Featured Park - Port Burwell

Ontario Parks Insider

Port Burwell Provincial Park boasts one of the best beaches in southwestern Ontario. Two kilometres of broad soft sand stretch out along Lake Erie’s shoreline, separated into five beach areas that give ample room for tossing a Frisbee or building a sandcastle. Beach 3 is a visitor favourite, with its extensive ankle-deep water for the kids and with the parking lot and campsites positioned far away from the beach front, there’s a great sense of remoteness here as well. Now, add to that: Lake Erie’s well-known cooling breezes, characteristically loud, rolling surf, a broad backdrop of massive sand dunes, plenty of shade trees to escape for a picnic, and a visit to the nearby village to break up the day. It boggles the mind to discover that Port Burwell is also labelled as one of the least travelled places in southwestern Ontario.

It’s not only the beach that’s oddly unappreciated. The campgrounds (Leander, Iroquois and Alzora) are rumoured by park regulars as having some of the best sites in the province. Most are sheltered and all have excellent privacy corridors. None of them have direct access to the beach of course, but again, this gives the beach an extra bonus as well.

The forest surrounding the sites is even more significant than the beach. The park is located to the extreme southern point of Ontario, which means a good portion of the flora and fauna species found here are rare finds. Sassafras, blue beach and Virginia bluebells take root in the Elgin County’s soft, sandy soils. Badger and opossum are well-known park residents. A walk along the park’s Ravine Creek Nature Trail will reward even the most advanced ornithologists with countless songbirds. The note-worthy Hawk Cliff also neighbors the park, a place where bird watchers from around the world gather starting in September to watch countless numbers of hawks, eagles and falcons gather before migrating south. At times the sky is literally alive with hundreds of soaring birds of prey.

If birdlife or beach bumming isn’t your thing, campers also have quaint local hamlets to visit. History buffs also make a special pilgrimage to the 1840 Port Burwell Lighthouse. Visitors can climb to the top and view the town and beach front. Across the street from the lighthouse is the Port Burwell Marine Museum. And in the town of Vienna a museum also hosts the accomplishments of Thomas Edison (including one of his first light bulbs).

The history of Port Burwell Provincial Park is varied. Different groups of aboriginals inhabited the Norfolk Sand Plain. European settlers began arriving in the mid 19th century. By 1850 Port Burwell was boasting a total of 29 sawmills that were producing lumber. After the down turn in logging, commercial fishing became the major industry in the area. Realizing the tourist potential by the 1900s the town was equipped with a hotel, a dance hall and a bandstand.

Although perhaps not as well known as Long Point and Rondeau Provincial Parks, or Point Pelee National Park, Port Burwell is still another jewel along the Lake Erie shoreline.

Wasaga Beach wasn’t always fun and games

Ontario Parks Insider

Think Wasaga Beach and visions of endless sandy beaches, blue shallow waters, sand dunes, sand castles and volleyball might conjure in your head; but what about naval battles, red coats and sunken schooners?  In a few more years those visions, and the stories behind them, might just gain a bit of ground on those more common images of Wasaga. That’s because a brand new Welcome Centre is being planned and set to open to the public in 2012 in time to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812.

But this story begins many years back.   During the war of 1812 the HMS Nancy, a cargo schooner pressed into military service by the British, was attacked and sunk near the mouth of the Nottawasaga River by American forces.  Over time the river currents deposited silt and sand about the sunken hull and an island was formed. In 1928 the hull was raised, placed on the island and the Nancy Museum was officially opened to commemorate this episode in the War of 1812.

Snap forward to today and you will see an aging blockhouse marking the entrance to this important historic site.  To ensure that Nancy Island and Wasaga Beach Provincial Park continue to be a significant and sustainable national historic site, Ontario Parks is building a new Welcome Centre.

The new building will provide a facility that functions not only as an orientation to Nancy Island Historic Site and the War of 1812, but also as a small Welcome Centre to interpret the rich natural and cultural resources of Wasaga Beach Provincial Park. The facility will provide an orientation to a unique provincial park which is located completely within a town and where tourism is recognized as its major industry.

The new 3,000 sq. foot Welcome Centre is being designed in-house by Ontario Parks’ architect, Matthew Harvey.  Matthew has created a nautical theme, detailing the building with ship’s masts, authentic porthole and a clerestory “widows walk”.  The colour scheme of red siding and black and white metal trim is reminiscent of the uniform of British soldiers of the War of 1812.

Matthew is a LEED’s certified architect, and as such many of the building’s features are in keeping with LEEDs principles and with the values of Ontario Parks, including:

  • Operable windows and natural daylight from overhead clerestory windows in the main exhibit space coupled with electronically controlled Daylight Harvesting Systems,
  • Motion detectors, LED lighting and energy saving electrical fixtures,
  • Linoleum flooring made from renewable materials such as linseed oil, cork and jute,
  • Standing Seam galvanized metal roof with low emissivity,
  • Low maintenance local plant materials for landscaping, and
  • High insulation levels.

The completion of the Welcome Centre is planned to coincide with the Bicentennial of the War of 1812.  New interpretive displays commemorating the war will also highlight the bicentennial celebrations and the 200 years of peace between Canada and the United States.

Eildon Hall: 19th century luxury in the heart of the Canadian wilderness

Ontario Parks Insider

The Ontario Parks system is comprised of more than 300 provincial parks.  It makes up 9% of Ontario’s landmass – an area larger than all of Nova Scotia.   Most visitors understand that Ontario Parks is working to preserve our natural environment.  But what about our cultural heritage?  Fewer visitors are aware that Ontario Parks also manages many cultural resources.

What are cultural resources?  They are any resource or feature of archaeological, historical or traditional use significance.  They can range from buildings to archaeological finds to evidence of travel or settlement.

Sibbald Point Provincial Park features one of Ontario’s best connections to 19th century colonial life - Eildon Hall.

A visit to Eildon Hall, and its 500 acre estate, provides a glimpse into the life of Susan Mein Sibbald, a gentlewoman who brought Old World luxury to the heart of the Canadian wilderness. Arriving in Canada in 1835, after hearing that her sons might be living over a tavern, Mrs. Sibbald soon found and purchased a charming colonial house on the shore of Lake Simcoe. Naming the property Eildon Hall after her family’s estate in the Eildon Hills of Scotland, Mrs. Sibbald quickly began to transform the property into a country estate and gentry farm.

A stroll through the park tells several stories, such as...

The hedges and trees: Many of the trees on the estate that are seen today were planted nearly 150 years ago. This includes a European Weeping Ash that was brought in a flower pot from Italy by Mrs. Sibbald’s son in 1895.

The Grange: Used as a guest house, one of the more famous residents of the Grange was renowned Canadian writer Stephen Leacock. Life at the Eildon Hall estate was memorialized by Leacock in his autobiography The Boy I Left Behind.

St. George’s Church - Designated under the Ontario Heritage Act, the church was built in memory of Mrs. Sibbald, who died in 1866, by her sons. The church houses the outstanding hand-painted, stained-glass Simcoe Window, created and donated by three artist daughters of John Graves Simcoe.

Eildon Hall - A testament to Mrs. Sibbald’s gentry upbringing, the dwelling once contained a six bedroom second floor; a bell-towered carriage house complete with servants quarters; a dairy; a gallery; a parlour; a large kitchen; an office with a ship’s wheelhouse as its study; a glass conservatory style greenhouse; peacock house and a unique collection of original art, artifacts and furnishings.   Today, Eildon Hall still contains many of the treasures collected by Sibbald family members as they travelled the world.

Eildon Hall Museum is open to the public each year during the summer months until the end of August.  However visitors have an additional opportunity to see Eildon Hall this year when it will be a featured location for Doors Open Georgina on September 11, 2010.

Orange is the new green – Make the drop with Orange Drop

Ontario Parks Insider

Ontario’s parks are one of our greatest natural and cultural resources. We enjoy them today and want to keep them sustainable and healthy for generations to come. That’s where Stewardship Ontario’s Orange Drop program comes in. Propane tanks and other liquids under pressure are potentially explosive. If you’ve got propane tanks, cylinders or canisters of any size, don’t leave them behind – and never put them in with your regular recycling or garbage, even when empty. Join Ontario Parks green scene by making the drop – the Orange Drop.

When you bring your used containers to an official drop zone, we’ll ensure that they’re recycled or reprocessed into new materials. It’s easy and it’s free. Visit makethedrop.ca and enter your postal code to find the drop zone nearest you. For our environment, for our children and for ourselves, it’s time to make the drop!

Interested in learning more about our 3R (reduce, reuse, recycle) solutions? This summer, we’re bringing our Orange Drop education program to communities across Ontario. Watch for us, or check out our list of upcoming events. You can also tour our Virtual House to learn more about what you can recycle in your home and where you can return it in your community. Follow us on YouTube and Twitter to learn about our community activities, collection events and education tours and for updated videos and information.

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