Clearview Township, Ontario
Stayner is a small village of about 4,500 people sitting on Highway 26 in Clearview Township, roughly halfway between Collingwood and Wasaga Beach. It is the administrative seat of Clearview Township, which means the municipal offices are here, but the village itself is modest. A few blocks of main street, a grocery store, some churches, a public school, and residential streets that give way to farmland within a five-minute walk in any direction. Batteaux Creek runs through the area, and the surrounding land is flat to gently rolling agricultural country.
For most of its history, Stayner was a farm service centre, the kind of place where people came to buy feed, see a dentist, or pick up mail. That role has not entirely disappeared, but the village is changing. Collingwood's housing prices have pushed buyers outward, and Stayner has become a more affordable alternative for people who work in the Collingwood area or who have retired from Toronto and want a quieter, cheaper option. New subdivisions have appeared on the edges of the village, though the pace of growth is nothing like what Collingwood or Wasaga Beach have experienced.
There is not a lot to do in Stayner itself, and residents will tell you that honestly. The appeal is the location: close enough to Collingwood's restaurants and Blue Mountain's ski hills, close enough to Wasaga Beach in summer, but without the traffic, the tourist crowds, or the property taxes. Highway 26 connects everything, and County Road 91 runs south toward Barrie and the 400 highway. It is a practical place, not a destination.
The Stayner Heritage Society maintains some local history, and the village hosts a summer farmers' market. Clearview Township as a whole includes the communities of Creemore, New Lowell, and Nottawa, but Stayner is the largest and the one with the most services. If you are looking at a map of the south Georgian Bay area and wondering where the gap is between the expensive towns, Stayner is the answer.