If County resident Luba Cargill has her way, Haliburton will soon be competing with New York City over the nickname ‘The Big Apple’.

Having launched ATIP Haliburton last year – an organization committed to finding and promoting the existence of apple trees in the Highlands – Cargill has organized a two-day symposium May 16 and 17, which she says will bring some of the continent’s top apple identifiers and researchers to the community.

It all comes after a game-changing discovery late last year, which Cargill said proves the existence of native Haliburton apples.

“The provincial government has established a line showing where apples grow in Ontario, and Haliburton County is north of that line. Apples shouldn’t grow here, but we know now that they do,” Cargill said, referencing an 1890 edition of The Canadian Horticulturalist, which discusses the Haliburton apple.

After a County-based reader mailed two apple samples to the publication, accompanied with a letter, the now defunct magazine published a response, saying, “this is no doubt a purely local apple.” It was described as medium in size and a paleyellow colour, save for the side exposed to the sun, which turns carmine red marked with splashes and streaks of a deeper hue.

Cargill credited this discovery to Steve Hill, recently retired curator of the Haliburton Highlands Museum.

“It’s such an important find, because it proves to us that apples have grown in Haliburton County for well over a century,” Cargill said.

Since launching ATIP Haliburton, Cargill said she’s identified 177 apple tree locations, including 10 orchards, the smallest featuring about 10 trees and the biggest more than 200.

When putting plans together for the symposium, Cargill said her primary goal was to provide information to people that own apple trees on how to properly care for and cultivate them. Then, following the Haliburton apple discovery, she decided she wanted to get into the history of apples in the County.

She was discussing a potential itinerary with friends, who said Cargill should reach out to renowned apple hunter and orchardist, Tom Brown. Based in North Carolina, Brown spends much of his time searching for lost heirloom apple varieties across North America.

He is one of five keynote speakers at the symposium, joining Helen Humphries, author of The Ghost Orchard; Brian Husband, a University of Guelph professor and lead of the Ontario Heritage and Feral Apple Project; Pauline Plooard, of Haliburton County Master Gardeners, who will discuss her group’s heritage apple project; and Carmen Galea, ATIP Haliburton coordinator, who will provide a historical context and preliminary inventory of apple trees in the County.

There will be other speakers throughout the two-day event, including Aisha Malik of Harvest Haliburton, Gena Robertson of SIRCH Community Services, and Scott Ovell, the County’s director of economic development and tourism, who will address the benefits of apple trees for food security, climate, business, and tourism.

“We don’t have many large events in May. This will be very educational, people will learn a lot about apples… then enjoy a drive around the County for our self-directed apple blossom tour,” Cargill said. “I’d really like to see this become a big, annual, recurring event.”

The symposium will be held in Haliburton village May 16 and 17, location to be determined. For more information, visit appletreeshaliburton.ca.

Benthic assessments of local waterways, wetlands analysis, localized seismic activity monitoring, and a study of native apple trees in Haliburton County are all on the agenda as U-Links gets ready to host its annual celebration of research.

This year’s event is happening March 23 at Haliburton School of Art + Design and features 21 projects led by student researchers over the past year, said Frank Figuli, U-Links’ program coordinator.

“This is an opportunity for project hosts and the community at large to hear presentations, ask questions about the outcomes of the research and to network with other community members,” Figuli said.

For years, U-Links has taken topics pitched by County residents and matched them with students from Fleming College, Trent University, and, new this year, Metropolitan Toronto University (MTU), to help identify issues, and find solutions, to various environmental, social, economic, and cultural concerns in the Highlands.

The celebration provides a platform for students to present their findings and is also a great way for the community to learn more about various important topics, Figuli said.

Celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, U-Links has facilitated over 300 research initiatives in the years since inception.

There will be four projects showcased this year, with students discussing their findings during short, 10-minute presentations. Carmen Galea, a student at MTU, has been working alongside Luba Cargill, founder of ATIP Haliburton, to identify native apple tree locations across the County. Cargill recently told The Highlander more than 170 locations have been identified, including 10 orchards.

“The long-term ambition… is to revitalize the heritage apple industry for Haliburton County, addressing things like opportunities for tourism, but also increasing the food security factor and finding ways to keep food production more localized,” Figuli said, noting Galea had spent roughly four months on the project.

Trent University students Ainsley Tagett, Emily Colautti, and Jess Livingstone led a four-month investigation of wetlands north of Grace Lake last year. Figuli said the idea was to grade the wetland to determine its eligibility for provincially significant status.

Students from Fleming College’s geological technician program carried out seismic activity monitoring on Grace Lake after finding evidence that a fault line runs under the body of water and will be presenting their findings at the event.

There will also be a presentation showcasing results of a benthic macroinvertebrate assessment on Kawagama Lake, led by Trent University student Trinity Torejos.

Figuli said benthic assessments were also completed on Koshlong, Haliburton and Gull lake systems, with an aquatic invasive species inventory completed for Kennisis Lake.

Sean Campbell, executive director of Union Cooperative in Kitchener-Waterloo, will serve as the event’s keynote speaker, discussing ways to bring innovative housing projects online in small communities. Figuli said this is an important topic, with U-Links recently partnering with local residents Fay Martin, Fay Wilkinson, and Dave Wilfong, and grad students from Trent, to look into housing alternatives for Haliburton County. He expects results of that project will be available in the fall.

“I’m excited for this year’s celebration – I think we’re going to get a good turnout… there will be lots of great updates and information shared. If you want to learn about what’s going on in Haliburton County, this is a great thing to come out for,” Figuli said.

The celebration runs from 12:30 to 3 p.m. For more information, visit ulinks.ca.

Ratepayers will see a 7.17 per cent increase on the County portion of their tax bill this year after councillors finalized the budget at a March 13 meeting.

CAO Gary Dyke and director of corporate services Andrea Robinson said it was a decrease on the second draft, which was 7.62 per cent.

They said a finance liaison committee of councillors Bob Carter and Murray Fearrey and warden Liz Danielsen met with them Feb. 16 to look for more efficiencies.

The committee suggested removing the hiring of one EMS supervisor, to save $120,124. They also recommended scrapping the FoodCycler program to slash $83,000. The three also pitched reducing the overall give to the Haliburton County Public Library by $115,000.

Robinson said the $318,154.65 cut means a 2024 levy of $23,261,957.69 – which results in a rate increase of 6.17 per cent. The other one percent comes from the creation of a $220,000 dedicated capital reserve levy.

“The 2024 budget and new dedicated capital levy will be a total cost to the ratepayer of $16.91 per $100,000 of residential assessment,” Robinson said. That is in addition to their municipal and school board taxes.

At the outset of last Tuesday’s meeting, library CAO Andrea Brown presented a third draft of their budget – with $34,260 in cuts, asking for $1,314,801, down from $1,349,061. The cuts included to the book budget, removing some library board per diem fees, dropping non-local newspaper subscriptions, reducing insurance costs, and reduction in Dorset branch mileage. She also pitched using reserves for air filter replacements, iPad replacements and other tech items, and pause a transfer for an asset management plan. She noted the service is doing a library staffing model review to be presented to the board in June.

During a lengthy debate, Coun. Lisa Schell said the library board had a $200,000 reserve and she thought this was the “rainy day” for them to use some of that. Dyke pointed out they could not tell the library board how to spend its money.

As a result, a motion was moved to agree to the $115,000 library budget reduction as suggested by Carter, Fearrey and Danielsen. It passed 6-2 (Cec Ryall and Jennifer Dailloux voted against).

Coun. Walt McKechnie said, “we’re not here to try to get rid of libraries. We’re here representing municipalities and the County of Haliburton. We’re just concerned about $1.2 million budgeted for payroll. We’re not downgrading all the good things you do, but somehow this has got to be brought down a little bit. We have a lot of other issues going on in our community.”

With the EMS decision, the County is hiring one EMS supervisor, but are deferring the hiring of a second. Asked by Dailloux about the impact, chief Tim Waite said with just one, it means “there will be several days without a supervisor at all for any time during the day. It does add additional on-call time for myself and management.” He said once a week every three weeks he works full-time and is also on call. He said those weeks are 24/7 for seven days. He added they will have to be “creative” with staffing that one person.

Fearrey said he thought they would get the second position in the next budget year.

Carter added, “it sucks that we have to cut things out of the budget but there were not many other places to cut, unfortunately.”

As for scrapping the FoodCycler program, Dailloux said one rationale was return on investment, saving money in waste management costs by diverting food waste from landfills. “The idea behind the FoodCycler is to spend a little bit upfront so that we get longer-term savings both in this year and in future years.”

However, Carter said he understood the company did not get federal government funding. He added in Minden Hills, they are seeing the units being put in electronic waste. “The suggested savings may not be what they suggested.”

Coun. Walt McKechnie said “we’re not here trying to get rid of libraries.”