This remote trail travels through the Jevins & Silver Lakes Conservation Reserve, a provincially significant area of rare species of flora and fauna including Ontario’s only lizard, the five-lined skink. A scenic route passing numerous wetlands, ponds and bogs between Kahshe Lake and Doe Lake, this section is also a main snowmobile route in the winter months.
Conservation Reserves protect significant natural and cultural features while providing opportunities for a variety of compatible traditional activities. Regulated under the Provincial Parks and Conservation Reserves Act, they are also important for scientific research and environmental monitoring.
Jevins and Silver Lake Conservation Reserve, situated in Morrison Ward in the Town of Gravenhurst in the District Municipality of Muskoka, is located between Kahshe Lake to the south and Jevins, Silver and Sunny Lakes to the north. This 2144 hectare conservation reserve lies within Hills’ ecological Site District 5E-8. It provides representation of red oak and white pine forests growing on thin soils in bedrock barrens. Most of this area is typical of southern Muskoka, with bedrock outcrops and bedrock barrens interspersed with wetland areas and treed uplands, although some areas of shallow soils support mixed forests, particularly in the Three Mile Lake area. The shallow, vegetation-rich Jevins Lake along with swamps and marshes bordering the lake is a provincially significant wetland. The conservation reserve provides habitat for well over 250 species (documented) of vascular plants, including three nationally and provincially rare species, as well as about a hundred species of birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians and insects.