Snow removal in Enniskillen, on the Oak Ridges Moraine.

Enniskillen was known locally as the village on the hilltop, and the hill on its west side was where the children went coasting. That is not decoration. Driveways here sit on a grade, and a driveway on a grade is either cleared to the surface or it packs, and packed snow on a slope becomes ice on a slope.

Cleared to the surface, because half cleared is worse than untouched

A blade that takes the top off and leaves an inch behind has made a smooth white ramp out of your lane. One thaw and one freeze turn that inch into a sheet, and after that no amount of pushing gets it back. So a lane with fall in it comes down to what it is made of on the first pass, every time, and that takes longer than a flat suburban job does. It is also the honest reason an acreage on the moraine is priced where it is.

Getting to the surface is half the work. The other half is grip, and a blade does not make grip. Salt does. Platinum carries unlimited automatic salting, Gold puts salt down on any visit that is already being made, and a salt only trip on its own is $25. Silver has no salting in it at any depth, and that is the single most useful sentence I can give a reader with a slope between the road and the garage.

Who clears what around the village

Concession Road 8 is Regional Road 3 and Durham Region clears it. Old Scugog Road, running north to south through the village, belongs to the Municipality of Clarington. Your lane belongs to you, and so does the ridge that either fleet leaves at the end of it. The paid municipal windrow work needs an urban residential address, so nothing here qualifies at any age, and the cost and the rule are written out on the Hampton page.

What starts my own route is a measurement rather than a forecast. Three centimetres on the ground and it runs, with no call from you. Platinum goes first, to a 6:30 AM target, with Gold behind it at a 7 AM target. Neither of those figures is a guarantee. Silver takes a daytime windrow pass that is cleared by 5 PM.

If the house is shut up in January, buy the season and not the year

A membership is twelve equal payments, taken on the last day of the month, with the first taken on the last day of the month prior to the start of service. That shape suits somebody who wants one predictable figure on the statement all year and the lawn looked after as well. It does not suit a reader who closes the place in January and comes back at Easter. For that reader the seasonal snow package is the better purchase: one price covering November 1 to May 1, $1,750 on an estate lot and $2,600 on a grand estate, plus HST, and nothing billed across the summer at all. Tell me which of the two you are and I will quote the one that fits rather than the one that bills longer.

Century home or acreage: the Enniskillen price bands

The village holds century homes with tight original driveways, and the concessions either side hold farms with lanes measured in hundreds of feet. Here is what each of them costs.

Band	Lot	Seasonal snow	Gold membership
Standard.	Up to 0.35 acre	$800 small, $975 standard, $1,200 large	$189 a month
Estate.	0.35 to 1.0 acre, or a driveway over 100 ft	$1,750	$349 a month
Grand Estate.	1.0 to 3.0 acres, or a laneway over 250 ft	$2,600	$519 a month

Plus HST on everything above, and over 400 feet of lane there is $200 for every further 100 feet. The larger of the two readings, the lot or the lane, sets the band, so an acreage with a short driveway still prices as an acreage. Salt alone is $25 and taking the windrow off alone is $45. What each membership actually includes.

Read next

• Snow removal in Tyrone, east around the mill, where the length of the lane sets the band.
• Snow removal in Solina, south on open farmland, where drifting refills an entrance.
• All three memberships, and what each one does on a lane with a grade.