Highland Creek Watershed (Morningside Park)

The Highland Creek watershed consists of several neighbourhood greening projects.  

During a November frost, I wanted to take pictures of Morningside Park and the Main Highland Creek branch which is just northeast of the Hague and Cedarbrook parks (see blog).  This covered my two interests of both exploring the various park systems in Toronto as well as understanding more about how the watershed diverts the flow of storm/sewage run-off, which is so critical to our clean water supply. (ref: R.C. Harris Filtration Plant in this blog for more information on water filtration)

Morningside Park is as beautiful as I was told, and very large.  The University of Toronto campus (Scarborough) overlooks the park.  There are birdhouses in the park which contribute to the expansion of the bird habitat.  

The trail has some pretty amazing sights.  I saw a number of hawks in the area, but they were just a little too quick for me!  

Like most large cities, Toronto has our own spread of graffiti culture.  It's all around us, livening up Cabbagetown, drearily-coloured factories, the walls of old office buildings and through pedestrian tunnels like the Moccasin Trail.  Whereas other cities label them as 'art crimes' or 'vandalism', Toronto encourages our street artists.   Judge for yourself by these photographs that were taken from the base of the Kingston-Galloway-Orton Park Bridge.  While looking at them, all I kept thinking was, how could anyone call this graffiti? 

A couple of years ago, a  265 metres long bridge was put up joining two neighbourhoods together (Kingston-Galloway and Orton Park).  It was a success in every way including bringing the cultural and arts communities together.  The art work at the base of the bridge was actually done by 20 local youths which just humbled me that young people could be just so talented and here was a perfect opportunity for them to show it off forever.  

Further along the trail there were these cute smilies painted on sewage drains coming into and out of the parks.  The West Highland Branch was photographed recently (Hague/Cederbrook parks), but I completely messed up with my camera settings this time for the waterflow from the Main Highland Creek, but at least you will be able to see that both Scarborough and the watershed treatment projects in your neighbourhood not only create a practical purpose, but can be aesthetically beautiful as well.

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.