The Tree Museum is one of the strangest and most wonderful places in Muskoka: an outdoor art gallery with no walls, no roof and no admission fee, set in undeveloped forest on the Precambrian Shield near Ryde Lake, just east of Gravenhurst. Founded in 1997 by artist E.J. Lightman, who still sponsors it (co-curated with Anne O’Callaghan), it invites artists to make work in — and surrender it to — the landscape itself.
Since 1998, some 17 national and international artists, including Ed Pien, Tim Whiten, Peter von Tiesenhausen and Jaffa Lam, have installed site-specific works along the trails. Some pieces are permanent; others are deliberately left to decay with wind, rain and time, which is rather the point: the art explores humanity’s relationship with nature by letting nature have the last word. QR codes on the works tell their stories.
Visiting is half hike, half gallery: it’s open June 1 to October 30, self-guided, free, and reached by a rugged 2.6-mile trail over uneven, rocky ground (the museum begins about 1.5 km from the small parking area; facilities amount to an outhouse, and it is not wheelchair accessible). Come in proper shoes, give it time, and let the Shield and the art share the silence.