Bill Parker, a research scientist with MNR’s Ontario Forest Research Institute (OFRI) in Sault Ste. Marie, who has spent a decade studying these areas, begins the tale of the blowsand areas.
“The many Europeans who began arriving in southern Ontario in the early 1800s were very efficient at clearing the forests for farming and timber harvesting,” explains Parker. “They not only used the timber for construction here but also shipped it back to England. Ontario’s massive white pines, for example, were coveted for ship’s masts and other naval timbers. The settlers also burned many of the original forests to clear the land quickly and easily for farming.”
By about 1880, 75 to 80 per cent of the forests in southern Ontario had been cleared for farming and urban uses. Unfortunately, in the parts of southern Ontario where glaciers had deposited a lot of sand and gravel, removing the trees created an ecological disaster.
“After the trees were burned or cut down and the land ploughed, the thin layer of topsoil quickly eroded and blew away,” says Parker. “All that was left was the underlying infertile sand and gravel. The farms had to be abandoned. These fragile lands that had once supported lush, diverse forests had been turned into barren wastelands, some of which covered as much as 300 hectares.”
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| Many farmers ended up having to abandon their land and their dreams. |
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