There’s a certain dislocation that comes with being a traveler. I should know more about Ontario’s ski history than I do, but I moved from Toronto to Kingston in 1991, and by the late ’90s I had moved to Montreal.
By the time I landed in Quebec, my mom was living full-time on Georgian Bay, a stone’s throw from Blue Mountain and Georgian Peaks, two of Ontario’s most recognizable ski resorts. But I was raised a Toronto kid. I knew about Horseshoe Valley and Mount St. Louis Moonstone, both near Barrie, and Calabogie Peaks in the Ottawa Valley region. Beyond that, I knew very little.
The Kawartha Lakes
A couple of winters back, driving west along Highway 7, I caught a glimpse of a pull-off: “Ski Hill Road,” Omemee, Ontario. I made a U-turn. Neil Young spent his childhood and attended elementary school here, and a deeper dive revealed Omemee is immortalized as the inspiration behind the “town in North Ontario” in “Helpless” — the treasure hunt never fails.
Past icy marshland, the road climbs and immediately feels otherworldly. The first thing that comes into view is a 43-foot (13 meter) high stone Buddha — startling if you’re not expecting it. The statue marks the entrance to Wutai Shan Buddhist Garden, a 530-acre (214 hectar) property purchased in 1990 by the Buddhist Association of Canada for its tranquility. A magnificent wooden main hall, built in the Tang Dynasty tradition — interlocking rosewood brackets, not a single nail — anchors the grounds.
Further along Ski Hill Road was Bethany Ski Club, later Kawartha Peaks, then The Ranch. A local hotspot through the ’80s and ’90s, it rebranded as a snowboard destination before closing around 2001. While snowboarding was capturing my soul in Quebec and Vermont, the hills forming Ontario’s ski culture were quietly closing.
Toronto and Environs: Where It Started
Before anyone drove north, Torontonians skied in the city. The Toronto Ski Club, which formed in 1908 as the ‘Telemark Ski Club,’ skied the lakeside slopes of High Park, on the downtown’s west end.
By the 1930s, the fever had moved to the Don Valley. In 1934, the club built the Thorncliffe Ski Jump, a 65-foot-high (20-meter) wooden trestle opposite the now-shuttered Ontario Science Centre. It was an era of shock and awe. When a sudden thaw threatened the inaugural Ontario Championships, members trucked in 100 tons of shaved ice from Varsity Arena to coat the jump. The event was a massive public draw, with the Canadian Pacific running special trains from North Toronto Station directly to the site to accommodate surging crowds. 10,000 people lined the valley to watch jumpers launch themselves 135 feet (41 meters) over the frozen riverbank.
Beyond the spectacle of Thorncliffe, Toronto ski hills were community hills: rope tows, warming huts. There was a tow called Honey Pot, a hill called Summit, and King Valley in King City. They existed because people wanted to ski, and the mountains weren’t coming to them. Most are lost to development but the echoes remain, especially for multi-generational Torontonians. Earl Bales Ski and Snowboard Centre in North York, the last alpine ski area within the city’s boundaries, carries the legacy forward.
Muskoka and Haliburton: Cottage Country
Huntsville alone had five hills: Cedar Grove, Curlew, Limber Lost, Sunridge, and Tally-ho. Rainbow Ridge in Bracebridge. Britannia at Lake of Bays.
Muskoka Sands in Gravenhurst had a T-bar that ran into the ‘80s. Now part of Taboo Muskoka, the bunny hill still exists, overgrown, another ghost. Hidden Valley, upgraded, modernized, and strategically positioned near the western gates of Algonquin Park, is the survivor.
The Escarpment: The Heartbeat of Ontario
The ridge stretching from the Niagara Peninsula to the Bruce Peninsula once held Ontario’s most serious skiing. Carved from limestone and shale, and edged by the vast, crystal-blue waters of a great inland lake, it offered a striking natural stage for winter sport.
Talisman Mountain Resort in Kimberley opened on Christmas Eve 1963, and quickly grew into the province’s largest ski destination. It was ahead of its time in embracing snowboarding, with CASI (Canadian Snowboard Instructor’s Association) Hall of Famer Allison “Shred” Church leading the program as early as 1988. International competitions followed, and generations of families returned year after year.
In a landmark win for the environment, the long-uncertain fate of the Talisman lands has been resolved. Not by development, but by preservation. After closing in 2011 and lingering for over a decade amid proposals ranging from condo hotels to a sprawling Nordic spa, the property has found a different future. The Bruce Trail Conservancy has secured the “middle lands,” protecting 142 acres of the Beaver Valley for reforestation and permanent conservation. The lifts are silent, the grand plans have faded, but the escarpment endures.
Old Smokey. Valley Schuss. Pinnacle. Chedoke. King’s Forest. Once, the escarpment held skiing everywhere. Now, it has a future, returned to the wild.
Eastern and Northern Ontario: Quiet Transitions
Eastern Ontario’s lost hills were smaller but no less important. The nation’s capital once had Carlington, the Dome, and Rockcliffe—urban hills like Toronto’s, now absorbed into the city.
Dacre Heights near Renfrew had 590 feet (180 meters) of vertical, larger than most local hills. A lodge fire in 1999 ended it. The land changed hands, but Dacre’s second act has an unconventional happy ending: In 2017, new owners reopened it as a free hiking, skiing, and biking destination. The runs remain skiable and wide open.
Northern Ontario has seen dramatic shifts in the landscape in recent years. Thunder Bay, once a hub with five distinct ski areas, has consolidated to two. The 1996 closure of the Big Thunder Ski Jumping Complex — a facility that once groomed Olympic athletes — and the loss of Candy Mountain’s record-setting chairlift in 2002 were massive hits to the region’s alpine community.
But the North is also where a quiet turnaround is happening. Antoine Mountain’s successful rebrand as a community-driven destination provides a blueprint for how these historic hills can have a second life in the modern era.
Ontario Ski Country: Past, Present, Future
Ontario is vast, and its ski history is rich, much of it unmapped, unarchived, and slipping from living memory. And yet, participation is rising. In 2021–22, 350,000 new skiers and snowboarders joined the sport across Canada, with the largest increases in Ontario and British Columbia. The 2022–23 season set a modern record with over 21 million skier visits. The Canadian Ski Council called it the strongest growth in two decades.
Is environmental impact and climate change a factor? Of course. It would be naive and irresponsible to gloss over it or think otherwise. For those who live their lives on snow, it’s a harsh reckoning and a call for immediate, sustained action. For years, it seemed we would never again see the kind of snow central Ontario knew in the ’70s and ’80s.
But the landscape is unpredictable. Last year, Gravenhurst, Ontario, recorded more accumulated snow than anywhere else in the world. It’s a startling data point that challenges the prevailing narrative—a reminder that nature’s rhythms can surprise us. Something to hold on to, and to think about.
The irony is in the timing. Devil’s Elbow closed in 2018; the resurgence peaked just four years later. Ontario is the country’s largest ski market, yet it’s often treated as a quiet sideshow to British Columbia and Quebec. A province larger than most countries, with a ski history stretching back a century, is a footnote.
What shifted when Intrawest arrived at Blue Mountain in the late ’90s wasn’t just a change in ownership—it was a transformation of culture. My family was there during the transition. My mom and stepdad were excited about the economic boost it promised to bring the area. I, in true GenX fashion, was more suspicious.
Across the province, the grit of the rope tow and the warmth of the heating hut cleared the path for a polished, corporate standard. That unvarnished era—defined by families who knew every glade and ice patch by name—is what inspired the skiers and riders now filling the high-speed lift lines at Blue and Hidden Valley.
And Devil’s Elbow? For now, it remains a monument. The bones of the lifts are still there, stoic against the treeline, waiting for someone to turn the lights back on.