Left: Swayze Falls in early spring (George Dewar), Top right: Frozen falls in winter(George Dewar);
Bottom right: Spring flowers in Short Hills Provincial Park (Natalie Fedj and Greg Redden)

General Information

Short Hills Provincial Park is the largest park in the Niagara Region. It's part of an environmentally significant area known as the Fonthill Kame Moraine. A kame is an irregular hill of sand, gravel and silt which accumulates in a depression on a retreating glacier, and is then deposited on the land surface as the glacier melts.

If you look southwest on a clear day from open sections along Cataract Road, you can see the highest point of the Fonthill Kame rising above the landscape, about 5 or 6 kilometers distant. The 'short hills' throughout the park are the result of erosional forces of glacial meltwater and other runoff, which carved out the many steep valleys and also created the valley of the Twelve Mile Creek more than twelve thousand years ago.

Within the 660 hectare boundaries of Short Hills Provincial Park, there are seven trails designated as multi-use or hiking only, and an accessible path called the Paleozoic Trail that affords views of Swazye Falls.

You'll find a rich variety of plant and animal species in the park. These range from Carolinian forest species like pawpaw and tulip tree to white-tailed deer, wild turkeys, and many other birds.

Short Hills Provincial Park offers excellent pathways and stunning scenery, so a visit is highly recommended.

The park is quite large, but has only three officially sanctioned entrances, all with parking.  The use of unsanctioned entrances and informal trails is discouraged, as is roadside parking.

Click on the appropriate link below if you would like to add one or more of these entrances to your itinerary:

Pelham Road (Main) entrance (this listing - see map below)

Wiley Road entrance

Roland Road entrance

Click here to see all three entrances on one map.