Craigleith P.P. is located at 209403 Highway 26, The Blue Mountains, ON. The park is sandwiched between the Niagara Escarpment, Highway 26, and the Georgian Bay. It is in a great location, right in the centre of the town of Blue Mountain. Not only this, but the park has a unique shoreline made of shale, as well as good sunset views. I visited in June 2025.
The first building in Craigleith was known as the Lunan House, built circa 1856. It was built to become an inn, and it was relatively popular for travellers along the Gravel Road (now called Highway 26). The first industry that came to Craigleith arrived in 1859, when William Darley Pollard knew there was a market for crude oil. And so, he began extracting bitumen from the shale, then distilling it for oil, to sell to nearby customers. Despite what seemed like a dream process, it was cut short in 1863. This was due to the inefficient process of harvesting the crude oil - oil which could've been much more easily harvested in nearby Sarnia. A very infamous episode in the history of Craigleith was the sinking of the Mary Ward. The Mary Ward was a ship that sailed in the 1870s, before it crashed 2 miles off the shore of Craigleith in 1872. Despite being a major catastrophe (spilling 300 barrels of oil and salt), only 8 lives were lost, due to tremendous rescue efforts from locals and George Collins, the local lighthouseman.
"Craigleith" is a rock in Scotland, literally meaning "Leith's rock (or craig)". Usually, North American names are just British names brought over from whatever town the immigrants were from, and I doubt this was any different for Craigleith.
Craigleith offers:
- a long, rocky shoreline
- fossils along said shoreline, and in the park office
- swimming in crisp Georgian Bay waters
- a picturesque day use area on the east edge of the park
- proximity and access to Highway 26
- views of Blue Mountain to the south
- biking on the Georgian Trail, across the road
- unique bird species flying around the campsites
There are no hiking trails within the park, but nearby ones include Peasemarsh Conservation Area, Pretty River Valley Provincial Park, Petun Conservation Area, and the Georgian Trail.
Make the sharp turn off of Highway 26, and arrive at the gate. To the right is a parking lot outside of the park. To pass the gate, get a barcode slip from the park office to your right. Taking the first left passes the playground and horseshoe pits, before crossing a creek. Beyond the creek is just 6 rows of campsites. If you instead took the third left, you'd be driving along the water, passing campsites, the dump station, and numerous beach access points before the road ends at site #11 to make for a pedestrian only walkway. If you would've went right at the store instead, you would've made it to a scenic loop of waterfront campsites before arriving at the day use section. Dog beaches are on the far east and west ends of the park. See map here for more.
Note that the photos in this section are not explicitly from this park, they are good photos of species that live here.
Staghorn sumac
Wildflowers
Driftwood
Fossilized specimens
Visit nearby parks - see Pretty River Valley, Petun, Peasemarsh, and Wasaga Beach.
Book site 195 through 205. They are electrical sites overlooking the water with direct trailer water hook up. That's rare.
Bike on the Georgian Trail across the road.
To swim, go to nearby Peasemarsh.
Use this park as a base to explore Blue Mountain - an undeniably beautiful part of the province.
Avoid the washed up oil, visible on some rocks. There's a picture of it below, right underneath the opinion section.
There's only two sounds at Craigleith - waves and cars. The red on the map below shows which sites have substantial road noise.
Craigleith has got some weird looking rocks. These rocks are called shale, and are very important to the area. As previously mentioned, they brought Craigleith their first industry, as they were (and still are) very bituminous, meaning they have petroleum inside of them. This has the unfortunate but cool byproduct of being explosive when in contact with flame. But most importantly, these rocks are 450 million years old, making for good fossil hunting. I'd like to say that "you never know, you may get lucky!", but the park has collected majority of the fossils, and put them on display in the office. And, you aren't able to remove these rocks from the beach anyways, as it is a protected area. Read about the fossils in the store, or on the picture in the "history" section of this page.
I don't like this park. It should be exclusively used as a stopover or as a base camp to explore the area. The swimming sucks due to the rocks, the sites are usually small or sunny, and the road noise is unbearable. When I first read reviews to this park, I didn't worry, because I'd been to parks like Oastler Lake or Six Mile Lake, which had similar reviews, and I didn't mind. But this was a different beast. The two redeeming factors are the scenery on the beach (which is undeniably gorgeous), and the location. It's a 4.2/10 park.
