Our Story

1990s

In 1990, Rena Upitis, Professor of Education and former Dean of Education at Queen's University, purchased a 204-acre property in South Frontenac, Ontario. She intended to use the land as recreational space for herself and her family. The land was previously farmed by Irish settler Patrick Noonan. For thousands of years prior, the land was used for hunting, trapping, fishing and gathering by the Anishinaabe nations, and likely other Indigenous peoples as well.

When Upitis bought the land, she spent several years exploring the acreage and marking trails, as well as establishing a laneway to the meadow, known in the area as “Field Number 9” (and now home to the 9th meadow apiary). By 1995, the trails and laneway were well established, and Upitis took on the task, with the help of family, friends, and high school students, of building a cabin at the eastern end of the property at Paddy’s Lake, named after the Irish settler, Patrick Noonan. The cabin, made of timber frame and rough cut pine, took four years to build (1993-1997), largely because of the challenge of hauling building materials across the rough terrain, over a kilometre from Field Number 9 where the laneway ends.

Throughout the 1990s, Upitis ran several high school co-op placements on the land, during which time students learned to cut trails and helped build the Paddy’s Lake cabin. Several of the co-ops involved students from the Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute (KCVI) (1992-1996), and for two years (1996-1998) , a French language based co-op was delivered in partnership with Dr. Hawkins Sr. Public (Extended Immersion) and Port Hope High School, under the leadership of Principal Helen Turnbull, who later became one of the Founding Directors of Wintergreen Studios.

2000s

In 2002, Wintergreen's property became part of the Frontenac Arch Biosphere Reserve (a UNESCO designation), due in part to its ecological significance as a land bridge between the Canadian Shield and the Adirondack Mountains.

The next building project at the lake was a frame cabin, affectionately known as the Parthenon. Built in 2005, the cabin overlooks the Marsh on the south side of Paddy’s Lake. As with all of the other cabins, there is no electricity or running water, but there is a wood stove that provides ample heat in the winter and a small area for cooking. People often ask why the cabin is called the Parthenon. It was named when someone quipped that since we were carrying in beautiful architectural salvage for the porch, along with bags and bags of concrete for the foundation, why not just carry in marble and make it out of stone, like the Parthenon? The name stuck. (When the founder’s daughter was 4 years old, she asked why everyone laughed when they learned the cabin was called the Parthenon. When she was shown a photo of the Parthenon in Greece, she responded with, “My Mama’s Parthenon is better. It has a roof.”)

In the summer of 2006, Upitis learned to build with natural and re-purposed materials at the Earthwood Building School in West Chazy, New York. Upon her return, she designed and—again with help from family and friends—built a cordwood guest cabin on the property, called the Hobbit House, which she started in March 2007 and finished in November of the same year.

In April that same year, Upitis attended a conference in Chicago. As told by Lindy Mechefske, a long-time friend of Wintergreen:

She was standing on a busy street corner in downtown Chicago. That is when the mind-numbing reality of being one of 17,000 delegates at the international educators’ conference hit her. She had spent four days entombed in air-tight skyscrapers. It had been raining incessantly. She had watched spring being delivered to the Windy City by large trucks that carried loads of mulch and the fully grown tulips that were planted in the city’s concrete-box flower beds. The former Dean of the Faculty of Education still recalls the moment of epiphany she had as she thought about all of this. She knew what she wanted to do: build an off-grid, environmentally focused, educational retreat that would connect the land, its visitors, and its inhabitants. (Mechefske, 2010, Queen’s Alumni Review, Issue 4, p. 58).

Upitis decided, then and there, to create a year-round facility to help bring balance back to the land and to the lives of people who might visit there.

"Educational, sustainable, green, off-grid connected to the land … these were the things that mattered to me" - Rena Upitis

One week later, in spring 2007, Upitis chose the name "Wintergreen" for the facility, a nod to the plant that grew on the South Frontenac property and that could be spotted year round, even, as its name implies, in the winter months. She began sourcing local straw for sustainable building construction and assembled an initial board of directors. These founding directors were Rena Upitis, Serena Manson, Ann Patteson, Helen Turnbull, and Katharine Smithrim. In September 2007, Wintergreen Studios was incorporated as a not-for-profit organization, marked by the inaugural meeting of the five directors. In July 2008, Wintergreen was granted charitable status.

Construction of the main facility, known simply as the Lodge, began in June 2008. Many of the builders were volunteers, including literally hundreds of people who hoisted the bales of straw into place, including Upitis herself. Wintergreen Studios also hired Quantum Renewable Energy to install the solar system, Anglin Group Ltd. to frame the building and oversee plumbing and electrical, and Camel's Back Construction for the straw bale and plaster work. Two smaller cordwood storage buildings called the Smoke House and the Root Cellar were also built during this time. By December 2008, all three structures were complete and the first programs were offered at Wintergreen.

In 2009, a wood-fired Sauna was built on the property using the same cordwood design. Next came a guest cabin called the Meadow Hut in 2010, a small cordwood structure that was built as part of a cordwood workshop hosted by Wintergreen.

2010s

In the summer of 2012, the first cabin using a combination of straw bale and cordwood was built during a course at Wintergreen. This most recent cabin built on the property is called the Beach House. Like the Parthenon, the name is perhaps a misnomer, since there is no beach or water in sight! It’s called the Beach House because of the large pile of sand that was needed to mix the plaster (imagine a sandy beach). The beach theme continued with the blue glass wave on the western wall (and a few shells and fish that, upon close inspection, can be found in the plaster surrounding the cordwood).

In 2017, Wintergreen Studios celebrated their 10-year anniversary, the same year that the stone labyrinth was constructed. It was in 2017, also, that a 12-acre plot of land, which includes the Lodge and other small buildings, was severed from the original 204 acres. That 12-acre plot now belongs to Wintergreen Studios, and Wintergreen continues to lease the remaining acres from Upitis for its programs and retreats.

In 2019, the 9th Meadow Apiary was built just south of the lodge to support beekeeping programs. Since then, Wintergreen continues to develop new programs, while hosting concerts, retreats, and other events.

Other Built Features

A Camping Meadow sits just north of the lodge. The area offers a camping site for overnight guests and an outdoor location for large and small events. It features several wooden tent pads, a fire pit, and an outhouse. An outdoor kitchen is located on the edge of the meadow, near the cordwood Root Cellar.

Wintergreen's Labyrinth is a mowed winding path marked by stones. It is located east of the lodge across from the Meadow Hut. The Labyrinth was built by guests at Wintergreen under the guidance of Labyrinth facilitator Drew Strickland. Each season, Wintergreen hosts Labyrinth Walks where guests are guided through a walking meditation experience to welcome the Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice, Autumn Equinox, and Winter Solstice.

In the spring of 2019, Wintergreen built a bee yard called the '9th Meadow Apiary with guidance from Alex Pederson of the Limestone Beekeepers’ Guild. An electric fence surrounds the apiary to keep black bears and other large animals from harming the hives.

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