The Land Between is a bioregion that extends from the Georgian Bay Coast to the Ottawa Valley. It’s the last intact wilderness in southern Ontario, a final refuge for wildlife species, and a land of hope. This cache brings your to one of the most interesting locations in the area south of Haliburton, around Koshlong Lake. To get there, take Gelert Rd. to the tiny hamlet of Donald (where you can also find a unexpectedly good bakery selling tarts). The posted coordinates are in Donald, at the seemingly random ruins of four large factory buildings being engulfed by new forest. The nearby dam on the Burnt River is also part of the same ruins.
These buildings in the cleared area and in the young forest were once a huge chemical factory built by R.A. Donald, where they processed thousands of maple logs into charcoal (for iron foundries, before Hamilton adopted coal), wood alcohol, and other chemicals. In the early 20th century "The Chemical" was the largest industrial complex and employer in Haliburton County. The largest of the ruins (closest to the posted coordinates) housed the ovens for roasting maple logs into charcoal. The basement pits were for the intial roasting fires (once the charcoal conversion process started, the roasting maple gave off enough flammable material to keep the heat going on its own). The men who tended these fires burned through a fresh pair of bluejeans every week!
After the roasting was completed, the carts full of charcoal were moved into the cooling ovens (in a separate building that stood right where the road is now).
The ruins just to the southwest were the distillation equipment, where the off-gasses from roasting were condensed using water from the dam pond. Five days after a log was put into the ovens, the finished products were shipped out by rail (from the partially restored building in the cleared area to the northwest). The old railbed is now a hiking and ATV trail. The grassy field to the northeast was where all of the incoming logs were stored, waiting for the ovens.
Built in 1908, the factory was transferred to E.P. Taylor's Standard Chemical Co. in 1915, and production switched to acetates for use in explosives for both world wars. The plant was abandoned in 1946, as the local supply of hardwood was fully exhausted (they were then cutting maples as far away as Eagle Lake). Most of the ruins are in very poor shape, in slow-motion collapse and not safe to wander around in. All of the iron equipment was salvaged for scrap long ago. Today there is a dream to refurbish the shipping building into a small business incubator hub of some sort - an historical echo of Mr Donald's entrepreneurial spirit. Wish them well.
The small cache container would have been very useful back when The Chemical was still operating. It is not necessary to enter the ruins to find it.