Roundtrip: 1km
The Eagle
Difficulty: Difficult
Location: Thunder Bay, ON
Hike up to the top of the first buttress of the Sqaw Bay cliffs. On the top you will find a sculpture made by Andrew Haigh and Ryan Horbacio a fews years ago in the shape of an eagle by piling loose rocks. It is quite something to see — and really hard to take a picture of. The the trail up is steep and you will climb about 130 metres to get to the top. As you can guess the views from the top are amazing.
From the James Street swing bridge turn left and drive east on City Road. Turn right onto Mission Rd. At the turn off to the Mt McKay lookout stay left and you will now be on Squaw Bay Road. Follow Squaw Bay road to the Y at the waterfront. Turn right here onto Brule Road. Drive straight past the turn off to the treatment centre parking lot and continue for about 50m along Carp River Road and park off the road on a little point that you will see to the left.
Walk south along the road to the first little hill, about 50 metres, and start looking for a flagged trail. If you don’t find it, bushwhack toward the talus slope that leads up just to the left of the cliffs and you are sure to find the trail as you make your way past the fallen rock higher up the slope.
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This location is still intact and in great shape although there are no marked trails from the road. There is a rope that helps get up the slope about 2/3 of the way up latched onto a firm tree. Once at the mtn summit there are random flags that lead to campfire spots but not The Eagle. It can be hard to spot. I used a drone to scout out its location and headed for it.
This is one of my regular hikes (thanks to Sue) and I hope I didn’t offend the artists who made the Eagle but her left wing had been damaged by weather for some time so I put a small brace under it and did my best to return it to it’s original state. It really is a beautiful work of art.
Thanks for the great guides. So many places here that we havent seen. We’ve been going through a bunch of them.
Thanks a bunch.
Thanks for your comment Steve. The Eagle is one of my most favourite hikes. The view from the top of the cliffs gets me everytime.
Susan
Made the climb yesterday the 15th. I have put this one off as being too short. Ha… I see why it is in the difficult column. There has been very little traffic up to the eagle and if there was flagging tape it is long gone. I did not find the trail until I was nearly at top, quite the scramble. the Eagle is impressive and in good shape I did wonder about the location, it is not the highest point or the most visable, I wonder why they picked this spot. Again Sue thanks for the site, it has pointed my little dog and I on many fine Hikes
Thank you so much for the information. I have changed the name from ‘the raven’ to ‘the eagle’ and included your information. Thanks for the update!
Susan
The ‘raven’ was constructed a few years ago by Andrew Haigh and Ryan Horbacio and was actually supposed to represent an eagle.It took a couple of trips to complete and there was no flagged trail at that time. They bushwacked to get in. Both are quite flattered by the feature on your web site.
Terry Haigh