Walk along Main Street on a Tuesday in April, before the season. Count what you see: Eclipse Art Gallery, Coles Art Market, Red Pine Art Supply, The Potter’s Studio and Gallery, the Table Gallery Hub — the largest public community art gallery in Muskoka, carved out of a former grocery store. And the Little Shoppe of Arts, established 2026. This year. In the shoulder season.
Six arts and culture businesses operating before a single tourist has arrived. The direction is unmistakable — and it is happening without the policy framework, without the brownfield development, and without the train.
Now look at the two sites the town already owns: 12.68 acres on the North Branch of the Muskoka River, the former plastic pipe factory on North Dufferin Street; and 7.58 acres along the rail corridor at Hunters Bay, adjacent to the 1924 CNR heritage station. These are not problems. They are the most strategically significant development opportunity Huntsville has had in a generation.
When the Northlander returns, Huntsville will become, whether it plans for it or not, an exurban node in a Toronto metropolitan region of 15 to 20 million people by mid-century. The question is not whether that growth will reach Huntsville. It is whether Huntsville will meet it with a plan.
Baie-Saint-Paul — 7,000 people, 25 galleries, year-round cultural tourism — made its choice decades ago. Huntsville has at least as strong a cultural foundation. What is missing is the strategic commitment.
On April 29, Council will hear delegations on the planning changes coming after May 13 — height permissions, permitted uses, live-work designation. These are not administrative housekeeping. They are the instruments that will determine what can be built on both brownfield sites for the next decade.
The window to shape what comes next is open. It will not stay open indefinitely.
Sincerely,
Mark Boekelman, Huntsville and Toronto
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Thank you Mark, for adding to our knowledge of Huntsville. Good decisions can be made when we educate ourselves and each other.