Beaver Valley

In my final year at UoG, I had went on a field camp for my Natural Resources Management program. We went to Beaver Valley, which is near Flesherton, Ontario. We were tasked with creating a side trail for the Bruce Trail, which is the longest continuous footpath in Ontario. In October, I ventured back to the property in Beaver Valley in which we were working. I've added pictures as well as some background on the property and Beaver Valley as a whole, so this could be a long one! 

Beaver Valley is located in Grey County Ontario. The valley, it's soils and physiography were all created due to glacial activity. Due to this glacial activity, much of the soil in the area is formed from glacial till and is calcareous. There are also many karst features in the area (which I will be elaborating on in a later blog post!). These features are due to the underlying bedrock in the area, known as Dolostone. This type of bedrock is soft, and when the glaciers passed over this area boulders and other debris gouged out the bedrock creating many of the features seen throughout the valley (including the valley itself!!) As you'll soon learn if you read this blog often, much of Southern Ontario's landscapes are the result of glacier activity.

Anyways, now back to our hike! The property we looked at was off of Johnson side road. When I went back, our side trail still had not been made, but I had a map and many of our flags were still there! The main reason for this side trail was so hikers could get a view of the waterfall. When we went, it was very wet and hard to get all the way up to the waterfall, but here are some pictures of how close we got: 

This is a close up view of the waterfall we got when we were on the field camp. It's really neat how you can see the different colourization of the different formations, depending on what minerals are in each layer. For example, the last two layers of rock are grey (from grey limestone) and red (from red calcareous siltstone).

Another neat feature we encountered was a disappearing stream. There wasn't any water running at the time, so unfortunately, we couldn't get a good picture of it. Because the area is largely dolostone bedrock, karst features are frequent in the area. Since I have a blog coming up on karsts, I'll just quickly explain how they are formed: dolostone is water soluble and is easily dissolved by water and the acid within that water. When this happens, caves and sink holes are created. If a stream happens to run through, it looks like the stream disappears into the sink hole and re-emerges through another.

Finally, there is an amazing lookout over the entire valley. There's a bench, so it's a great place to take a break or stop for lunch. Since we went in fall, we got to see a lot of beautiful fall colours throughout the Valley.  

I defiantly recommend taking a trip to Beaver Valley. There is so much to see, from karsts to waterfalls to sinkholes and everything in between. I've barley touched on the unique landscape that is Beaver Valley and on all that there is to see. I'm sure I'll be back here at some point, and might have some more facts on this amazing and unique landscape!