Why go
- The Square is genuinely unusual — an octagonal street plan with the county courthouse in the middle, laid out from the 1840s and on Canada's Register of Historic Places.
- Three public beaches and more than a mile of boardwalk under the bluff, with freighters loading salt off the pier while you swim.
- The sunsets, which the town faces and has organised its evenings around.
- The Huron Historic Gaol: a National Historic Site, in use from 1842 to 1972, and the site of the last public hanging in Canada.
History
Founded in 1827 by the Canada Company — John Galt and Dr William "Tiger" Dunlop — as the base of the million-acre Huron Tract, and named for Viscount Goderich, then prime minister of the United Kingdom. Galt laid The Square out as a radial composition said to be drawn from Roman city plans. A harbour, a lighthouse in 1847 (the first on the Canadian side of Lake Huron) and the railway in 1858 made it a grain and shipping port. In 1866 Sam Platt, drilling for oil, hit rock salt 300 metres down instead; the mine that followed now runs 530 metres below the surface and seven square kilometres out under the lake — roughly the footprint of the town above it. On 21 August 2011 an F3 tornado came ashore as a waterspout and crossed the town, killing one man, injuring 37, and destroying about a hundred houses, 25 buildings and thousands of 150-year-old trees. A year later 152 of the 170 downtown businesses had reopened; the courthouse park and its new bandshell took until 2015.
Major sights
When it rains, or when it is February
Airports
Where things are
Photographs
credit: Mhsheikholeslami · CC BY-SA 4.0
credit: Mhsheikholeslami · CC BY-SA 4.0
When to go
Beach weather and the full events calendar. Huron stays cold well into June and is at its warmest in August.
September is the pick. The lake is still warm, the beach is close to empty, and the sunsets come early enough to watch without staying up for them.
Goderich sits in the Huron snowbelt and takes lake-effect snow straight off open water. Several attractions, the gaol among them, are shut until April. The sunsets are still there.
| Goderich Celtic Roots Festival | August | A long-running Celtic music festival, with a week of Celtic College classes running alongside it. |
Getting there & around
Getting there. About an hour and a quarter north-west of London on Highway 8, and roughly three hours from Toronto. There is no passenger rail; the line into Goderich carries freight only.
Getting around. The Square is the centre and everything downtown is a few minutes from it. The beaches are down the hill on West Street — an easy walk down and a real climb back up — with parking at the bottom.