Beachway #080116

Wednesday Jan 16, 2008

No GPS data due to unit failure

P. Sunny to Sunny –1 to +1º

Beachway #080109

The Beachway Park Pavilion and multi-use trails provide a 2 km. route from Spencer Smith Park to the canal. The pavilion provides change rooms, outdoor showers, seasonal concession facilities featuring the Snack Shack and year round washrooms. Amenities at the beach include the pavilion, parking, a pay phone, a playground, and lots of sun, sand and water.

Once a picturesque Indian encampment among the large spreading oaks, Burlington Beach is one of the last 2 remaining sandy beaches along the north shore of Lake Ontario. Today this beach is a popular swimming, beach volleyball and family picnic area. A concession, washrooms & change facilities have recently been added to make your visit complete. For those looking for a quieter pace, a leisurely stroll along the beach, exploring the sand dunes and natural habitat near the canal or taking in the Burlington skyline at night from the lookout is a great way to take in the surroundings.

Burlington Lift Bridge

Type: - a tower-drive steel truss vertical lift bridge

The Burlington Lift Bridge is a moveable bridge over the Burlington Canal in Burlington, Ontario located at the junction of Lake Ontario and Hamilton Harbour. Being part of provincial Hwy No. 20, it provides a canal crossing link for local pedestrians and vehicles between the City of Burlington and the City of Hamilton, as well as facilitating all types of vessels entering and leaving Hamilton Harbour.

The truss span is 112.78 m (368.04 ft.) long and supports a four lane highway. Towers support each end of the lift span and provide 33 m (108.26 ft.) of clearance for ships navigating the channel.

The bridge is presently operated 24 hours per day, 7 days per week throughout the navigation season (approximately 270 days per year) and performs approximately 3,600 lifts annually.

The original bridge over the canal was an iron swing bridge constructed in 1896. This was replaced in 1922 by a bascule type lift bridge. In 1930, the canal was doubled in width and a second bascule was constructed over the new channel. In 1952, the bascule span over the north canal was destroyed by a steamer when the bridge failed to open. This canal was closed to navigation and a temporary fixed trestle bridge was built until the construction of the present vertical lift bridge, which was completed in 1962.

Bronte #080106

Waterfront Trail

This portion of the Trail features tree-lined streets, lovely homes, museums, two vibrant harbours, formal gardens and a system of river trails that run through wooded areas and meadows.

The Trail surface is a gravel path on the north side of Lakeshore Rd. from Burloak Dr. to Cudmore, and east of Belvedere to Fourth Line. The south side of Lakeshore Rd is for pedestrians. From Fourth Line the cyclists share the Trail with vehicles using Lakeshore Rd. for 3.4km. Off-road trail resumes just west of Chartwell Ave.

Bronte Harbour

The area that is presently Bronte was first settled by Europeans beginning in 1807, after the land was purchased from the Mississauga tribe and Trafalgar Township was surveyed.

By 1856, Bronte was a busy Lake Ontario port, exporting wheat, building ships, and developing a thriving commercial fishery and stonehooking industry. The town's population grew to 550. With the coming of the railroad, the harbour's business declined and the population went down to 220.

Bronte was incorporated as a village in 1952. Ten years later, the village and part of the Township of Trafalgar were amalgamated into the Town of Oakville.

Unlike neighbouring Oakville, where by the late 1820s William Chisholm had financed a harbour privately, development of port facilities in Bronte was delayed until the founding of the Bronte Harbour Company. Led by Samuel Bealey Harrison, a politician, lawyer, and judge, residents of Bronte petitioned the government of Upper Canada to incorporate a company to build a harbour at the mouth of Twelve Mile Creek. After a ten-year struggle to obtain support, the Bronte Harbour Company was founded in 1846. By 1856, construction of Bronte's newly dredged harbour with two piers and a lighthouse was complete. The village's waterfront was transformed from a shallow marshland, inaccessible from the water, to a harbour with sufficient depth to sustain itself as a thriving Lake Ontario port.

Bronte Pioneer Cemetery

Bronte Pioneer Cemetery is as much the victim of time and weather as the souls buried within in.

In 1830, Philip Sovereign deeded the east corner of his farm for a cemetery after several people had already been buried there. He specified that it be for people of “all orders, sects, nations and parties.”

Among the settlers some of the first black residents of Bronte are buried here. Almost a third of the headstones belong to children; others to mariners.

Sometimes, but not always, sailors survived the lake hazards. Lake Ontario claimed three young men who are buried here, near the west corner. Jimmy Baker was first mate on the schooner Magellan when she collied with the U.L. Hurd in 1877. Jummy’s was the only body found. The Dorland brothers were fishermen lost east of Bronte in the great gale and snowstorm of December 1886. Both left young families.

The Lake Ontario gales that took the lives of Bronte mariners also claimed the bones of some of the survivors and their families. Over the years about 70 feet of cemetery and 100 feet of road allowance have gone into the lake, taking a few graves with it.

Kilbride #080102

(Calcium Pits)

Lowville Re-entrant Valley was formed in the Niagara Escarpment by rivers and glaciers. Late Wisconsinan, Port Huron Stadial outwash, spillway channels, Halton Till and Peel Ponds are found in the valley. Preglacial and Holocene fluvial and karst processes have also contributed to the valley's evolution. Surficial and bedrock features. Ancient meltwater channel with outwash fan. Variety of Karst features. Excellent exposure of Amabel formations at Rattlesnake Point

The Lowville reentrant valley is a wide bedrock valley measuring approximately 2.3 miles (5km) wide and 5 miles (8km) long. This valley trends in a northeast-southwest direction and is flanked by the Milton Outlier on the north and Mount Nemo on the south which are composed of steep Amabel bluffs that border the entrance to this valley. The relatively flat valley floor is covered in late Wisconsin, Halton Till, that has been planed down by the Peel Ponding, a very temporary proglacial lake.

The Niagara Escarpment is buried under an arc of glacial outwash material around the head of the reentrant valley near Kilbride. These deposits probably formed around the perimeter of an ice front as it began to withdraw from the reentrant valley. During stages of the last deglaciation the ice meltwaters followed topographic low areas such as the ancient meltwater channel flowing southeast from Campbellville. A well-developed outwash fan formed at the southern end of this.

The bedrock complex immediately south of Campbellville, extending toward Kilbride, was subject to both glacial and postglacial erosion and thus exhibits a variety of karst (solution weathered) features. Crawford Lake is thought to a sink hole; however its great depth may suggest another mode of origin. The abandoned meltwater channel which ran south from Crawford Lake during the last deglaciation left an abandoned waterfall about 1/2 mile (0.8km) south of Crawford Lake. The bedrock channel running through what is known as Calcium Pits was probably part of a glacial meltwater channel which has been filled in by outwash material. More recently, it has been filling with marl deposition which was, at one time, extracted commercially for lime.

The Lowville Re-entrant Valley contains a number of regionally significant glacial and late glacial earth science features. These include both surficial and bedrock features. The type section for the Halton Till is located on the west bank of Bronte Creek about 2 miles (3.2 km) east of Lowville. Unfortunately, as with many Pleistocene type sections, it has become overgrown with vegetation and is no longer clearly exposed. Excellent exposures of the Amabel Formation at Rattlesnake Point and Mount Nemo outline the sides of this major re-entrant valley.

Albion Rail Trail East 071230

Albion Rail Tail East #071230

See also Albion falls 071024

The Escarpment Rail Trail is a multi-use trail developed on an abandoned CN line. The trail extends from above the escarpment near Albion Falls, to the lower city.

Trail entrances above the mountain are located at Arbour Road (Albion Falls parking lot), Limeridge Road East and Mohawk Road East (just east of Mountain Brow Blvd.). The trail follows the former CN right-of-way along the escarpment, crosses over the Kenilworth Access, then continues to Wentworth Street South (near the bottom of the Wentworth Street stairs). Upon crossing Wentworth Street South, the trail continues through the lower city ending in Corktown Park located near Ferguson Avenue South and Young Street. The section of the trail from Albion Falls parking lot to Wentworth Street South has a tar and chip surface. At Wentworth Street South, the trail changes and becomes an asphalt surface.

The Escarpment Rail Trail offers beautiful views of the lower city, the Niagara Escarpment, and the Hamilton Brick Works.

History

During the mid 1800's, the City of Hamilton supported the development of two railway lines to meet the city's growing transportation needs; the Great Western (east/west) and the Hamilton & Lake Erie (north/south). The Escarpment Rail Trail was developed on a portion of the former route of the Hamilton & Lake Erie.

During 1835, a charter was granted to the Hamilton & Port Dover Railway (H&PD) to construct a line between the two communities. Funding was not available and the project remained inactive. In 1853, the charter was revived and the H&PD was officially incorporated. The H&PD succeeded in making the cut in the escarpment face but incurred enormous costs in scaling the Hamilton mountain. Construction of the remaining lines was postponed and the company later succumbed to financial difficulty.

In 1869, the Hamilton & Lake Erie Railway (H&LE) was established, which extended the line to Jarvis by 1873. In 1875, the H&LE amalgamated with the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway (H&NW) and extended the line to Port Dover by 1878.

The H&NW merged with the Northern Railway of Canada in 1879, and became known as the Northern and Northwestern Railway (N&NW). In 1888 the N&NW was acquired by the Grant Trunk Railway System. The Grant Trunk had previously acquired the Great Western Railway and numerous other small rail lines. The Grant Trunk went bankrupt in 1919; the Canadian Government placed it under the management of the Canadian National Railway (CN). In 1923, CN assumed control and became the largest railway in Canada. CN maintained active operations on this line for years, and after a period of abandonment, sold the right-of-way to the Region of Hamilton-Wentworth. The Region developed the right-of-way into a pedestrian/bicycle trail in 1993.

Cootes North Shore #071209

See also Borers-Cootes #071013 and Cootes South Shore #071104

History

At one time, this property would have been part of 200 acres of land purchased in 1802 by James Forsyth from Robert Hamilton, father of George Hamilton, the city's founder.

The Cootes name comes from Cootes Paradise (the Dundas Marsh), which was one of the early names for the town of Dundas. Captain Coote was an English soldier who was known for hunting at the marsh.

Cootes Paradise, Royal Botanical Gardens Trails

Cootes Paradise, formerly known as Dundas Marsh, is 800ha (2,000 acres) of marsh and forest at the mouth of Spencer Creek near the Dundas Valley on the west end of Lake Ontario, just off Hamilton Harbour (Burlington Bay). Much of the marsh itself is open water less than 1m (3.3ft) deep, although manna grass and cattails grow at the edges. The area is a refuge for at least 100 species of birds during migration, while another 80 species nest in the area. Some of the species you might spot include black-backed gulls, black-crowned night herons, blue-gray gnatcatchers, common moorhens, double-crested cormorants, eider ducks, green herons, marsh wrens, northern mockingbirds, orchard orioles and wood ducks. European cormorants that began moving into the area four years ago have already destroyed all the trees on Hickory Island. Hikers should look for the large platforms that naturalists have built to prevent the birds from coming ashore. This trail guide includes Captain Cootes, Marshwalk, Macdonell, Pinetum Trails, North Shore , Hopkins Trail, North Shore, Arnotts Walk and Chegwin Trails, South Shore, Ravine Road and Calebs Walk, Ginger Valley Trail, and Sassafras Point Trail.

Garlic mustard: Eat it to beat it

Pull it, spray it, burn it. And now a new tactic in the war to defeat public enemy No. 1 -- eat it.

We're talking garlic mustard. Ian Hendry, who runs the Interpretive Centre at the Royal Botanical Gardens, tries to be fair. "I hate to say a plant is evil. It's a plant in the wrong place."

Garlic mustard has been around for a century. It arrived from Europe as a garden herb and medicinal plant. And for decades, it behaved itself.

But in recent times, and it's not completely clear why, it's turned into a tyrant.

It is taking over our forests and crowding out the trillium, the trout lily and other spring flowers. Now it's feared garlic mustard may even hurt Canada's maples.

So Hendry is holding a session on garlic mustard. He's billing it as a chance to learn how to add the muscular weed to your menu. For instance, he'll show how to use garlic mustard to spice up a pasta dish.

He'll show people what the weed looks like and how to avoid spreading it. And he'll tackle the big issue of what can happen when we introduce non-native species. "There's always the potential for unforeseen consequences."

An example he likes is the cane toad. Australia imported it to control agricultural pests. Then the toads started eating everything else in sight.

There's nothing in Australia that can safely eat the big, poisonous toad and its numbers have swelled. Now some stretches of road are downright hazardous due to the slicks formed by squashed toad.

In our own back yard, there's purple loosestrife. It was introduced to North America for ornamental and medicinal purposes.

The weed became a huge problem in wetlands here.

Several beetle species from Europe were found to eat it. But researchers had to make sure the beetles wouldn't chew up wheat crops or cause other damage. Tests were promising and the RBG was one of the first places the beetles were introduced. It's worked wonders.

But no such solution has yet been found for garlic mustard. It is part of the mustard family and its leaves smell like garlic when crushed. (And when dairy cattle eat it, their milk tastes like garlic.)

In year one, it's low growing, with triangular to heart-shaped leaves, with wavy edges. In year two, it grows tall, with small, white four-petaled flowers. They'll bloom in about a week.

Shiny black seeds follow, in beanlike pods. A plant can have up to 800 seeds.

And if you pull that plant after the flower is gone, you're spreading all those seeds to the four winds. Animals spread the seeds. Hikers, too.

The RBG has set up test patches, where they have tried pulling out the garlic mustard at different times of the year. They've tried spraying in these test patches, but the challenge is to find a substance that kills the garlic mustard without killing everything else.

And this past weekend, the RBG conducted a burn at Sassafras Point and Bull's Point. That's an attempt to control introduced species such as garlic mustard and allow the re-emergence of the native oak savannah.

But garlic mustard is especially wily. It produces chemicals that linger in the soil and can kill other plants. "It's basically using chemical warfare," Hendry says.

In tests, maple seedlings were planted in soil where the garlic mustard had been removed two years earlier. Even then, the maples' growth was stunted.

We don't have to go far along the Captain Cootes Trail to find the problem. A carpet of trillium belongs here. But the forest floor has already been occupied. It now belongs to garlic mustard, the silent invader that can't yet be beaten.

Darnley Cascade #071205

(see also Crooks Hollow #071014)

Alternate Names: Stutt’s Falls, Crook’s Hollow Falls

Creek: Spencer Creek

Classification: Cascade

Height: 4 metres/13 feet

Width: 22 metres/72 feet

Cultural History:

An interesting fact about the Darnley Cascade; at 225 metres above sea level, it’s at the highest elevation of any waterfall in the area. But at 4 metres it also has one of the smallest drops.

Darnley Cascade is located in Crooks Hollow, founded by James Crooks, a Scottish immigrant who came to the area in 1805. The Hollow had its industrial beginnings in 1801, when Jonathan Morden built a sawmill on Spencer Creek. James Crooks built the area’s first gristmill, completed in 1813, and named it after his hero, Lord Darnley. By 1829, this area contained the Darnley gristmill and buildings such as a woollen mill, tannery, a distillery, linseed oil mill, cooperage, a general store, clothing factory, foundry, paper mill, agricultural implement factory, log cabins for workers and an inn. The cascade was named after the Darnley Mill, which was destroyed by fire in 1934, leaving only the ruins.

As you look upstream from Crooks Hollow Road, with the mill to your left, you will be able to see the cascade, signs of the former James Crooks dam and the mill race. In the background is the present-day Christie Dam and Reservoir.