Ontario’s Best Butter Tart Festival is an annual event held in the town of Midland on Georgian Bay. For one day only, the streets of this normally quiet little town is packed with thousands of visitors eager to satisfy their cravings for these sweet treats. The downtown festival also includes typical street foods, arts and crafts, and live entertainment along the picturesque waterfront – but undoubtedly the main attraction is the humble butter tart, the quintessential Canadian dessert.
With over 50 vendors from all over the province and 150,000 butter tarts on hand, this is indeed Ontario’s sweetest day. A contest judges the best tarts with traditional and contemporary flavours from both professional and home bakers. Many of the more popular vendors sell out well before noon.
This year, my friends and I car-camped at Six Mile Lake Provincial Park, about 30 minutes drive from Midland. The plan was to get an early start on the festivities (last year many of the stalls were sold out) but the thoroughfare was already very busy when we arrived. Queues were long and by lunch time the place was truly packed! Seems the festival is getting more popular every year, which is great for the local business community. Luckily there were still plenty of tarts available, so we did get our rich and gooey sweet fix (and then some).
Return visit next year? Definitely!