James Duncan Trail

Big Trout Bay Nature Reserve Over the winter this has become my favourite trail and I can’t wait to see it mid summer with all the leaves on the trees. I’ll be honest, I haven’t done the full trail from Little Trout Bay to Memory road. I’ve only started at Little Trout and hiked in about half way near the turn off to mount mollie (haven’t done the spur trail either). The cobble beach is on my must do summer 2021 list. I have a lot of picture, videos, and information to update for this area but for now here is a little trail review for ya’ll.

April 28th, 2021 – The trail was dry for the most part, I even changed out of my boots at the first lookout into my runners. This is a pretty difficult trail and took me 5 hours in total but expect the full thing to take about 8. Trail is marked well but if your starting at little trout, the trail head in across the road from the parking lot. The beginning is the muddiest but they have some boards walls down to help. I’m going to save yesterday’s story as a WAYfinder highlight on my profile so you can see footage of the trail itself.

If I remember correctly this new trail development was launched in September 2019 and was created by the Nature Conservancy of Canada in collaboration with LRCA. “Located on the north shore of Lake Superior, just southwest of Thunder Bay in the Municipality of Neebing, the Nature Conservancy of Canada’s (NCC’s) Big Trout Bay Nature Reserve is more than 1,000 hectares (almost 2,500 acres) of breathtaking coastal forest and wetlands, spectacular cliffs and cobble beaches along 21 km of Lake Superior shoreline. The area is home to a wide variety of plants and animals, including moose, black bear, peregrine falcon and Arctic-alpine plants that live in cold, harsh microclimates along the coast.” – NCC