They Don’t Call it Snow Country for Nothing – Sledding in Ontario’s Highlands

This past February, I had the chance to go sledding in Ontario’s Highlands. It’s one of my favorite places in Ontario, and a name I often quote when sportbike riders I know tell me the best riding in Ontario is in Pennsylvania.

But to tell the truth, I’ve never been sledding in this area before. And what’s good for a bike isn’t always great for a sled. Thankfully I had two incredible guides for my rides through the region; Cheryl Reid, the president of the Opeongo Snowbirds and Terry Vaudry, of OFSC District 6 (AKA Snow Country) who made me feel right at home.

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If you’re looking for the ultimate cold-weather bragging rights, the sheer size of this region is a great place to start. With 23,000 square kilometers, over 7,000 frozen lakes and some of the deepest snowfalls in the province, nobody does winter like Ontario’s Highlands.

First off, sledding in Ontario’s Highlands makes for a pretty easy getaway, with Toronto only two and a half hours away, and the Ottawa-area 45 minutes down the Trans-Canada. My preferred route coming up from Toronto is through Algonquin Park because the highway is just much easier with a trailer, but you could easily come north through Peterborough and shave almost an hour of your time.

It’s Worth the Drive – My Experience in the Backwoods of Northern Ontario

My choices for staging points are Pembroke or Spectacle Lake Lodge. Pembroke is chosen mainly because the hotels here are known by sledders far and wide as extremely snowmobile friendly, and the parking lots are huge. While I slept at the Holiday Inn there, the Best Western has treated me plenty good in the past too.

Spectacle Lake Lodge, though, is one of my favorite places, summer or winter, and it doesn’t hurt that lodge owner Sharon Muhassier is probably one of the best hosts in all of Ontario. The recent addition of a flagstone patio makes it the perfect end to a day on a bike, but it’s the cozy interior and the top-shelf food that makes it the best place for sledders to end their day. I’ve eaten from Kenora to Pembroke, and this place outdoes every sledder joint I’ve ever stayed at.

But Ontario’s Highlands is more than just an incredible steak with perfectly cooked veggies and mashed potatoes. It’s home to five tour loops, two of them being in the top eight loops in the entire province; the Bon Echo loop and the Ride Around Algonquin Park or RAP. And the RAP is probably the best known snowmobile loop in the province.

The Bon Echo Loop is a two or three-day loop that takes you on abandoned rail lines, dense lakeside forests and well maintained access roads with a pretty incredible scenic outlook over Mazinaw Lake. There’s a rock on the southeast shore of the Lake and stands 330 feet out of the water, known for native pictographs and rock climbing.

Northern Exposure – the Remarkable Abitibi Canyon Loop Tour

The Round Algonquin Park (RAP) Tour showcases some of the best snowmobiling to be had in all of Ontario, in one remarkable circle around our oldest and most beloved provincial park.

From the thick maple forests of the Almaguin and Haliburton Highlands, where trails wind back and forth over hills and through valleys to the vast hydro and gas corridors that run alongside the Ottawa River from Pembroke to Mattawa, the RAP is never boring.

Most do the tour counter-clockwise, with riders riding out from the Dorset or Pembroke area. It can be a three, four or five-day tour, depending on your preference.

We were actually shadowed for most of our trip by a group of two couples who were doing the RAP tour for the third year in a row. This year they’d vowed to do lots of the local side trails, so as we slowed down to shoot photos and videos throughout the day, they’d routinely pass us to say hello.

Snowmobiling in Algoma Country – Video

It’s fairly typical to say that the best reasons to sled in a particular region are the quality of the trails, scenery and businesses that are there to serve you, but as someone who’s had more than his fair share of adventures around Ontario, I can tell you that the people of Ontario’s Highlands and their commitment to making sure I’m having a blast make it stand out amongst destinations.

Cheryl and Terry from the local clubs really went out of their way to make sure we found just the trails we were looking for while we were out there, and I got the distinct impression that anyone could call up the club and ask for advice on where they should ride – that’s how welcoming they are. Heck, Cheryl even took us out onto her lake to ice fish with her brother for a few hours before hitting the trails again! Where else would you get that kind of welcome?

Further to that, Cheryl makes great efforts to point out that her trails are open with more reliability and are especially family friendly as they keep road and water crossings to an absolute minimum.

With this kind of warm-hearted hospitality from everyone we met, combined with the quality of the grooming on the trails, the early and late snow, the prevalence of services throughout the region, and its proximity to both Ottawa and Toronto, this is a destination I know I’ll be sledding again. For more information on sledding in the Highlands, check these websites:

http://www.snowcountryscsa.ca/ http://www.district2ofsc.ca/ http://www.msrsnowtrails.com/ http://ontarioshighlands.ca/things-to-do/snowmobiling/