RESTORE COOTES

Hamilton Spectator By Randy Kay Tucked into the gravel sandbar known as Burlington Heights, in a small family plot, the bones of T.B. McQuesten are laid. It's a fitting resting place for a man who could claim the distinctive geography of the Heights as one of his life's canvases. McQuesten family plot, Hamilton Cemetery Photo by RK. When the earth opened to receive him in 1948, the Hamilton Cemetery overlooked the peaceful Chedoke River Valley with Princess Point an easy landmark. Further along York Boulevard stand monuments to his time on earth: the signature high level bridge over the canal, the Royal Botanical Gardens' Rock Garden, or across York Boulevard from the cemetery a restored Dundurn Castle. The marrow of McQuesten's contributions to the city are in each of these places. His days on the influential city parks board spanned almost three decades until his death, the lasting results found in natural spaces and parks like Gage Park, Kings Forest, the ...

Arrive early? improve our sign! At the base of Maria's Walk, historical trail Reyna explaining the science of outfalls Randy talking about the future of the area Coldwater seeping from the hills Photos courtesy Kamran Bakhtiari 

Beneath the shaded graveyard of the Binkley family cemetery is the McMaster Campus Services building. Prior to its construction in the late 1960s, this elevated island of land was the location of the Rim Circuit trail (or AKA Prospect Circuit), part of the Coldspring Valley Nature Sanctuary trails.  Even today the adjacent hillside offers a beautiful canopy, now in fresh spring green. As promised in a previous post , I went back to look for any sign of the former path that once connected the Rim Circuit to the lower Coldspring Path, which is, for all intents and purposes, buried beneath asphalt parking in McMaster's Lot M lot.  Using the hand drawn map that once served to guide nature lovers through the Royal Botanical Garden (RBG) sanctuary, I looked for a relative location to any path down off the steep slopes to the floodplain below. Based on the contours of the RBG trail maps, and the angle of the hillside, it looks like the best candidate is the one pictu...

With the former RBG trail system mostly under pavement since the late 1960s, there remain limited opportunities to hike the natural trails that once threaded their way through Coldspring Valley Nature Sanctuary. Having the former trailheads -- at Thorndale for the "Maria's Walk" trail, and Lakelet Vale which lead to the Rim Circuit trail -- still intact, helps us re-visit the site with our imagination tuned to what it must have been like, and to get our bearings. Having pieced together the location of the mostly intact Maria's walk (broken only by the driveway into the west campus), I've never ventured to take in the view that Rim Circuit would have provided. Until now, that is, and while the trail may have vanished beneath asphalt of the campus service building parking and rear service driveway/yard, I still managed to get a feel for how this trail would have been spectacular in its day. It's a steep drop down to the floodplain, which was onc...

                                            walk          bike       transit      auto        count Faculty &  Staff 10% 11% 16% 63% 13000 Students 23% 9% 42% 26% 24000 All 18% 10% 33% 39% 37000 Note total trips by automobile are 39%. In the 1960s projections were that by 1980 54% of people would be arriving by car, so a significant shift of 15% away from car use. McMaster parking lot M, built on floodplain for Ancaster Creek Shifts in transportation choices and options continue to be discussed, with McMaster's Institute on Transportation and Logistics working on a Transportation Demand Management plan for the university that was initiated by volunteer group Transportation for Liveable Communities (TLC). With media reporting the news that Ham...

McMaster University's parking lot in the west campus sits atop the floodplain for Ancaster Creek, metres away from Cootes Paradise. Lot M, N, O and P collectively buried a former nature sanctuary owned by the Royal Botanical Gardens known as Coldspring Valley. RESTORE COOTES'  Randy Kay  will be presenting a history of the area this Thursday for the  Dundas Valley Historical Society . More than a history, this talk will provide a window into ongoing positive developments that could bring back much of the natural glory to this special but degraded valley. From Ponds to Parking Lot and Back Again? The History of Coldspring Valley All presentations take place at The Dundas Museum & Archives 139 Park St. West (at Albert) Dundas, Ontario Doors open at 7 p.m. Presentation begins at 7:30 Please come early, as seating is limited. Admission: $2 for members, $3 for non-members For more information, please e-mail Judith Morphet, President of the DVHS http://www.unityserve...

No, this is not about vampires (although in a way it is, too) - anytime we think of the changes wrought by McMaster in the name of parking, we need only to look across the creek to get a reflection of what was. Above is the scene west of McMaster's parking lot (obviously not taken in winter) - this is what is buried beneath the fill and the pavement that elevated McMaster's parking lot above the floodplain level, taking away that natural diverse function --  and replacing it with a place to store cars. Even recent positive developments creating a naturalized buffer between cars and creek can't address the fact that it is all done atop the fill that keeps the land above the flood levels. Floodplains are important ecologically special areas and habitat. So the buffer is better than pavement, but it's not the real deal in terms of what the area was before, and with the right conditions, could be again. March 2011, McMaster Parking Lot M Until that da...