Just weeks away from the gathering of world leaders in a small Ontario cottage county town, there's only one thing on the minds of Huntsville residents.

"We've got no extra time in our days with the G8 coming down on us," Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty told CTV.ca in a telephone interview this week.

Indeed, since Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced two years ago that Canada's latest G8 summit would be held in Huntsville, it's been all-G8, all the time.

Ottawa has spent tens of millions of dollars getting this town of 18,000 ready to host the leaders of France, Italy, Germany, Russia, Japan, the United States and the United Kingdom.

Huntsville, the largest town in Ontario's Muskoka region, has much to gain from the G8 summit, provided it all goes off without a hitch.

In addition to the prestige and exposure that come with hosting an international event, Huntsville will inherit legacy summit infrastructure -- including road improvements, area beautification measures and pristine new buildings, all of which have been installed at a blinding pace.

And it's not just Huntsville that has cashed in. Towns throughout the Muskoka region have had millions of government dollars sprinkled throughout their parks, roads and streets.

"It's 20 years of infrastructure in the space of two," said Anne White, the director of public relations at the Deerhurst Resort, where G8 leaders will meet from June 25-26.

And then there are the economic spinoffs from hosting, which Industry Minister Tony Clement said Friday could be worth as much as much as $300 million between the Huntsville G8 and the Toronto G20 summits.

From community pioneers to prime ministers

In 1964, former Huntsville mayor Harmon E. Rice published a history of the town that would one day host the G8 summit.

He painted a picture of a community that remained tied to its seasonal tourism industry, which was already one of the town's major economic strengths.

"It is doubtful whether Huntsville's prestige and popularity as a summer and winter tourist resort, is surpassed by any town in Ontario," Rice wrote in his Brief Centennial History of Huntsville.

Today, that same inviting setting has helped Huntsville land the fifth G8 summit hosted on Canadian soil -- the previous ones taking place in Kananaskis, Alta.; Halifax; Toronto; as well as an event hosted in Ottawa and Montobello, Que.

Next month, the G8 leaders will be staying at the landmark Deerhurst Resort, where they will hold meetings, give speeches and command the attention of the world's media for the two days they are in town.

For Deerhurst, it's not the first time the resort has hosted an event that will see guests flooding into its 800-acre grounds. Every year, it hosts concerts, major corporate retreats, the Canadian Pond Hockey Championships and a 70.3-kilometre Ironman challenge.

But White acknowledges the G8 summit is "a historic milestone" for the resort and the region, which will give both an international exposure they have never had before.

"Right now, we're all about getting ready for the event and making sure we're properly prepared to host the world," White told CTV.ca in a recent telephone interview from Toronto.

At the Huntsville Public Library, Roberta Green concurs the G8 is likely the biggest event in recent memory.

"I don't remember anything else of this magnitude," said Green, who has worked with local history matters at the library for the past 15 years.

Preparing for when ‘eight embassies' will come to town

A senior Deerhurst staffer told White that the Huntsville-hosted G8 would be best described as "eight embassies within a small and very secluded country for a weekend."

That's why the popular resort will close down from June 15-30, so all of the necessary changes can be made.

But even the 45,000 square-feet of indoor meeting space at Deerhurst won't be enough to serve the thousands of journalists, government staffers, leaders and others involved with the summit.

As a result, Ottawa spent $50 million on summit-related infrastructure, including a $20-million G8 Centre -- which will soon be given a new name -- that expands upon an existing community centre.

And once the G8 wraps up, Huntsville will have the 110,000 square feet of newly renovated or constructed multi-use space all to itself. That includes a 40,000-square-foot space that to be operated by the University of Waterloo, giving Huntsville its first link to a post-secondary institution.

The big weekend

While things appear to be on track for the G8 summit, hiccups can happen at any moment.

Only last week, Huntsville reassigned its long-time fire chief after he came under investigation for a possible security breach -- one that the Globe and Mail reported involved lending his G8 security pass to a subordinate.

Still, the show must go on and the Conservative government still stands behind its choice.

"We're on track, we are ready and with just five weeks to go, we are building in our excitement and in our late nights…in getting ready for this world event," Clement said Friday.

With files from The Canadian Press, official Muskoka 2010 G8 website, the G8-G20 Integrated Security Unit website, Town of Huntsville website