Betty Sutherland Trail

The Betty Sutherland Trail is not a very long trail, but it's interesting enough.  It starts from the south at Duncan Mill Road and travels northwest to Sheppard (and Leslie) in Toronto.

You will see a few trails in Toronto named after women influential in politics and community.  Another that comes to mind is the Kay Gardner Belt-line Trail.


Betty Sutherland was an elected representative who served 13 years in North York on the Council (before the amalgamation of the City of Toronto) until she went into retirement from her career in politics in 1985.

Betty loved nature, and had given almost ten years on the council of the Toronto and Regional Conservation Authority.  She had contributed much to the development of parklands, including the maintenance in the keeping with the natural environment of the City's parks and trails.  This included planting native trees, shrubs and wildflowers as well as staying true to the existing landscape to improve on the existing wildlife habitat to endure the species of plants and animals that lived there.

Her contribution led to the naming of this trail as the Betty Sutherland Trial in 1988.

The trail is a fast and easy one (good for a lunch break if you work or live in the area).  Much of the landscape remains untouched other than some overhead bridge repairs.  Near the start of the trail, there are also some ruins of old pump houses that remain giving the landscape a bit of an interesting historical feature to it.  Other than the graffiti on the walls, the house still remains pretty much intact.

Off the trail at the end of one of the footpaths, near the river there's a cute little nook of chairs equipped with firepit overlooking a beautiful location for relaxing.

It always amazes me that in the heart of such a busy city there are so many of these little 'nooks' to be enjoyed.

Happy Trails!

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Cathedral Bluffs Park

I think you'll agree that Cathedral Bluffs are the most beautiful part of Bluffers Park.  The overlook is dangerously stunning reaching heights of over 90 metres! 

'Cathedral' Bluffs obtained its name from the 'cathedral-like' spire formations created by erosion exposing evidence of five different glacial periods.

The Bluffs located in Scarborough Canada stretch over a span of 14km and were formed over thousands of years of glacial activity and erosion by the currents of Lake Ontario.


When you are standing up top here looking down, it is almost impossible to imagine the water level being this high at one time.   To give you an idea of high it is up here just look at the one picture here in this post where you can see a person down by the shoreline below.  Yes that little speck is a person!

You can gain access to the beaches below just off Kingston Road, via Brimley Road in Toronto Canada.  It's a straight down dramatic descent below which captivates the eyes in any season. 

Once down here, there's a private marina (now advertising water houses for sale currently in rows and docked for the season), a private marina, a Bluffers Restaurant and the park itself formed by landfill.  You really need to have a car to get down here, and in the busiest months, parking can be tough.  Of course you can walk down into the park, but its a good work out getting back up by bike or walking.

I wanted to mention that while down here I noticed a group of people around some trumpeter swans near the boat launch.  Since the swans had tags on them, I immediately formed the notion that they were involved in some race.  "The Great Canadian Swan Race"?   I am not sure what the tags were really meant for but I assumed MO01 was a swan representing Montreal and L64 could perhaps be a 'local' representing swan?




I've learned to research my ideas and laugh off a lot of them!  Seriously, the real reason for the tags are so that volunteers can track the swans' locations from a distance, especially during breeding and nesting season when the swans become too rowdy to get close enough to look at their ankle bands.  The wing tags last about 2 -4 years.

There are many birds at the park here.  It was too cold still for a walk today though, but anxiously awaiting sprung to spring (spring to sprung).

Birkdale Ravine

With winter taking a while to disappear, there isn't much in the way of colour in parks these days (which is one of the reasons I haven't been actively photographing the trails.)

However, I did happen to spot a colourful orange Bobcat off in the distance while walking through the Birkdale Ravine the other day.

Not just any colorful cat either: this one was busy at work cleaning up the damage caused from the recent Ice Storm in December 2013 that affected so many in Toronto over the holidays.  A local man walking his pup had mentioned that the damage to the park was catastrophic and sadly most of the larger trees were taken away already.


Birkdale is a 2 km walk which starts north of Lawrence off of Brimley and winds north west towards Ellesmere.

One of the paths of the park is marked by a tall, elegant light standard — self-sufficient, too, generating its own solar/wind power.  Now that's a great idea.  The same man who was taking his pup for a walk had mentioned that he has been out at 4 am and still saw the lights generating power.

There is plenty of wildlife in and around the creek.  This must be why it was chosen as the site of a village inhabited by Iroquoians around 1250 A.D.

Sometime in the early 1950's a group of University of Toronto students had excavated the area to discover varied clay tobacco pipes, tools and sharpened objects.  They also found pieces of pottery and long slender poles and bark used to build very large log cabins.   It appeared that each cabin had a centre line of fireplaces that were used for both their heating and cooking.  They lived off the land by fishing, hunting and growing basic agriculture of squash, pumpkin, corn and beans.  Later they found bones of mass graves on a hill side a little north of here called Tabor Hill.   (see this blog: Tabor Hill).

I thought I would share this falls view video of Birkdale Ravine bursting with colour, to brighten up the post with promise of better seasons ahead for those stuck in the grey blahs of winter.

Bruce's Mill Conservation Area

 Here's another trail I came across lately called the Bruce's Mill Conservation Area.  It's a little out of the GTA, north of of the core in Stouffville (Whitchurch and 404).  It's also a little late in the year now, but opens again in early March of 2014.

There are over 92 hectares which includes over 10 km of hiking trails, a driving range, soccer fields, baseball diamonds, and a pool.  This would be an awesome day trip for schools or family picnics.

I parked at the gate and walked around as far in as I could, but night was coming fast (despite the look of these pictures, darkness fell within half hour of taking them). I loved the house at the east of the front gate, so had to take some photos of that.

There is a splash pool called Bruce's Splash Pond, which is a hit in the summer months.  It must have been gorgeous in autumn with all the hardwood forests changing colours.  There are events here including pony rides, country bakes and a display of steam engines as well.

In the spring when the Conservation area opens there is a Maplefest at the Sugarbush.  Here's a video I found highlighting the festivities which start in early March when the park opens up again:  Bruce's Mill Sugarbush Maple Syrup

I don't know why, but I took this photo of this sign, which simply read "Humphrey A.W. Miles..Woodland, A Living Tribute".  Naturally since I love history so much I looked up who Humphrey A.W. Miles was, and found this link  To me, this seems almost like a marketing ploy, an advertisement for their business.  Either way, here it is.

I love this picture, with the lonely terracotta pot.  Maybe it's the sky in the foreground or maybe it's just the colors of the picture.  


If you are ever in the area of Stouffville, this offers quite a nice day trip to nature.

Cedar Trail (Rouge Valley)

If there's anything that can heal me it's a good long walk through the woods or a soul-search over the fields of wildflowers, day-old hay and the sounds of a distant locomotive.  

How could I have known that my life has been easy and blessed until this year, which I will always remember as one of the worst?  It is true that tragedy brings forth pain and challenges, and if you can rise to it, you will be stronger.

While I long for the simpler days again, never realizing that simple is good and not to complain, it is in the wake of these challenges that I appreciate the buzzing of the bees and the flight of the birds overhead and the birth of regrowth that shows me life is going on all around me.  I'd love to walk here alone, but I can't.  I have to share myself with others that need me and maybe I might need them too.

I'm not done with this as there are still many obstacles ahead, but why not walk here undaunted, if not for answers, but for peace alone.  So I did.

My camera isn't working as well as it used to. I focus into something small and close, but it doesn't want to sharpen the view.  It's time for a new camera, but I still love taking pictures.  I have plenty I haven't cataloged yet, and some posts have been put off until now.  I have decided to balance worry with wisdom, heartache with hope.  

This is another series of trails in the lovely Rouge Valley Conservation Area.  This one is called Cedar Trail.  It's all off-road; no vehicles allowed here, so no point in looking back, but I will say one thing, the trail ends at a very inconvenient place in the middle of nowhere really.  So if you are on foot, you are looking at about an 8-10 km trek back to the city of Toronto, unless you want to turn around and go back the way you came.  I personally don't like to hike that way, and quite a few others are the same.  Moving forward without backtracking is pretty common.  But these trails aren't designed for that as they are in the middle of a conservation area which is a non-profit charitable organization that offers hikes and educational tours.  It is designed to have you come back to them, so that you can donate, share, assist, learn and restore.

The Rouge River flows through it from near McCowan Road to 19th Avenue.   It begins in the Oak Ridges Moraine in Richmond Hill and goes by Markham northwest, central to south and into a few other smaller conservation areas.  It flows like chocolate milk as it picks up mud and debris traveling south.  

Cedar Trail is one of 5 trails in the conservation area.  This particular one is 2.2 km through old growth forest.  Even while it was sweltering out and the sun was hot and humid, the lush valley was cool by comparison.   There are some steep grades on the trail and several wooden staircases taking you down into the forest floor, which is yet another reason, I personally don't wish to go back up where I came from.  I had no idea that what lay ahead was 2 hours of walking to get back into the suburban core.  It's rural country out here, next to the Metropolitan Toronto Zoo, which shares land space.  Passing several hectares of unripened corn crops and long two-laned highways it was quite the hike.   The Rouge Valley Conservation area is not for biking either.  

So, come here to escape,  belong to nature again and watch out for the coyotes (warning posters have been in every trail from Hamilton to Eastern Ontario).  When you go into the valley, expect to come right back up in this place, otherwise expect a 2-3 hour journey along Beare Rd up to Steeles almost as far as Markham Road.

Was it worth it? Yes.  You can expect to see small streams that flow into the Little Rouge Creek.  You will see all kinds of wetland and meadow species near southern sections of the trail and forest species in the north.  

If you haven't had a chance to challenge yourself in a while, I suggest starting with a place where you can't look back.