We often take Highway 7 from Madoc to Perth, Ontario when we travel back from the in-laws.
While Highway 7 itself is 600 Km (370 miles) long and stretches from Sarnia, Ontario in the south west, all the way to Ottawa in the east, it is the portion between Madoc and Perth that we routinely travel.
The segment was built in the 1930s during the Great Depression, as a public works employment project and used hand-power to dig and build the road whenever possible. It was constructed parallel to a CP Rail corridor that was built in the 1880s but is now abandoned. The route meanders as it passes through the rough and rugged Canadian Shield. It also travels through dense forest with numerous lakes and muskeg with few services or residences along the route outside of the several towns that it connects.
Water can be found streaming out of the numerous rock faces that were blasted to make way for the highway. It is quite pretty to see the sun shine on the ice build-up in the winter.
