I never thought I’d see the day when I’d make the trip all the way to Barrie, but then skip out.
The Barrie Automotive Flea Market was a shadow—of a shadow—of its former self this fall. Both Eric Vettoretti and Dave Steckley made their own respective trips there for opening day on Thursday, and they found shockingly little. Eric described it as “...really not worth it. We found, at most, ten vendors with plates and they all sucked.” The wind has been blowing this way for a while now, but the wet weather forecast might also have influenced the result.
A few years ago, when the fun factor at Barrie started trending downward, I started bringing my son along and changed the focus of the journey to be a camping / fishing adventure with a side visit to Barrie. This year, Barrie was certain to be a disappointment, so I kept my mind open to alternatives.
Kinmount House Bed & Breakfast, 6 Cluxton Street.
The drive along the forested Opeongo highways and through Bancroft was dark and misty. It was a bad weekend to spend in a tent, but luckily I'd booked a room at the Kinmount House B&B. We stayed there last year and had a great time. We found a surprising amount of things to keep us busy in Kinmount, so why not stay there again?
When morning came, it was very cool outside, but the rain had dried out. Saturday is the day that I usually reserve for the flea market, but given the poor reviews this year, I was in no hurry to get there. Then I had an idea.
My son and I stopped at the Kirkfield lift lock along the way to Barrie. The lock marks the maximum elevation along the Trent-Severn Canal, which links Georgian Bay with Lake Ontario. It uses a hydraulic system to lift one giant tub of water while lowering a second. A county highway passes beneath the lock, so the whole thing is a marvel of engineering. There were no boats, as it wasn’t yet open for the day.
The highway under the Kirkfield lift lock, and the view of the lock from the lower portion of the canal.
I drove past Barrie, and set my sights on Cookstown, about 20 minutes further. I learned about it last year: Cookstown hosts an antique market on the same day as the Barrie Market, and I figured we might as well check it out. Dave Steckley had mentioned that things were much more interesting there.
The Cookstown show was fairly small by area, but the vendors were interesting. There were no plate specialists there, but a few vendors had some boxes for me to dig through. I didn’t find anything I specifically needed, and I didn’t really want to buy something just to flip it, since I have plenty of traders presently. There were lots of advertising signs, some road signs, and lots of small glass cases to look through. You never know if there might be a rare windshield stamp waiting to be bought.
We were done in Cookstown after about an hour. It was worth checking out, and I’ll keep it in my rolodex for future Septembers if I’m in the area. The entry fee was comparable to the Barrie Automotive Flea Market, but it seems as though we saw more of interest in Cookstown in a shorter period of time.
Display cases and boxes with items of interest to a plate collector in Cookstown.
We rolled up Highway 400 toward Barrie, and soon stopped at the 400 Antique Market. I hadn’t been there in at least five years. I don’t often find much there, as many of the plates are overpriced, but there’s still lots to see, and the food vendors make for a decent snack. We spent another hour there before heading back to the car.
The most promising plate vendor at the 400 Market.
It was past noon, and I promised my son some fishing time. As I drove up Highway 11 through Oro-Medonte, I considered whether the BAFM was worth it. I exited at Line 7, and drove past the entrance gate (usually just for exiting, but there wasn’t enough traffic for them to get picky). I glanced across the show field, and saw two or three show cars where ordinarily there would be a couple dozen. I decided I wasn’t in the mood to stop in for what was sure to be a complete waste of time— So I continued right past the market without stopping, and we checked out the shore of Lake Simcoe to try and find a fishing spot. It was too shallow there, so we just drove back toward Kinmount and spent time at a spot we discovered last summer.
We didn’t catch anything, and I didn’t come away with any plates. If I was younger, that would have bugged me, but there’s enough to do in the area that it’s a nice little respite from regular weekday life. We headed back to Kinmount when evening came, because there’s a little “must do” stop to make that we couldn’t do the previous year. As it turned out, this stop made our entire trip.
Highlands Cinemas is a Kinmount institution. Kinmount is a town of 300 people—too small to have its population numbered on the blue signs marking the town limits— But it’s home to a five-plex movie theatre. It’s hidden on the back side of a hill, and if you’re not looking, you might miss it completely, as I’ve been doing for the past two decades that I’ve been driving through Kinmount to get to Barrie.
Highlands Cinemas lobby, with box office on the right and snack bar down the hall.
The cinemas were originally constructed by Keith Stata in the mid 1970s. The entire establishment is his labour of love to films, projection, and pop culture. It has a fully-staffed snack bar, well-supplied with buttered popcorn and candy for all. Each of the indoor cinema halls holds roughly 50 people in stadium-seated comfort. They feature first-run films, with the same quality of picture and sound that you’d get from the larger theatres in the burbs. The only difference is that the screens are about eight feet high, and there are no endless previews before the movies start. Eight feet isn’t huge as far as screens go, but when you’re no more than 30 feet away, it doesn’t matter.
Our view inside cinema 1. It was a delightful experience!
Who cares, you might think. I can see movies anytime. Well not like this. The cinemas open an hour before the first show, and you’ll need the time, because the corridors double as a museum. Stata has been buying old film projectors and memorabilia for decades. As old downtown cinemas fade and close, he is there to buy the seats—the reels—the signs—the posters—the vintage pinball tables—the marquees—and add them to his own establishment. The museum features a decade-by-decade history of cinema and pop culture. And what better way to indicate the passing decades than licence plates?
Yep, he’s got plates on display. Lots of really nice original Ontario plates through the years (the oldest being 1918), and various other places in Canada and the US. Only a few are pictured here. You’ll also see King’s Highway signs, and even a city limit sign from Santa Barbara. The museum is a labyrinthine set of corridors. To see it all, you’ll have to head down side halls and make U-turns at dead ends. When you’re done, you can buy popcorn and then relax with the movie you’ve chosen (we kept it light and watched Despicable Me 4).
Keith Stata and Highlands Cinemas are featured in the 2024 documentary, The Movie Man. I’ve been meaning to watch it, and I’ll do that as soon as I post this article.
There’s so much more to experience at Highlands Cinemas than I’m prepared to fit into this article. It opens in the spring and goes into hibernation in the fall, and it’s popular with locals and the many cottagers in the Haliburton and Kawartha Highlands. I was there with my son on a rainy Saturday night, and the place was packed. Seriously, look this place up and find a way to visit.
View of downtown Kinmount in mid-evening from our B&B. Our movie finished first; most people are still at the cinema, which is just around the bend in the distance.
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