GOREWAY – QUEEN 1 (PART OF CLAIREVILLE CA) Region of Peel NAI Area # 2121, 2136, Toronto and Region 2142, 2145, 2147, 2148, Conservation Authority 2154, 2165, 2170, 2175, 2179, 2369, 2521, 2637, 2639, 2641 City of Brampton Size: 101 hectares Watershed: Humber River Con 3 (Albion Twp.), Ownership: 100% Subwatershed: Lots1-3 public (TRCA, Ontario West Humber River Ministry of Transportation) General Summary This large urban natural area is comprised predominantly of deciduous forest and cultural communities (meadow, savannah, woodland), with some wetland communities. The area occupies the broad bottomlands and valley walls of the West Humber River, a short distance upstream of the reservoir above the Claireville dam. This natural area is a part of a much larger Claireville Conservation Area that is owned and managed by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) and protected from urban development. The natural area is compact, mostly unfragmented (except for the eastern corner), and provides large patches of forest that provide interior forest habitat, and grassland. The site is a biologically rich area that supports provincially and regionally rare vegetation communities, two Species At Risk and regionally rare plant species. TRCA ELC surveyors, botanists and ornithologists have provided complete data coverage for the core NAI inventories (vegetation communities, plant species, breeding birds) plus incidental observations of other fauna over the delineated area (Table 1). TRCA ecologists have also surveyed frog species at this site. Table 1: TRCA Field Visits Visit Date Inventory Type 01 Apr. 1997 Fauna 25 Sept. 2002 ELC 14 Apr. 2002 Fauna 26 Sept. 2002 ELC 29 Apr. 2002 ELC, Flora 03 Oct. 2002 Flora 30 Apr. 2002 Flora 28 June 2007 Fauna 01 May 2002 ELC, Flora 02 June 2008 Fauna 06 June 2002 Fauna 25 June 2008 Fauna 10 June 2002 Fauna 03 July 2008 Fauna 25 June 2002 Fauna 28 Mar. 2009 Fauna 03 July 2002 Fauna 15 Apr. 2009 Fauna 28 Aug. 2002 Flora 27 May 2009 Fauna 03 Sept. 2002 Flora 28 May 2009 Fauna 16 Sept. 2002 ELC 04 June 2009 Fauna 17 Sept. 2002 ELC 08 June 2009 Fauna 18 Sept. 2002 ELC, Flora 09 June 2009 Fauna 19 Sept. 2002 ELC, Flora 15 June 2009 Fauna 24 Sept. 2002 ELC, Flora 16 June 2009 Fauna Date of this Site Summary: October 2011 GOREWAY – QUEEN 2 (PART OF CLAIREVILLE CA) Physical Features This area is in the Peel Plain physiographic region, characterized by flat to undulating topography. Soils of this region tend to be low- permeability clays, deposited when glacial meltwater ponded up over a layer of low permeability deposits. The West Humber River has eroded a broad flat-bottomed valley into the surrounding plain. The river runs through this natural area, meandering back and forth across the floodplain and is the key hydrological feature of this area. Old oxbows have created crescent-shaped wetlands. Human History In the early 1800’s, an early settler named Alexander McVean harnessed the West Humber River to power a grist and saw mill within what is now Claireville Conservation Area. McVean was a wheat farmer and built a wheat barn in 1845 that still stands today, north of Queen Street (Highway 7 East). McVean and other settlers cleared the surrounding land for agriculture to support the grist mill (City of Brampton, 2010; The Brampton News, 2010; Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 2010). At the time of settlement the area must also have had a plentiful supply of trees that supported the sawmill. Throughout the 1800’s and the first half of the 1900’s most of this area of Brampton was farmland. The Hawthorn-dominated communities in this area indicate past agricultural grazing. The former community of Claireville was located nearby at the crossroads of Albion Road, and Steeles Ave. It was founded in 1851 by Jean du Petit Pont de la Haye, a French teacher, who named it after his daughter Claire. Part of the former community site is now covered by the Claireville Reservoir. Albion Road was originally built in 1847 by the Albion Plank Road Company and extended from Weston to Bolton. It consisted of 18 miles of pine planks (2 ¼ million feet of plank) with oak pegs and there was a toll house in Claireville (Etobicoke Historical Board, 1985; Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, 2010; Wencer, 2010). In 1954, Hurricane Hazel hit the Greater Toronto Area, with the greatest impact occurring along the floodplain of the Humber River, then occupied by residences. Flash flooding caused houses to be torn off their foundations and area residents to be swept away by floodwaters with 81 lives lost. In the years that followed, flood control plans were set in motion. In 1957, TRCA acquired farmland in this area in preparation for the construction of a flood control reservoir. This land is now known as Claireville Conservation Area. The Claireville Dam and Reservoir were constructed in 1964 at the south end of the conservation area (south of this natural area) (Environment Canada, 2009; Gorrie, 2010; TRCA, Undated). This natural area is part of Claireville Conservation Area but is less intensively used and developed than the portion to the south of Highway 407 and Steeles Ave. in the vicinity of the dam and reservoir which includes Wild Water Kingdom and Indian Line Campground. This natural area is bordered by a busy arterial road and some agricultural land to the east, Highway 407 to the south (opened in 1997) and a quieter conservation area road on the remaining sides (Bevers, 2010). Above the valley walls in this general area, urban estate residential and industrial uses exist alongside some remaining agricultural lands. Vegetation Communities The general community types present here are deciduous forest (32%), meadow marsh (3%), shallow marsh (7%), deciduous swamp (0.4%), thicket swamp (0.2%), cultural meadow (38%), cultural savannah (10%), cultural woodland (0.5%) and plantation (2%). Fifty-three plant communities were mapped for this area, comprised of 23 different vegetation types (Table 2). Two of these communities, Fresh-Moist Sugar Maple - Black Maple Deciduous Forest Date of this Site Summary: October 2011 GOREWAY – QUEEN 3 (PART OF CLAIREVILLE CA) (FOD6-2, S-rank S3?; 2 communities), are provincially and regionally rare. Nine of the community types present here are considered to be TRCA regional Communities of Urban Conservation Concern: Dry-Fresh Sugar Maple - Oak Deciduous Forest (FOD5-3, L-rank L4), Dry-Fresh Sugar Maple - Hawthorn Deciduous Forest (FOD5-A, L-rank L4), Fresh-Moist Sugar Maple - Black Maple Deciduous Forest (FOD6-2, L-rank L4), Fresh-Moist Oak - Lowland Maple Deciduous Forest (FOD9- 2, L-rank L4), Narrow-leaved Sedge Mineral Meadow Marsh (MAM2-5, L-rank L4), Broad-leaved Sedge Mineral Meadow Marsh (MAM2-6, L-rank L4), Broad-leaved Cattail Mineral Shallow Marsh (MAS2-1A, L-rank L4), Swamp Maple Mineral Deciduous Swamp (SWD3-3, L-rank L4) and Willow Mineral Thicket Swamp (SWT2-2, L-rank L4). The forest communities dominated or co-dominated by Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum ssp. saccharum) are all mature with the exception of one of the Sugar Maple – Black Maple communities which is mid-aged, and a young Sugar Maple – Hawthorn community. All of the Hawthorn – Apple and the exotic deciduous forests are young. The lowland deciduous forest communities (dominated by Willow (Salix sp.) and Manitoba Maple (Acer negundo)) are all mid-aged. Table 2: ELC Vegetation Communities Map Vegetation type Size in % of natural reference * hectares area FOD4-e Dry-Fresh Exotic Deciduous Forest (2 communities) 2.85 2.82 FOD4-H Dry-Fresh Hawthorn - Apple Deciduous Forest 5.97 5.91 (5 communities) FOD5-1 Dry-Fresh Sugar Maple Deciduous Forest 1.20 1.19 FOD5-3 Dry-Fresh Sugar Maple - Oak Deciduous Forest 4.96 4.91 (2 communities) FOD5-6 Dry-Fresh Sugar Maple - Basswood Deciduous Forest 1.60 1.58 FOD5-A Dry-Fresh Sugar Maple - Hawthorn Deciduous Forest 0.69 0.68 FOD6-2 Fresh-Moist Sugar Maple - Black Maple Deciduous 6.99 6.92 Forest (2 communities) PROVINCIALLY RARE S-rank S3? FOD7-3 Fresh-Moist Willow Lowland Deciduous Forest 4.25 4.21 (5 communities) FOD7-A Fresh-Moist Manitoba Maple Lowland Deciduous 2.74 2.71 Forest (3 communities) FOD9-2 Fresh-Moist Oak - Lowland Maple Deciduous Forest 0.74 0.73 (2 communities) MAM2-2 Reed Canary Grass Mineral Meadow Marsh 1.59 1.57 (2 communities) MAM2-5 Narrow-leaved Sedge Mineral Meadow Marsh 0.05 0.05 (2 communities) MAM2-6 Broad-leaved Sedge Mineral Meadow Marsh 0.47 0.47 MAM2-10 Forb Mineral Meadow Marsh (4 communities) 0.61 0.60 MAS2-1A Broad-leaved Cattail Mineral Shallow Marsh 0.26 0.26 MAS2-1b Narrow-Leaved Cattail Mineral Shallow Marsh 6.65 6.58 (8 communities) SWD3-3 Swamp Maple Mineral Deciduous Swamp 0.39 0.39 SWT2-2 Willow Mineral Thicket Swamp (2 communities) 0.20 0.20 CUM1-A Native Forb Old Field Meadow (2 communities) 20.04 19.84 CUM1-b Exotic Cool-season Grass Old Field Meadow (3 17.90 17.72 communities) CUS1-1 Hawthorn Cultural Savannah 10.13 10.03 Date of this Site Summary: October 2011 GOREWAY – QUEEN 4 (PART OF CLAIREVILLE CA) CUW1-b Exotic Cultural Woodland 0.52 0.51 CUP2-f Hybrid Poplar – Conifer Mixed Plantation 2.46 2.44 TOTAL AREA INVENTORIED 93.26 * Note: The map reference code refers to the vegetation type shown on mapping for this area and also to the Appendix list of species typically encountered in this vegetation type. Species Presence Vascular Plants Plant species diversity is high in this area. A total of 213 species are present, of which 155 (73%) are native.