This series showcases the ghost towns of Renfrew County.
Up a dusty, meandering trail off the Opeongo Road, deep in the heart of the Ottawa Valley, lie the remnants of the community of Newfoundout. Here you will find shells of pioneer log cabins, segments of stone pile fences and wooden rail boundary lines, and abandoned farm implements scattered through the rocky, forbidding countryside.
100 acre parcels of land on and adjacent to the Opeongo Road were given to immigrant pioneer settlers in the mid 1800s under the government’s Public Land Act, with the caveat that they must erect an 18x20 foot house, cultivate 12 acres of the land within four years, and live on their lots. In the 1860s, thirteen families ventured up a mountain ridge a few miles south of the main road, but the thin, rocky, acidic soil and harsh climate ensured that the land was poor for growing. Amenities were scarce and conditions formidable – children had to walk down and back up the mountain every day to attend school, a distance of over 12 km. A few short decades later, the families had abandoned the area, and the community had begun to be reclaimed by nature.
First to find prize of an unactivated geocoin is inside the cache.
The land here is privately owned. Please do not trespass; admire the ghost town remnants from the road allowance.