Highland Creek Watershed (Hague & Cedarbrook Parks)

cute little waterfall

Sometimes you can find beauty in the most unexpected places.  A recent trip in an old neighbourhood of Scarborough East took me by surprise as looking through my camera's eyes.  

Hague and Cedarbook Parks are part of new efforts to restore the Highland Creek Watershed.  There are 6 separate neighbourhood greening projects as part of this urban watershed that covers a land space of about 85 kilometres.  

Each neighbourhood has their own responsibility to the project.  The residents nearby Hague and Cedarbrook parks planted native trees in and around the area.  This, I was told "not only beautifies the neighbourhood, but also shelters the surrounding homes from the heat in the summer, and winds in the winter" which helps reduce energy bills.      

 
What is a watershed you might ask?  Simply put, it's just an area of land that catches the rain and snow and drains it into our rivers, streams, marshes, and eventually into our lakes.  A better way of thinking of it is that it is  like a filter for our fresh water supply.  This is why it's so important to maintain.  There are literally hundreds of parks in Toronto, Ontario and each one does it's part.  

The time of year is Autumn, but late Autumn when leaves are few, so capturing the one last dying leaf on a tree can be symbolic sometimes, like the one last maple leaf that was captured.  

I think even for a watershed, this cute little waterfall is still quite nice, even if I did give the photo a little tweek :)  There were also dozens of wooden bird houses set along the paths to keep native birds safely in their own habitat.  There will be more on this further on, in exploring Toronto.

   

Princess Falls- (Upper and Lower) Hamilton

Princess Falls, both upper and lower in Hamilton can be seen directly on the Chedoke Radial Trail, so the access to view is easy peasy.   

The water system for this flow of upper to lower is unknown, so as a point of interest it has been featured a cascading waterfall in Hamilton.  The Upper Princess falls is about 130 metres high, but rarely has a flow, as the lower princess or simply "Princess Falls" as depicted in this picture I took is a 7 metre high ribbon fall.  Most flow will be seen in the winter thaw in the spring which will dramatically improve the water flow, but take it from me although it is considered the second highest waterfall in Hamilton, it doesn't get much notoriety due to it's location.  Frankly it looks like nothing much more than a water fountain.