Galway-Cavendish and Harvey
Galway-Cavendish and Harvey is a township in the rural, mostly wooded northern section of Peterborough County, Ontario, Canada.
The municipality was formed in 1998 through an amalgamation of the Township of Galway & Cavendish and the Township of Harvey.
Communities
The township comprises the communities of Buckhorn, Buckhorn Lake Estates, Burleigh Falls, Catchacoma, Crystal Lake, Ewan, Flynns, Fortescue, Kawartha Hideaway, Lakehurst, Mississauga Landing, Mount Irwin, Nogies Creek, Oak Shores Estates, Point Pleasant, Rockcroft and Sugar Bush.
Geography
Galway-Cavendish-Harvey is home to Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park, which is set around Catchacoma Lake and Mississauga Lake. Three violent summer wind storms have hit this area doing damage to property and forest, one in 1927, then 1995 and in 2006. The area is also a popular cottaging and recreational area.
The community is a scenic location where Paleozoic limestone formations yield to the underlying Precambrian bedrock of pink gneiss; as a result, it attracts a large number of summer residents and visitors. The lakes above and below the falls, and even the falls themselves, are studded with numerous pine-covered rocky islands, similar to the Thousand Islands region.
History
The area is rich in early First Nations sites, and many First Nations members live in the community year-round or seasonally on some of the islands in Lovesick Lake.
The old Harvey fire tower was located at the southern edge of Mississagua Lake (then known as Gull Lake). It was one of the 320 towers in the province used as an early warning in the detection of forest fires. Part of the Lindsay Forest District of towers this tower had its own phone line connection back to headquarters. The phone line still runs through the forest and up the hill to the old towers footings. In 1927 the Harvey tower was made of wood, but a hurricane came through and blew it over. Parts of the tower were found miles away. A newer wood tower was built in its place, that is, until 1938 when a light steel tower was erected. The tower system was abandoned by 1970 when aerial detection became favoured.
