Businesses and individuals getting development approvals from the Township of Minden Hills are expected to see improvements in coming months and years. The township, on May 28, endorsed consultants’ recommendations – allowing staff to further develop an implementation plan.

CAO Cynthia Fletcher pitched the review late last June and J.L. Richards & Associates Limited got the job in mid September.

Alison Luoma, a senior planner, and Emily Hazell, principal consultant, delivered their findings last week. They said the intent of the review “is to strengthen and modernize how planning and building approvals are delivered – ensuring the process is efficient, customer-focused, and able to respond to growing development demand.”

The 33-page overview, from a 104-page report, provided feedback that included: “while staff are professional and committed,
decision-making is cautious and sometimes slow, particularly for routine matters.” They were told there is limited clarity around
timelines, expectations, and accountability that contributes to uncertainty. Others said the process is complex and difficult to navigate.

They suggested a good step is to leverage the strategic planning process now underway at the township – to align council’s priorities with the ongoing modernization of planning and building services.

Fletcher said the final strategic plan will be coming to council this summer. Some other suggestions include developing and publishing a consolidated development approvals manual; enhancing digital communication and applicant facing tools, resources, and information;
and undertaking a comprehensive review of development application fees and cost recovery. They suggested phasing in changes, starting within one year, one to three years, and three years-plus.

Fletcher told council, “this review takes a holistic approach, examining not only current processes, but also governance, organizational structure, service delivery, and customer experience. The review incorporates stakeholder input, best practices, and opportunities to modernize tools, policies, and workflows.”

Coun. Ivan Ingram asked if any follow up work would require outside help. The consultant said larger initiatives might require support.

Coun. Tammy McKelvey commented they did not have to reinvent the wheel, and could use practices from other townships, such as Dysart et al. She added that looking at this process is “probably one of the most important things during her term of council.” She requested monthly reports to begin, but Fletcher insisted on quarterly reports, saying there would not be enough to report back on monthly.

Mayor Bob Carter said what was being recommended was “transformational.” He noted pressure on staff, dealing with day-to day requests from the public, on top of the consultant’s recommendations.

He asked J.L Richards if they had experience with other organizations facing similar challenges and how they were able to meet recommended timelines.

The consultant said they collaborated with township staff on the review and felt suggestions were not unreasonable. They
said things were already happening, or being worked towards. They encouraged flexible timelines with a focus on customers.

“Get the foundation work going, and it already is going, and that can lead into some of those larger ones.

The Coming Full Circle pilot program offering support to people with mental health and substance use challenges has recorded 900 visits since launching last September. Now, program co-ordinator David Barkley is trying to find a way to keep the initiative running long-term.

The program was announced in spring 2025 as a two-year partnership between Point in Time, the Canadian Mental Health Association Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge (CMHA-HKPR) and the Haliburton County Connections Committee. It was funded through a one-time $800,000 grant via Health Canada’s substance use and addictions program.

That money runs out this year, with Barkley looking for other potential revenue streams to keep the Haliburton village drop in running.

“To get approved, we had to show there was a need. Now we’ve proven the need is there and we have a successful program that people are accessing, so our next steps need to be about longevity,” Barkley said. “Future funding is going to dictate how long, but also what more we could offer.”

He said the drop-ins typically attract between 10 and 20 people. Because of the positive response, Barkley said they’ve expanded from being open twice a week to at least three days. They run Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. and every second and fourth Friday

from 5 to 8 p.m. at 83 Maple Ave. Unit 7A. Barkley was one of the speakers at a Haliburton Kawartha Lakes Northumberland Drug Strategy symposium, held in Lindsay May 28. He told attendees that the key to his program’s success has been using people with lived experience
of substance use or mental health issues to connect with those struggling.

“We provide a space where people can talk to us about their struggles and not feel judged. We’re connecting more with the person themselves, more so than the substances they’re using,” Barkley said.

“It’s about building real trust with people.” Ashley Smoke, the local drug strategy co-ordinator, said her organization is committed to hosting meet-ups between service providers at least once per year.

She talked about the four-pillar approach many community organizations use to support people – prevention, treatment, harm reduction and community safety. She said partners work on solutions to help decrease substance use related harms.

“During the pandemic, there wasn’t a lot of this kind of thing going on and that contributed to things kind of spiralling out of control. A lot of people fell through the cracks,” Smoke said. “I have lived experience and when I moved to this area five years ago, there was nothing like this. I was left without a lot of support on my journey.”

She said some of the more common drugs she sees being used in the region now are medetomidine, fentanyl and an even more
highly-potent strain of opioids known as nitazenes. Smoke said those in the field are still familiarizing themselves with the impacts of newer drugs entering the system.

“We’re going into a new age. We finally got used to what overdoses looked like and how to treat them, but now with some of these newer substances, it’s scary… Naloxone doesn’t help in a lot of instances, so we don’t know how to treat or help people,” Smoke said.

Lakelands Public Health’s Dr. Thomas Piggott also presented, tracing the beginnings of the drug crisis back to what he sees as the overprescribing of certain oxycodones and the dependency issues they present. Tim Farquharson, police chief in Port Hope, spoke about the ways officers have been trained to deal with mental health and addictions episodes. The John Howard Society presented on the importance of establishing community integrated care hubs, prioritizing holistic care for people rather than detox and rehab.

Mary Sisson, manager of the Youth Wellness Hub in Haliburton, also attended. She said more young people are turning to drugs to deal with life’s stresses.

She said the youth hub has a full-time nurse practitioner, care co-ordinator, mental health and substance use clinician and a therapist who works with neurodivergent youth, who are all busy tackling the problem.

“When we work with older youth, substance use starts to show up a little more,” she said, noting youth there have reported using various substances from alcohol and cannabis to more illicit drugs. “When they come in, they’re not asking for support with substance use or addiction, but through conversations and building trust we see those issues start to present.”

Creating a safe space for these people to escape their everyday pressures has been key to turning their situations around, Sisson said.

Through their PreVenture program, aimed at those aged 12 to 18, the youth hub hosts various workshops designed to help students
learn useful coping skills, set long-term goals and channel their personality towards achieving them.

“These kids like to feel safe and a sense of belonging. Our focus is definitely more on prevention, but we have to build up to that
point,” Sisson said

By Adam Frisk
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

With the unofficial start to summer underway, and cottagers and visitors beginning to make the trek to the County, tourist attractions are starting to get busy. There’s one draw that has been long gone in the Highlands, but for many, they can still hear the click-click-click of Teflon sliders hitting track joints while kids scream as they test the limits of speed and gravity.

The Haliburton Sky Slider was the place to be from in the 1980s until its closure in the early 90s. For many cottagers and locals, it wasn’t just a lure, it was a rite of passage.

“It was a bit of an attraction, there’s no question about that. It was a great attraction,” Dennis Gould Casey told The Highlander in a recent interview. “Kids loved it, just loved it.”

He explained that the ride was the brainchild of Steve Bowskill, a local entrepreneur who owned a shop in town. He turned to Casey to help him make it a reality.

“It was just like building a road, but with super-elevated curves,” Casey recalled. Casey had the help of Fred Nimigon, who operated a dozer at the time, with the team having to clear land for a chairlift and blast through rock. Casey said the project allowed for a four-inch margin of error, but his team delivered the track within a single inch.

“The guy from the States [who laid the track] said that he normally spent two to three weeks fixing everything,” Casey said. “We had it within one inch all the way down the hill.

“We were quite proud of ourselves,” he said with a chuckle. The Sky Slider played a large role in driving local tourism for more than a decade, and it employed about 10 to 12 staff members daily to manage the chairlift, cart logistics, and ticket sales. The attraction also had a small arcade and a food stand.

The ride itself was pretty simple. Guests would take the chairlift, with carts hanging off the side, to get to the summit. Once there, a staff member would unhook the cart, and the rider would face a choice: use the single centre-mounted brake handle or go full throttle.

“The carts had one handle in the middle. You pulled it, and it put the brake down,” Casey explained. He noted that many riders skipped using the brakes, often resulting in “the odd bit of road rash” at the 90-degree turn near the finish line.

By the early 1990s, the Sky Slider interest began to fade. A waterslide was added to pique interest, but eventually, the equipment
was sold off to a park in Peterborough, Casey said.

Today, the land is owned by Paul Vorvis, who still finds remnants of the park’s height.

“I’m still finding stubby beer bottles up there,” Vorvis joked, noting that the decommissioned hill became a popular party place for locals.

He said that while the forest has largely reclaimed the slope, some of the nfrastructure still remains if you know what to look for.

“There were some aluminum cables that were buried up there,” Vorvis recalled. The property owner managed to get his hands on one of the original carts and a collection of Sky Slider buttons a couple of years ago. Vorvis said the legacy of the Sky Slider is set to be formalized. Rotary is working on historical information panels to be placed at Skyline Park as part of the club’s revitalization project, with the attraction getting a shoutout in the County’s recreational history

Since discovering overseas travel in her 50s, Haliburton’s Darla Searle has fully embraced the idea that the world is her
oyster.

After organizing trips for highschoolers to popular European destinations like France, Germany and Italy and more exotic locales like Costa Rica, Searle has planned a seven-day excursion to Iceland in July 2028 – and she wants to bring members of the Highlands community along for the ride. Searle, a teacher at Hal High, is working with EF Tours for the trip – the same group she partners with for the biennial student vacations. She said people pay a flat rate, which covers airfare, hotel, daily excursions and morning and evening meals. Planned
for July 6 to 12, the trip will cost around $6,000 per person.

“This is one of those trips for couples or solo travellers who don’t want to make any decisions, don’t want any stress. Once we get off the plane, I’ll be taking us where we’re going for dinner. When we get up in the morning, I’ll make sure everyone knows what the plans are for the day and that there’s a bus to take us where we need to go,” Searle said.

While Iceland wasn’t necessarily on her bucket list when she began her jet-setting ways a decade ago, Searle was convinced
after watching several prominent travel bloggers gush about the unique experiences on offer on the island nation.

“This is where the Vikings lived. The historical part of this trip is going to be amazing,” she said.

The group will fly into Reykjavik, the Icelandic capital, spending their first day at Viking World, a popular ship museum, and touring the city. On day two, they will travel to Hvolsvollur to visit Thingvellir National Park, where they’ll spend time at the Gullfoss waterfall and Geysir geothermal area.

There will also be time to mingle with Icelandic horses and visit a traditional village in Vik. Searle said she’s also looking forward to what will be a new first for her – walking on Solheimajokull Glacier. “I’ll be going for, literally, the coolest walk of my life,” Searle said.

On their penultimate day, guests will visit a new state-of-the-art lava centre in Reykjavik to learn about the inner workings of volcanoes.

The country is a hotbed for volcanic activity. Over the past 15 years there have been two major eruptions, at Eyjafjallajokull in 2010, which ejected roughly 250 million tons of ash into the atmosphere, wreaking havoc on global travel; and the 2023 eruption of Fagradalsfjall.

The last day will be spent at the Blue Lagoon, a natural geothermal spa that has been named one of the 25 wonders of the world by National Geographic.

Searle is hosting a community presentation June 16, where people can learn more about the trip. It’s taking place at the Haliburton
Curling Club at 6:30 p.m. Anyone who signs up early will get $300 off their package, which can be paid for monthly, Searle said. For the trip to go ahead she needs to register at least six people.

“I watch a lot of travel shows and bloggers and Iceland is one of the few places that I’ve never heard a single person say ‘well,
that wasn’t worth it’,” Searle said. “This is your chance to immerse yourself in history, culture and stunning natural beauty – it’s
going to be magical.”