye, crappie, and smallmouth bass. Pelicans, cranes, ducks, loons, and bald eagles are just some of the birds that can found on the lake.
Fish are gill-bearing aquatic craniate animals that lack limbs with digits. They form a sister group to the tunicates, together forming the olfactores. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish as well as various extinct related groups. Tetrapods emerged within lobe-finned fishes, so cladistically they are fish as well. However, traditionally fish are rendered paraphyletic by excluding the tetrapods. Because in this manner the term "fish" is defined negatively as a paraphyletic group, it is not considered a formal taxonomic grouping in systematic biology, unless it is used in the cladistic sense, including tetrapods. The traditional term pisces is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification.
The walleye, also called the yellow pike, is a freshwater perciform fish native to most of Canada and to the Northern United States. It is a North American close relative of the European zander, also known as the pikeperch. The walleye is sometimes called the yellow walleye to distinguish it from the blue walleye, which is a subspecies that was once found in the southern Ontario and Quebec regions, but is now presumed extinct. However, recent genetic analysis of a preserved (frozen) 'blue walleye' sample suggests that the blue and yellow walleye were simply phenotypes within the same species and do not merit separate taxonomic classification.
Pelicans are a genus of large water birds that make up the family Pelecanidae. They are characterised by a long beak and a large throat pouch used for catching prey and draining water from the scooped-up contents before swallowing. They have predominantly pale plumage, the exceptions being the brown and Peruvian pelicans. The bills, pouches, and bare facial skin of all species become brightly coloured before the breeding season. The eight living pelican species have a patchy global distribution, ranging latitudinally from the tropics to the temperate zone, though they are absent from interior South America and from polar regions and the open ocean.
The park was closed for overnight camping in 2013 by the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. The township of Sioux Narrows-Nestor Falls reached an agreement with the Ministry of Natural Resources for the township to assume operation of the park. [2]
