Peterborough & The Kawarthas: Terrific Towns and Great People

You can tell a lot about a place by the bulletin boards or the signs in the window of their local coffee shop. Are there are ads for organic soy milk? Goat yoga? A concert starring a KISS cover band?
At the Pastry Peddler in Millbrook, a small community a few minutes southwest of Peterborough, the messages in the window seemed all about community; “Support local farmers.” “Thank a Quilter Day.” “Port Hope Fair.”
I liked it already. And then I stepped inside and found beautiful, wood floors, soaring ceilings, bicycles hanging from the walls, local art on display, and the delicious. beckoning smell of baked goodies and strong coffee.
I spotted lemon cookies, servings of bread pudding the size of a softball for and Hello D (Hello Dolly) squares; a throwback bar my wife and I hadn’t seen for years. Almost everything was a couple of bucks or maybe $4 for immense servings. A latte was listed for $3.35.
Not for the last time, my mind said, “Hmmm. These aren’t Toronto prices.”
Over in one corner of the display were some towering treats of flaky pastry with sliced peaches and oodles of whipped cream oozing out of the sides. It turns out the Peddler celebrates “Flaky Friday” with a different flaky pastry each week. Depending on what’s in season and what they have, it could be raspberries, strawberries, or, in late summer, peaches.

A peachy delight at The Pastry Peddler in Millbrook, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO

Wanting to watch our calories (yeah, right), we settle on a Hello D and a lemon cookie and two cups of coffee. I sit down and munch away as I listen to the chatter around me, most of which appears to involve cycling, eating and greeting old friends.
“Hey, George. Morning.”
“Hi, how’s it going?”
“What do you feel like today?”
It’s like I’ve waked into the Ontario coffee shop version of “Cheers.”
You don’t have to be a sweets fan to stop in at the Peddler. They also make fine-looking breakfast sandwiches, quiche, Vietnamese Banh Mi chicken sandwiches, chimichurri burgers and a range of soups that include chorizo/jalapeno, Indian chicken lentil and Thai coconut/peanut. That’s a pretty sophisticated, multicultural menu for a small town 75 minutes from Yonge Street and Highway 401.
In addition to great food and coffee, the shop features bicycles hanging from the walls, a small collection of children’s books and crayons, local art on the walls and a set of mismatched chairs.
I’d been asked to come out to Peterborough & the Kawarthas by their tourism folks; a couple days to discover and explore small towns, eat some dangerous-sounding treats and meet with passionate locals. Five minutes into my assignment, and I was already grinning ear to ear.
The folks in charge here are Deanna Bell-Hall and Colin Hall. He’s the cook, and she handles the front of the house operations.

Deanna Bell-Hall and Colin Hall at The Pastry Peddler in Millbrook, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO

I ask about the cycling theme and Deanna laughs.
“Colin is a cyclist. I like to go on bike rides. There’s a big difference.”
The Pastry Peddler is one of the many spots on the Peterborough & the Kawarthas Classics Road Cycling Routes, which are best suited for avid road cyclists.
I ask about the shop and am told they used to operate at the farmers’ market in Peterborough but moved into Millbrook about 10 years ago.
“Millbrook’s just a cool place,” Colin tells me. “It’s very community driven.”
I’m supposed to be at a nearby art gallery in a few minutes but as I step outside of the coffee shop I hear what I think is a Trumpet Voluntary tune blasting loudly into the street. At first glance (first ear?) I thought it was coming from a building being renovated. Instead I find it’s coming from a place called Joseph’s Barber Shop.
I poke my head inside and Joseph Longo is there in a deep blue, weathered barber’s coat.
“I’ve been a barber for 63 years,” Longo tells me. “I came here from Calabria, Italy when I was 20.”
Longo shows off his collection of medical and gardening books and the bric-a-brac he has on display in the window, including brass candlesticks, brass deer and brass birds. He also shows me photos of the vineyards he has around his house for making his own wine.
But what about the classical music playing at a rather solid volume for the neighbours to hear?

Joseph Longo at his musical barber shop in Millbrook, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO

“I just love music,” he explains with a shrug. “I play it on speakers outside the shop all the time. Sometimes, if I don’t have it on people complain.”
Longo says he’s gone through two reel-to-reel tape machines. He also shows off an old 78 player and an eight-track player.
He’s got roughly 4,000 compact discs in the shop; everything from Tony Bennett and Celine Dion to The Barenaked Ladies and Kim Mitchell.
“Sometimes I’ll put on a certain record and I’ll see people dancing in the street or on the sidewalk.”
Now I’m REALLY taken by this place. I walk down the street and find my wife chatting with the owner of a women’s clothing shop called Oasis Boutique.
The owner, Nancy Fallis, tells us she has a very loyal group of customers that prefer to shop at local stores versus the chain shops in the city.
“I have to be careful about ordering too many of the same thing. One day I went to church on a Sunday morning and five women were wearing the same polka dot pants from my store.”
Millbrook was beautiful to visit in the fall. At Christmas it’s a charming village that looks like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, with plenty of independent stores for picky shoppers.
Just up the road a bit in Cavan is Galerie Q, another surprising spot. It’s a massive gallery on Highway 7 that’s run by Ottawa native Christine McCulloch and specializes in French-Canadian art. The displays are gorgeous and unique; landscapes that look like something painted by Vincent Van Gogh alongside modern paintings of a woman with inflated, Rolling Stones-style lips and a plunging neckline, painted by a Montreal named Kelly Paterson. I stop to admire some stunning works in vivid shades of pink and fuschia from a fellow from Chile named Juan Cristobal Pinochet.
“I just love his work,” McCulloch tells us. “He has such a unique colour palette.”
“None of this is on consignment,” she explains. “I get people from as far away as Montana coming in to buy stuff.”
McCulloch tells us there’s a strong French-Canadian population in the Peterborough area and that a new French school is being built. Once again, I had no idea.

Christine McCulloch and Valerie Kent at Galerie Q in Cavan, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO

We also walk up the street to see Valerie Kent’s place, the Cavan Art Academy and Gallery. Kent is a friendly and engaging local artist who does truly spectacular work in bright, primary colours. Her street scene paintings from around the world are strong and evocative, and she does amazing work by pouring cans of paint over tables. She also does more traditional water colour paintings and teaches regular workshops.
The next day it’s time to check out the town of Lakefield, about 15 km’s north of Peterborough. It’s much bigger than Millbrook but has some of the same sturdy, handsome architecture, as well as a series of fun shops. The Celtic Corner has lovely women’s sweaters, hats and clothes. Another store, simply called Stuff, features great old clocks, moose mugs, pink flamingo shorts. and other fun gifts. I laugh at a wine bag that shows a bottle of red and a bottle of white and has big letters that read “I go both ways.”
Our favourite stop in town was at the English Potter, a delightful shop just a few feet from the town’s main street. Owner Gail West is a delight, another engaging local who’s quick with a “come on in and make yourself at home” smile.
She makes beautiful pottery of all kinds, but we’re particularly taken with some beige-coloured bits with small streaks of black.

Pottery at The English Potter in Lakefield, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO

“I get that by using horse hair,” she tells. “I’d love to do lettering with the hair, but you have to put in at 1,000 degrees with gloves, so it’s a little tricky.”
West tells us celebrity chef Lynn Crawford came into the shop not long ago, going for the incognito look with dark sunglasses.
“At first I didn’t recognize her. She said she wanted something oriented to Canada and ended up buying all sorts of things. Another time the chef from Canoe Restaurant in Toronto came in. He’s originally from the area, and he came in looking for all kinds of irregular shapes and bought some things. He later had my daughter and I at the restaurant for dinner. My goodness!”
West tells us she grew up in England and went to college with an eye toward working in the food business, or perhaps as a florist. “I touched some clay one day, and boom, I was hooked.” She later married a Canadian and moved to Apsley, then shifted to Lakefield.

Sticky toffee dessert at Canoe and Paddle in Lakefield, Ontario. JIM BYERS PHOTO

We stop to admire the water and the parks along the locks on the Otanabee River (part of the Trent-Severn Waterway), then decide it’s time for a bite.
Canoe and Paddle is a fun, comfortable spot with super-friendly servers and very good food.
We sampled a very nice and very large, pulled pork sandwich and some tasty fried chicken with a serving of local craft beer, as well as an excellent salad with greens, goat cheese, candied salmon and more. It sounds like a lot of things going on at once, but it worked very well.
For the final course you can nip into the Stuff’d Ice Cream, Bakery and Café next door for some Kawartha Dairy, or stick around at Canoe and Paddle for something sweet, like their wonderful sticky toffee dessert.
Great food, lovely art, beautiful towns and friendly locals. Peterborough & the Kawarthas is a part of Ontario you definitely don’t want to miss.