By Chad Ingram

The following are brief reports of items discussed during a June 12 Haliburton County tourism advisory committee meeting.

Committee members chose a logo for the promotion of the inaugural Hike Haliburton Festival: Winter Edition scheduled to take place on Feb. 8 and 9 2020.

A spinoff of the annual Hike Haliburton Festival which takes place each fall the winter festival will feature a series of guided snowshoe hikes throughout the county.

“We need to sort of finalize the brand” tourism director Amanda Virtanen told committee members who were given a series of logo renderings to peruse. While the event is meant to be a snowshoeing festival the word “snowshoe” was intentionally left out of its title should the weather at the time not be ideal for the activity. The event will include other activities and so a general wintertime theme was chosen instead.

The logo committee members are recommending is a variation on the original Hike Haliburton one and includes the image of a pair of snowshoes in the background. Committee recommendations must be approved by council.

Food tourism facilitator

The county has hired Thom Lambert for the position of food tourism facilitator a six-month contract position being supported by the Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs’s Rural Economic Development program. The contract began last week.

“We’re excited to have Thom on board due to his deep knowledge of the area strong relationships with a number of stakeholders and many years of project coordination and tourism expertise” Virtanen said. Lambert is involved in a number of tourism-related community organizations and is currently president of the Haliburton County Folk Society.

Lambert’s key focus will be the development of two programs – a picnic program and a wintertime restaurant program similar to Toronto’s Winterlicious – as well as working on deliverables from a food tourism survey the county conducted and organizing the Biggest Picnic Ever which is the wrap-event for the annual Hike Haliburton Festival.

Culinary tourism is one of the three pillars of the county’s tourism strategy

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HHOA funding

The County of Haliburton will give the Haliburton Highlands Outdoors Association which operates the Haliburton Fish Hatchery an annual contribution of $10000 which the HHOA uses for promotion of a number of events. This year some of those activities will include website marketing promotion of the association Catch the Ace fundraiser marketing the Gould’s Creek rehabilitation project and a September fundraising dinner.