How late are Canadian parks open in fall?

Travelling one week from Montreal to Toronto in the week before Halloween. I read there is a thing called "Indian summer" with wonderful colors through the country. But friends told me national parks will most likely to be closed (why?). Can you give me a rule of thumb when and where on the route you will likely to have open national parks during that time?

Best Answer

In Canada, many parks have a summer season. For example, the Mont-Tremblant provincial park in Quebec, where these color changes can be seen has its facilities mostly open during the high season (July and August) but most facilities open from mid-May to mid-October.

In general, in Eastern Canada, the summer is considered starting on Victoria Day weekend, around the 24th of May, and ending on the Thanksgiving weekend, the second weekend of October. You can consider all parks will be open during that time. "Open" just applies to facilities though. You can probably enter parks out of these times, just don't expect most facilities to be open, and the temperature might be low.

I have been to both the Mont-Tremblant and the Algonquin park around September/October, both are good to take advantage of this "Indian Summer". On Flickr, you can see many pictures of around the last week of October (in 2015) showing you will have nicely colored leaves.

Lac Monroe, Mont Tremblant
Lake Monroe, Mont-Tremblant National Park, taken by Vince mid-October