Saturday Jan. 17, 2015

There are plenty of nice days for hiking in the winter and this was one of them.  It was minus 8 with a wind chill of minus 16 and absolutely free of bugs.  In recovery mode from a head cold I was likely over-dressed which isn’t a good thing as you don’t want to sweat.  Sweating in the cold air can actually leave you feeling even colder.  Today I accessed the park from the Keele subway station.  Two visits to the park in November had explored the west side and then the middle sections.  The first ending at Colborne Lodge and then the second taking in The Zoo. This time the target was the area known as the east ravine. This 176 acre section of High Park had belonged to Percival Rideout until it was sold to the city and added to the park in 1876.

Prior to any ice ages, the Laurentian River drained much of Ontario through what has become the St. Lawrence River.  Ice age debris has buried the ancient river channel and much of it now lies under the Great Lakes.  As the cover picture of the 1890 map of the river system shows, it was believed to have passed through the Toronto area.  In 2003 a 15 meter geyser led to the discovery that the preglacial river system still flows 50 meters below the surface under bedrock. High Park sits above the southern terminus where the Laurentian River system is blocked from entry into Lake Ontario.

Following the last ice age the lake was larger than today, reaching to the area of Davenport road.  This lake was known as Lake Iroquois and it left large sand and gravel deposits along it’s shore.  The area of High Park sits on extensive sand banks.  In one place there is a sink hole ten feet deep where the sand is being washed away.

There is a large oak forest on the eastern ravine of the park.  This hollow red oak tree is capable of concealing various kinds of wildlife including the specimen hiding inside it in this picture.

Toronto Urban Forestry maintains 4.1 million trees in the city including about 3.5 million in our parks.  Every year they plant about 100,000 trees to replace diseased or unsafe trees that are removed.  Red oak number 26827 is tagged in the picture below.  It stands, along with others in the same number sequence, along one of the sand rills behind Colborne Lodge.

A rear view of Colborne Lodge and the carriage house.

Crown galls are caused by a bacterial infection and can attack thousands of different species of plants. They cause galls to form, often near the soil line of the plant.  The red oak featured in the picture below has a gall larger than a beach ball.

Spring Creek flows down the eastern ravine and has been dammed near Colborne Lodge, perhaps to create a swimming pool.

Spring Creek empties into Lower Duck Pond where it is fed into the lake by means of pipes and a detour through Grenadier Pond.  The picture below looks from the south end of Lower Duck Pond back into the park.  The willow tree in the middle of the picture will become a harbinger of spring in a few weeks when the branches start to take on a green colour.

In December 1913 a set of gates was constructed on the entrance off of Parkside drive in honour of John George Howard for donating the property.  Ironically, they are constructed on the Percival Rideout property that the city acquired in 1876 and not on the former Howard property .  The metal work in this 102 year old structure is highly ornate.  The city had just received electricity from Niagara falls a couple of years earlier and this must have looked quite special with it’s central light and two corner post lamps lit.

This large oak branch is lying on the ground with it’s leaves still intact.  As discussed in the post Winding Lane Bird Sanctuary the tree will extract chlorophyll from the leaves and store it in the wooden parts of the tree for the winter.  It then forms a scab and a new bud for the next spring. This process causes the tree to eject the old leaf.  As this branch fell prior to that happening, the leaves will remain on the branch until they rot enough to be blown off by wind, rain or snow.

The tree branch broke off early in the season when the acorns were just beginning to form.  For scale a baby acorn is placed beside a 1974 5 cent piece.

High Park has plenty left to discover in future visits.  For a gallery of additional photos please visit our Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/hikingthegta