Ontario Guided Horseback Riding, Dogsledding and Snowmobile Vacations - Algonquin Park
and area - the Heart of Ontario's Greatest Wilderness. 



What you'll see on one of our fully guided Ontario Vacations packages....

We'll show you what's been forgotten.... 

It was the early 1800's. Maynooth was home to a tenacious and resourceful group of immigrants,
who arrived hopeful and determined to clear and farm the free land granted by the government.  A
thriving village on the edge of nowhere, back then, it was called "Doyle's Corners".

Many were defeated - by rocks, poor soil, and the relentless forest.
 
A rocky field, dotted with spruce and balsam - in the middle of the wilderness. 
A mossy split rail fence, leaning but still standing, in the middle of an eerie cedar swamp.
A piled stone fence, disappearing into a thick stand of balsam. A part of a hay rake, tucked away
just off the path through the pines.  These things are all that remains - ghostly reminders of the past.

Large Families were the trend when the colonization roads pushed north.
Here, an 'average' family of eleven children.  Some had as many as 16 siblings,
all raised in small farmhouses with no running water or hydro. The olde r girls
helped with the younger ones and the day to day running of the household.
It was certainly a different time indeed. The Algonquin Park Visitors Centre
and Logging Museum, located just inside the East Gates near Whitney,
have an world class interactive perspective well worth a visit on a rainy day.

The youngest  in this 1914 photo (girl on left in white dress) was born in 1898 ~ my grandmother!

On your Tour you will see things hidden in the forest that will surprise and amaze you! 
You will be shown the hidden remnants of a vast farming & mining culture that dominated
the Bancroft/Barry's Bay area at the turn of the century.   Deep in the woods of the Algonquin
area, thousands of visitors unknowingly pass by the crumbled ruins of hotel foundations,
grist mill stones, and the abandoned remains of wagons & machinery ..... we know where
it lies, hidden by the encroaching forest!  Every bit of it has a rich history attached ~ a touch
of nostalgia from a bygone era.  Your guided tour  is  run not just  for thrills and recreation,
but as a sightseeing adventure that will enrich your journey through this vast wilderness.

Here is Burle's Shack dubbed so by it's visitors.  Hidden in the woods,
a km off the main forestry road, on a tiny path through a swamp, it was
used in the early part of this century as a trapper's cabin by Burle Bradshaw. 
The chinking is gone from the walls, but the woodstove and  bunk remain. 
The trapper could reach out and put a stove length in the woodstove from his bed.

Until the sixties, trails  into the forest were rough tracks, made by loggers, &
used by the townfolk to get to their hunting camps.  Trapping, hunting,
recreation ... Bancroft folk have a real joy of life, and loved getting outdoors
and away from the hard work of life in a small northern town.

As my good friend Elmer says....."When you live up here, you have to make your own fun!"

Since the settlement era, the building & maintenance of fire & logging roads 
has opened up the forests for greater ease of travel.  Now, an extensive network of trails
exists, maintained by the loggers, area snowmobile clubs, private landowners and volunteers. 

OUR HORSE CAMP & PUBLIC TRAIL RIDING FACILITIES

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