Merril Lake is in the Campbell River forest district. The district covers a huge section of Vancouver Island. It has over 2 million hectares of land, stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the mainland coast east of Johnstone Strait right to Bute Inlet. Merrill Lake is part of this district, there are some nice campsites here along with good fishing.
The boundaries of this district encompass half of the Island’s roosevelt elk population, world-renowned salmon and steelhead-producing rivers, large populations of wildlife and a multitude of other marine mammals, limestone caves, numerous freshwater lake systems, two mountain ranges, and a large section of B.C.s temperate rain forest.
The mild climate provides year-round opportunities for outdoor recreational activities such as camping, hiking, fishing, canoeing, kayaking, windsurfing, caving, horseback riding, and mountain bike riding just to identify a few potential activities on Vancouver Island.
The camping is great along with the fishing in most of the lakes, including Merrill Lake, there is a small gravel boat launch along with 4 campsites and an outhouse at the lake rec site. The fishing is good, and the scenery is great. There are many old trestles on the lake, I just love these old trestles, awesome to think of just how difficult they must have been to build, amazing. Fires are allowed (except during very dry times), but please bring your own wood, if possible. Otherwise, use only downed deadwood.
Please leave your campsite in better condition than you found it. All too often, when we pull into a campsite, the first thing we do is clean up the mess left by others, garbage, broken bottles, and even diapers are thrown into the forest. One must wonder what the parents of these people were like and how they could teach their offspring to have such poor respect for our natural spaces.