Haliburton Highlands: Cottage Country Charm.
Haliburton Highlands, Ontario is one of the principal ‘cottage country’ destinations for urbanites of the Greater Toronto Area and other major Ontario centers. Cottages encircle the shores of Haliburton regions’ many lakes while more cottages nestle among the woodlands and hillsides. The weather information above is from the nearest weather station I could find to Haliburton. Many resorts, large and small, also make Haliburton their home. Here are some to try:
Haliburton Heights,
Ogopogo Resort
Sir Sam's Inn
or the Delta Pinestone Resort In the spring and fall, as the hot and cold airs above fight it out, the weather is best defined as mixed, with bright hot sun one moment and wintry showers the next. This rainbow brightened one of the wintry showers during our stay. It also made us wonder what sort of images they were getting on that satellite TV dish:)
In the old days, up to the 1950’s anyhow, the main road to Haliburton for most folks was the railroad. Unlike the Muskokas, water transport wasn’t a big feature of your Haliburton Highlands vacation because there aren’t so many big lakes, though there are plenty of small ones nestled among the hills for summer water sports. With the growing number of cars from the Sixties on, roads have been opened up to the region and the railroad is gone, leaving this engine as a reminder of those days when travel was a more communal affair, where friendships made on the trip alone could blossom into a lifetime’s pleasure.
Haliburton was founded in 1800's by a London (UK) society for settling willing emigrants in the New World. Considering how cold the final decades of that century 1800s were, it’s a wonder any of the settlers survived or stayed. But stay they did and created the area as it is today, a pleasant wooded landscape dotted with small farms, hamlets and towns.
You can see another CF-100, this time indoors and restored to almost as-new condition at our
Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum page.
Haliburton is also home to Sir Sandford Fleming College. Fleming was the man who, back in the early Twentieth Century, championed the cause of time zones for the world so we could manage long distance transport more effectively. He was thinking about ships and trains, rather than planes but his concept is fundamental to our modern ability to jet around the globe, for which this modern traveler will be forever grateful. The college has an art school and they have provided a woodland walking tour of outdoor sculptures in the 'College Artpark', like this one, for visitors to enjoy.
The
artpark
is on a cross-country ski trail for winter visitors and Haliburton Highlands has a number of other winter related activities, Sir Sam's downhill ski resort is here and there are many snowmobile trails passing through the area. Haliburton also hosts an annual
dog-sled race
as part of the Ontario circuit.
The wolves gather daily around noon for feeding and, unknowingly because the visitors are behind one-way glass, visitor photos. The rest of the time they’re out in the wilderness centre’s extensive forest, hunting for their other meals. Return to Home Page from Haliburton Highlands
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Haliburton Highlands weather is what you’d expect from a holiday spot in north-east North America, hot and sunny in
The sculptures are fun to meet in the woods. These Gray Wolves would be less so but fortunately their part is fenced off from the rest of us. Our
