Peterborough County

About

In the heart of the Trent-Severn Waterway, the southern section of Peterborough County has a rich mix of heritage city, cottage country, agriculture as well as local arts & crafts, shops and eateries. The sparsely populated wilderness in the north is mostly within the recently expanded Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park.

Quick Links:
Annual Events – Attractions & Entertainment – Outdoors – Eating & Drinking – Shopping– Rest & Relax – Maps – Key Locations – History

Annual Events

The main festivals include:
. April – Peterborough Garden Show
. June – Kawartha Craft Beer Festival (Peterborough)
. August – Greenbridge Celtic Folk Festival

Attractions & Entertainment

4TH LINE THEATRE COMPANY
Millbrook / Peterborough County
Canadian – Dining – Drama – Historical – Original Work – Outdoor – Regional
Presenting regionally based, original, environmentally staged, historical dramas on the Winslow Farm, just outside of Milbrook.
website / google map

Outdoors

PETROGLYPHS PROVINCIAL PARK
Woodview / Peterborough County
Petroglyphs – Visitor Centre – Meromictic Lake – Camping – Birding – Hiking
This park gets its name from the largest known concentration of Indigenous rock carvings (petroglyphs) in Canada, depicting turtles, snakes, birds, humans and more; this sacred site is known as “The Teaching Rocks”. Petroglyphs Provincial Park borders the Peterborough Crown Game Reserve. Birds such as Gray Jays, Wild Turkeys, Ruffed Grouse and various types of hawks are visible in the summer. Visit bright blue/green McGinnis Lake – one of only a handful of meromictic (layers of water that don’t intermix) lakes in Canada. In the Learning Place Visitor Centre you will discover the traditions of the Ojibway (Nishnaabe) people through the teachings of the medicine wheel
website / google map

Rest & Relax

VIAMEDE RESORT
Woodview / North Kawartha / Peterborough County
Resort / Restaurants
Viamede Resort is an historic, full-service resort with 2,000 feet of magnificent Stoney Lake shoreline. This landmark resort boasts over 50 well-appointed guest rooms and pet-friendly lakeside cottages, two restaurants for casual and fine dining. During the spring, summer, and fall, it is a popular destination for boaters from connecting lakes and beyond. Stoney Lake is part of the Trent Severn Waterway which links Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario. Boaters can stop by the resort’s docks for the night or for the day to enjoy a meal or drinks in one of the great lakeside restaurants.
website / google maps

Maps

Key Locations

Cities
Peterborough

Towns/Villages
Lakefield
Norwood
Havelock
Douro
Apsley
Millbrook
Bridgenorth
Oak Lake

Townshpis
. Asphodel-Norwood
. Cavan-Monaghan
. Douro-Dummer
. Havelock-Belmont-Methuen
. North Kawartha (includes the communities of Apsley (main village), Big Cedar, Glen Alda, Rose Island, and Woodview)
. Otonabee-South Monaghan
. Selwyn
. Trent Lakes (includes the communities of Buckhorn, Buckhorn Lake Estates, Burleigh Falls, Catchacoma, Crystal Lake, Ewan, Flynns, Fortescue, Kawartha Hideaway, Lakehurst, Mississauga Landing, Mount Irwin, Nogies Creek, Oak Shores Estates, Point Pleasant, Rockcroft and Sugar Bush)

History

Peterborough was incorporated as a town in 1850, with a population of 2,191. Beginning in the late 1850s, a substantial canoe building industry grew up in and around Peterborough. The Peterborough Canoe Company was founded in 1893, with the factory being built on the site of the original Adam Scott mill. By 1930, 25 percent of all employees in the boat building industry in Canada worked in the Peterborough area.

Peterborough would also see extensive industrial growth as the city was one of the first places in the country to begin generating hydro electrical power (even before the plants at Niagara Falls). Companies like Edison General Electric Company (later Canadian General Electric) and America Cereal Company (later to become Quaker Oats, and in 2001 PepsiCo, Inc.), opened to take advantage of this new cheap resource.

Visit the Official Regional Site of Peterborough County