A farmers’ market is within reach of nearly every town on this road, and all six are in their last few weeks. What surprised us is that the season is shortest in the middle. Sharbot Lake runs 9 to noon by the beach and finishes on the 26th, three more Saturdays. The Northbrook market at the Land O’ Lakes Lions Hall on Hwy 41, 10 to 1, is confirmed through the 26th as well, and nobody publishes its season end, so it may run later. At the farmland ends they go into October. Carleton Place at Market Square, 8:30 to 12:30, and Perth at the Crystal Palace by the Tay Basin, 8 to 1, both finish on Saturday October 10, Thanksgiving weekend. The two Friday markets sit in between: Smiths Falls by the Rideau at Lower Reach Park, 3 to 7, until October 2, and Havelock on the highway, 1 to 6, until October 9.
Go to the one nearest you before it packs up. The tables are as full now as they get, and in eight weeks those parking lots are empty until May.
Then Saturday the 12th, the fullest day the corridor has had all year. Carleton Place puts three dozen dragon boat crews on the Mississippi, free to watch. Smiths Falls runs a downtown music festival from 1pm with The Trews. Perth keeps its shops and restaurants going until 10 for the Night Market. Tweed has local chefs cooking local food in Memorial Park, 11 to 3. And Northbrook marks fifty years of Land O’ Lakes Community Services with an open day on Hwy 41, 10 to 3, the food bank, seniors’ programmes and buses for this end of the road. Smaller, and worth the drive: a harvest breakfast at the Arden United Church, a new community garden in Flinton, and a dance at the Oso Hall in Sharbot Lake that evening. Sunday the 13th splits Carleton Place between Ukrainian Fest at Riverside Park and the Lanark County Harvest Festival at Beckwith Park, both free.
The weekend after is the harvest run. The Madoc Fair holds its 121st on Cooper Road, Friday the 18th through Sunday, and the Tweed Harvest Festival takes the fairgrounds and Metcalfe Street the same three days. Smiths Falls runs a literary festival that weekend, Small Town, Big Stories, and the Harlowe Olde Tyme Fiddlers play Harlowe Hall on the 19th, 1 to 5. Sunday the 20th has the Little Harvest Festival at O’Hara Mill outside Madoc, 10 to 3, and massed pipes and drums beside the Legion in Carleton Place, free to all.
For the next three weekends every one of those markets is open at once. Fill the back of the car in a town you would normally drive through, and for a reason to stop twice, the chip truck census will give you one. Running something on the corridor this fall? Markets, suppers, fairs. Send it to us and we will list it, free. See you on the road.