Never have I heard so much screaming as I have had at Parc Omega.
Never have we had so much fun as we had at Parc Omega.
Located halfway between Ottawa, Ontario and Montreal, Quebec, is an adventure that you can take in your car.
And the best thing about it is that they encourage you to feed the animals.
This stop here was the final big attraction on a weekend getaway I had planned with my mother. It was the first time we included her on a major trip. She loved this entire weekend, but she was in for one big surprise!
The night before, we stayed in a hotel near this Parc. We got up early, had breakfast, and I began driving them to this attraction. Just like every other time I take my wife somewhere, I did not disclose what we were about to see. I like to keep it a surprise, and for the most part, Charlene enjoys this part of travelling with me. Mom was about to experience this same joy, or in this part, terror.
The entrance to Parc Omega does give away that we were about to see large animals. It is obvious we were seeing some sort of zoo at this point. I pulled into the parking lot at the main gate and picked up some carrots. I tell my family that we will use these to feed the animals. The cashier explains that we can feed anything that comes to us but not feed the buffalo; they will just stand in the road and not move. That was a good tip.
Mom and Charlene leave the main gate and gift shop and are momentarily confused that we are going back into the car. I explain to them that this is like a safari in which we stay in the car most of the time.
This pleased them both, and we slowly drove to the first part of this vast Parc. There are no gates, just a large grate on the road that we drove over, and this grate stops the animals from escaping. I can hear Charlene and Mom chatting away with excitement that several large Red Deers are waiting to greet us. I inch closer. The deer casually walk to the car. With the magic of power windows, every window in the car is lowered. This was not initially noticed at first by the people in the car. Then there is a giant scream from my mother: “Danny! Get me out of here!”
One of the deer had placed its enormously huge head inside the car and was searching for the carrots that I had bought. Mom was almost in sheer panic. I tell her to give it a carrot. The car had erupted in loud, exaggerated screams of terror and pleading to stop what was happening. The deer did not react at all to the chaotic noise of our car; they must have heard it all before.
I tried to explain that this is a safari where we have the windows open. We can feed these animals. It takes what seems to be several minutes for the terrified screams to turn into sounds of delight. During all of this, it was tough to get any pictures that were in focus; just too much happening for me to take the time to set a picture.
We had come early in the morning and were one of the first people to enter the park, so a crowd of deer wanted a carrot from us. I wished I had bought more because we had gone through so much of the bag, and we were not even five minutes in.
Soon, it became fun seeing these large animals approach the car and ask for something. We would inch slowly forward; the deer are very familiar with getting out of the way, so I was not worried about hurting anything. We would travel slowly through the Red Deer section and take a side trail to see the First Nations section. In this section, we could get out of the car where the deer were much smaller, less intimidating and did not invade the personal space of the vehicle.
We would spend quite a bit of time in this smaller section of Parc Omega interacting with the deer before we took the trail around the lake. There were several totem poles, and some of the timider deer would hide among the trees and rocks. This section was much more peaceful than the entryway that I forced my wife and mother through.
We would finish with this area and continue down the road. I discovered wild pigs and their family crossing the road. Feeding them was a little more complicated because they were less interested in carrots.
We would enter a heavily forested area. In this section was the elk herd. Here is where I wished that I could drive and operate a camera simultaneously. We started to climb a hill and at the top of the hill was a large elk with the largest set of antlers that I have ever seen, standing sentry on the road waiting for us to approach and pay a toll in carrots. It was a majestic scene. Because of the size of their antlers, the elk were not able to stick their heads into the car, which my mother was fine with.
We continued slowly through the area and would enter another section in the centre of the park. Here was a petting zoo, a wolf section, gift shop where we stocked up on carrots, food, and places for the kids to play. There were also white-tailed deer in this area that allowed us to approach and feed. This section does have more walking than I was expecting, especially to the petting zoo; it was on the verge of being too far for my mom.
The last half of Parc Omega had the caribou (none wanted to eat), bison (thankfully did not block us), wolves, bears, mountain goats (all of which we could not feed) and a final section of more Red Deer.
We had spent quite a bit of time in this Parc, and it created some intense memories that are looked back on with laughter and fondness. This one place is what I hear my wife mention the most when she is recommending places to see. This is a place that I would go to again, but next time with the grand-kids!
TIPS
- Save some of the smaller carrots for the smaller-sized deer. The large carrots can be too big, and they cannot chew them.
- Break the carrots in half before feeding them to a deer.
- Have two or even three bags of carrots.
- Windows are either all the way up or all the way down. The deer’s heads are large, and you don’t want to break a window when they remove their head accidentally.
- Place the car in park to avoid unexpected moments.
To find the location of Parc Omega, view my FEATURED MAP where it will show this and other places listed on this website.
