RESTORE COOTES

Thanks to Reyna Matties for the link (and her work on increasing biodiversity in McMaster's Lot M/Coldspring Valley)

Drawings for a relocated lower Spencer Creek, from the HCA Board minutes You can read more about the HCA's Plan for lower Spencer Creek in their minutes at their web site here . What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments!

In the late 19th century, the natural meandering path of spencer creek was diverted to clear a raised path for the railway that connected Dundas to Hamilton (H & D Railway). Small bridges crossed Spencer Creek and Ancaster Creek where the creeks intersected, bringing trains up past Binkley's Pond (now McMaster parking lot M-P), and until the 1980s, ran freight beside Cootes Drive past McMaster. Hikers know the lower spencer creek trail next to the straightened creek running parallel to Cootes Drive. Pacific salmon struggle upstream each fall to lay eggs before dying. One day I saw canoeists paddling with all their energy against the current in spring full flow. I called to them from the trail: "Where are you going?" Their answer, grunted out between rapid strokes of the paddle, "the Beer Store." A Belted Kingfisher chatters busily up and down the creek, perhaps, i imagine, complaining an evolutionary memory of a more natural channel path, a memory sha...

I know from previous information provided by McMaster Parking that the busiest parking time was 1pm on Tuesdays. That data was from 2011. Work is underway to study the parking situation to develop a Transportation Demand Management plan and those people will have access to parking data, but still I felt the need/desire to go look for myself. Right now McMaster has agreed not to repave a section of Lot M (would hold about 200 cars) after some professors made a plea to use the redundant parking area as an outdoor laboratory to study and practice wetland rehabilitation. McMaster left it as gravel, painted some yellow parking stalls, and have it for peak/overflow parking. The argument to keep it as parking is pretty weak, as you will see, so hope for McMarsh remains strong. I set out on my bicycle to check out the parking lot at peak. As I crested the hill at about 1:05pm the lot looked busy, but as I got closer any fears I had that the overflow lot was busy evaporated. There was o...

I am happy to report Restore Cootes has been a successful broker for two recent developments in the former Coldspring Valley Nature Sanctuary: A local company was looking to the Hamilton Naturalist Club to find a place where their employees could volunteer for a day planting trees. The offer was strengthened by the acknowledgment that the type of trees/shrubs could be chosen by the host. I suggested McMaster's newly created buffer zone on Lot M - and happily it was all made possible with the help of professor Susan Dudley, Jen Baker of the Naturalists club, Zanita Lukezich of Evergreen, and the folks at Canon who will be helping. So on Thursday, October 9, 150 native trees and shrubs will be planted on what was, until recently, a parking lot. There is room for a few McMaster volunteers, so let me know if you want to help. As the planting discussion was unfolding, I read a news article about The Royal Botanical Gardens' efforts to protect turtles in the vicinity of nearby Co...

September 23, 1960 Campus Construction creates parking dilemma - should we pay? As part of an ongoing construction project on campus, parking spots were blocked off from the middle of 1959 until this story printed. When construction ended, the University decided it would not build any new lots as Dr. Gilmour, the President at the time said "we are not going to make this a cement campus." He added, "Many students think that it is the obligation of the university to subsidize their transportation by providing them with parking space....I am sure if you charged them for it, most students would park half a mile away and walk from there!" (Above, The SIL, Vol. 85, Issue 4, Thursday, September 11, 2014, originally published in the Silhouette as Space Even Scarcer for Student Vehicles)