Why Abbey Gardens should be on your road-trip list
A desolate 300-acre gravel pit in the Haliburton Highlands has been transformed into a community hub
If eco-apocalyptic anxiety has you bracing for a Mad Max future, Abbey Gardens may be the antidote. Once a desolate 300-acre gravel pit, this swath of the Haliburton Highlands has been rehabilitated into a verdant refuge—a living rebuttal to your recurring nightmare of Ontario morphing into the Wasteland.
This isn’t some government mega-project but the vision of a lone local octogenarian, John Patterson. In 2009, inspired by BC’s Butchart Gardens and Cornwall’s Eden Project, the retiree thought, Why can’t we do that here? Today, more than 100 volunteers are helping to make Abbey Gardens not just a reforestation case study but a destination.
The only catch? To get there from Toronto, you’ll need to burn a little fossil fuel. It’s a three-hour drive north, and that greyed-out transit icon on Google Maps isn’t lying: public transportation to the Algonquin Highlands simply doesn’t exist. But, hey, maybe carpool and stay awhile—there’s plenty to do at this bucolic reserve.
More than five kilometres of trails wind through forests, tall-grass prairies, pollinator gardens and experimental mini-forests planted in what was once a dusty moonscape. Sixteen years in, bees are buzzing, veggies are growing and the site shows how biodiversity can return to even the most unlikely places.
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Programming turns the property into a sprawling outdoor classroom. Kids can join Forest School, the EcoExplorers homeschool program, or spend summer at day camps hiking and bug-chasing. Even toddlers get their own Lil’ Buds program. Adults aren’t left out: there’s disc golf, meditation and qi gong sessions, prairie seed-collecting and guided nature walks. Heritage Ojibwe horses and Chantecler chickens add a dash of barnyard charm.
Food ties it all together. The on-site Food Hub is certified local by the Culinary Tourism Alliance, with shelves of Ontario honey, produce and preserves. From May through October, a wood-fired pizza truck churns out blistered pies topped with Haliburton-sourced ingredients—ideal fuel for hikers.
Entry to the grounds is usually free, but check their website calendar for ticketed events like the fall festival or meditation classes. Go for the trails, the pizza or the just-picked squash, but mostly, go to remind yourself that the world isn’t ending just yet—and even industrial wastelands can get a second act.
Caroline Aksich, a National Magazine Award recipient, is an ex-Montrealer who writes about Toronto’s ever-evolving food scene, real estate and culture for Toronto Life, Fodor’s, Designlines, Canadian Business, Glory Media and Post City. Her work ranges from features on octopus-hunting in the Adriatic to celebrity profiles.
