06/02/2024
One summer day nearly 20 yrs ago my brother was back in Ontario visiting from the west coast with his son. We’d set up a tent in a back field at my folks farm on Mount Nemo, and a strong wind (it gets windy up there) had blown off the fly. We hopped a fence and went looking for it on our neighbour’s farm.
A few fields over from ours we came across this incredible pond. We had never seen it before or knew it existed. It was in a low dip in a field and had stayed undetected by us for decades.
We also noticed that the creek that poured out of our back woods travelled across our neighbour’s field and then completely disappeared into a sinkhole, an inconspicuous hole in the ground surrounded by some large rocks. The water then travelled under the ground where we couldn’t see it, and few hundred feet downstream it popped back up through the surface and created this picturesque pond. We saw heron tracks in the mud and a small muskrat at the shore.
Soon after that we found out that a large transnational company was seeking permission to blast a massive open pit in the fields behind our farm, directly upstream at the headwaters of this and many other creeks. We fought that quarry application with everything we had, for the wetlands, well water, prime farmland and the endangered species that live here. We successfully defeated Lafarge’s application in 2012 and we will do everything we can to defeat their latest attempt to destroy this place.
Feeling the magic of places like this fires up an undeniable responsibility to protect them. Right now the Ontario provincial govt wants to make it easier to destroy wetlands and endangered species habitats. Please add your power to the fight. If you’re in Ontario send them a message now to say ‘no way’. https://ontarionature.good.do/weakening-SAR-protections/email/?fbclid=IwAR3en5Vb0mfX5sOEemDtVgZlVdam8eXdWVJIrRyBv4GU1CLEJzGQyXHfuhE
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