The landscape of Essex County
Jul. 30th, 2003 05:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vaneramosThe fact surprises most people who have never visited here: I was born in a Canadian city, Windsor, that looks north across the border to Detroit. There are some other odd facts about Essex County, where I grew up. Point Pelee, the southernmost tip of Canadian mainland, is on the same parallel as Northern California and the city of Rome. In fact Essex County is even spared some of the bitter cold for which Ontario winters are notorious. But the summers here, surrounded by the Great Lakes, are unbearably muggy. Someone once told me the humidity is even worse than in New Orleans. I wouldn't know.
I do know that Essex County is as flat as the Prairies, except it has a few more trees. Here is Poplar Bluff Beach road, which I walked everyday from grade 3 to grade 13 to catch the schoolbus to the nearest town, Harrow. In winter, a blistering wind blew across the fields. On the right is the golf course, to which my mother's bout with breast cancer last year is likely attributable.
Evening is the most beautiful time of day at Poplar Bluff, when golden light slants across the fields behind.
Essex County has the longest growing season in Ontario, and is one of Canada's most important agricultural areas, similar in quality to the Niagara region, although different in landscape. It is a passable climate for growing peaches and apricots. Southwestern Ontario's wine industry has grown exponentially in my lifetime. It's wines are of similar quality to those produced in Australia and New Zealand. This is also one of the best climates in the world for producing ice wine.
The most important crops here, however, are corn, tomatoes and soybeans. As a university student, I had a couple of summer jobs near home in agricultural research. Agriculture Canada has an important research station in Harrow. The town draws many migrant workers from Mexico and Jamaica every summer.
The industry also drew a large population of Portuguese residents. That's probably the reason I have always been attracted to Iberian men.
John R. Park emigrated to Upper Canada from Massachusetts in the early 1820s and had a homestead built on the shore of Lake Erie in 1842. He ran a store, farm and sawmill.
This mirrors my own family history. The Waffles (originally a Swiss family) arrived in New England in the 1700s, but Silvanus Waffle emigrated to Eastern Ontario in the 1820s. This is a common history of local families, who identified themselves as Loyalists during the American Revolution and left for Canada. They were usually motivated by the promise of cheap land. Many ended up with poor prospects, but some like the Parks were lucky.
The tree in the foreground is a tulip-tree, one of the beautiful species which grows nowhere else in Canada except extreme Southwestern Ontario.
Trinity Methodist Church was founded in 1906. The Methodists later combined with two other Protestant denominations to form the United Church of Canada, now the most liberal mainline church in this country. Individual congregations may opt to undergo a cumbersome process which allows them to offically welcome members of the queer community. Now that same-sex marriage is legal in Ontario, many couples will opt for a traditional service in the United Church where possible.
The sign on the door of this building now identifies it as Trinity United Church, New California. I grew up 10 minutes from this hamlet, in fact I took horseback riding lessons there for four years, but I had never heard of new California until this weekend. Rural Ontario is full of tiny communities like this: little more than a church on a corner.
My knowledge of architecture is limited, but this little church strikes me as an extraordinary building.
The unfortunate downside of so much good farmland is that natural habitats have been nearly eradicated. This part of Ontario once boasted a rich mix of native prairie and Carolinian Forest, the mixed deciduous woodland which ranges from here down to the Carolinas. This is the northernmost range of such species as flowering dogwood and red-headed woodpecker. But although this ecosystem boasts the highest species diversity of any in Canada, less than three per cent of the original forest cover survives. The highest concentration of Canada's endangered species attempt to reside in Southwestern Ontario.
Besides the renowned Point Pelee National Park, one of the few places in Essex County where mature forest and wetland can still be found is at Cedar Creek Conservation Area.
I do know that Essex County is as flat as the Prairies, except it has a few more trees. Here is Poplar Bluff Beach road, which I walked everyday from grade 3 to grade 13 to catch the schoolbus to the nearest town, Harrow. In winter, a blistering wind blew across the fields. On the right is the golf course, to which my mother's bout with breast cancer last year is likely attributable.
Evening is the most beautiful time of day at Poplar Bluff, when golden light slants across the fields behind.
Essex County has the longest growing season in Ontario, and is one of Canada's most important agricultural areas, similar in quality to the Niagara region, although different in landscape. It is a passable climate for growing peaches and apricots. Southwestern Ontario's wine industry has grown exponentially in my lifetime. It's wines are of similar quality to those produced in Australia and New Zealand. This is also one of the best climates in the world for producing ice wine.
The most important crops here, however, are corn, tomatoes and soybeans. As a university student, I had a couple of summer jobs near home in agricultural research. Agriculture Canada has an important research station in Harrow. The town draws many migrant workers from Mexico and Jamaica every summer.
The industry also drew a large population of Portuguese residents. That's probably the reason I have always been attracted to Iberian men.
John R. Park emigrated to Upper Canada from Massachusetts in the early 1820s and had a homestead built on the shore of Lake Erie in 1842. He ran a store, farm and sawmill.
This mirrors my own family history. The Waffles (originally a Swiss family) arrived in New England in the 1700s, but Silvanus Waffle emigrated to Eastern Ontario in the 1820s. This is a common history of local families, who identified themselves as Loyalists during the American Revolution and left for Canada. They were usually motivated by the promise of cheap land. Many ended up with poor prospects, but some like the Parks were lucky.
The tree in the foreground is a tulip-tree, one of the beautiful species which grows nowhere else in Canada except extreme Southwestern Ontario.
Trinity Methodist Church was founded in 1906. The Methodists later combined with two other Protestant denominations to form the United Church of Canada, now the most liberal mainline church in this country. Individual congregations may opt to undergo a cumbersome process which allows them to offically welcome members of the queer community. Now that same-sex marriage is legal in Ontario, many couples will opt for a traditional service in the United Church where possible.
The sign on the door of this building now identifies it as Trinity United Church, New California. I grew up 10 minutes from this hamlet, in fact I took horseback riding lessons there for four years, but I had never heard of new California until this weekend. Rural Ontario is full of tiny communities like this: little more than a church on a corner.
My knowledge of architecture is limited, but this little church strikes me as an extraordinary building.
The unfortunate downside of so much good farmland is that natural habitats have been nearly eradicated. This part of Ontario once boasted a rich mix of native prairie and Carolinian Forest, the mixed deciduous woodland which ranges from here down to the Carolinas. This is the northernmost range of such species as flowering dogwood and red-headed woodpecker. But although this ecosystem boasts the highest species diversity of any in Canada, less than three per cent of the original forest cover survives. The highest concentration of Canada's endangered species attempt to reside in Southwestern Ontario.
Besides the renowned Point Pelee National Park, one of the few places in Essex County where mature forest and wetland can still be found is at Cedar Creek Conservation Area.
