Port Hope Visitor Guide 2019
This is a place where you can slow down. If the weekend was a place, if the weekend was a philosophy, a conversation, a memory – this is where it would be. Port Hope is a place where you can shake hands with a farmer, snuggle a goat, take a dip in a cool lake, eat a meal fresh-picked from a local field, and breathe it all in. There’s room here. There’s quiet. There’s slow. And there are more ways to enjoy your day than weekends in a year. Come enjoy craft food, drinks and sunsets by the water. Explore quaint streets and scenic country roads. It’s the weekend.
This is a place where you can slow down. If the weekend was a place, if the weekend was a philosophy, a conversation, a memory – this is where it would be.
Port Hope is a place where you can shake hands with a farmer, snuggle a goat, take a dip in a cool lake, eat a meal fresh-picked from a local field, and breathe it all in. There’s room here. There’s quiet. There’s slow. And there are more ways to enjoy your day than weekends in a year. Come enjoy craft food, drinks and sunsets by the water. Explore quaint streets and scenic country roads. It’s the weekend.
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PORT HOPE SIGNATURE EVENT<br />
Roland Bowman has about 15 tractors collected on his farm. They’re real-deal vintage<br />
tractors like the kind he used to ride on with his dad when he was little to help out with haying<br />
and planting. He has restored them and every year, he brings a couple to the <strong>Port</strong> <strong>Hope</strong> Fair<br />
for the antique tractor races and parade that follows the heavy horse teams. He keeps them<br />
out for show with the <strong>Hope</strong> Agricultural Heritage Club display.<br />
“You’ve got to be interested in old tractors,” he says of the heritage event at the annual<br />
September fair. “For some of us older guys, it takes us back to working on the farm as kids. You<br />
know, it’s a good life, farming. And it’s been good to raise my boys on the farm.”<br />
For Bowman, who has farmed his 70 acres in <strong>Port</strong> <strong>Hope</strong> for 40 years, the fair is a community’s<br />
proud tribute to its agriculture roots. Settlers first cleared the land here in the early 1800s,<br />
planted crops and raised cattle. Bowman grows wheat and soybeans, and breeds Angus<br />
cattle and sheep, which got his three sons<br />
“For some of us older guys,<br />
interested in the local 4-H clubs growing up. His<br />
it takes us back to working on youngest son who lives at home has beehives (and<br />
the farm as kids. You know, a job off the farm). You’ll see his cut comb honey in<br />
it’s a good life, farming.” – the honey competition at the fair. Bowman’s wife<br />
Roland Bowman<br />
Charlene enters her jams and needlework. Bowman<br />
has helped run the farm and field crops competition<br />
and others since the mid-1970s. “I’ve just always been involved. The fair’s grown, there’s so<br />
much going on. It’s an education for people.”<br />
And it is an interactive education, with<br />
sheep herding and sheep-shearing<br />
demos, horse shows, competitions for<br />
home baking, preserves and apple pies.<br />
The <strong>Port</strong> <strong>Hope</strong> Fair, one of Canada’s<br />
longest running fairs, is marking its 188th<br />
year of bringing urbanites and rural<br />
residents together for a community<br />
celebration in the <strong>Port</strong> <strong>Hope</strong> Agricultural<br />
Park on Elgin Street South at Ward Street.<br />
There’s live music, date night, axethrowing<br />
and a carnival midway with<br />
darts and duck ponds to test your skills—and classic rides like the Tea Cup and the Scrambler<br />
to test your stomach. Don’t miss the corn dogs!<br />
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<strong>2019</strong> PORT HOPE VISITOR GUIDE<br />
<strong>2019</strong> PORT HOPE VISITOR GUIDE<br />
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