Heritage & Culture.
The Comfort Maple at 636 Metler Road, North Pelham, is widely held to be one of the oldest sugar maples in Canada — designated a heritage tree under the Ontario Heritage Act in 2000 and stewarded by the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority since 1961. The Fonthill Kame, the highest point of land in the Niagara Region (about 75 m above the surrounding land, 259 m above sea level), sits directly beneath the village of Fonthill and is recognized as a Niagara Geopark geosite.
The brief.
The Comfort Maple visit is short and free — a small NPCA parking area off Metler Road leads to a fenced perimeter around the tree; the site is open year-round. The Fonthill Kame is more a geographic context than a single visitable site — it's the kame on which the village of Fonthill and most of central Pelham sit, and it's visible from the village core and from Highway 20.
Pelham's five historic hamlets — Fonthill, Fenwick, Ridgeville, Effingham, and North Pelham — anchor the town's pre-Confederation rural settlement pattern; the Town of Pelham heritage page lists registered heritage properties across all five. The town sits within the traditional territory of the Haudenosaunee and the Anishinaabe; the Haudenosaunee Confederacy's annual deer harvest at Short Hills under the Nanfan Treaty is a defining feature of the park's autumn calendar.
3. places.
- 01
Comfort Maple Conservation Area
636 Metler Road, North Pelham; sugar maple designated under the Ontario Heritage Act (2000); donated to NPCA 1961.
- 02
Fonthill Kame-Delta
Highest point of land in the Niagara Region (259 m a.s.l.); kame moraine; Niagara Geopark geosite; visible from the village of Fonthill.
- 03
Pelham historic hamlets
Fonthill, Fenwick, Ridgeville, Effingham, North Pelham — pre-Confederation rural settlement pattern.
Today's read.
Cold but firm — winter-ready conditions · light winds · clean air.