Barrie Hotels

Barrie is a city of 128,430 residents,[1] the 35th largest municipality in Canada It is located on Kempenfelt Bay, an arm of Lake Simcoe in the central portion of Southern Ontario, Canada. Although geographically a part of Simcoe County, the municipality is politically separate.The city's north and south ends are separated by a deep valley which contains the downtown area along Kempenfelt BayDue to the social and economic interconnectedness of Barrie and the Greater Toronto Area many consider Barrie to be an outer suburb of Toronto and an unofficial part of the GTA.Barrie at its inception was a small group of houses and warehouses at the foot of the Nine Mile Portage from Kempenfelt Bay to Fort Willow. The city was named in 1833 after Sir Robert Barrie, who was in charge of the naval forces in Canada and frequently had to portage from Lake Simcoe to Georgian Bay through the city. The Underground Railroad in the mid 1800s allowed many American slaves to enter Barrie. This contributed to the development of nearby Shanty Bay. During World War II the Royal Canadian Navy named a Flower class corvette HMCS Barrie.On 27 September 1977, in dense fog, a small plane hit the 68 meter tall CKVR Television Tower, knocking CHAY FM and CKVR-TV off the air. All passengers on the aircraft were killed, and the tower was destroyed. A new 304 metre tower was erected and operational within a year.On 31 May 1985, an F4 tornado struck Barrie, during the The "Barrie" Tornado Outbreak of 1985.On 12 June - 13 June 1987, a sculpture called Spirit Catcher by Ron Baird was moved to Barrie from Vancouver, British Columbia, where it had been exhibited as part of Expo '86. The sculpture was erected permanently at the foot of Maple Avenue on the shore of Kempenfelt Bay. However, with the re-development along the waterfront/Lakeshore Drive, the city is considering moving the Spirit Catcher to the gravel outcropping at the foot of Bayfield Street.In January 2004, Barrie made international news when its city police raided the former Molson brewery, and found Canada's largest illegal cannabis grow operation.