silver lake provincial park

It's a small park but has some nice sites. Hilly and not much privacy. The beach has a large sand area for frisbee / ball play. The lake is calm, scenic with a little you can land on island to explore and has plenty of seemingly very hungry fish. Seriously we were catching them with a line on a twig and some corn! We never had trouble from park wardens but it was nice to see frequent patrols unlike some other Ontario provincial parks (like Voyageur) that let the yahoos run wild. Overall a decent, clean small campground... except for the highway. OMG the highway. Unless you are in the "Algonquin" area the trucks screaming down Hwy 7 are incredibly loud. Most campsites are very close to the road and sound carries quite well across the lake. You hear them coming miles away. It's only a two-lane highway with an 80km speed limit but is the major transport route for the whole area so there is lots of large truck traffic. I noticed the truck noise continuing at least until midnight, even on a Saturday. If you're sensitive to traffic noise it really ruins the experience which is a shame because in every other Silver Lake is a great little park.

We have camped at this campground twice now and really enjoyed ourselves both times. It's only an hour from Ottawa and if you get sites in the Algonquin area you don't hear the highway much. We thought the beach was nice and clean. We had no problems with the wardens but we are a young family that don't make excessive noise after hours. The kids park is a bonus but it does get soggy when it has rained and the parking lot does get puddles also but I figure it's rain and your outside so deal with it! Would I camp here again definitely this is actually one of my favorite parks because it is so close. Also the fishing is fun for the kids we caught something as soon as we throw in our lines.

We camped here on the August 9th, 2014 weekend. We were a group of 4 families 35+ with small children and from the first night were targeted by the park wardens. Consistently (3 or 4 times per night) coming by our sites threatening us with noise violations. We were not being overly loud as our children were sleeping in tents not 10 feet away. They start coming at you even before the 10:00 limit. I have never been treated by Ontario Park officials like this. They are rude, abrasive and just plain ignorant. Do not support this park. It's advertised as being family friendly....it is not. If you are 60+ and plan on going to sleep at 9pm, maybe this park is for you. If you want to talk to your friends around a camp fire, you've booked at the wrong place.

We reserved a site for the Aug long weekend, avoiding sites that said "close to the highway" but settling on a site that said "noisy". We had assumed it was noisy because it was right beside a water supply spigot, and close to other campsites. The site was actually noisy because it was 25 m from highway 7, allowing us to easily see whether it was a 18- or 24-wheeler that was screaming past. Instead they only labeled sites "close enough to be splashed by highway puddles" as "close to the highway". I can't imagine what highway 7 was like in 1959 when the park was opened, but I have a feeling it was a low-traffic rural paved road. This is not a 21st century location for a provincial park. I would call the campground dishonest; if the highway is in clear view of the highway, it is close to the highway. The map should be drawn to scale, and the scale should be shown.The park rangers were doing what they were told to: by providing the 10 pm noise warnings. Employing antisocial 20-somethings to provide this park security may not have been the best choice in terms of providing positive or meaningful conversations with the guests.The best sites are in "Algonquin" area, and also some great sites near the lake. I would say there are less than 8 great sites in the park; so a reservation should be made with prior knowledge of the park if possible.The park staff was excellent and facilities were quite clean in the morning, but the huge numbers of guests on a long weekend outpaced the cleaning schedule for the bulk of the weekend. The fishing in the lake was fantastic, particularly given the frequency of fishing it must see. The canoe/kayak rentals were also great quality and very affordable. Dog regulations are restrictive, they expect a 2 m leash at all times.

Just came back from this campground with a group of friends. I knew what to expect with highway 7 being so close to us so the sounds of the trucks didn't bother us. We were however treated very unwelcome by the park wardens. We were very respectful towards to park rules about keeping quite after 11, however we were still given 3 warnings that we were disrupting our neighbours. We ended up meeting the neighbours who were around the same age (mid 20s) and they recieved the same complaints. We could not hear each other at all. The park patrol seemed like they targeted us right from the getgo. I strongly recommend looking anywhere else if you are going with a group of friends. I will never recommend this campground to anyone which is unfortunate as the place was nice and we loved our site. The front desk staff were very nice as well however the park warden situation ruined any chance of myself and my friends coming back.

Honestly only a small handful of sites are decent but just decent. Most of the sites have zero privacy, beach isn't nice at all and the parking next to it gets frequently flooded.Some sites are actually in my opinion dangerously close to the lake it sits on. The time we were here the lake was wild from an approaching storm which kicked off waves onto the sites and some tents had a hard time staying intact.I did have a good chuckle though at a small kid who was trying to make his socks fly in the wind. Pretty funny!I drove around and observed all the sites and really found only 2 that were worth camping at.The park staff however was amazing and super friendly. We spent some time chatting with them in the office and was very helpful giving us information about areas close by. The park was clean, but again quite small and sites were so close together that when you drove down a dead end it was almost impossible to turn your car around to go the other way.

No privacy between the campsites... you are able to see your neighbours as they are directly beside you. There were also no trees seperating the sites. We had to put up tarps for privacy. The camp guards were very rude and treated us very poorly. A friend of mine received a ticket for $180.00 for swearing on the beach.If you are looking for somewhere to relax and enjoy your stay, this is not the place to go! They are very against alcohol and beer as well. It is not indicated on the Silver Lake Provincial Park website, but this is a very family oriented park and there are many young children. I wouldn't suggest this as a place to go if you would like privacy and relaxation. The sound of the highway was also a disturbance, you could hear big trucks driving by. There is no nature to see at the park because the sites are right beside one another and all of the wildlife was scared off!I don't recommend Silver Lake Provincial park. We are in our late 20's and were treated horribly as their guests, we were not welcome there. I have written a complaint letter. We drove 5 hours to get there and we left after one night.