Our very first "Geocaching Adventure" took place at the Kortright Centre for Conservation, located in Woodbridge, Ontario. If you don't know what geocaching is, it's basically treasure hunting. Someone hides a "cache", which can be anything from just a log to something filled with prizes! Then, the GPS coordinates are posted online. Cachers take those coordinates, put them into their own GPS and set off to find the cache!! Here is the very first geocache we found:

Hard to see, but if you look hard enough, you'll find it! 

Since we went in the winter, we didn't see a lot of animals or nice scenery. We saw a few birds, such as this one at a few of the bird feeders throughout the park

One interesting thing we did find in the park was a "bottomless pond" If you read some of my earlier blogs, you'll remember the term "Kettle Lake". Formed from pieces of glacial ice left behind after the glacier receded. Once these pieces of ice melt, a depression is formed. This depression fills with water to form the pond. I'm not entirely sure why they call it a bottomless pond. My guess is because this pond is relatively undisturbed due to no water (besides rain water) moving in and out of the pond. ie, no rivers or creek feeding or draining the pond. Layers of "ooze" built up at the bottom of the undisturbed water body. This ooze contains pollen, dead plants and animals that can be valuable for scientists to take a look into the past. This "ooze" makes the pond seem bottomless, which I assume is where it got it's name.

Otherwise, it was a pretty uneventful hike besides the geocaches we found. We found 8 caches in the park! We had a few "did not find"s, plus we didn't have time to attempt to find them all. Therefore, we hope to come back to this conservation park at some point to finish finding all the caches :) 

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!  

Hello to anyone who actually reads this! Clearly, I haven't been doing a very good job keeping this blog updated. I'll try to keep it updated more often! I've been very busy with work, and unfortunately had to get knee surgery which has limited how much I've been able to see. I'll post some information over the next little while to get caught up on everywhere I've been.

-Nicole 

Forks of the Credit, Caledon, ON

Today we took our new camera on its first adventure, to the Forks of the Credit Provincial Park in Caledon, Ontario. Fourteen bucks for parking, this one better be good!

FOTCR park features many glacial features, such as kettle lakes and kame hills, some neat geological formations, many different forest and meadow communities and of course, the Credit River. We didn't get a chance to hike the whole park, but what we did see was fantastic! There were so many trails, including a portion of the Bruce Trail (don't worry, I'll have another post on the Bruce Trail later!). Hopefully, we'll get a chance to go back one day and finish the rest of the trails! 

First we stumbled upon the Kettle Lake:

This is one of many different glacially formed features throughout Ontario. Kettle lakes are formed when large blocks of ice are buried by glacial outwash from the melting of glaciers. Once these ice blocks melt, a large depression is left behind, filling to become what you see above, a kettle lake! The largest kettle lake is actually located in Ontario, not far from Guelph, in Puslinch (hopefully one day I'll get over there and check it out for myself).

Next we travelled through some meadows and new growth forest, before we came to the main event, the Credit River! 

Caledon (and Orangeville) are actually where the headwaters of this beautiful river are located. It flows through Brampton, Mississauga and out into Lake Ontario. The entire river, plus all of its tributary is over 1500km long! Unfortunately, because this river is located near such urbanized areas, there have been some problems with the quality of water, especially closer to Mississauga. Hopefully, continuing restoration projects will help restore the river, so the many species in and around it can continue to flourish.

Speaking of many species, here are just some of what we saw (note: I'm still an amateur at IDing, so if I'm wrong, please, let me know!)

Belted Kingfisher

 Bumblebee

 Folwer's Toad

 Dolls Eyes (White Baneberry)

Ebony Jewelwing Damselfly

Overall, we really enjoyed this park. Although we didn't get to see everything, and I didn't really get a chance to show all we did see, it was a great experience. Just one of hopefully many provincial park adventures!

Welcome!

I'm a graduate from the University in Guelph, where I received my degree in Environmental Science. I love the outdoors, and living in Southwestern Ontario, there is so much beauty across this amazing landscape. My boyfriend and I recently bought ourselves a nice fancy camera. With it, we hope to capture the beauty across Southern Ontario, from the Bruce Trail to provincial parks to plain old conservation areas. Along with pictures, I hope to provide some insight into why things are the way they are (after all, I did get my degree in environmental science!). Now that I'm done school, I feel like I actually miss doing research and learning new things through that research! I am an amateur photographer, so although the pictures may not be that great, hopefully I make up for it with the knowledge provided!

Enjoy! 

-Nicole