Tag Archives: Hiking

My Grandfather Built Lake of the Clouds

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My grandfather, Bing Young, built Lake of the Clouds in 1965. He worked in construction all his life. Castle Glen hired him as the caretaker. He plowed all the roads, took care of all the buildings, and he also built the lake. He did that until he retired around the year 2000. He lived across Grey Road 19. There’s an old farmhouse on the hill. When he retired Castle Glen gave him two acres of land and he built his house there.

I spent every weekend as a child up there, always hiking. The lake was stocked with speckled trout. That’s where I would spend all my Christmases. I proposed to my wife there, too, right at the arch of the castle.

My grandfather had to enforce the No Trespassing signs at certain times because big four-wheelers would come in off the Sixth Street extension, drive into the castle and rip up the trails. But other than that, everyone you talk to up there is very open about sharing the land. I’ve been going up there my whole life as a local. It’s always just something you do on weekends. The walk through the hardwood forest from the castle to Sixth Street is absolutely beautiful. It’s an ecosystem for a lot of wildlife. It’s a nice place to enjoy. When you come out of that forest the view over the whole area is incredible.

There’s a real lack of awareness about what could happen to the Castle Glen property. Until I heard about it from the Escarpment Corridor Alliance I had no idea that the land was sold to a big developer. The original Castle Glen owners had the dream of doing all this but they never had the funds to make it happen. I have the original pamphlet from Castle Glen when they were selling lots for $3,900 in the late ‘60s or early ’70s. The development was the kind of thing that was out of sight, out of mind. It was something from 15 or 20 years ago that stalled and everyone forgot about.

I’ve always been a mountain biker. One of my biggest concerns is that the nearby mountain bike trails at Three Stage will get destroyed. The soil is clay-based. When it’s wet and people ride there, the trails get damaged fast. A 1,600-home development, potentially a hotel, is just that much more traffic volume.

And for the road biking community, Grey Road 19 is a haven for cyclists. The increased traffic would be monumental. I can’t imagine all the dump trucks going up and down there.

I also worry about the Pretty River Provincial Park and the amount of people that the development will bring. And I don’t like the idea of a housing development right on the Bruce Trail corridor.

I’m not against development, but this is massive. I’m surprised that the environmental side isn’t being looked at more.

My grandfather passed away in 2002, but all those trails and forests are the same as I remember them. If that development is pushed through, it would change the whole landscape of the area.

My hope is that Castle Glen stays as it is for future generations to enjoy.

This article is edited and condensed from an interview with Jason Smith, an avid mountain biker and ECA volunteer who grew up in Collingwood and now lives in Wasaga Beach. 

Traffic Math—How development threatens the Escarpment’s best cycling and hiking routes

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VROOM. This is…VROOM…what biking…VROOM…on Grey Road 19…VROOM…might sound like…VROOM…if the proposed Castle Glen Resort Community gets built.

Grey Road 19 is one gem of a cycling route. Grey County proudly promotes this road, the former site of the Sea Otter Canada and Blue Mountains Gran Fondo rides, on its Cycling Routes roadmap. Grey Road 19 is a local favourite training ride for its long gradient, wide shoulders, expansive views and light traffic.

But what is being done to protect this regional attraction?

One thousand, six hundred new homes. Three hundred additional hotel rooms. Three added golf courses. An approved 5,000 square meters of new commercial space.  Another gas station. We have to wonder, how much extra traffic would the planned Castle Glen development create on Grey Road 19?

The studies haven’t been done. But we can hazard a guess.

Imagine each of those planned houses has just one car—a conservative estimate to be sure. If one car leaves every home in the future Castle Glen Resort Community each morning, between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. That’s 1,600 cars over two hours. That works out to 13 cars going by every minute, or one car every 4.5 seconds, for two straight hours. Then the same pattern repeated in every afternoon.

Or, say one car journey per household per day, spread evenly over 10 hours from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. That adds up to 3,200 cars on Grey Road 19 (one trip out and back for 1,600 cars). That’s 5.3 cars per minute. Just plain math.

One car every 12 seconds. All day long.

That’s the added traffic, on top of what exists today. And we haven’t even considered the guests at the 300-room hotel or people heading to golf.

Would you want to bike on such a road? Would you hike beside it, or in a nearby forest now filled with highway sounds? A popular section of the Bruce Trail follows the shoulder of the Grey Road 19, and this added traffic creates a dangerous mix of pedestrians and many, many cars.

And what about traffic on Sideroad 12, the extension to Sixth Street that borders the other side of the Castle Glen development, a secluded gravel backroad that’s so popular with local walkers that it’s Collingwood’s de facto outdoor stair master?

Nor do those numbers don’t take into account the potential years of heavy truck traffic from constructing 1,600 homes, or the roads and amenities to service them. And of course the proposed hotel rooms, golf courses and shops. Building an entire town on the brow of the Niagara Escarpment, the heart of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, is an outdated development concept that would surely be rejected if it were put forward today.

Don’t take for granted that our quiet Escarpment roads will always be welcoming to walk and ride. As the song goes, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Isn’t it time we established protection for the recreational amenities most cherished by locals and visitors alike, the very foundation of the region’s recreation economy, before it’s too late?

Read more about the proposed Castle Glen development HERE. Sign the petition HERE.

Kinship with Forest and Flora

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Tucked between the gentle slopes of a long-vanished glacial landscape and the Niagara Escarpment is an oasis of peace and tranquillity – the Hibou Conservation Area. Here’s a place where nature and magic meet upon the forest floor of yesteryear, created at a time that my imagination can wander to with every step that I take. In the forest, there is a sense of kinship with the flora, of an ancient soul that stretches into everything that lives. How could I not love being here?

As I follow the trail to the shore of Georgian Bay, I stop to watch the glorious Monarch butterfly seeking her daily nectar, dancing in a splash of colour like a delicate flower of the sky, born to fly into the warm summer air.

The forest hums with life all around me. I twirl about, gazing up at the canopy of the trees, searching for the birds that sing so sweetly. I think to myself how absolutely incredible it is that these towering gentle giants grew from simple seeds, with mud, water and sun, providing me the oxygen I breathe and cleaning the air so fresh and wonderfully fragrant.

This is when I stop knowing and begin feeling; it’s when I hear with my heart the voices of these mighty trees, and the language of birds that are singing to my soul now so clear. This is what it means to live in the moments of life.

Just up ahead, past the mushrooms that are anchoring into the underground network of nutrition and communication, I can now see the waves of Georgian Bay. The largest freshwater Bay in the world will energize my hands as I glide them through it’s forever cool waters. Looking down, I notice some strange pattern on the rock. I pick it up and look closer and can hardly contain my amazement. In my hand, I am holding a trilobite fossil that once lived when this land was the bottom of a warm water sea created 500 million years ago. I look all around me and realize that I am seeing and touching this ancient sea floor in the here and now. What an incredible day this has been; a day that I can come back to again and again each time I visit the Hibou Conservation Area.

by Annette Sandberg, ECA Director and Certified Hiking Guide with Hike Ontario

(Previously published in the Friend of Hibou Newsletter – Winter 2020/2021)

Introducing Our Newest ECA Director – Annette Sandberg!

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Annette Sandberg grew up on the Niagara Escarpment on a farm between Castle Glen and the Scenic Caves, and she now resides in Collingwood. Her love for the area developed as a child and it has driven her to research and document our local history, focusing primarily from the time of the Petun to the early emigrants of the 1800s. Annette was elected to the Town of Collingwood Trail and Active Transportation Advisory Committee that fosters ongoing stewardship of Collingwood’s multi-use pathways, trails, and on-road bicycle lands/routes and connections.

Annette is a member of the Ontario Museum Association and her articles have been included in the Indigenous and early pioneer exhibits at local museums, conservation newsletters, and our local CollingwoodToday newspaper. Annette is a certified Ontario Hiking Guide leading historical hikes for Bruce Trail Clubs and independently through her Historical Hiking Tour business. Annette is an active member of a Volunteer Provincial Ground Search & Rescue Team and a Certified Outdoor Survival instructor. She has been with the local Gaslight Tour since its inception in 2010 and is the Director of Guides researching and writing historical scripts for the production. In 2016, she completed the 900 km trek of the Bruce Trail from Queenston Heights to Tobermory and researched and recorded the history of the land that she walked on.

Please join us in welcoming Annette to the ECA Board!