Hamilton's Balancing Act: Nature Vs. Industry Written by Paul Weinberg

HAMILTON’S BALANCING ACT: NATURE VS INDUSTRY BY PAUL WEINBERG n PHOTOS BY MIKE DAVIS amilton sometimes gets a bad rap for being smelly and industrial although that description has not properly fitted this place for some years. What gets missed is the natural beauty surrounding and splitting the largest urban centre Hon the Niagara Escarpment, including the sublime Cootes Paradise marshland, which greets drivers on Hwy 403 coming to the west of the city. ▶ There has always been tension between human activity and nature in Hamilton. Seagulls and two Black-Crowned Night Herons perch at the north shore of Hamilton harbour, across from steel plants. 42 Niagara Escarpment Views • summer 2015 summer 2015 • Niagara Escarpment Views 43 The Niagara Escarpment curves south around Hamilton into Niagara Region. Lake Ontario parks and walkways are popular leisure destinations. Heavy industry at Hamilton Harbour. The QEW separates the city from Lake Ontario beaches and parks. The Niagara Escarpment is visible on the horizon. 44 Niagara Escarpment Views • summer 2015 The Escarpment itself and Niagara areas. Relying was never seriously affected on landscape designers and by polluting heavy steel architects, he was part of the industries that once dominated civic beautification movement Hamilton’s economy, because at that time, says Dr. Mary they were located further Anderson, a McMaster north near the harbour. University historian and It, however, still remains author of Tragedy & Triumph, seriously contaminated. Ruby & Thomas B. Questen. Tension exists between “His whole idea was that human activity and nature morality of the people would in Hamilton, says Lynda improve by their relationship Lukasik, the executive director with beauty,” she says. of Environment Hamilton. McQuesten had a legacy Sometimes there’s a clash in to repair. What had once planning between the city been a pristine wilderness and the Niagara Escarpment at the end of Lake Ontario Commission (NEC) , both and other parts of Upper of which are responsible for Canada was ravaged by respecting the provincial rules European settlers. They arrived The Hamilton portion of the Escarpment was still denuded of trees as late as the governing the Escarpment area. in the early 19th century early 1930s. This clipping, with “reforestation” misspelled, is from Hamilton Free Press, Residents of the Stinson and chopped down trees Feb. 6, 1930. The newspaper no longer exists. Courtesy of The Hamilton Public Library. neighbourhood in the lower indiscriminately for firewood. old part of the city just below There were also small the Escarpment are, for quarries on the Escarpment instance, challenging the city where local dolomite at the Ontario Municipal limestone was mined for use Board, for its approval for three in constructing Hamilton’s multi-storey condominiums earliest buildings. Fortunately, on Charlton St. E. on former the impact on the Escarpment industrial lands. The NEC is geology was minimal, also opposed to the project. says St. Catharines-based “Visually, this is just a historian John Bacher. wonderful swath of green. More serious were the lime And you then have this kilns that “chewed up a lot of building rising up. So a lot wood” in the heating process of concerns were raised to turn limestone into mortar around the Escarpment for brick buildings, he notes. viewscape,” says Lukasik. By 1880, the Escarpment in Environmental preservation Hamilton was denuded of trees. is not new to Hamilton. People Reverend R. Burnet, as head who hike and cycle the city’s of an Ontario fruit farmers trails, including the old rail group, expressed his alarm trail that snakes under the tree around that time: “Hamilton, canopy along the Escarpment, which might have enjoyed a may not be aware that all scene of beauty for generations of this greenery including yet to come, has allowed the sensitive ecological lands face of her fair mountain like Cootes Paradise, under to be barbarously shorn of the stewardship of Royal the leafy covering, to the Botanical Gardens (RBG), great detriment of the city.” might not have happened, if It was not until the 1920s not for Thomas McQuesten. that serious reforestation began in the Hamilton Champion of Green Space Escarpment under Thomas McQuesten was elected to McQuesten, who by 1922 had Hamilton city council in 1913, joined the city parks’ board. and was a master builder of “The Escarpment was green space, playgrounds, reforested gradually and bridges, highways and restored brought back to life between The Niagara Escarpment looms magnificently over Hamilton’s Locke 1812 forts in the Hamilton 1920 and 1980,” says Bacher, Street, whose annual festival in September is tremendously popular. summer 2015 • Niagara Escarpment Views 45 ▶ In winter, Hamilton Harbour sometimes freezes sufficiently for skating. Here at Cootes Paradise Sanctuary, Nick and Alex practise shooting goals with their father Dorian Lemak. ▶ Hamilton at night from on top of the Mountain. 46 Niagara Escarpment Views • summer 2015 The Niagara Escarpment cradles the City of Hamilton, its largest urban centre. View from above Dundas. ▼ Black cormorants and herring gulls manage to thrive on a strip of land between the QEW and Hamilton’s industrial harbour. summer 2015 • Niagara Escarpment Views 47 author of Two Billion Trees area were replanted, including and Counting — the Legacy black walnut, white pine, red of Edmund Zavitz. cedar, white oak and red oak. McQuesten acted in concert with an Ontario-wide program 21st Century of reforestation under the McQuesten might have auspices of visionary forester had reservations about the Edmund Zavitz. What also controversial Red Hill Valley impresses Bacher is that Parkway which opened in McQuesten ensured that 2007 to allow traffic through trees originally native to the what was a sensitive wildlife Escarpment in the Hamilton corridor in east Hamilton. 48 Niagara Escarpment Views • summer 2015 The road connects the Queen Yet McQuesten, as Ontario’s Elizabeth Way (QEW) along minister of highways, was Lake Ontario to the Lincoln also responsible for the QEW, Alexander Parkway on the Canada’s first superhighway, other side of the Escarpment. which was built in the 1930s Would this keen forester between Toronto and Fort have supported Hamilton’s Erie. Anderson argues cull of thousands of trees that McQuesten had the for the project? thoroughfare designed “He would have pushed so that drivers could zip [the Red Hill Parkway] further past parks, trees and farms east,” suggests Anderson. to their destinations. As a man of his time, he might not have understood the argument made by biologists today, that roads disrupt the migration of birds and animals like coyotes, squirrels and reptiles. David Galbraith, head of science at RBG, says that the fragmentation of habitat for wildlife and indigenous plants remains an ongoing concern. His organization is working with private property owners and nine different agencies to better connect the sensitive bio-diverse lands in the Hamilton and Burlington areas, through the Cootes–to- Escarpment EcoPark System. “We have a pattern of development in southern Ontario that slices up the landscape into smaller and smaller pieces. And when that happens, the chances of any species surviving over the long term are diminished,” he explains. A wildlife crossing over Hwy 6 has been discussed but it is at a very early stage, Galbraith says. Tension remains between humans and nature. “A main goal of the Cootes- to-Escarpment EcoPark System is to facilitate the movement of animals and plants among isolated patches of remaining natural habitat through protection and stewardship Although not an endangered Jefferson salamander, this yellow spotted is in the of corridor areas,” explains family of creatures that is the reason a road in Burlington closes briefly each spring. Galbraith. “However, this must be taken in context and with use and planning situation for the movement of endangered the realities of the actual land the landscape as it is today.” Jefferon salamaders.NEV One positive sign might Paul Weinberg is a freelance writer in Hamilton Hamilton in summer, seen be that part of King Road from Ridge Road, the Escarpment in Burlington is temporarily and can be reached at in the distance. closed every spring to allow for [email protected]. summer 2015 • Niagara Escarpment Views 49.

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