Lake Huron Pictures

Kettle Point Ontario concretions (kettles) are natural rock formations found south of Grand Bend near Ipperwash on Lake Huron. Kettle Point is about a 30 minute drive west from the Rock Glen Conservation Area at Arkona (map at bottom).

Grand Bend Ontario is 30 km (18 miles) north of Kettle Point. Lake Huron shore beaches (Grand Bend, The Pinery, Port Franks) are popular year round with visitors and cottagers, and retirees from Toronto, Hamilton, London ON, or Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Summers and holiday weekends mean lots of traffic to these popular beaches.

This picture shows the views across to Grand Bend, Ontario, from a vantage point on the shores of Lake Huron at Kettle Point.

Unsure of where to go, I stopped at the gas station convenience store near the entrance, and was cheerfully pointed in the right direction.

On the west side (facing Michigan across the lake) I could see concretions - the Kettles! - from the narrow road that runs around Kettle Point.

The road passed between the lake and tidy homes, many of which featured concretions used in landscaping.

What are concretions? They are ovoid rock and mineral forms, some very large and some much smaller.

They occur in various parts of the world; we are lucky enough to have them in southern Ontario.

This photo shows a large concretion under a tree that was close to the west beach on Lake Huron.

The tree gives it scale; it should still be there, as a concretion this size would be challenging to move.

But don't hold me to that as I saw many concretions of various sizes decorating gardens in this area.

This concretion is much smaller than the one pictured above, but like any rock of good size, it is still very heavy.

On this kettle, you can see cracks where it would likely split in two or more pieces if anyone tried to move it.

Sometimes concretions have been misidentified as fossils, or dinosaur eggs, or even human artefacts.

There are so many shapes, sizes and kinds of concretions, do see the wiki page listed above to get more information.

If you're not too scientifically inclined, just visit Kettle Point and enjoy these unusual natural formations.

Kettle Point, in this wider view, is roughly where the arrow is pointed on the shore of Lake Huron.

Click on the image to open the page in google maps to have a look around the area.

Toronto and Mississauga are shown on the upper right, on Lake Ontario; Detroit and Flint, Michigan, are shown on the lower left.