Secondary Highway 523, commonly referred to as Highway 523, is a
provincially maintained highway in the
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
province of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. The highway is a north–south route in
Nipissing District which follows the historic
Madawaska Colonization Road. The highway begins at the Nipissing–
Hastings
Hastings () is a large seaside town and borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England,
east to the county town of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to the north-west ...
boundary, where it continues south to
Highway 127. It ends at
Highway 60 in the village of
Madawaska. The route was assumed as a provincial highway in 1956.
Route description
Highway 523 begins at the boundary between the Hastings County and Nipissing District, east of
Algonquin Provincial Park. From here the road continues south as the Madawaska Road to
Maynooth, where it meets the Peterson Road and Hastings Road, all former
Colonization Roads which served to open the northern
frontier
A frontier is the political and geographical area near or beyond a boundary. A frontier can also be referred to as a "front". The term came from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"—the region of a country that fronts o ...
to settlement in the 1850s. North of the boundary, the Highway begins and is known as Cross Lake Road. It passes through a sparsely populated region dotted with lakes and
muskeg
Muskeg (Ojibwe: mashkiig; cr, maskīk; french: fondrière de mousse, lit. ''moss bog'') is a peat-forming ecosystem found in several northern climates, most commonly in Arctic and boreal areas. Muskeg is approximately synonymous with bog or ...
, generally remaining straight, though curving sporadically to avoid the many obstacles presented by the
Canadian Shield
The Canadian Shield (french: Bouclier canadien ), also called the Laurentian Plateau, is a geologic shield, a large area of exposed Precambrian igneous and high-grade metamorphic rocks. It forms the North American Craton (or Laurentia), the anc ...
.
After passing thorough the village of
Cross Lake, situated on the eastern shore of a lake with the same name, the highway abruptly curves to the east for . It turns back to the north and later approaches the northwestern tip of
Bark Lake
Bark Lake is a lake on the border between the Township of Madawaska Valley in Renfrew County and the Township of South Algonquin, in Nipissing District in Ontario, Canada. It lies near Madawaska, Ontario, on the Madawaska River where the tributa ...
, on the opposite shore as
Bell Bay Provincial Park. Here the highway curves to the west and follows the
delta
Delta commonly refers to:
* Delta (letter) (Δ or δ), a letter of the Greek alphabet
* River delta, at a river mouth
* D (NATO phonetic alphabet: "Delta")
* Delta Air Lines, US
* Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 that causes COVID-19
Delta may also re ...
of the
Madawaska River, curving north just short of entering the village of Madawaska. It ends at an intersection with Highway60.
History
Highway 523 was first designated along with many of the secondary highways in Ontario in 1956.
The route was paved at the time of assumption,
and has remained the same since.
Major intersections
References
{{Ontario Secondary Highways
523