Spend the day together at the Quinte Exhibition Event Centre. Hear featured speakers, and bring your own questions to the panel discussion: submit any woodlot question when you register, and we’ll choose panelists who can tackle as many as possible. Browse the trade show and bid in the silent auction between sessions, and catch up with fellow woodlot owners over meals and breaks. Stay for the evening banquet to finish the day.
Doors open
Registration and breakfast. The trade show and silent auction open at the same time.
Morning
Opening presentation
Traditional Chief Richard Lalande (Chief Dream Hunter) and Hunt Master Pierre Laprise (Hunter’s Eye), Tay River Algonquian Community
Featured speakers
Dr. Wayne Bell, Forest Ecology and Silviculture Research Scientist (retired)
Mark McDermid, Seed and Stock Specialist, Forests Canada
Midday
Catered lunch
Sit down with fellow woodlot owners, speakers, and exhibitors. Lunch is included with your ticket.
Afternoon
Woodlot Clinic panel
Ask anything about your woodlot. Submit your question when you register, and the panel will be shaped by what attendees want to know.
OWA General Meeting (AGM) and OWA Awards
Silent auction winners are announced at the end of the afternoon.
All day
Trade show and silent auction
Meet exhibitors and place your bids during breaks. Members of the public can visit with a $25 trade show ticket.
Evening
Banquet
Doors open at , with dinner to follow.
A detailed schedule will be posted closer to the event. Times may change.
Day 2 · Sunday, April 25
Five tours across the Quinte Region
Visit mills, forests, dunes, and caves around the Quinte Region with local guides. There are five tours; you choose one when you register. Seats are first come, first served.
Every tour includes lunch and bus transportation from the Quinte Exhibition Event Centre (QEXEC), 30 Exhibition Way, Belleville. Breakfast is served at QEXEC starting one hour before the buses leave.
Tours 1 and 2 are included with full-conference and Sunday tour tickets. Tours 3 to 5 are upgrades at $15 more per person.
Tour 1Included
Built from the Forest
See the new Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital, built with mass timber inside and out, and hear how it was designed. Then head to Edwin County Farms, a 700-acre working landscape with a native tree nursery, a mature hardwood preserve along old stone walls, and wood-fired maple syrup. See how wood from our forests is building the future, from the hospital to the homestead.
Visits
Prince Edward County Memorial Hospital, Picton Edwin County Farms, Picton
Seats
48
Cost
Included
Meals
Breakfast and lunch included
Good to know
Unheated barn: bring a warm layer
Tour 2Included
Big Logs and Ancient Stone
Start the day on the easy trails of Crowe Bridge Conservation Area with conservation forester Tim Trustham, through a rare alvar-karst forest of limestone, waterfalls, glacial boulders, and walking ferns along the Crowe River. After a boxed lunch by the river, visit Greg Cole’s Stanwood Sawmill: a diesel circular mill built partly from parts of the pioneer-era Allan Mills, and a custom electric band mill that cuts logs up to 65 inches wide, surrounded by slabs, cookies, and one-of-a-kind cuts.
Hear the wheel turn at O’Hara Mill, one of only four water-powered heritage sawmills in Ontario, as volunteers saw logs the way it was done in the 1800s. Explore the blacksmith shop, carriage house, one-room schoolhouse, and family home museum, enjoy a homemade lunch, then walk the homestead trails with forester and writer Peter Kuitenbrouwer.
Visits
O’Hara Mill Homestead and Conservation Area, Madoc
Seats
48
Cost
$15 upgrade per person
Meals
Breakfast and lunch included
Good to know
One hill on the trail may be tricky for some
Tour 4Upgrade
Shifting Sands
Find out how a lake community and Quinte Conservation are pushing back invasive phragmites on West Lake, then explore Sandbanks, the world’s largest freshwater baymouth sand bar and dune system. Walk among old-growth white cedar and maple growing right on the dunes with the park’s chief naturalist.
Visits
West Lake, Picton Sandbanks Provincial Park, Picton
Seats
48
Cost
$15 upgrade per person
Meals
Breakfast and lunch included
Good to know
Walk of 1 to 1.5 hours; soft sand may be tricky for some
Tour 5Upgrade
Deep Roots
Start the morning at the Kenhte:ke Seed Sanctuary and Learning Centre on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory to learn how seeds, culture, and the land are being cared for together. After a pizza lunch at Signal Brewery, on the grounds of the historic Corby distillery, head underground into Tyendinaga Cavern and Caves, the largest known natural cavern in Ontario, and see the limestone that shapes which trees grow here.
Visits
Kenhte:ke Seed Sanctuary, Deseronto Signal Brewery, Corbyville Tyendinaga Cavern and Caves, Tyendinaga
Seats
34
Cost
$15 upgrade per person
Meals
Breakfast and lunch included
Good to know
The cave has stairs and is not wheelchair accessible
Tour details may change as plans are finalized.
Choose your tour when you register
Seats are limited and go first come, first served.
