THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE LEGACY TRAIL IN THE NIAGARA REGION, ,

PROJECT OVERVIEW Stage Lengths for the Laura Secord Legacy Trail: PROJECT RESULTS Trail Stage Trail Length (Kilometers) The Five Stages of the Laura Secord Legacy Trail: Project Issue: Stage 1 7.3

On June 22, 1813, during the conflict now Stage 2 6.7 referred to as ‘The ,’ Laura Secord set Stage 3 9.7 off from her home in the community of , in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Stage 4 4.5 Ontario and embarked on a 33 kilometer journey to the DeCew House in , Ontario to warn Colonel James Stage 5 5.2 FitzGibbon of an impending American attack. Colonel FitzGibbon’s Total 33.4 receipt of Laura Secord’s information afforded the British the opportunity to plan and organize a counter-attack; ambushing the American army near Beaver Dams Creek on June 24, 1813. The Battle of PROJECT METHODOLOGY Beaver Dams Creek ended with a British, Canadian, and Native victory.

To commemorate the bicentennial of her historic walk, and Laura Data Collection via Digital GPS: Secord’s profound impact on Canadian history, The Friends of Laura Secord have sought to establish a permanent trail representing a Trail point data was collected using a Trimble GeoExplorer 2005 XH modern-day approximation of her route. digital global positioning system (GPS) unit. Utilizing ESRI’s ArcPad software, the TrackLog function was activated and data points and trail Project Goal: elevation information (in meters) were collected at one second intervals. The data were then copied from the GPS unit onto a desktop Trail Difficulty Rating: June 22, 2013 marks the bicentennial of Laura Secord’s walk to warn computer.

Colonel James Fitzgibbon of an impending American attack. To celebrate Trail Stage Trail Difficulty Rating her bravery and her legacy, a trail denoting her route from Queenston to Editing the Trail Data: Thorold has been created. This project serves to establish and map the Stage 1 Strenuous Laura Secord Legacy Trail, as well as investigate and ascertain the Using ESRI’s ArcMap software, the TrackLog data points were Stage 2 Strenuous difficulty of each stage of the trail system. converted to a line shapefile, which was then overlaid over South Western Ontario Orthophotography Project (SWOOP) 2006 aerial Stage 3 Moderate Overview of the Laura Secord Legacy Trail: imagery. Using the orthorectified SWOOP imagery as a guide, the line Stage 4 Moderate vertices were moved, or in some instances, deleted, to ensure that the line (i.e. trail) was in the precise location on the imagery. To ensure Stage 5 Strenuous that the data points were sequentially ordered, a new line shapefile was digitized using the edited trail points. The new shapefile was then exported into a file geodatabase as a line feature class. This procedure was used for each stage of the trail. PROJECT CONCLUSION

Trail Difficulty Analysis: Therefore, the five stages of the newly established 33.4 kilometer Laura Secord Legacy Trail have been mapped, and the trail difficulty for each To assess the trail difficulty, an a Triangular Irregular Network (TIN) stage has been assessed, and a difficulty rating has been assigned. The surface was created in ArcMap from the elevation point data. Next, an project has been completed in time for the Laura Secord Walk on June ArcGIS ‘Divide Line by Length’ tool was used to split the line feature 22, 2013 to celebrate the bicentennial of Laura Secord’s journey. The class into 10 meter sections. Using the ‘Add Surface Information’ tool Laura Secord Legacy Trail is a trail that can easily be navigated and in ArcToolbox, the slope and elevation data from the TIN were added interpreted by the public, and will stand as a testament to the heroic to the line feature class attribute table, which was then exported into actions of a Canadian heroine during the War of 1812 for generations to Microsoft Excel. Graphs were created of the slope and elevation, and come. were used, along with the trail length and trail surface substrate, to determine a trail difficulty rating for each stage of the trail.

Authors: Lori Steglinski and Leah Bercovitch Client: The Friends of Laura Secord Date of Submission: May 31, 2013