Not as well known as our trail development and maintenance program, but just as important, our Land Stewardship program is responsible for taking care of BTC-managed properties within the Caledon section of our Conservation Corridor. As our inventory of secured properties increases, the job of caring for them also becomes bigger.

Each property that is owned or managed by the BTC has a volunteer Land Steward assigned to it. The Land Steward's role is to visit and inspect the property regularly, to install boundary markers and “permitted use” signage, to monitor the condition of the property and report any inappropriate uses or situations needing attention.

Together with other club volunteers, the Land Steward also takes part in remedial actions such as fencing, tree planting, removal of alien invasive species or clean-up of garbage.

To find out more about Land Stewardship, or to become a Land Steward, contact Dave Moule at salydave@sympatico.ca .

Stewardship Activities Spring 2010

The Caledon Hills Club has been busy with Land Stewardship activities this spring.

Trees, trees and more trees

On May 1 and 2, a major tree planting project was carried out at our Philip Gosling Volunteer Forest on the south side of the 5 Sideroad in Mono.

On May 1, a dozen club members were joined by about 25 volunteers from Vision Youth in Markham , to plant approximately 1000 trees on the southern portion of the property, which is primarily open grassland. Prior to the planting, approximately 200 Scots Pines were removed from the site. These are non-native and are considered to be “invasive”. Species planted included sugar maple, white ash,

beech, hemlock, ironwood, white cedar, basswood, alternate-leaved dogwood, grey dogwood, white pine, trembling aspen, eastern cottonwood, white birch, pin cherry, choke cherry, and black cherry. After the trees were planted, our volunteers began spreading wood chip mulch around the root zones of the trees, to control competition from weeds and help retain moisture.

On May 2, about 15 club volunteers were at it again on the northern portion of the site, planting 600 trees and shrubs. The species were the same as the previous day, plus red raspberry and red elderberry. Once all the trees were safely in the ground, the spreading of wood chip mulch on the previous day's plantings continued.

More mulching remains to be done at this site, and will continue with small work parties over the next 6 weeks.

On May 6, an enthusiastic group of over 30 people gathered at the BTC's Vallis property on the south side of Dunby Road to plant another 200 trees. Species included tamarack, black cherry, white birch, red elderberry and red oak. All the newly planted trees were mulched with wood chips, and follow-up care was done on a number of trees that had been planted on this site in 2001.

The Caledon Hills Bruce Trail is grateful to Hydro One Networks for supplying the wood chips, which are a waste by-product of their power line right-of-way clearing operations.

Financial support for purchase of the trees and some tools came from Ontario Power Generation (OPG) as part of a multi-year partnership arrangement with the BTC.

Plans are also being made to do a further planting of approximately 300 trees at the Humber Heights property, adjacent to Airport Road and Mono 7 th Line. A date for this work will be announced shortly.

Scrap Metal Removal

The BTC's Hemlock Ridges property, located on the east side of Mono 5 th Line, south of the Hockley Road, is a spectacular, hilly, forested 57 acre tract of land acquired in June 2009. Unfortunately, the acquisition also included a couple of ancient car wrecks and some other metallic odds and ends hidden in the bush not far from the 5 th Line. Plans are underway to have these removed by a local auto wrecker. Some very selective clearing of bush has been carried out to make way for the removal of these items. Once the cleanup is complete, native trees will be planted to speed up the restoration of the area.