A Living Landscape
Situated on the Niagara Escarpment, a designated UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve
Winterhill Forest Farm is set within one of Canada’s most biologically diverse landscapes, the Carolinian forest zone, and rests on the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO-designated World Biosphere Reserve within Ontario’s Greenbelt. In recognition of our stewardship, the City of Hamilton honoured us with a Cultural Heritage Landscape Award for our care of the land’s ecological richness and historical character as a working farm and animal sanctuary.
The Bees of Winterhill
Our honey bees forage across forest edges, meadows, and gardens, gathering nectar from the diverse flora of the Carolinian forest, including tulip tree, locust, wild cherry, sassafras, and sugar and silver maples. This diversity gives Winterhill honey its distinctive character, shaped by the trees and flowers of this region. Harvested in small batches and gently extracted without heating, pasteurizing, or filtering, our honey is raw, artisanal, and richly flavourful, available only seasonally and in limited quantities.
Winterhill Gardens
Our gardens blend purpose and beauty, from shaded forest edges and a productive roadside plot to ponds bordered by mass plantings. At the centre, a French potager brings together vegetables, fruits, flowers, and herbs in raised beds lined with ash boards milled from our property. We eat from the gardens seasonally and preserve what we grow. Compost from our animals nourishes the soil without pesticides or chemicals, and the soil is never tilled, allowing it to retain its natural structure and fertility, so the gardens thrive in balance with the land and those who tend them.
The Forest
The Water
Spring Creek flows through the land year-round, providing cool, fresh water that sustains wildlife and surrounding habitats. Three ponds add further diversity, providing habitat and breeding grounds for frogs, salamanders, newts, and turtles. Waterfowl such as wood ducks, mallards, and mergansers visit seasonally, while green and great blue herons forage along the edges. The creek and ponds supply water for our gardens, linking natural systems to the productive parts of the farm. Together, they form a living network that nourishes plants, animals, and people alike.
Land History
In the 1960s, this property was home to a small, privately owned amusement park. Beverly Fantasy Land featured rides, remote-control boats on “Lake Haveagoodtime,” and a train that ran around the hill known as “the mountain.” The Gingerbread House, once a hotdog stand, still stands, and old signs remain as playful reminders of that time. Though most attractions are gone, these traces tell the story of a lively chapter in the land’s past, long before it became the working farm and animal sanctuary it is today.
