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At this meeting hosted by AWARE Essa,  local speakers took the audience from the distant past when trees dominated the landscape to the near future when the trees we preserve today will protect our health, habitat and well-being.

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           AWARE Essa member Janet Lord-Genyk emcees the meeting.                                                                     Ojibway elder Judy Beeforth

 

To begin, Ojibway elder Judy Beeforth spoke of the deep respect indigenous people have for trees. Growing up, she learned about the many ways trees could be used to support life--providing food, medicine and habitat for wildlife as well as materials for tools, utensils and shelter. "When there are no trees, we will have nothing." Traditional knowledge of trees became part of First Nations spirituality, characterized by reverence for the natural world.

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          When the first settlers moved into Simcoe County in the early part of the nineteenth century, they encountered an almost

          unbroken forest, there for countless centuries before the beginning of recorded time. The huge trees stood shoulder to     

          shoulder, their canopy blocking out the sky so that it was possible to ride for hours in cathedral-like silence on a thick

          carpet of pine needles.

                                                                                                       ~John Craig, Simcoe County, The Recent Past

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                                                                                           Local historian Joan Truax

 

Local historian Joan Truax, a member of the Essa Historical Society, took us to the 1800s and the lumber industry that eventually brought sawmills, railways, people and prosperity to communities in Essa. Commercial harvesting of trees began with the pines. Agents of the Crown were licensed to cut the tallest, straightest white pines, with branches that began higher than sixty feet for use as ships' masts in His Majesty's Navy. The slightly smaller red pine logs were used as spars. As many as twelve teams of horses were needed to haul one massive pine log out of the woods, a task that was always done in winter.

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The building of the Northern Railway from Toronto to Collingwood in 1853 to 1855 gave a tremendous boost to the local lumber industry. A line that passed near a sawmill on the Pine River ensured that the nearby settlement, ideally situated in the midst of vast pine forests, would grow and prosper. This would become the village of Angus.

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Essa's pines had been used mostly for export to Europe. In Canada, demand for building materials was growing, and sawmills fluorished, producing sawn lumber, laths and shingles. The early 1870s were peak years for the lumber industry. The population of Angus surpassed two thousand and the village was the shipping point for seventeen mills located in the area. Five hotels, five general stores and four blacksmith shops as well as many other commercial enterprises made Angus a busy, prosperous community.

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Joan was able to locate many of these local sawmills and displayed them on a map, along with Bell's Gristmill, now being restored by the Friends of Utopia, and a local woollen mill. This is an invaluable resource to raise awareness of Essa's history.

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As the lumber boom began, so it ended with the building of a railway line from Beeton to Collingwood in 1878. For the village of Angus this competition marked the beginning of a gradual decline. The diminishing supply of trees sealed the fate of the lumber industry in Essa. The early years of the new century marked a low point in the fortunes of Angus and surrounding areas.

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                                                              Les Stewart with a slide of E. C. Drury and Edmund Zavitz

 

Les Stewart, a local history enthusiast, described the environmental devastation that came with the loss of trees--erosion, floods, and in some places desert-like conditions. Efforts to restore tree cover were set in motion by many great conservationists throughout the 20th century. Foresters Edmund Zavitz and A. H. Richardson, and farmer/politician E. C. Drury were leaders in this movement.

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Les recounted how in 1905, Edmund Zavitz, who was lecturing at the Ontario Agricultural College, rode his bicylcle from Guelph to Crown Hill, north of Barrie, to meet E. C. Drury at his family's farm. From his home, Drury had witnessed firsthand the fires used by settlers to clear forests and the brush left by the timber industry and create farmland:  "These areas had been cut over by lumbermen and the brush and waste timber being left on the ground to be burned over and over again until the seed in the ground was destroyed and natural regeneration was impossible." (E. C. Drury, quoted by Charles M. Johnson in E. C. Drury, Agrarian Ideealist.)

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Together the two men set out to document these pockets of wasteland across Ontario. Les showed slides of huge tree stumps left balanced on their roots by erosion.

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After his appointment as chief forester of Ontario in 1912, Zavitz's focus turned to preventing the forest fires that were often caused by passing trains igniting the slash left by lumbering. Les described some of the major fires that burned across Northern Ontario: In 1911, the Great Porcupine Fire killed at least 70 people south of Timmins. In a bizarre twist of fate, some of these people drowned when a rail car exploded and fell into the Porcupine Lake, sending a nine-foot wave across the water. The Matheson Fire of 1916 set a record in Canadian history of 243 deaths.

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Zavitz's task was daunting but the election of his friend E. C. Drury as premier of Ontario gave him much-needed support. From 1919 to 1923, Ontario experienced a golden age of legislation and policy to further reforestation and impose fire prevention regulations. The Midhurst Reforestation Station, The Ontario Tree Seed Plant in Angus, Springwater Park and Simcoe County forests were all established in these years.

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                                                                             Les Stewart introduces A. H. Richardson

 

To overcome the reistance of some local politicians, a publicity campaign was initiated, with Arthur Herbert Richardson, a forester, hired as its manager. A talented writer, Richardon's efforts proved successful and gradually the projects gained support. As supervisor of the construction of the Tree Seed Plant, Richardson had a particular connection to Angus, which continued when he organized the Boy Scout Forestry Camp on the site of the plant. He developed and initially taught the program of forest conservation himself. From the program's beginning in 1924 until 1991, Scouts, Cubs, Guides and Brownies planted an estimated 60 million trees.

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In 1943, as chairman of a provincial committee on conservation, Richardson submitted his survey of the Ganaraska watershed to the Ontario government, where it was enthusiastically received. This initial survey became the template for the eventual establishment of Conservation Authorities in the province.

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At the end of The Village of Angus: An Historical Sketch, written in 1929, A. H. Richardson laments the devastation of the pine forests and the economy of Angus and asserts his belief in reforestation:

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        It may seem a long look back to virgin stands of timber which once surrounded this settlement. It is a long look into the future

        when this timber will be put back again in all its value and beauty by modern reforestation methods, but the important thing is 

        this: those stands of timber need never have been cut in their entirety. By wise management and the exercise of scientific 

        forestry knowledge, many mills might still be operating in Angus, and the village still be a prosperous settlement.

 

 

                                                                            

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                                                                                 Cathy Richardson, Wendy Parry and Judy Beeforth (seated)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guests at Saturday's meeting had the pleasure of meeting Cathy Richardson, daughter of Herbert Richardson, and Wendy Parry, his niece. Cathy brought a copy of her father's book, Trees We Should Know. The firsthand stories told by Cathy and Wendy made this important history come alive for listeners.

 

More than two billion trees were planted across Ontario due to the efforts of the conservationists of the 20th century--an accomplishment that required expertise in many fields, years of persistence, and formidable powers of persuasion. Forests, streams and green spaces are their legacy to us, with the understanding that we will preserve them for future generations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                     Colleen Healey

                                                                     

Colleen Healey, Essa's manager of Planning & Development, addressed the practicalities of protecting trees under current provincial and municipal legislation. Municipalities must work within provincial policy, and Colleen gave an overview of the acts involved. The Municipal Act, the Planning Act, the Provincial Policy Statement and Places to Grow lay out the possibilities and the restrictions that inform municipal intitatives. Essa's Official Plan, now being revised, governs land use and expresses the vision of the community on how its resources should be developed and maintained. There are opportunities for citizen engagement in the revision of the Official Plan, and as many voices as possible need to be heard.

 

One of the challenges faced by the municipality is keeping development within the borders of settlement areas in Essa, places such as Angus, Thornton and Baxter. Some developers are already challenging this policy. Colleen estimated that there are fifteen years of growth left within the boundaries of Angus. To conform with Places to Grow, development within settlement areas will have to intensify. In keeping with this, Essa may look to allow second suites within homes.

 

Colleen also outlined additional strategies that could be used to add and preserve trees in Essa. Many of these need to be initiated by ordinary citizens at the community level, which leads to increased public participation in local governance, which is essential for success.

 

AWARE Essa would like to thank all of the people who volunteered their time and talents to make this meeting possible: the speakers for their interesting and engaging presentations; the Friends of Utopia and Bell's Gristmill who generously made the hall and theri equipment available to us; AWARE Simcoe for their support; Pat McDonald of AMP Printing, who printed flyers for us; and all the members of the audience who brought their enthusiasm and ideas. 

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