At Duntroon Highlands, art doesn’t hang quietly on white walls. It moves with the wind, catches the light through the trees, and asks you to look up.
Set high on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment, the Highlands Art & Tree Trail is a two-kilometre outdoor gallery winding through forest, meadow, and open viewpoints overlooking South Georgian Bay.
It is part art walk, part nature trail, part invitation to slow down—and this season, with new installations and returning works, it feels especially rooted in the landscape around it.
The 2026 trail is guided by the theme Pathway Through History & Rewilding, bringing together art, ecology, local history, and the quiet drama of a landscape being allowed to recover and evolve.
Visitors follow a marked trail through a forest that is being left to rewild as naturally as possible, a living backdrop for works that respond to the land rather than simply decorate it. The result is less like visiting an exhibition and more like moving through a conversation—between artist and tree, wind and meadow, escarpment and bay.
Among this year’s new permanent installations is Sea the Sky by Alex Glueckler, a large-scale overhead work made of suspended driftwood fish. Walking beneath it, visitors are invited to imagine themselves under the waters of Georgian Bay, while the sky remains visible above. It’s a beautiful inversion: water overhead, land underfoot, the Escarpment holding both in view.
“The inspiration for Sea the Sky came from the incredible connection between the Escarpment, our streams, and Georgian Bay,” Glueckler said in the trail’s announcement. “I wanted people to walk beneath the fish and feel immersed in that story.”
Also new this season is In Our Hands by Anke Lex, an intricate ceramic sculpture exploring collective responsibility and humanity’s relationship with nature, and The Snowflake by Jake Mealey, a kinetic metal sculpture inspired by winter, wind, and the region’s skiing heritage.
Returning artist Dermot Wilson presents Druid Spiral, a seasonal installation honouring a majestic maple visible from several points along the trail. Created with willow gathered in British Columbia and other natural materials, the piece offers one of those small but meaningful pauses the trail does so well: a reason to stop, look, and notice the forest as more than scenery.
That is the magic of the Highlands Art & Tree Trail. It doesn’t ask you to rush from one artwork to the next. It lets the walk do some of the work.
There are views, yes. There is fresh air, yes. But there is also the subtle recalibration that happens when art draws your attention back to the living world around you: the shape of a branch, the movement of grass, the shadow of a cloud, the long memory of the Escarpment beneath your feet.
Trail curator Martin Rydlo describes it as a place where people can “experience nature in a different way,” with installations that create a journey through the natural history, cultural history, and ecological future of the landscape.
As part of Health With Nature’s broader mission, the trail also speaks to the growing idea of nature wellness: that time outside, especially when paired with art, storytelling, and conservation, can support mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
That idea feels especially resonant now, as more travellers look for experiences that are restorative without being overly programmed. The Highlands Art & Tree Trail offers something simple and surprisingly layered: an hour outside, moments of wonder, and a reminder that art and nature can both change the way we pay attention.
The trail is open daily from 8 AM to 6 PM at Duntroon Highlands Resort. Visitors can pick up a trail map and stop at the clubhouse café before or after the walk, which usually takes about one hour.
Not quite a hike, not quite a gallery visit, and all the better for being somewhere in between.
Images courtesy Martin Rydlo & Town & Country Collective