Peace and Environment News* February 1996
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Peace and Environment News * February 1996 |
by Rosalind Riseborough
Stand at the corner of Montreal Road and Langs Road and observe the massive buildings of the CMHC, the Montfort Hospital, and the apartment complexes. The main road is four lanes wide, noisy with cars and buses. Head north up Langs Road and observe how the road narrows, becomes quiet and leads to a pathway thought the woods.
The woods are beautiful.
Another Ottawa woodland faces the threat of development. The woods behind the Montfort Hospital on Montreal Road are being considered as the site for a housing complex.
PACE 2000, an international nonprofit organization, is proposing to create an intergenerational community for seniors in the area now occupied by the Montfort Hospital Woods. The design now under preliminary discussion with the City of Ottawa would involve at least 268 units. The plan is for a mixed generational community comprised of seniors and students from surrounding colleges and universities. The students would have the role of interacting with the seniors and providing care for them.
By itself, the concept is interesting and worthwhile. It would provide housing for seniors and non-profit housing for students, and would promote the kind of intergenerational caring and communication that is much needed in our society. But surely there are other spots in the region where such a project could be located without destroying a fragile and unique natural site.
There have always been woods behind the Montfort Hospital on Montreal Road. Aerial photographs dating from the late 1930s show the surrounding area cleared as farmland, with an extensive woodlot on this rocky escarpment. One can imagine the aboriginal peoples of the area traversing the woody ridge, and the earliest European settlers awed by forests such as these. These woods are probably as close as we will get to that original landscape.
The Environmental Management Branch of the Department of Engineering and Works of the City of Ottawa did a preliminary evaluation of the Hospital Woods in the fall of 1995. Provincial guidelines encourage the preservation of woodlands greater than 2 hectares in size in those municipalities where less than 5 percent of the landbase is wooded. Woodlots comprise only 4.5 percent of the City of Ottawa. The city has estimated that the woods behind the Montfort Hospital are about 7.4 hectares, or almost 9 hectares if contiguous wooded sections are included.
The City's evaluation concluded that this woodlot may be considered environmentally significant based on the relatively large size and importance of the tree species, the variety of habitat and plant and animal species, the woodlot's age and size, and its role as part of the City Greenway system.
Hospital Woods—or Big Woods, as it is called by local residents—is owned by Les Filles de la Sagesse d'Ontario. Officially located at 711 Montreal Road, the woodlot sits on the edge of the limestone escarpment that runs east and west along the Ottawa River from the Parliament Buildings. Most of the escarpment is hidden under roadways and buildings.
In the Ottawa area, limestone outcroppings are relatively thin and occurrences are scattered. Limestone is soluble in water, and under the right conditions it evolves into a karst landscape, an area with constantly changing underground drainage systems. The limestone is very close to the surface in the Hospital Woods, and in some places the rock is bare, forming a pavement. It is here that the karst landscape is obvious, with deeply eroded fractures and potholes in the pavement. An intricate underground drainage system likely began forming beneath the glaciers that covered this part of North America, and continued its development after the glaciers retreated. These historical geologic characteristics mean the area may be of scientific significance as a landscape heritage site.
Where the limestone is close to the surface, the trees are generally smaller and the tree cover is less dense, another characteristic of a karst landscape. Although this suggests that the forest is under physical stress, the smaller size of the trees does not necessarily mean that it is a less "valuable" stand. Some of the trees here are ironwood, which are naturally small in diameter, and are not frequently found within the city. The ironwood tree is hardy and drought resistant.
In other parts of the woods the soil is thicker and supports a climax stand of sugar maple. A number of the maples have died of old age and have been left to rot. This area, along with a nearby naturalized quarry and wooded low-density housing development, acts as a natural refuge and wildlife corridor for a broad variety of animals and birds, including woodpeckers, owls, and migrant warblers.
Maintaining and protecting a diversity of natural environments within the city gives citizens tangible contact with their natural heritage. The Montfort Hospital woods are important for their historical and cultural value, but are also significant because they protect a heritage karst landscape.
Rosalind Riseborough has degrees in Geography and Planning and an interest in preserving the natural environment.
Converted March 29, 2000 - Lg
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