I’ve just arrived in Fenelon Falls and I’m charmed already. The Trent-Severn Waterway passes right through the centre of town, where the eponymous falls power a hydro dam. Lock 34 sits on the other side of a concrete quay, and walking out to the tip of it I can see the falls on my left and a topiary hedge that spells “Fenelon Falls” on the other.
“Part of being a farmer is you’ve got to know lots of things.” James Harley speaks from experience. He and his family don’t just raise lamb, beef, pork, and chicken on their property near Keene, Ontario — they do it to the highest animal welfare standards while running a successful retail and wholesale operation. Along with his wife Jessica, parents Roger and Julie, and sister Emily, James and family take an approach to farming that emphasizes interconnectedness and stewardship.
To many Canadians, sap buckets and tubing slung between trees are as much a sign of spring as melting snow and birdsong. In my household last year’s supply of maple syrup has usually run dry by the time March rolls around, and we start looking forward to the next harvest. This year my wife & son & I refilled our stores at the Warkworth Maple Syrup Festival, and took in the weekend’s attractions while we were at it.
Lang Pioneer Village Museum is a personal favourite of mine. As a living history museum it’s a remarkably complete and immersive experience. Apart from other guests in contemporary clothes, you’re unlikely to see many anachronisms in this recreation 19th century village.
With many fall fairs and events across the entire region, it’s easy to organize a fun weekend outing. Use this featured list on the Kawarthas Northumberland trip planner to discover your favourite event, or scan the list below and see what piques your interest.
Most paddlers can attest that, as soon as you push off and feel your weight buoyed by the boat, you leave behind the weight of your worries on the land. Like the weight of a canoe after a long portage trail, my day-to-day concerns remain mostly onshore and I leave them ever-further behind with each paddle stroke.
The Trent-Severn Waterway has no shortage of poetically-named communities lining its banks from Scugog to Omemee, Bailieboro to Buckhorn, but my favourite of all is Coboconk. I’m hard-pressed to think of another place in the world that contains more alliteration in one name!
I recently came across a clever design that superimposed a public transit network map over the Trent-Severn Waterway. In the same way the TTC subway map is separated into various routes, this metaphorical map includes such lines the “Scugog Connector” and the “Kawartha Line.”
From the globe-traversing outriggers of the South Pacific to Amazonian dugouts to the birchbark craft of Turtle Island, the canoe is a fascinating example of convergent cultural evolution: in many isolated cases around the world a very similar design of craft has emerged to answer the question of the most beautiful and efficient way to navigate the regional waterscapes.
Made famous by The Tragically Hip’s rhyme with “constellations,” Bobcaygeon rests upon three islands right at the meeting point of Sturgeon and Pigeon Lakes. These two waterbodies create the distinctive zig-zag pattern of the Kawartha Lakes section of the Trent-Severn Waterway.