Day Trip to Luskville Falls/Fair

Published by Hayley Juhl

Parks Canada calls Luskville Falls Trail challenging, and they are not kidding around. The path is marked with arrows painted on rock and small blue signs that are so good at not interfering with nature that it’s sometimes hard to find them.

For the first half of the climb up the Eardley Escarpment, one must use boulders and tree roots as footholds and haul oneself forward using thin trees that shower their leftover raindrops on one’s head and shoulders.

It feels as though the climb might not end, even after the pause on the first rocky lookout, which offers a beautiful yet typical view of Southern Ontario. And then it is up yet more, to the second lookout, named Pontiac for the chief of the Ottawa nation. The Ottawa River Valley was Algonquin land generations before it was overrun with Lusks in the 1820s and then us, daytrippers who just want a good climb and a great view.

Joseph Lusk arrival to the site from County Antrim, Ireland. When he gazed at the Eardley Flats, the mountains in the background, and the Ottawa River in the distance he decided to stay and make this place which bears his name his home. And stay he did! He and his wife Esther Balmer raised 9 children (three were born in Ireland), and their descendants flourished in numbers and in land-holdings. At the time of their deaths in 1873 (Joseph) and 1878 (Esther), they and their descendants had acquired 2000 acres. Nearly every farm in the area was owned by a Lusk.

We decided to drive another 20 K west on route 148 to the village of Quyon and take the ferry back to the Ontario side of the river.