Hamlets & Backroads of the Blue Mountains

Between the named destinations around Blue Mountain lies a constellation of places almost too small to name — crossroads hamlets of a church, a hall, a handful of houses, and 180 years of history. Strung together, they make the region's best aimless drive. Here is the cast, and the loop that connects them. (Ravenna, the most famous of the hamlets, gets its own billing in our Clarksburg and Ravenna guide.)

Nottawa

Minutes south of Collingwood, Nottawa is the gateway hamlet — the last settlement before the escarpment country opens up, and the doorstep of Pretty River Valley Provincial Park, whose valley trails and lookouts feature in our hiking guide. Blink-quick itself, it earns its stop as the turn-off point where the good backroads begin.

Duntroon

Up on the highlands south of the mountain, Duntroon wears its history in its name: settled in 1835 by twenty-one Scottish families on land grants, and named in 1864 by its first Presbyterian minister for his home village in Argyllshire. Today it is a community hall and a cluster of homes amid big-sky farm country — and in winter, the surrounding highlands are cross-country ski terrain, part of the network in our winter-trails guide.

Glen Huron

The prettiest of the set. Tucked into a wooded glen on the Mad River between Creemore and Duntroon, Glen Huron began as a mill settlement — a carding mill and hotel by 1845 — and its old stone buildings, millpond, and small waterfall still feel like a 19th-century painting nobody cleaned up for visitors. It is a photographer's stop: park respectfully, walk the bridge, listen to the river.

Singhampton

At the region's southern edge where the escarpment makes its dramatic drop toward the Mad River valley, Singhampton is the high-country hamlet — a crossroads village beside the Devil's Glen stretch of the escarpment, where the valley views arrive suddenly and enormously. It marks the far turn of the loop, with Creemore ten minutes on if the drive wants a proper main-street finish.

Heathcote

North and west, in the Beaver River's middle reaches between Clarksburg and Kimberley, Heathcote is the river hamlet — a historic crossroads where the slow, canoe-friendly Beaver glides past; paddlers will recognize it from the routes in our paddling guide. It links the plateau backroads to the Beaver Valley proper.

The loop

From the chalets: south through Nottawa into the Pretty River country, up to Duntroon across the highlands, down into Glen Huron's glen, out to Singhampton for the valley views, then home — or extend west through Heathcote toward Kimberley and return via the Beaver Valley. Two to four hours depending on stops, best in fall colour or high summer, and proof that around here, the space between destinations is a destination.