The Rouge River Valley: An Urban Wilderness

The Rouge River Valley

An Urban Wilderness

The Rouge River Valley

An Urban Wilderness

James E. Garratt

Copyright © 2000 James E. Garratt

All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher.

Published by Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc.

P.O. Box 95 Station O, Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Garratt, James, 1954 -

The Rouge River Valley : an urban wilderness

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-896219-61-6

1. Rouge Park (Toronto, Ont.). 2. Parks—Ontario—Rouge River Valley. 3. Natural areas—Ontario—Rouge River Valley. 4. Nature conservation—Ontario—Rouge River Valley—Citizen participation. 5. Environmental policy—Ontario—Rouge River Valley—Citizen participation. I. Title.

QH77.C3G37 1999 333.78’3’09713541 C99-931717-2

Cover and text design by Derek Chung Tiam Fook

Edited by Jane Gibson

Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Printing Limited,

Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Canada Council Block Grant Program. Also acknowledged is the assistance of the Association for the Export of Canadian Books, Ottawa. Natural Heritage acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.

Contents

Map I

Preface

Introduction

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

Afterword

Endnotes

Index

Selected Bibliography

About the Author

Map II

MAP I

LOWER ROUGE VALLEY

Main access points & trail heads

1. Public parking in central section of the valley. From here, trails leading north or south along the Hogback and Rouge bottomland can be accessed. Be careful crossing Twyn Rivers Drive, as visibility is limited.

2. Glen Eagles Campground and public parking. Besides the possibility of family camping, this access point is a good place to begin a hike north along the Rouge bottomland.

3. Old Glen Eagles Hotel site (hotel itself now demolished). Good views can be had from here into the valley. TTC bus stop nearby on Sheppard Avenue. Trails begin on north side of Twyn Rivers Drive (again use caution when crossing this road).

4. Public parking, Finch Meander area. Note: some trail closures are in effect here due to soil erosion.

5. Rouge Beach. Parking and access to the beach and river mouth. A pedestrian bridge leads to the east side of the river.

6. Woodlands. An old campground (no longer operating) provides easy walking trails beside the Little Rouge River.

7. Island Road. A trail leads south from here toward the Rouge Marsh. Parking is restricted in residential neighbourhood.

8. Pearse House. Located east of Meadowvale Road, off Toronto Zoo entrance road. Several trails begin here. Information about the Rouge and upcoming events should be available in the house.

9. Beare Road Landfill Site. Access along the road from Pearse House. Great view from top of hill. Respect closures and restricted areas.

NOTE: In all areas please heed trail signage. Watch for poison ivy since trails may change with time and circumstance. Obtain updated information from Rouge Park Office (see Appendix)

Preface

Yes, it’s possible to be ‘grounded’ here in the city, said vern harper, a well-respected Cree elder and Urban Traditionalist. It is more difficult. But you can find your place on Mother Earth even here. He was speaking to people gathered in Toronto for a recent Earth Day celebration. The subject of this book is one place within the city where many people have proven the truth of Harper’s words.

The main focus of the book is the eleven thousand acres of Rouge River Valley that lie within what was once the City of Scarborough (now absorbed into Toronto), extending from the valley’s west edge, east into the town of Pickering, north to Steeles Avenue and south to Lake Ontario. This area is known as the Lower Rouge Valley. Of course, any consideration of this portion of the Rouge must deal at least implicitly with influences arising from the watershed’s upper reaches and, indeed, several sections of the book are set in areas of the valley outside of Toronto.

My own involvement with the Rouge began in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, I was preoccupied with the apparently common Canadian desire to ‘escape to the Territories,’ and there dwell in some Edenic wilderness, remote from the turmoil of Industrial society. The Rouge Valley, however, gradually presented itself as an alternative kind of wilderness, accessible within the city. And it proved itself to be almost as unexplored as the more northerly hinterlands; few studies had been done of the valley and, whatever information did exist, was widely scattered.

I began my investigation of this area using the time-honoured naturalist’s method of keeping a field journal. Soon a bewildering variety of observations, facts and questions relating to the valley began to fill my notebooks. These were recorded on the spot, in every kind of weather and all seasons. After five years of this habitual journalizing, patterns, trends and recurring Rouge characteristics began to become discernable. The journal continued to grow, however, (as it does even now) until, after an accumulation of more than twelve years of observations (1984-96), I felt confident enough to begin assembling what amounts to a partial portrait of a single year in the Rouge Valley. This ‘year’ most closely typifies one in the late 1980s, but all observations therein have been substantiated by the twelve years of field notes. The book’s form, then, comes directly from my field journal, and consists of a series of ‘set-pieces’ which are linked either directly and/or by the flow of seasonal changes in the Rouge.

My note taking and observing were motivated partly by a compelling need to document what seemed to be the very fragile and transient natural phenomena of the Rouge. Given the overwhelming urban context of the valley, one could never be sure that a given bird, animal, fish, flower or view would endure to the next day. Development was rapidly encroaching. It seemed almost assured that urban sprawl would obliterate much of the Rouge, and its natural treasures would be lost forever, without ever having been recognized.

So, unlike a mythical northern retreat, the Rouge did not provide escape from the problems of civilization. Instead, it became a centre of conflict. And as pro- and anti-development battles were waged, the valley seemed to draw sympathetic people to itself who then marshalled a major, and perhaps unprecedented campaign, towards ‘saving the Rouge.’ Thus, a previously isolated grassroots community of Rouge admirers found that by sharing and communicating their experiences among themselves and their political representatives, they could wield tremendous power. This was demonstrated in the autumn of 1987, for instance, when hundreds of citizens packed the then Scarborough Council Chambers to successfully support the preservation of the lower Rouge Valley; and in March 1990, when the Provincial Government, acting in response to grassroots democratic pressure, declared its intent to create Canada’s largest urban park within the Rouge. Now, as a new millennium dawns, the Rouge Park is an official reality.

Park or not, the Rouge will never be completely secure or static. For better or worse, the official park plan can be altered, and the life of the valley will ebb and flow in response to external forces. Through these ongoing uncertainties, I hope that this book will help to keep attention focused on the natural attributes of the valley—its real value—as opposed to the purely human-political aspects. After all, we want to know what it is we’re striving to protect.

Today, with the ‘Information Highway’ exploding upon us, it might seem as if all available information about the Rouge and nature in general should be readily accessible. But such is not the case. The blizzard of advertising and computerized flashy graphics which clamour for our attention, encourage an inward-drawn restlessness and make it easy to neglect the original, primary sources of information. Instead of asking where did? the pro-offered information come from, we become ‘hooked’ on the latest style propagated on the Net or promised by some new electronic gadget. Young people in particular are susceptible. They are often manipulated, through the electronic media (TV, games, videos, the Net), by commercial interests seeking to divest them of discretionary income. The more fashions or toys they can be convinced they need, the more money will be made—the faster the better. Coupled with this attention-deficit situation, is a disturbing drift toward an unwillingness to distinguish between reality and that which is virtual or contrived—a situation which again plays into the hands of those who seek to gain economic or political powers. Countless different versions of ‘reality’ are just waiting to be sold to an compliant populace.

In this context, it is challenging for people to try to cultivate the skills of prolonged observation and attention that are required to gain familiarity with the natural world. It is hoped that this book will encourage you, the reader, to continue developing a personal relationship with the Earth. Perhaps, too, you may become actively engaged with contemporary environmental advocacy. As pointed out, a degree of patience, attentiveness and inner quietness is required, without expectation of instant gratification. In any event, the following pages attempt to reveal some of the rewards which will eventually accrue to the diligent student of nature; these include an endless adventure involving all the physical senses as well as the mind and spirit. As additional incentives, two maps are included. One delineates trails and access points, while the other locates Rouge features described in the main text. A bibliography with a list of other sources of information is also included.

Of course, one of the special features of the Rouge Valley is its location within a major city. This feature initially led some environmentalists to suggest that areas like the Rouge should actually be developed. The idea was to contain urban growth as much as possible by sacrificing such urban green spaces for the sake of more remote, pristine tracts. The flaw in this argument, however, is that urban expansion is accelerating. Eventually, the farthest wilderness may be brought within the sphere of urban influence. We have to learn to live with the Earth right here, wherever we may be.

If, to a degree, this book affirms the place of wild nature in the city, then it will have met expectations. Certainly, terms such as urban wilderness and passive recreation are heard frequently in the continuing Rouge debate. The concepts behind these terms indicate a readiness to grapple with the seemingly inherent contradictions between city and nature.

And this book may help to answer positively, as did Vern Harper, the question of whether it’s possible to be a true naturalist grounded in a modern city. The words of Ian L. McHarg—an urban planner who sought to design with nature—hold true: We need nature as much in the city as in the country.¹

Introduction

The waters of the rouge river have their sources in a landform known as the Oak Ridges Moraine. This moraine is located about seventeen miles north of the present Lake Ontario shore, and was formed about twelve thousand years ago during the last Ice Age. At that time the ice sheet, which covered the entire province of Ontario, gradually began to thin and split, leaving an accumulation of sand, rocks and gravel between the north-and-southward-receding lobes of ice. In the Oak Ridges’ area, this glacial debris was piled in steep, knobby hills which created a convoluted, spongy landscape perfect for feeding a river system such as the Rouge.

From the springs and wetlands of the Oak Ridges Moraine, innumerable creeks and feeder streams radiate southward. Within the Rouge watershed, five main creeks can be readily identified. They are, from west to east, the Beaver, Rouge, Berczy, Bruce and Little Rouge creeks. Not yet deeply incised into the land, they meander gently through and around farmland and the towns of Unionville and Markham, where they flow often unrecognized as being parts of the larger Rouge River system. But as the creeks flow southward, they gather water and velocity; they also converge, until by Steeles Avenue on Scarborough’s north border, only three large branches remain: the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers; and the now almost obliterated Morningside Tributary.² Below Steeles Avenue the rivers run swiftly through the historic farmlands and woodlots of northeast Toronto. Here they cut their identities into the land, down through the sandy soil to hard clay and boulders beneath.

This natural erosive action is especially apparent two miles farther south, at the Finch Meander. At this location, the Rouge loops eastward before passing below Finch Avenue and into the grounds of the Toronto Zoo. One hundred and twenty-foot high cliffs of sand, silt and clay rise around the Finch Meander. The view from the edge of these cliffs provides little evidence of Homo sapiens sapiens presence. Instead, an impression is had of a relatively undisturbed land/river system. Natural forces continue to shape this land; and the lifeforms that those forces brought into the valley, such as white-tailed deer and red-tailed hawks, are still at home.

South of the Finch Meander and the Zoo grounds, the Rouge and Little Rouge converge quickly. At Twyn Rivers Drive they are separated by an elongated plateau called an interfluvial ridge or tableland by geologists, although it is known locally as the Hogback. The mature forest on this landform is part of the Little Rouge Forest which, at four hundred acres in area, is the largest forest in Toronto. Northern trees such as hemlock, birch and pine grow here in close proximity to southern species such as black walnut, sycamore, white oak and witch hazel. Red and flying squirrels, fox, deer, ruffed grouse, barred owls, and blue-grey gnatcatchers are among the wildlife species that inhabit this area of the Forest. And yet it is here in the heart of the Lower Rouge Valley that the city is closest. Pickering to the east, Toronto and Markham to the north and west almost surround the valley. And many evenings as the sun sets over the Rouge, more lights of newly-constructed apartment buildings, houses and roadways appear above the valley; while below in the gathering darkness, patterns of life that have been evolving since the last Ice Age, continue to unfold. City and valley meet in a kind of estranged remoteness. The individual urban naturalist, however, can experience how quickly that remoteness may be bridged, and know the responsibility of insuring that such experience is always viable and available to be shared.

The sound of traffic is perhaps the most insistent reminder of the city’s presence. One mile south of Twyn Rivers Drive at the end of the Little Rouge Forest, highways 2 and 401 span the valley.³ The huge bridges that support these highways render barren the surrounding valley lands. Few plant or animal species can survive the droughty, poorly-lit and polluted conditions. But it is here beneath the bridges that the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers finally flow together to form the Rouge River proper. Here, the character of the waterway changes abruptly. It becomes a broad, placid, slow-flowing mature river. The Rouge slips slowly around the concrete fenders below the highways and onto to its final approach to Lake Ontario.

In the mile and a quarter before Lake Ontario, the Rouge flows through a clay plain deposited by glacial Lake Iroquois. This clay soil contributes to the river’s murkiness, already increased by the sediments carried from all the upper areas of the watershed. The river’s unhurried pace allows some of this material to settle, creating a fertile base for vegetation. Lush groves of Manitoba maples, willows and ostrich ferns line the banks. And in the quiet waters, regionally rare turtles make their homes.

A half mile farther south, the river suddenly emerges into an extensive wetland. Tall cattails and purple loosestrife replace the trees along the river’s edge. This is the Provincially significant Lower Rouge Marsh—the best remaining wetland along the Toronto shore. Covering over one hundred acres, the marsh provides nesting habitat for birds such as the black tern, American bittern and Canada goose, while the turbid waters throng with catfish, perch, sunfish...

Past the marsh, the waters of the Rouge gather in an estuary behind the Rouge beach—a sandbar created by the wave action of Lake Ontario. The water rests in this estuary before finding its way through a narrow channel in the sandbar and finally flowing out into the lake. The river’s journey seems to end at the lake. But the Rouge flows on in time through the natural cycles of the seasons, which