I Love Markham in the Fall!

I have always loved the fall, but nothing compares to Markham in the fall.  A simple drive south on Reesor Road watching the light bounce off the orange, yellow and red leaves on the maple trees is enough to turn a grumpy mommy into a happy one.   Taking it one step further and enjoying an afternoon hiking through the trails at Rouge Park with my daughters is pure heaven. 

As it does every season, Markham has so much to offer us in the fall.  We are fortunate to have the Markham Fair, numerous local farms with pumpkin festivals, Markham Museum’s Applefest, Rouge Park hiking trails, Halloween Bash at the Paintlounge and so much more. Even a walk down Markham Main Street, with all the construction still ongoing, is a treat in the fall. 

This past weekend my sister and I took our kids to Whattamore’s for Pumpkinland and we had a blast!  When we arrived, the smell of cinnamon and spices overtook us, but we somehow managed to refrain from starting our morning with apple pie and gingerbread cookies.  The market at Whittamore’s is certainly a treat!

Once in the Fun Farm Yard, we trudged around for hours in our rainboots mining for gems, going on a wagon ride, playing on the Rock n’ Ride Horses, watching the Singing Chicken Show (still my eldest daughter’s favourite activity at Whittamore’s), winding our way through the Corn Maze and finally watching the Pumpkin Cannon Show.  We were happy witnesses to Farmer Frank breaking his 410 yard pumpkin record. 

On our way home with our bags full of fall apples and pumpkins, we finally enjoyed our gingerbread cookies.  What a great morning!

With all that Markham has to offer it’s no wonder we love our city so much.  But my favourite part of fall is still walking around our neighbourhood and kicking through the leaves with my daughters!

For more information about Whittamore’s, please visit their website: http://www.whittamoresfarm.com

The Hug

The hug comes flying at me with the energy of a five year old.

It envelopes me like a cherished duvet, soft, warm, comforting, familiar.

It wraps its arms around my neck with a loving fierceness, legs around my waist,

head snugly resting on my shoulder.

The hug tells me all I need to know.

I am her everything and she is mine.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox

Rouge Park - Our Little Piece of Heaven!

Our family loves to go for nature walks at Rouge Park, we end up there a few times each month.  Summer or winter, rain or shine, it doesn’t stop us.  The Rouge is our little getaway, our escape into complete ruralness just ten minutes from our suburban home.  It’s our little piece of heaven.

Starbucks in hand, we enter just south of Steeles Avenue off Reesor Road, and begin our day's adventure along the white marker hiking trails.  Sometimes our feet take us to the east, pausing in the big field where we take a few moments to inhale its beauty before we continue around the field of bird houses and up the hill that overlooks Rouge River.  At the top of the hill is a lookout where my daughters love to sit, binoculars ready, while we search for the black-capped chickadees chirping their songs and watch the river winding below.  It is a peaceful, soul-soothing place.

(c) Sandra McIntyre

Other times we choose the path by the river, with its lush indigenous flora, canopy of trees and the Rouge River rushing past.  It is this path that takes us by the almost hidden six-step concrete staircase that leads to nowhere, which gave us a little taste of a mystery we had to unravel.

So I did my research.

In the 1800’s, with the building of Milne Dam, the shoreline along this stretch of the Rouge River became home to many families.  A schoolhouse was built close by in 1872 and a Methodist church a few years later.  The Rouge River was home to many, full of families and life. 

On Friday October 15, 1954 that all changed.  

On that date, Hurricane Hazel overtook the East Coast.  Though we were only hit with its aftermath, it caused more heartache and destruction than any hurricane before.  Our little Rouge River rose fourteen feet above its normal height, seeping through foundations of concrete and destroying not only the cottages, but the lives of the families that lived there.

After Hurricane Hazel devastated the Rouge, the government bought up the land and forced the residents to uproot their lives and move in the interest of safety. 

Over time, some of the cottages were removed, some were taken over by nature, but a few pieces here and there still remain of the original settlement.

I have read there are other hidden reminders of pre-Hazel life throughout the vast park.  There is a single smokestack in the middle of the forest, an old car, and other abandoned houses and cottages, all reminders that Rouge Park was once home to more than just the flora and fauna.  My family will try to find these snippits of history as we continue our nature walks.

So now when we take our walks, we remember the people who lost their homes along Rouge River and, in turn, lost their little piece of heaven. 

If you would like more information about Rouge Park, including organized activities, events and walks, please visit the official website:  www.rougepark.com

Tree Planting in Bob Hunter Memorial Park

For Earth Day this year my daughters and I had the privilege of planting trees with our Brownie unit for the organization 10,000 Trees for the Rouge .  The tree planting was held at Bob Hunter Memorial Park, just south of 14^th Avenue and west of Reesor Road. 

There were already hundreds of volunteers, largely Girl Guides, Scouts and families, busy planting trees when we arrived at 10am on this chilly Sunday morning.  Once we registered our unit, we were directed to our designated planting area where our Brownies very happily got busy with their shovels!

(C) Sandra McIntyre

We dug holes about a foot wide and deep.  With over twenty-three types of trees and shrubs to choose from, we chose to plant Downy Serviceberry saplings.  After filling the holes with dirt, compost, mulch and water, we wrapped a white plastic sleeve around the base of the saplings to keep the little critters away.

I would estimate we planted no more than thirty trees in all, but we certainly felt good knowing we were making a contribution to the restoration of Bob Hunter Memorial Park. 

Bob Hunter Memorial Park is currently in the development phase.  They are restoring wetlands, wet and dry meadows, native grass meadow and indigenous flora, as well as planning hard surface, pedestrian and soft surface trails for nature walks.  Tree planting is a small but important part of what the Rouge has in store for this park over the next couple of years. 

Bob Hunter Memorial Park was created under Dalton McGuinty on August 21, 2006.  It is bounded by a rail corridor, Ninth Line to the west, Reesor Road to the east, Highway 407 to the north and Steeles Avenue East to the south, adding another 500 acres to the vast Rouge Park.

The park is scheduled to officially open in 2015.  With the recent federal budget including funds to help make the dream of Rouge National Park a reality, the official opening of Bob Hunter Memorial Park will be timely. 

One of my mother’s favourite journalists and environmental activists, Bob Hunter was a journalist in the 1960’s, co-founder of Greenpeace in 1972, commentator and reporter for Citytv since 1988, and later CP24 as well.  He created documentaries about Canada’s north and was the author of numerous environmental books.

Bob Hunter was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1988 and passed away on May 2, 2005, at the age of 63.  His family helped make his memorial park a reality.

My daughters and I are grateful we were able to contribute to such a wonderful and worthwhile cause, and in turn, honour the memory of a great Canadian hero. 

This article also appears in April May 2013 issue of Our Canada Magazine.  

Frog Watching at Rouge Park

(C) Christine McCann

My family is proud to officially be Rouge Park volunteers!  Bill and I believe it is important for our daughters to be involved in volunteering in our community in some way and we all feel Rouge Park is a very meaningful cause.  We want to be a part of keeping our precious green spaces green. 

I assumed signing up as a volunteer would mean we would help pick up litter in the park, plant some trees, post some signs, that kind of thing.  It turns out being a volunteer can entail so much more! 

Sheryl Santos, Stewardship Coordinator, asked if we would be interested in frog watching.  I was hesitant at first because my girls are only five and seven, but after discussing it with them we decided to give it a try.  My eldest daughter is also learning about amphibians in school, so the conversation was quite timely.

We went to our first workshop Wednesday evening at the Toronto Zoo’s Operations Complex.  The volunteers were placed in groups of about six to eight people.  Our group’s leader is a friendly, knowledgeable man who all of us warmed to right away. 

During the meeting we watched a detailed and entertaining slide show discussing the frogs we will hopefully encounter while frog watching, including their appearance and their specific calls.  I was surprised to find out there are over ten species of frogs and toads in Ontario and that each of their calls are quite distinct.

We were each given an information package which included a CD titled Ontario Frog and Toad Calls. This CD is surprisingly addictive!  It is narrated by four young girls and they discuss the different frog calls and then present each call.  We have been listening to the CD in the car since our drive back from the meeting and we are getting pretty good at recognizing the individual calls.  The Spring Peeper is our favourite! 

Our first attempt at frog watching will be in May and we are pretty excited about it.  We will meet at dusk and visit each of our three designated sites once the sun has completely set.  We only record the calls for a period of three minutes, much shorter than I would have thought, but apparently enough time to get a good sampling of the frogs in the area.  We are to record air temperature, cloud cover, precipitation, wind scale and background noise on the Frogwatch Observation Form provided at the workshop . 

We can also frog watch on our own by entering the data on the Frog Watch Ontario website.  So while we may not be able to make all the Frog Watching evenings scheduled, this is another fun activity our family can participate in during our much-loved nature walks. 

Our Markham Water Tower

When we moved to Markham almost four years ago, the first landmark that stood out to me was the Markham water tower.  While driving home on the 401, the 407, or even on Markham Road, this landmark was visible and guided me and my family towards our new home. 

Needless to say, I was very sad the day I learned the Markham water tower was going to be taken down.  To me, the water tower represented Markham.  Why would such a defining landmark be removed?

So I did my research. 

The Markham water tower was built in 1971 to supply water to the Town of Markham.  The tower could hold up to 2,818 cubic meters of water.  At that time, the population of Markham was about 56,000 people, so a water tower of that size was pretty much what was needed. 

As Markham grew, so did our need for water.  Markham continued to build new developments and the population exploded, so our landmark was no longer enough to sustain our growing Town. 

In 2005, a new underground water reservoir was built at McCowan Road and Stouffville Road, with the capacity to hold up to 40,000 cubic meters of water.  That is roughly fourteen times that of the Markham water tower.  With our rapidly growing town, Markham needed to make sure we had enough water reserve for the existing town as well as sustaining future expansion.  Our water tower was drained in 2009, and the new underground reservoir was officially in use.   

So now, at the very least, I understand the reasoning behind the decommissioning.

To watch the decommissioning was indeed sad, though pretty amazing at the same time.  On November 15, 2011, over one hundred school children, school staff and apprehensive neighbours watched the workers remove the top of the water tower with a giant crane and place it beside our neighbourhood playground. 

(C) Photo courtesy of Jennifer Dreher

Day by day, we continued to watch the demise of our beloved landmark.  It took a mere four days to remove all the pieces until there was nothing left but a concrete base, which was then dug out of the ground.  The Markham water tower was now completely gone.

York Region must have understood what the Markham water tower meant to all of us.  I soon learned from Bill Patterson, Project Engineer of York Region Environmental Services, that the ground where the water tower once stood is being developed as an extension of Reesor Park, including an Xeriscape Garden, chess table and a monument to the Markham water tower. 

Though the new Xeriscape garden won’t be able to guide us on our journey home, my daughters and I can at least enjoy the new fittingly water-conserving garden and remember our beloved landmark.

For a more detailed overview of the decommissioning, please see Reesor Park student Thomas F's insightful blog: Thomas' Blog