Secondary Highway 523, commonly referred to as Highway 523, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 province of Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

. The highway is a 20.1 kilometres (12.5 mi) north–south route in Nipissing District which follows the historic Madawaska Colonization Road. The highway begins at the Nipissing-Hastings boundary, where it continues south to Highway 127. It ends at Highway 60 in the village of Madawaska.

Route description

Highway 523 begins at the boundary between the Hastings County and Nipissing District, east of Algonquin Provincial Park

Algonquin Provincial Park

Algonquin Provincial Park is a provincial park located between Georgian Bay and the Ottawa River in Central Ontario, Canada, mostly within the Unorganized South Part of Nipissing District. Established in 1893, it is the oldest provincial park in Canada. Additions since its creation have increased...

. From here the road continues south as the Madawaska Road to Maynooth

Maynooth

Maynooth is a town in north County Kildare, Ireland. It is home to a branch of the National University of Ireland, a Papal University and Ireland's main Roman Catholic seminary, St. Patrick's College...

, where it meets the Peterson Road and Hastings Road, all former Colonization Roads which served to open the northern frontier

Frontier

A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...

 to settlement in the 1850s. North of the boundary, the Highway begins and is known as Cross Lake Road. It passes through a sparsely populated region dotted with lakes and muskeg

Muskeg

Muskeg is an acidic soil type common in Arctic and boreal areas, although it is found in other northern climates as well. Muskeg is approximately synonymous with bogland but muskeg is the standard term in Western Canada and Alaska, while 'bog' is common elsewhere. The term is of Cree origin, maskek...

, generally remaining straight, though curving sporadically to avoid the many obstacles presented by the Canadian Shield

Canadian Shield

The Canadian Shield, also called the Laurentian Plateau, or Bouclier Canadien , is a vast geological shield covered by a thin layer of soil that forms the nucleus of the North American or Laurentia craton. It is an area mostly composed of igneous rock which relates to its long volcanic history...

.

After passing thorough the village of Cross Lake, situated on the eastern shore of a lake with the same name, the highway abruptly curves to the east for 1 kilometre (0.621372736649807 mi). It turns back to the north and later approaches the northwestern tip of Bark Lake

Bark Lake (Ontario)

Bark Lake is a lake in the Township of South Algonquin, in Nipissing District in Ontario, Canada. It lies near Madawaska, Ontario on the Madawaska River where the tributary Opeongo River joins.-References:...

, on the opposite shore as Bell Bay Provincial Park. Here the highway curves to the west and follows the delta

River delta

A delta is a landform that is formed at the mouth of a river where that river flows into an ocean, sea, estuary, lake, reservoir, flat arid area, or another river. Deltas are formed from the deposition of the sediment carried by the river as the flow leaves the mouth of the river...

 of the Madawaska River

Madawaska River (Ontario)

The Madawaska River is a river in Ontario, Canada. The river is long and drains an area of . It originates at Source Lake in the highlands of Algonquin Park at an elevation of and flows east, dropping before emptying into the Ottawa River at Arnprior....

, curving north just short of entering the village of Madawaska.

Major intersections

The following table lists the major junctions along Highway 523. The entirety of the highway is located within Nipissing District.

{| class=wikitable
!scope=col|Division
!scope=col|Location
!scope=col|km
!scope=col|Destinations
!scope=col|Notes
|-
|Hastings County
|Hastings Highlands
|rowspan="2"|0.0
|rowspan="2"|
|rowspan="2"|Division boundary line; road continues south as Madawaska Colonization Road
|-
|rowspan="2"|Nipissing District
|rowspan="2"|South Algonquin
|-
|20.1
|
|