Why detour
Flinton is the corridor’s best two-for-one: a waterfall you can walk to in five minutes, and a piece of the 7’s own backstory hiding a dozen kilometres off it.
The village sits on the Skootamatta River, and it exists because of it. In the 1850s the Belleville merchant Billa Flint — later a senator — bought the water power here and built a mill village to house the men who worked it, first called Flint’s Mills. If that story sounds familiar, it should: Flint did the same thing downstream on the same river at a place he named Bridgewater, which you already know as Actinolite. Two villages, one river, one man. Flinton is the one that kept his name.
Today it’s also the seat of government for the whole township: the Addington Highlands municipal office is here on Edward Street, which makes this small village the place where decisions for the whole Land O’ Lakes end of the corridor get made.
The falls
The Flinton Conservation Area is a small Quinte Conservation property at the west end of the village, off Flinton Road — a couple of hectares under mature white pine, a few picnic tables, and parking for a handful of cars. A short trail leads to a viewpoint over the top of Flinton Falls, where a concrete dam carries the Skootamatta over and turns it south. The ruins of the mill and powerhouse that once lit the whole community are right there in the river.
Open dawn to dusk. Take the viewpoint and leave it at that — the way down is blocked by the old dam’s concrete and broken by sudden drops, and there’s nothing at the bottom worth the risk.
The road itself
Flinton Road is the reason to come at this from the west rather than doubling back. It runs 23 km of two-lane pavement between Hwy 41 (a few minutes north of Kaladar) and Highway 7 just east of the Hwy 37 turn at Actinolite — curves and long sweepers through unbroken forest, essentially no traffic, and no gas or coffee anywhere along it. Motorcyclists have known about it for years.
There’s a geologist’s joke buried in it, too: the roadcuts along Flinton Road between the 7 and the 41 slice through the actinolite-bearing rock that gave Actinolite its name. The road connecting Billa Flint’s two villages runs through the mineral one of them is named after.
Cyclists get their own version of the same country. Flinton is the start of the Lower Highlands Loop, one of Lennox & Addington’s ten backroad cycling routes — 48 km of mixed gravel and asphalt, rated challenging, climbing steadily through Canadian Shield country and crossing into Frontenac County before it comes back. It sets off from the township office lot on Edward Street, which is the same free parking as the forest trailhead, so this small village is a trailhead twice over. The county publishes free GPS files and PDF itineraries for the whole set.
Water and the rest
North of the village, Deerock Lake has a Quinte Conservation boat launch at the end of Deer Rock Lake Road — paid parking, sunrise to sunset, and a lake anglers make a point of. The islands out on it are the draw for anyone paddling in with a tent.
Back in the village, the Flinton Recreation Centre ballfield on Edward Street has for years hosted the Flinton Community Jamboree — country, bluegrass, and a field full of trailers. Its website has since gone dark, so ask locally before you plan a weekend around it.
Know Flinton better than we do? Tell us what belongs here.