Paris on the Grand, Dogs Nest, Punkeydoodle's Corner, Crotch Lake await your visit

   One-Tank Trip for Aug. 18-18

   (c) By Jim Fox

   Want to impress or create envy among your friends and co-workers?

   Just tell them you’re planning to visit Paris, with perhaps side-trips to London, Scotland and the former Berlin.

   Paris on the Seine is wonderful at this time of year – and so is Paris on the Grand.

Paris on the Grand is a pleasant and pretty tourist destination.

   For those special-interest tourists who “collect places and destinations,” these namesakes are “one-tank trips” for people living in southern Ontario.

   The province is filled with special places that have links to historic world cities and towns – along with dozens of quirky and funny monikers.

   How about Dogs Nest, Punkeydoodle's Corner, Turkey Point, Wawa and the Ojibway’s Ochiichagwe’Babigo’Ining.

   There’s also Ball’s Falls, Bastard, Crotch Lake, Dorking, Frogmore, Happyland, New Hamburg, Pain Court and Swastika, just to name a few.

   Yes, you’ve found it if you’re ever in Eureka, northwest of Sudbury, and now what?

   Why spend all the money and time getting to the other Paris when also it’s just 10 minutes northwest of Brantford in southern Ontario?

   Stroll the cobblestone streets or paddle the rivers of Paris, says Brittany Hunter of Brant County Tourism.

   It’s been voted “Canada’s Prettiest Little Town” by Harrowsmith Magazine, she adds.

   The town of about 12,300 people is located where the Grand and Nith rivers converge right downtown.

   It got its name from the plaster of Paris type of product made from the mined gypsum that lay along the river bed and banks.

   The busy downtown is packed with open-air cafes, bakeries, cheese and candy stores, specialty shops and boutiques along with numerous fine-dining and casual restaurants.

   Paris is best known for its cobblestone buildings and has the lavishly restored historic boutique hotel, The Arlington.

   Still in Brant County and along the way to the Lake Erie shoreline and Port Dover is the rural community of Scotland.

   Stepped in history, the area around nearby Oakland is where the last battle in the War of 1812 on Canadian soil was fought.

   A recommended stop for a picnic is Scotland’s Optimist Butterfly Park where perennials and annuals attract butterflies. theheartofontario.com/operator/brant-tourism

   Doggy, doggy

The Dogs Nest highway sign was stolen so many times, it hasn’t been replaced.

   Perhaps the most unusual community names in Ontario are Dogs Nest and Punkeydoodle’s Corner.

   There have been many “tails” about the origin of the Dogs Nest name that now is a hamlet with just one residence east of Port Dover, said Ted Willey of Norfolk County Tourism.

   Scott Gillies, former curator at the Eva Brook Donly Museum, said long-time residents of the area related differing stories.

   “The gist of them all had to do with a dog having puppies at the former tavern in the hamlet” and after a stay, people have called it a “dog’s nest of a place.”

An early painting by W.E. Cantelon in the Eva Brook Donly Museum shows the two former taverns and few houses in Dogs Nest.

   “The Dogs Nest highway signs were regularly stolen and at one point the county opted not to continue to putting them up as they seemed to end up in local man-caves, garages, etc.,” Gillies said. norfolkculture.ca

A much photographed heritage community sign at Punkeydoodle’s Corner.

   In Punkeydoodle, legend has it the hamlet where Waterloo Region, Oxford and Perth counties intersect was named after a German tavern keeper’s garbled version of “Yankee Doodle” that sounded more like “punkeydoodle,” Heritage Wilmot reports. wilmot.ca

   For a taste of Germany, visit the former Berlin that was renamed Kitchener in 1916.

   The city’s Germanic heritage comes alive each year at Oktoberfest, marking its 50th year as the second largest Bavarian festival after Munich’s, this year from Oct. 5 to 15.

 

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Jim Fox can be reached at onetanktrips@hotmail.com

For more One-Tank Trips: http://1tanktrips.blogspot.ca