On This Page Overview Map Towns/Cities

Region 3: LakeLands, District Bruce The thumbnails show the location of the region within the province. Clicking on it raises you to the level shown.

Map

Towns Cape Croker Dyer's Bay Lion's Head Owen Sound Sauble Beach Tobermory Wiarton

This feature is often called the ‘spine' of Ontario. It stretches over 2300 km from Niagara Falls, up the Bruce Peninsula where it dives below water to re-emerge on Manitoulin Island, and then on into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. In places the escarpment towers over 250 metres high.

The escarpment is a faulted layer that is higher on the east side than on the west. This gives the Bruce Peninsula two distinct shorelines. The East shore faces the smaller, and calmer Georgian Bay. The cliffs tower over the water, while erosion chips away at the softer layers below creating separate stacks called ‘flower pots' and many sea caves.

The west coast is exposed to the weather of the open lake and its low sloping shore sinks into the lake in a gradual series of steps. The erosion on the elevated east coast has created numerous deep bays, these were ideal choices for the location of settlements, and a map quickly shows that the bulk of the towns are located at the head of the bays on the east side of the peninsula.

A typical stretch of the east coast might offer some indented ledges leading to interior pools. Some of these pools connect through short tunnels back to the outside. Many of the shorter safer ones are routinely explored. Several ledges can be accessed from dry caves from the top. The flower pots do not only stick out above water, but rubble fields below become a giants playground of tumbled pillars and shifted ledges offering plenty of geological diving for the scuba diver. In places it is posible to sit on a ledge and stare below into water over 300 feet below your feet.

From underwater caves and cliffs, boulder fields and petrified forests there are endless possibilities. In the past few years several petrified forests have been discovered and at least one large submerged waterfall that marks some of the past history of the lakes during the Ice Age. If geological diving holds little interest for you there is an excellent collection of shipwrecks scattered along the coast. A good number of them are shore dives, but most will require the use of a boat to reach them.

Currently Fathom Five National Marine Park is Ontario's only underwater park. There are over a dozen vessels to choose from. Depths range from high and dry to 140ft in depth. The bulk of the vessels are located around the tip of the peninsula, but there are several other noteworthy wrecks along the coast. Most of the diveable wrecks are located off the east coast of the peninsula.