Discovering the Keyhole
By: Richard Edwards
Recently, I took some out-of-town family members on a hike through my favourite Side Trail, “The Keyhole.” It got me thinking about the origin of that unique “hole in the wall” and who discovered it: the late Glen Best.
Glen was born, raised, and made a living on the family farm, which abutted the Escarpment below what is now the Nottawasaga Bluffs Conservation Area.
As a youth, he spent countless hours exploring the cliffs, cracks, and crevices that abound in the area. Not surprisingly, being so close to nature, Glen became a naturalist keenly aware of the birds and plants of the region. During his youthful wanderings, as he once told me, he found a small opening between two crevices through which he could crawl on hands and knees. This became a hideaway for him and a few friends. What great fun it must have been! Like passing through a passage into another world! All children love secret places, but few find one as distinctive as Glen’s Keyhole.
When the Bruce Trail became part of the local scene in the ’70s, Glen got involved in the Club and, at one point, revealed his secret. In the memoir entitled “Scarp, Bay and Sky,“ Jack Poste (a former trail pioneer himself), in a chapter devoted to the Bruce Trail, mentions the following: “Glen Best has played a dual role as a landowner and as a working member of the Club. Long before the Bruce Trail existed, he established trails on the part of the escarpment on his father’s farm.
“One day, during a rainstorm, Glen, a Nottawasaga Conservation Authority staff member, and I established the Keyhole Trail. This is still a very popular trail, especially with children, because of the challenge of scrambling into a cave and squeezing through a hole in the rock face. Anyone a little squeamish about the ‘squeeze’ can detour around. It is so cool down there in the summer that when I took my grandson, he declared to his mother that he had been in a refrigerator.”
In the book, Jack doesn’t indicate the date of the keyhole trail opening, but he was active with the BTA during the ’70s and ’80s, so it likely occurred then.
As a contemporary youth might say, “It’s a cool spot for a hike.” The terrain is rough, so care is needed, but once you get through the keyhole, go with your imagination.
Born in 1939, Glen’s childhood explorations must have been in the 1940s and 50s. Glen was in his 86th year when he passed away on February 21, 2015. His farm was sold when he and his sister entered BayHaven nursing home in Collingwood.
The Keyhole Side Trail is marked on Map 22, near km 18.7 of the Bruce Trail Guidebook.