Ground 41 – Spring 2018 – Shift

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Landscape Architect Quarterly

Round Table Systems Change and Innovation

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Features Restoring Relationships

Grounding 18/ Land and Spirit

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Publication # 40026106

Research Corner Sites of Internment

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Spring 2018­­ Issue 41

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Masthead

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Editor Lorraine Johnson

2018 OALA Governing Council

Photo Editor Zhebing Chen

President Doris Chee

OALA Editorial Board Julius Aquino Shannon Baker Zhebing Chen Jasper Flores Eric Gordon Ruthanne Henry (chair) Vincent Javet Eric Klaver James MacDonald Nelson Phil Pothen Katie Strang Andrew Taylor Beatrice Saraga Taylor Dalia Todary-Michael Jane Welsh

Vice President Jane Welsh

Web Editor Jennifer Foden

Associate Councillor—Senior Justin Whalen

Associate Web Editor Julius Aquino

Associate Councillor—Junior Trish Clarke

Social Media Manager Black Current Marketing

Lay Councillor Linda Thorne

Art Direction/Design www.typotherapy.com

Appointed Educator University of Toronto Peter North

Advertising Inquiries advertising@oala.ca 416.231.4181 Cover Lichen at Alderville Black Oak Savanna. See page 16.

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published four times a year by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Ontario Association of Landscape Architects 3 Church Street, Suite 506 Toronto, Ontario M5E 1M2 416.231.4181 www.oala.ca oala@oala.ca Copyright © 2018 by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects.

Contributors retain copyright of their work. All rights reserved.

ISSN: 0847-3080 Canada Post Sales Product Agreement No. 40026106 See www.groundmag.ca to download articles and share content on social media.

Treasurer Kendall Flower Secretary Stefan Fediuk Past President Sarah Culp Councillors Steve Barnhart Cynthia Graham Cameron Smith

Appointed Educator University of Guelph Brendan Stewart University of Toronto Student Representative Joshua Kirk University of Guelph Student Representative Jenny Trinh OALA Staff Executive Director Aina Budrevics Registrar Ingrid Little Coordinator Sarah Manteuffel

OALA

OALA

­About­

About the OALA­

Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly is published by the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects and provides an open forum for the exchange of ideas and information related to the profession of landscape architecture. Letters to the editor, article proposals, and feedback are encouraged. For submission guidelines, contact Ground at magazine@oala.ca.

Ground reserves the right to edit all submissions.

The views expressed in the magazine are those of the writers and not necessarily the views of the OALA and its Governing Council.

The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects works to promote and advance the profession of landscape architecture and maintain standards of professional practice consistent with the public interest. The OALA promotes public understanding of the profession and the advancement of the practice of landscape architecture. In support of the improvement and/or conservation of the natural, cultural, social and built environments, the OALA undertakes activities including promotion to governments, professionals and developers of the standards and benefits of landscape architecture.

Upcoming Issues of Ground Ground 42 (Summer) Somatics Deadline for advertising space reservations: April 17, 2018

Ground 43 (Fall) Legacy Deadline for advertising space reservations: July 17, 2018 Deadline for editorial proposals: April 12, 2018 Ground 44 (Winter) Stress Deadline for advertising space reservations: October 16, 2018 Deadline for editorial proposals: July 12, 2018

Errata­ Apologies to contributor and Editorial Board member James MacDonald Nelson, whose middle and last names were transposed in a byline on page 8, author bio on page 9, and on the masthead of Ground 40 (Winter 2017).

Due to an editorial production error, the cross-section rendering of Darwin’s Hill, which appeared on page 29 of Ground 40 (Winter 2017), was too small to be legible.

A larger version is viewable at www.bit.ly/2oACLyT. Apologies to contributor Victoria Taylor, and to the firm Public Work, which supplied the rendering.

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Advisory Panel

Andrew B. Anderson, BLA, MSc. World Heritage Management Landscape & Heritage Expert, Oman Botanic Garden John Danahy, OALA, Associate Professor, University of Toronto George Dark, OALA, FCSLA, ASLA, Principal, Urban Strategies Inc., Toronto Real Eguchi, OALA, Eguchi Associates Landscape Architects, Toronto Donna Hinde, OALA, FCSLA, Partner, The Planning Partnership, Toronto Ryan James, OALA, Senior Landscape Architect, Novatech, Ottawa Alissa North, OALA, Associate Professor, University of Toronto, Principal of North Design Office, Toronto Peter North, OALA, Assistant Professor, University of Toronto, Principal of North Design Office, Toronto Nathan Perkins, MLA, PhD, ASLA, Associate Professor, University of Guelph Victoria Taylor, OALA, Principal, Victoria Taylor Landscape Architect, Toronto Jim Vafiades, OALA, FCSLA, Senior Landscape Architect, Stantec, Toronto

Contents

President’s Message

Up Front Information on the ground

President’s Message

Editorial Board Message

I have come to the end of my term as President of the OALA. It has been my pleasure and truly an educational phase in my career. It has been an awesome job. I’d like to thank the OALA Council, committee members, and staff, whose help has been invaluable. Perhaps the best part of the job was that I was able to meet the membership and learn of your accomplishments and your commitment to a better environment that is inclusive, thriving, ever beautiful, and changing.

This issue explores shifts in the landscape and our profession, including new ways to handle waste; incentives for compost; digital technology on hiking trails; and habitat connections across infrastructure. Millie Knapp’s article “Land and Spirit” is the first in a series called Grounding, in which Knapp shares understandings of Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee teachings about the land.

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Shift: Round Table ­ Systems change and innovation ­

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Moderated BY Lorraine Johnson, Eric Klaver, OALA, and Katie Strang

Restoring Relationships The Alderville black oak savanna

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TEXT BY Radek Odolczyk

Grounding ­ Land and spirit

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TEXT BY Millie Knapp

Design by Detail I turtles Text by Victoria Taylor, OALA

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Letter From…Rural Ontario Dry-stone walls

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Text by Brendan Stewart, OALA

Technical Corner Hügelkultur in the landscape

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Text by Mary Beerman

Research Corner ­ Sites of internment: commemorating World War II landscapes of confinement in British Columbia ­

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Text and photographs by Desirée Valadares

Notes A miscellany of news and events 35/

Artifact Hiking Black Creek­ TEXT by lorraine Johnson 42/

TO view additional content related to Ground articles, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

Spring 2018 Issue 41

I step out each day to go to work and see the work of landscape architects all around me. We need to voice our concerns for a healthy community and planet. Landscape architects and landscape architecture are important.

During my term, the focus was, and continues to be, obtaining a professional Practice Act. Changes to the Association are inevitable, and Council looked at our mission and vision statements and revised and developed OALA core values. This was an intensive, thorough look at the road ahead and how we plan to accomplish our priorities. I believe that our Strategic Plan for 2018 to 2020 is strong, inclusive, and dynamic.

Editorial Board Message

This is the second issue in which Ground is available through the digital platform Issuu. Find it at www.groundmag.ca. Please consider sharing Ground articles on social media and elsewhere. We hope you’ll take advantage of this outreach opportunity to promote the OALA. Extra digital content, exclusively available online at www.groundmag.ca, is another feature of our new digital presence. Check out the interview with Sarah Fuller, a visual artist and creator of Illuminations, the participatory digital landscape art installation in Rouge and Banff National Parks in October 2017; the interview includes video and several images of the event.

A big shout-out goes to Julius Aquino, our Editorial Board member who has been actively seeking additional digital content to enrich many of the stories in Ground. We also thank Zhebing Chen for being an excellent Photo Editor for Ground, and wish him the best in his future endeavours.

When I began learning about landscape architecture, the word stewardship was—and still is—closely linked to the profession. The word, by definition, means to take care of or manage property—in our case, we take care of the land. I think this is the very core of what we do, and very few related professions can say that about their work. As landscape architects, we engage with the land in order to take care of it for future generations.

The Ground Editorial Board is looking for new volunteers for the positions of Photo Editor and Chair. If interested, please connect with the magazine at magazine@oala.ca.

Doris Chee, OALA oala President president@oala.cA

Ruthanne Henry, OALA Chair, Editorial Board magazine@oala.ca

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

Up Front

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Compost

incentivizing waste The idea is elegant in its simplicity and extraordinarily effective in execution: people bring their kitchen waste to a central hub—a market—where, in return, they are given market dollars to make purchases of produce grown right onsite using compost created from the kitchen waste. The official title of the exchange is “incentivizing the waste management system,” but others might think of it in more straightforward terms as a sensible circle that addresses many issues at once: waste reduction, food security, soil health, community building, and more.

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Toronto District School Board properties (at Thistletown Collegiate Institute, John Polanyi Collegiate Institute, and Elmbank Junior Middle Academy), managing a total of 1.75 acres and growing a staggering 90,000 pounds of fresh produce since 2012.

Community Compost Exchange (CCE) is a project initiated by PACT Grow-to-Learn (GTL), a Toronto program that teaches kids and communities about food and how it is grown. GTL operates three urban farms on

Community Compost Exchange began with ten families contributing kitchen waste in exchange for produce harvested from GTL farms. By 2017, there were 134 families (432 individuals) participating, and in that year a total of 31,500 pounds of food waste exchanged for $19,300 market dollars. Not only does this provide an alternative to traditional food banks, but it also has significant

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environmental benefits: the food waste diverted in 2017 was transformed into 42 yards of finished compost, which prevented roughly 203,330 pounds of greenhouse gases from entering the atmosphere. (Food that ends up in landfill breaks down anaero01/

Student volunteer thinning radishes to be exchanged at market

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Cami Mendes

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Rows of vegetables at PACT’s urban farm waiting for harvest

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Mykhail Baehr

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Market Bucks: 1 bin of compost is worth 3 market bucks

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Up Front: Information on the Ground

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Courtesy of PACT

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Potatoes harvested by volunteers get sold at market the same day.

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Mykhail Baehr

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Market manager Agata Gidzinski collecting $6 worth of compostables from a community member

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Mykhail Baehr

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Up Front

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Parks

recycling dog waste

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bically and produces methane, a greenhouse gas with 25 times the global warming impact of carbon dioxide.)

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Wheelbarrows quickly fill up with kitchen waste and are run back and forth to the compost heaps during the market.

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Mykhail Baehr

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CCE participant receiving change from a transaction done with market dollars

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Mykhail Baehr

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Unloading the mobile community fridge before market; this converted cargo trailer uses an AC hacking system known as CoolBot to keep produce cool during the season.

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Mykhail Baehr

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A community member collecting her corn-based compostable bags for next week’s market

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Mykhail Baehr

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View as you enter the urban farm: a typical scene of participants exchanging market dollars and sharing a community meal after shopping

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Mykhail Baehr

The growth of the CCE program will, no doubt, foster innovation, just as it has done for the past five years. When the numbers of people contributing kitchen waste began expanding from the original ten families, the increase necessitated the construction of a midscale compost production system—an innovation, since most composting is done at either a small scale or large scale.

GTL has ambitious plans for 2018, including expanding the combined farm size from 1.75 acres to 3 acres; hosting hands-on educational and culinary workshops alongside the food markets; and upgrading an existing mobile refrigerator unit to accommodate more produce storage.

Where others might see barriers, GTL sees opportunities. Consider, for example, the 1,684 feet of unsightly metal security fencing at one of the GTL schoolground farms: it’s now 1,684 feet of productive trellis for beans and other edible climbers. Or consider the illegally dumped wood waste that appeared at one of the farms: now repurposed into garden beds and gathering spaces. There’s no waste at GTL—only resources.

Text by Adam Dirks, a farmer and educator who focuses on designing and implementing holistic waste management systems for urban environments and who works for PACT GTL and developed the CCE program, and Lorraine Johnson, the editor of Ground and author of City Farmer.

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

In the City of Waterloo, a new pilot project dubbed “Poop Power” aims to solve a key waste issue affecting the city’s parks by diverting dog poop from landfill and redirecting it to a nearby biodigester, where renewable energy and fertilizer are produced.

The initiative came to be when Sutera, a Waterloo-based company that develops systems for the containment of solid waste, approached the City of Waterloo looking to pilot its dog waste containment system in a municipality that was close enough to the company’s headquarters to allow for easy monitoring. Environment and Parks staff at the city explored the opportunity, resulting in the launch of a pilot project that saw the company’s system installed in three Waterloo parks.

From an environmental and economic perspective, one of the city’s goals is to reduce the amount of waste that is sent to landfill. Dog waste is usually collected in park garbage receptacles along with other types of waste, and is associated with high disposal costs. It is heavy and carries a high risk of cross-contaminating other garbage and recyclables. During the summer months in particular, odour from the dog waste makes frequent emptying of park garbage receptacles a necessity. Furthermore, dog poop is toxic to humans, and, when mixed with runoff, it represents an important source of pollution at the watershed level.

As part of the design process, Environment and Parks staff reviewed the prototype waste collection units in detail prior to approving the final design. Three parks were identified to receive the units as part of the pilot project: Bechtel Park, which has a leash-free area for dogs, and Lakeshore Optimist and St. Moritz, two parks that are frequented by dog owners and where high volumes of dog waste were regularly found in standard park garbage receptacles.

The waste collection unit consists of an in-ground concrete receptacle that extends below the frost line and is capable of holding approximately 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) of dog poop. The lid is a steel tube with a two-sided, covered opening that allows dog waste bags to be placed inside

Up Front

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been able to reduce the number of staff trips required to empty the receptacles, resulting in direct savings. Furthermore, while the full return on investment is yet to be realized, there is potential to explore combined procurement practices for maintenance should other local municipalities decide to invest in a dog waste collection system, thereby reducing the emptying cost per unit.

The 18-month pilot project began in May 2017, and the city is already looking at additional locations for implementation of this type of dog waste collection system. The response from the dog-owner community has been overwhelmingly positive, and the city is keen to support this constituency, as park users who regularly walk their dogs assist in keeping city parks safe. Dog walkers are often the first to notice anything unusual, or to report graffiti or vandalism.

From a CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design) perspective, dog walkers are among the community’s greatest assets. While monitoring the units in the field, it is not uncommon for city staff to have park users tell them how much they appreciate the convenience and ease of the waste collection system, as well as the positive environmental impacts.

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the receptacle, while keeping out larger materials and rainwater. The steel lid locks in place and is easily opened for emptying.

To dispose of their poop bags, dog owners simply drop them into the opening in the tube. The dog waste is collected by truck and transported to a nearby treatment facility, where it is mixed with other organic materials, including livestock manure and food waste. The mixture remains in the anaerobic digester over a one- to threemonth period, during which time bacteria digest the material and release a biogas that is in turn collected, cooled, and cleaned for use in a generator that produces both electricity and heat. The leftover material, or digestate, is used as fertilizer to grow crops.

According to Sutera, the process destroys all pathogens, removes odours, and captures greenhouse gases from the waste.

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the deposit of material, schedule service, or reinforce user behaviour, among other capabilities. As part of Waterloo’s pilot project, users who scan the QR code receive a simple “thank you” for using the waste unit.

Text by Jennifer Mahoney, a landscape and urban designer who has practised in Canada, the United States, and Asia.

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

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The company’s system offers an app as well as advanced waste analytics. Using the mobile phone app and QR (Quick Response) code technology, system users and owners are able to interact with the system to record

Jeffery Silcox-Childs, OALA, Director of Environment and Parks at the City of Waterloo, explains that because the belowgrade waste disposal units are able to hold a greater volume of waste, the city has

Dog waste collection unit

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Courtesy of Sutera

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Dog waste collected in three Waterloo parks is transported to a facility where it is digested anaerobically and the resulting biogas is used to generate electricity.

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Courtesy of Sutera

Up Front

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Lidster elaborates, “Acting as stewards is one of the most important roles the volunteers play. It means they help take care of the completed project; they don’t just finish it and move on to the next one.“

Conservation Areas

animating green spaces Island Lake Conservation Area (ILCA) is an 800-acre site about an hour north of Toronto, adjacent to the Town of Orangeville and visible from Highway 10. It is dominated by a large reservoir created by damming in 1967, and is a recreational place for hiking and fishing.

Since 2010, the annual number of visitors to ILCA has increased from roughly 40,000 to more than 230,000. Although Orangeville is a rapidly growing community, this change is due to the improvements to ILCA, not just the local increase in population.

Through the collaborative design and fundraising efforts of the Credit Valley Conservation Authority (CVC) and local

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volunteer groups, ILCA now boasts the Vicki Barron Lakeside Trail, a continuous 8-kilometre loop of boardwalk around Island Lake, including a new walk-in entrance and a crib bridge spanning the eastern portion of the lake. The latter is named “Bob’s Bridges,” in honour of Bob Shirley, founder of the volunteer group Friends of Island Lake (FOIL).

FOIL was formed in 2005 to raise the funds and provide the labour to complete the trail system laid out in the 1979 master plan for ILCA. Since the trail’s 2015 completion, FOIL has been supporting other CVC projects, including a natural landscape playground currently in planning stages.

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Improvements to Island Lake Conservation Area involved both the Credit Valley Conservation Authority and volunteer groups such as Friends of Island Lake, and have led to a significant increase in visitor numbers.

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Courtesy of Credit Valley Conservation Authority

According to CVC Senior Superintendent Bill Lidster, “It’s basically an unwritten rule that projects won’t come to fruition without the support of our service clubs and volunteers. A good example is the maintenance of Vicki Barron Lakeside Trail—there was a big question of how we were going to look after it, so we had to have stewards of the trail in place.”

This sense of ownership permeates Island Lake. A local funeral home has supported the establishment of a memorial forest, and local events such as the Terry Fox Run have relocated to the conservation area since the completion of the trail. The work that went into the ten-year-long trail project has opened the door to proposals such as the waterfront amphitheatre, a joint project of the Highlands Rotary Club and Theatre Orangeville. Though an amphitheatre had been in the original master plan, it was a pitch from Theatre Orangeville that got the project started and inspired its location—floating over a shallow bay.

The summer of 2017 was their inaugural season, with Peter Pan staged at Island Lake, along with movies, fireworks, and other community activities.

As Bill Lidster describes it, “By adding unique experiences, we bring in people who might not come out to the park, and then they see that there are other things, like hiking and ice fishing. It’s all about protecting the area while breathing new life into it—we want people to become members of the conservation area.”

Text by Katie Strang, a member of the Ground Editorial Board and a landscape designer at bsq Landscape Architects.

Up Front

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Nature Education

technology on trails Toronto’s parks and ravines offer excellent opportunities for wildlife viewing thanks to an accessible network of well-designed public trails. The plant and animal diversity is surprisingly high in the city, and many species are common and conspicuous. Thus, it is surprising to learn, as I have through teaching biology and leading nature walks, how few urban species most people are able to identify and name. In this article, I will focus on two reasons for this poor nature awareness.

First, I believe that we, as educators, have misunderstood the needs of our audience: the general public wants clear, on-demand identification information for common and conspicuous species. Second, we have relied too much on traditional trail signage, which has drawbacks for outdoor nature education.

I believe that mobile technology, when correctly designed and deployed, can provide a simple and cost-effective solution to the challenge of helping trail users learn to recognize common species of plants and animals. This is the first step to giving them a richer and more rewarding outdoor nature experience.

Most people who use city trails are not there specifically for a nature walk, nor have they brought field guides with them. They are, however, open to engaging in nature watching if given a bit of help. The most important tool that the public needs is an identification guide, of which there are plenty in print and digital formats. The problem is that many people have neither the patience nor the experience to navigate traditional field guides while out on the trail. These guides are aimed at naturalists and can be overwhelming to use in the hands of a novice.

Traditionally, outdoor signage has been used to communicate nature information to trail users and, until recently, it has been the only option, especially in the absence of interpretive staff. Most of us are familiar with tired, battered, or vandalized signage rendered useless and an eyesore on the trail. T here are other limitations to signage, temporally and seasonally. I might see a butterfly from the trail at one spot, and ten minutes later, nothing. A woodland trail in spring is full of ephemeral wildflowers in bloom, and may be bustling with migrating songbirds. A walk on the same trail in the fall yields an eerily quiet canopy, and a very different set of flowering plants.

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Mobile technology is very well equipped to publish and distribute custom nature identification guides that are trail-specific, current, and seasonally appropriate. Static signage cannot do this.

It may seem a logistical nightmare to compile and publish seasonal guides for the numerous nature trails in Toronto, but thanks to the diligent work of biologists and naturalists, there is a huge existing database of information on species distribution and abundance. We can, with reasonable accuracy, predict the subset of plants and animals that a novice will notice on any given trail at any time of year.

Fortunately, content management systems allow us to automate much of the process of compiling the field identification guide content and formatting it for publication.

An example of this is a mobile nature guide that was deployed at Tommy Thompson Park in Toronto as a pilot project. The guide profiled the common butterflies, birds, and wildflowers that visitors could expect to see on a walk in the park in summer. The species list was compiled in conjunction with staff from Toronto and Region Conservation Authority who manage the site. The park has some challenges: internet connectivity is unreliable, and there is limited access to the power grid. An off-line deployment from a wireless access point was necessary. The app was launched at the park’s annual summer festival in August 2017, where it was deployed from a hand-held portable wireless access point powered by a highcapacity battery. For the remainder of the summer, it was deployed from a fixed access point installed inside the visitor centre, which has power.

The app was distributed free on-site.

Simple portable signage alerted visitors to the access point and how to download the app, a two-step process that is straightforward: users connect to the “TTP” access point (the only one available in the area), and then either scan a QR code or enter a URL on their browser. The browser downloads the guide in seconds and stores it on their phone. On their walks in the park, or in fact anywhere (since it is cached), users can access the guide at any time, without any network connection.

Critically important for distribution of the guides is the fact that most trail users are carrying the device needed to display them—a smartphone. The guides can be published as smartphone web apps and then deployed with wireless technology right at the trailhead where the public can download the app directly before heading off on a walk.

Mobile technology has great potential for promoting nature education and awareness on trails. It can allow us to expand the nature information available to trail users on-site, and give them a useful tool that will enrich their appreciation of nature. To be effective, the mobile app guides must be tailored to the audience, and customized to trail and season. They should be deployed at the most convenient place, right at the trail, using wireless technology that enables the option of off-line distribution.

Text by Michael Dennison, PhD, a biologist and partner in HopscotchInteractive, which developed the prototype mobile nature app for Tommy Thompson Park.

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Mobile technology is well equipped to deliver trail-specific nature identification guides.

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Michael Dennison

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

Round Table

Moderated by Lorraine Johnson, Eric Klaver, OALA, and Katie Strang

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Round Table

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Geraldine Cahill is co-author of Social Innovation Generation: Fostering a Canadian Ecosystem for Systems Change, published in November 2017 by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation. Geraldine joined Social Innovation Generation (SIG) in 2009 as communications coordinator, leading communications efforts across the partnership and later managing programs and partnerships for the SIG national office. Geraldine is currently supporting the exploration of a national social innovation network and the launch of a social solutions and scaling platform for Canada.

Melissa Herman is indigenous to Treaty 8 Territory. She is a Northern Fellow at ABSI Connect, an initiative that seeks to bridge and amplify social, economic, and ecological impact projects that are successfully challenging the status quo in Alberta, in order to transform the way we forge solutions to complex challenges. Melissa is involved in supporting innovators at a grassroots level. She landscapes solutions that already exist through the lens of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and is confident Indigenous communities can benefit from continuing to embrace Traditional Knowledge. Melissa’s mission to improve the quality of life in Indigenous communities is life-long.

Paul Hess is Associate Professor, Department of Geography and Program in Planning at the University of Toronto. Dr. Hess’s teaching and research focus is on pedestrian environments and design, planning for active transportation modes, and streets as public space. Dr. Hess has engaged in research on how built environments influence pedestrian activity for more than 15 years, with his early work pioneering measures of pedestrian network connectivity now in common use. His current research work is focused on: institutional and policy relationships to changes in urban and suburban development patterns; local mobility as a social justice issue for households with limited auto-access;

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the adaptation of immigrants to automobiledependent suburbs; and relationships between built environments, children’s transportation, and health.

Lorraine Johnson is the Editor of Ground.

Eric Klaver, oala, is a member of the Ground Editorial Board.

David Kossowsky is a GeoDesign Specialist with Esri Canada’s Education and Research group.

David has a Master of Landscape Architecture and Knowledge Media Design degree from the University of Toronto, where he focused his studies on computational modeling and simulation, and responsive technologies.

Through his position at Esri Canada, David works with urban-focused research groups across Canada to provide Geographic Information System (GIS) and 3D solution consulting, as well as training in GIS software and emerging spatial technologies.

Claire Nelischer is a Project Manager at the Ryerson City Building Institute, a multidisciplinary centre focused on issues relevant to city-regions nationally and globally. The City Building Institute brings together political leadership, policy ideas, and people from diverse backgrounds to deliver high-quality research and public programs that address critical urban challenges. Claire’s current focus is on policy, planning, and design for complete streets and public realm.

Katie Strang is a member of the Ground Editorial Board.

Rebeka Tabobondung is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of MUSKRAT Magazine (established in 2010), an on-line Indigenous literary arts and culture publication. Rebeka is also a documentary filmmaker, cultural producer, poet, and Indigenous knowledge researcher working with the Well Living House at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Rebeka’s latest research and film work document traditional birth knowledge from Wasauksing First Nation, where she is also a member. In 2015, Rebeka co-founded the annual Gchi Dewin Indigenous Storytellers Festival based in Wasauksing First Nation and Parry Sound, Ontario.

Lorraine Johnson (LJ): How can we create a climate of support for social innovation?

Geraldine Cahill (GC): It’s a big question, this idea of how we can shift anything, really. Do we create the conditions in which people shift voluntarily, or can we nudge or push people into doing something?

At Social Innovation Generation, where I worked for the past nine years, we are very aware that social systems and ecological systems are complex.

My colleagues and I often describe change in the same language as we use for natural ecosystems, because it fits so well with how human systems adapt and change, and how human systems reorganize themselves after disruption. Creating the adaptive capacity for humans to withstand shocks is important, but we also need to recognize that our social and ecological systems are in crisis, so creating the conditions for an alternate state is also necessary. It’s important to focus some attention on what those preferred or different states would look like.

Round Table

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There is a huge supply of really good ideas about how we can solve some of our social and ecological challenges, but there is a disconnect between the structures and systems that we’ve created and our ability to take these solutions to scale. At Social Innovation Generation, we were aiming to create the enabling infrastructure or the ecology in which these innovations can grow and take flight.

Melissa Herman (MH): I was speaking with an Elder in Treaty 8 Territory, and I asked her what social innovation meant to her. First, I needed to build trust with her, but after a couple of visits she explained to me that social innovation is seeing things through her eyes. It has a lot to do with empathy. Language is a big part of it because I feel like we are speaking similar languages—people at a grassroots level are saying the same things as people who are more influential—but it’s just the way we interpret it. I was able to break down that barrier by saying, “Essentially we’re trying to get the same thing—and that’s to change the system for the better.”

In supporting grassroots innovators [in the North], one thing I found myself doing regularly was helping them identify themselves as innovators, because many of them are feeling a sense of isolation. And it’s hard to measure the impacts they’re definitely having, so I tried to provide encouragement and support something they’re already doing, instead of giving them an idea and trying to have them embrace it. It’s really powerful to be able to build up something that somebody’s already doing.

The most impactful movements are the result of going into communities and having organic conversations, but those organic conversations can’t happen unless people feel safe, unless they feel comfortable, unless they feel their ideas will be embraced.

Most of the Indigenous innovators I regularly meet with up here in Treaty 8 don’t identify themselves as innovators. They just think that they’re doing what should be done, as it should be done. Most of them are doing communal thinking, which goes back to a lot of Indigenous traditions—we share food and we share stories and conversations.

Storytelling is a big part of that.

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The disconnect is a result of Indigenous people not really controlling the narrative, for the most part. We have different people telling our stories. And so, I’m trying to empower people—to let them know that what they’re doing is meaningful. We might not be able to measure the impact now, but the potential is there. And whatever supports they need, I help them identify some of them instead of my telling them what they need. I walk with them.

Rebeka Tabobondung (RT): Canadian society is in a post-Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report era, and it seems to me, as a researcher, that the past couple of years have been full of institutions and grassroots organizations trying to shift their frameworks—their institutional frameworks—as to how they work and how they approach communications and/or their systems building. From health to education, I see that space opening up. I see the Canadian government really mandating that that space also open up.

There’s an immense amount of opportunity to learn about Indigenous history—our own Indigenous history and “Canadian” history here—but also to create new systems and new frameworks that are grounded within our respective Indigenous nations and our cultural understandings and the knowledge of our Elders.

Cultural protocols vary depending on what nation you happen to be in. So, these frameworks we’re building, they’re going to look different across the board. They’re going to be affected by language and that type of

diversity, for sure. There’s so much work to be done because the history of colonization in Canada is so present—it’s only been very recently that we’re starting, as researchers and scholars, to document a lot of this knowledge that has been under attack for quite a while.

For example, I am involved in traditional birth knowledge, and a lot of our work has been to document this knowledge for the sake of preserving it, number one. But more than that, it is also about finding innovative ways to share that knowledge and to actually revitalize it and to utilize it. It’s about supporting Indigenous midwives and ensuring that people have access to healthcare that’s grounded in their traditions.

As a media producer, I’m interested in finding innovative ways to share that knowledge through technology and by creating space on the internet. While the internet and social media can be ways for us to share our knowledge, there’s the issue of corporate control over these interfaces.

Things need to change radically in terms of the ecological crisis we’re in. As Indigenous people, we have so much to share, and we’ve been excluded and had our approaches denied for so long. We have a lot to offer, which is not to say that we have all the solutions, but we certainly can contribute a lot of human knowledge. So, when I think of shifts, I think of the inclusion of a holistic way of looking at the world and our relationship to the natural world and including things like ceremony and the sacred into different approaches that we engage.

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Two screen shots from Spirit of Birth, a short documentary by Rebeka Tabobondung that explores the ways in which Indigenous birth practices are being restored, and how this return to cultural roots and traditional knowledge are helping to heal and repair communities damaged by colonial violence.

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Rebeka Tabobondung

LJ: What are some of the innovative ways of sharing knowledge that will lead to shift and change?

David Kossowsky (DK): One of the things I’ve seen is that instead of static data being presented, we now have this idea of crowdsourcing information and of community interaction and community involvement in decision-making processes. Information is no longer being presented as something to be absorbed by people without any method of feedback related to that information. Now, communities and other decision-makers are able to give feedback, especially about community impacts. These emerging ways of presenting information lead to more informed decisions.

Through the internet, web apps, and phone apps, we’re now able to share information in much faster ways than ever before. And that helps with informing decisions in a faster and more dynamic way.

Paul Hess (PH): We need to be sensitive to the importance of social and cultural embeddedness of knowledge and who’s telling what stories and who’s included and who’s not. Sometimes the internet can enhance that, but I do want to strike a bit of a dark note, too.

One of the areas I look at is the impact autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence will have on our transportation system. If you look at the story that’s being told, it’s all about how autonomous vehicles and artificial intelligence are going to improve urban environments, and there’s going to be all this space—we’re not going to need parking, and there’s going to be all this space for cafés and people walking. If you look at who’s generating those stories and the kind of research they’re doing, none of those outcomes are actually in the data.

It’s all corporate interest. If you look closely at the modeling, there’s most likely going to be more traffic. There’s going to be all kinds of new conflicts. But it’s being sold as a utopian vision around both ecology and social improvement and shift.

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We should be careful because it’s basically the engineers and the corporate interests that are telling this story. When you start looking at the data, pedestrians are basically seen as obstacles. If you look at the history of motor vehicles, when they were introduced in the 1920s, a lot of these same stories were told. Certain people control the narrative and have actually restructured our collective environment in ways we’re not always aware of because of who’s telling the stories.

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The King Street Pilot Project in Toronto seeks to balance the needs of road users through this key downtown corridor. The Ryerson City Building Institute is studying King Street as part of its forthcoming report, Toronto’s Great Streets.

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Dominic Ali

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Barriers become canvases for displaying art as part of the King Street Pilot Project.

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Courtesy of City of Toronto

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The King Street Pilot Project aims to prioritize transit to improve service and enhance the public realm.

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Courtesy of City of Toronto

Claire Nelischer (CN): We’re watching this issue of who controls the narrative play out in real time right now as it applies to the Toronto pilot project on King Street [a pilot project to improve transit reliability, speed, and capacity by giving priority to streetcars over private vehicles]. These new ideas about shifting the way we are using our streets, and the way we are accommodating the range of uses and users on our streets, are dominated by a narrative of the war against the car. I think that idea gets a lot of play.

But in terms of influencing a shift towards different thinking about who our streets are for, how we want to use them, and what we want them to look and feel like, we need to push cities to make their data and their sources more accessible to people, so it’s out in the public conversation. It’s critical to make data accessible for people who are not transit engineers and street designers.

DK: There’s a big push right now for open data, especially from municipalities.

There’s an expectation of live data streams and good quality data. But it’s not always easy. There’s a big overhead to get that data out there.

There are a lot of other data sources outside of municipalities—open-source data, crowdsourced data, real-time data streams. And the big question is, when is this data authoritative? When you’re trying to make decisions, you have to have a trustworthy data source.

So, in order for a data source to be authoritative, or for it to be released by a municipality, there’s a lot of work that’s involved, and often that can slow down or impact the decisionmaking process because it takes time for all this information to be processed and to make it valuable for the end user.

We’re at a point right now where all this data is being released through various means, and we’re no longer dealing with a lack of data, but, instead, we’re dealing now with too much data noise. How do we filter out data and control it so that it is actually useful and usable for decision-making?

GC: It’s good to keep in mind that data is not objective. It’s influenced by the questions you ask, and it’s influenced by who’s interpreting it at the other end, as well. I think there’s complexity in putting crowdsourced data out there and saying,

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“Everybody can share, and we’re all going to accept all of your ideas.” At the end of the day, someone still needs to make sense of that data. And who makes sense of it and how they make sense of it is critical.

We can’t do all of these things as quickly as we might like to. Systems change takes a lot of time. It’s really hard for us to slow down a lot of the time, but we need to try our best to listen to what we’re hearing, especially from Indigenous communities, about other ways we could be operating.

We may need to relearn and come to a different understanding about how we imagine our cities and our systems.

I’m a great believer in open data, but I think that being really active listeners is also extremely important.

PH: The way that data is socially constructed often gets lost in discussions. In the big-data world, computer scientists are working on data ontologies, through which they find ways to connect all these data sets. They want to create variables that are defined in the same way across data sets.

So we have engineers defining things like what gender is, how many genders we have, and what to call them. Well, that’s actually a political issue—that’s social and political decision-making.

Data is really powerful—but we need to look at the cultural embeddedness of data.

That’s why Indigenous ways of knowing are very important. Understanding where that knowledge comes from is very important.

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RT: I’d like to comment on that. As a community researcher, one of the most fascinating things I learned was around the notion of gender. Within the Anishinaabe tradition, when a woman is pregnant, the man is also considered to be pregnant. So, traditionally, there were huge restrictions placed on the man, even more so than on the pregnant woman. For example, men who were pregnant were not allowed to go hunting because they would be taking life. Therefore, the couple was completely dependent on the community to meet their most basic needs. This is a fundamentally different view of gender. But if you have someone else controlling the narrative, their understanding of information is going to reflect their own culture and their own values.

I’ve been looking at developing a pregnancy app that would share this traditional knowledge both with families but then also with

healthcare providers. Of course, that’s not the absolute solution either, because not everything will be answered through technology. Obviously, it’s being out on the land and engaging in having a relationship to the land, as well.

MH: We can’t assume, in the language we use, that everyone interprets terms in the same way. Here in Treaty 8, which is made up of Chippewa, Cree, and Métis people, we’re in oil-occupied territory, and we are always having discussions and consulting with Indigenous people. I asked a Chippewan person, “How do you define industry?” The answer was: destruction.

When I spoke with a couple of Cree people, they answered that question in a different way: monetary gain and power. When industry is sitting at the table, they’re not recognizing that each Indigenous group is interpreting these words very differently.

So, you can see where the breakdown is happening, if for some people the word industry means destruction and for others it means financial gain and power.

CN: Questions around language and understanding and making sure that you’re speaking to your audience using words with meanings you share, is on my mind lately.

At the City Building Institute, we’re preparing a report looking at street redesign in Toronto in the past ten years. The objective is to break away from technical language, and from the “experts” such as the engineers and street designers, and instead express the way our streets function and look and feel as something that is really personal.

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The Gateway Driverless Podcar in a pedestrianized area of North Greenwich, London, U.K.

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Simon Smiler

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While writing the report, it’s been a struggle to not fall back on the terms that, in planner speak, we accept and take for granted. Shifting ourselves away from that can be really challenging, because that language is so ingrained in how we work.

GC: One of the lessons of trying to foster environments for change is that it always starts with initial intention. Stephen M. R. Covey first alluded to this in his book Speed of Trust, and others have picked it up: collaboration happens at the speed of trust.

Language will change. Language will always change. In different communities, you’ll need to start over and build new relationships and trust. But you come to an understanding together to collaborate and you’re agile to the changes that come from beginning to test things out. You adapt to the changes, and you do it all over again when, inevitably, you fail.

Another lesson from the research I’ve been involved with regarding social innovation is that you have to be comfortable with not knowing where you’re going.

Systems are dynamic, and social relationships are dynamic.

One thing that’s critical is that systems change really requires the participation of the whole system. So, with regards to open data and city-building, the question of who gets to participate is critical. Who are the users and how are they actively involved, not just in answering a survey, not just in

coming to a workshop, but in how everybody participates? What does participatory policy development look like? What does participatory regulation look like? Who gets a chance to speak and make those rules?

You also want to remain awake to unintended consequences. When I say be comfortable with failure, that’s one thing, but you also want to be very awake to how what you think is well intended could actually be a really bad idea. You can get ahead of that by making sure that the whole system is in the room when you start to do something. Setting the table for lots of different voices to speak is critical.

PH: We need to understand how people actually experience environments. We have a research industry that generates millions of dollars of grants every year about the relationship of built environments to physical activity and health. We have all these studies that show the variables that are correlated with people walking more and being healthier. But what about the people who don’t have a choice about how they get around and what they experience?

I try to actually work with communities, translating some of the planner concepts and jargons into questions of how people actually experience the things around them. Planners think in abstract variables, but most people don’t experience the world that way. It’s good to remind ourselves of that sometimes.

DK: Regarding participatory planning, one of the areas we try to provide research on is specifically around street remodeling and complete street scenarios. That is, how do we get people to participate, communicate, and help to rank and review complete street concepts and ideas? How do we better understand notions of human-centred design, and how do we create a design that residents want to live in and enjoy based on data-driven feedback? It’s very hard to be able to present different scenarios to people in order for them to rank them without introducing some sort of bias. If you’re presenting a static image that’s got some sort of rendering technique or visual component to it, or if you want to be able to rank the street conditions or the sidewalk conditions, you have to put the surrounding area in, and its representation will introduce a specific interpretation of space, and will include some kind of inherent bias to overall impressions of space and design. Similar issues are seen through digital and virtual environment creation and representation.

At Esri Canada, we work at creating virtual reality environments, and immersive systems and 3D space modeling. We’re implementing these different ways of showcasing ideas, but there’s always this bias that comes with it, whether it’s bias through representation or bias through the technology being used.

People perceive space at a human scale, and when we can’t actually build out a design idea at that human scale, we have to somehow represent it to them in a way that

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We’re always battling with this when we’re trying to gain participatory insight.

PH: Technology can help us, but it doesn’t do it on its own. Technology is embedded in different kinds of practices and ideologies, and you need to pay attention to that.

Information and open data is very powerful and important in helping people to participate, but it’s not neutral. You have to understand how it’s being generated, how it’s being used, who’s telling the story, and what story is being told.

MH: I was speaking with an Elder about the importance of storytelling and why one person is told a story and someone else isn’t.

He explained to me that if he tells a story to everybody, then twenty years from now, the moral would be watered down and diluted.

It’s about trust. I started to realize that maybe that’s why most of our traditions are oral traditions. With stories that I want to share, I always question where the story’s going and how it’s being used. With the internet, it’s very difficult to tell where a story is coming from, where it originated, and what its purpose is. Who’s going to be benefiting from it?

Who’s controlling the narrative?

Eric Klaver (EK): With crowdsourcing, how does authority and authorship work in terms of those sorts of data sets?

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There could be arguments, obviously, about who is creating the data within those governments. I mean, there are only so many steps you can take to trust information. So, it comes down to a level of trust you have with different organizations. The data presented in these maps can include everything from imagery to street trees to zoning to demographics to building heights. It really depends on what municipalities choose to release.

One problem often dealt with is the lack of consistency in data type and data architecture across the information that’s being produced, whether it’s within municipalities or different data sources across Canada. It is almost impossible in some cases for us to have consistency where we can actually make comparative analyses between different municipalities or different cities or different regions, unless you have a common grammar or a common understanding of those data sources and structures.

RT: I have a question for city planners: are there consultations with local Indigenous populations around these sorts of projects?

These efforts to make the city a livable city—projects like Toronto’s King Street Pilot Project that was mentioned earlier, for example—are there consultations with local Indigenous people?

CN: I work for a research institute, not directly with the city, but it seems to me that efforts to reach out to Indigenous populations are confined to certain projects where there’s general understanding that there’s particular impact for that community. I don’t see those consultations happening or those questions being asked with what might be considered a “transportation project.” I think there’s a disconnect between projects for which Indigenous knowledge and perspectives are sought and valued, and projects that are viewed as “independent” of that.

DK: One of the initiatives at Esri Canada is something called the Community Maps Program. It was started in order to bring municipalities and cities across Canada together to create a map of Canada that utilizes authoritative data produced by different municipalities, regions, and cities. The data included in this map goes through a review and authentication process to ensure that all information is spatially accurate and provided from authoritative sources. We’ve ended up with a map that is highly detailed and constantly being updated. It is influenced by different municipalities across Canada in that they can still update and provide information when needed about changes to their municipalities and to their regions.

PH: There’s a lot of decision-making about what will be of interest and what won’t be, without actually asking people.

So, they have authority over that information, and we have a trustworthy data source that can be utilized by anybody in Canada as a basemap for whatever purposes they may have.

RT: Exactly. And it goes back to that important issue of who’s at the table to begin with. Who’s included? Toronto prides itself on its diversity, yet as an Indigenous person, I feel that Indigenous people and

our connection to Toronto have been made invisible. Some of that is in how we approach data collection. An Indigenous research organization out of St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto has published some population data in a report called Our Health Counts Toronto. Previous statistics put the Indigenous population of Toronto at somewhere around 19,000 people. But based on this recent project, the numbers are between 40,000-80,000 people. That’s such a stark difference, and it’s obviously key to understanding who makes up the city and how they can be included.

PH: A lot of planning is managing private development in public infrastructure. As a profession, it only dates back in Canada to the 20th century, but in some ways, the foundational act of planning was converting Indigenous territory into Crown and private land. So, planning actually has colonial settler roots. A much deeper understanding of how our practices are founded in colonialism is really important.

GC: In addition to understanding that history, and really reflecting on it, it’s also important to consider that all levels of government divide themselves into silos— effectively, ministries in which the planning department doesn’t speak to social services, doesn’t speak to immigration, and on and on. They’re all separate and they do not speak to each other in the development of whatever it is that they’re planning. Take the environment, for example: nobody speaks to environment when they’re thinking about immigration policy, but that shouldn’t be the case. I think we have a great opportunity, especially now that we have this global map of sustainable development goals, to work collaboratively across these ministerial systems and come up with ways of being that actually work across boundaries.

MH: I know how we can do it. Be like water: flexible and fluid, but at the same time, able to wear down a rock if we need to.

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

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The Alderville Black Oak Savanna

01 Text by Radek Odolczyk

Restoring the tallgrass prairie and oak/ pine savannas that once covered much of Southern and Central Ontario is much more than ecological restoration. It is also a way of restoring peoples’ relationship to land.

This has been the experience at Alderville First Nation, near Rice Lake in southcentral Ontario, with the establishment, almost twenty years ago, of the Alderville Black Oak Savanna. The story begins with Alderville First Nation community member and Elder Rick Beaver, with support from Dave Mowat, Economic Development Officer, who brought forth the motion to Chief and Council to protect a parcel of land with a unique plant community from being dug up for a subdivision. In the following years, that little parcel of land has grown to 162 acres.

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Autumn panorama of the Alderville Black Oak Savanna, Alderville First Nation, near Peterborough

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Radek Odolczyk

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The Gitigaan (Interpretive Garden) focuses on the unique features of Alderville’s prairie, oak savanna, and woodland habitats through themed gardens connected by a trail.

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Radek Odolczyk

In the early 2000s, some long-term monitoring studies were initiated to investigate how best to restore the tallgrass prairie and oak savanna plant communities. From there, restoration activities began on adjacent parcels of land. Seeds were gathered locally, and planted in order to turn agricultural fields into tallgrass prairie habitats, connecting patches of oak and pine savannas into a rich mosaic of habitats. Snake hibernacula were constructed on the site, and rare plants were propagated from local sources to establish habitat for species at risk. To date, more than 800 species have been documented at the Alderville Black Oak Savanna site, ranging from tiny slime molds all the way up to a hungry black bear.

Grasslands including tallgrass prairie and oak savannas once spanned much of eastern North America. These habitats were maintained by Indigenous people until the time when European colonizers started to convert the landscape to agriculture. What is unique about grassland habitats is that they are adapted to disturbance. In fact, some of the plants, namely tall grasses, and pine and oak trees, are actually generating the conditions for a major disturbance associated with grasslands: fire. The tannins in oaks and the resin in pines create a duff layer that is highly combustible,

thus promoting the spread of fire, which is a healthy, rejuvenating cycle in these grassland ecosystems. Through a Western Eurocentric lens, however, fire has been viewed as simply destructive, and hence suppressed. Unfortunately, the suppression of fire leads to an accumulation of fuel load, which builds for long periods of time; thus, when fire does come, it spreads rapidly and may have devastating consequences.

Fire also harbours the potential to be a life-giving force, an essential process that Indigenous peoples have been utilizing since time immemorial. Fire, as a rejuvenating force on the landscape, burns off dead carbon that has not been broken down by microbes and fungi, releasing the stored nutrients back into the soil for plants to use, as well as creating space for dormant seeds to germinate. There are numerous examples of seeds that require a certain temperature for their husks to open.

At the Alderville Black Oak Savanna, the intent is to value the traditional ecological knowledge of the Mississaugas of Alderville First Nation, and to ensure that this honoured knowledge informs sound ecological decision-making for the site. This continued practice is maintained out of respect for those who have been stewards of the land

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opportunity to run a workshop series related to the gardens, where folks from around the territory came to facilitate workshops on native plant gardening, traditional uses of acorns, and wild medicinal teas of Alderville Black Oak Savanna.

I want to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to Alderville First Nation for the continued support of the Alderville Black Oak 07 03

for generations, and who have, through their efforts, maintained a home for 28 species at risk—a triumph of biodiversity in the region. It has not been an easy journey, but where the Alderville Black Oak Savanna stands today is a marvel of patience and perseverance.

Recently, work has been done on the site to bring this diversity to the forefront with the installation of the Gitigaan (Interpretive Garden). The goal of the Gitigaan is to focus on the unique features of the prairie, oak savanna, and woodland habitats in a concentrated area through themed gardens connected by a universal trail. The gardens include the Water Garden, Sensory Garden, Rain Garden, Bird Orchard, Yardscaping Garden, Wild Food and Traditional Uses Garden, and the Three Sisters Garden.

Except for the Three Sisters Garden, all the gardens feature native plants and show how they can be incorporated into a garden setting with interpretive signage that includes the Anishinaabemowin names of plants in each bed. The Three Sisters Garden represents a traditional Haudenosaunee garden method for growing corn, beans, and squash. In this low-input, companion planting, the Haudenosaunee Nations were able to sustain entire villages throughout the colder, leaner months thanks to these staples. In the summer of 2017, we had the

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09 BIO/ Radek Odolczyk is the Ecological

Restoration and Stewardship

Coordinator at the Alderville First Nation Black Oak Savanna

Ecology Centre.

The Alderville Black Oak Savanna Ecology Centre is located at 8467 County Road 18, in Alderville.

People are encouraged to visit; guided group tours may be arranged. For more details and event postings, see www.aldervillesavanna.ca.

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Savanna, and the staff and numerous people who have given their blood, sweat, and tears.

It is inspiring to see how passionate folks are who have guided, and continue to guide, the efforts of the Alderville Black Oak Savanna.

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A controlled burn at Alderville Black Oak Savanna

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Radek Odolczyk

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Exidia glandulosa, a jelly fungus that typically grows on dead oaks

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Radek Odolczyk

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Lichen

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Radek Odolczyk

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Map showing the extent of prairies and savanna in Ontario prior to European colonization

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Courtesy of the Natural Heritage Information Centre

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Before (07) and after (08) a controlled burn

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Radek Odolczyk

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Sphinx moth on Monarda fistulosa

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Radek Odolczyk

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

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Grounding

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Text by Millie Knapp

As an Anishinaabe woman, I welcome the opportunity to write a series of articles in Ground about the land we call Turtle Island, or North America. I’d like to share ways of knowing how to live in harmony with all of Creation—to share understandings of Anishinaabe teachings with readers in order to add to their body of knowledge.

Anishinaabe people regard the land as a living being from which we are nourished— mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I interviewed two people, Josee Twashi Whiteduck and Albert Dumont, who live at Kitigan Zibi in Quebec. Kitigan Zibi is where I’m from.

A way of life was instilled in Josee Whiteduck from her Anishinaabe father, Basil Twashi.

“He was taught long ago to work with the earth because his mother was a medicine woman. They only took what they needed on the earth. They lived off the land,” said Whiteduck about the family’s livelihood from their traplines. “When you live on the earth, you know what you need,” Whiteduck said.

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Maple forest in autumn

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Mary Anne Enriquez

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Early spring

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Cam Miller

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Forest and pond in autumn

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Mark K.

“If only we were to continue taking only what we need, we wouldn’t be in so much distress today. We’re taking so much from the earth, and the waters are contaminated.

I believe in the Creator who created all this for human life,” said Whiteduck.

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For the past twenty years, in March, during the 13th moon, also known as the bear moon, Whiteduck coordinated ceremonies she learned from a woman who came to her looking for help. The woman does not want her name to be revealed.

The woman had been ill and was in hospital.

She had been having visions and didn’t know what they were. Two Anishinaabe grandmothers visited her there and said, “We’re going to take you out of the hospital. We’re going to give you the teachings that you need to guide your way through this vision.”

The two taught her about how to be an Anishinaabe woman.

Later, the woman came to see Whiteduck and said, “The grandmothers are teaching me. They said that I had to do a ceremony that hasn’t been done in 150 years.”

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Grounding

The ceremony had to be near water. “You have a cabin across the lake. Could we go there?” the woman asked Whiteduck.

They made preparations to conduct the ceremony at Whiteduck’s cabin by Pockanock Lake. “We’re going to pray for the water and we’re going to sing,” said the woman.

The woman had learned songs for the water from visions she had during her illness.

“If you follow the traditional way of teachings, things come to you and you just know,” said Whiteduck.

The woman invited other women to come, pray, and sing for the water.

“Water is the most important thing in our life. Without it, we would not have life,” said Whiteduck.

A song the woman taught the group told about how the water—all the rivers, lakes, streams, oceans; all the water on the earth—is the blood of Mother Earth.

Albert Dumont described the teachings that say water and land are regarded as female.

“Anything that creates, as far as our beliefs go, is female. The land is regarded as female because she provides like a good mom. We call her Mother Earth,” said Dumont. “Water is female as well because water is life.

Where there’s water, there’s life.”

Dumont went on to say, “We believe that everything has a spirit—trees, moose, fish, rabbits, berries, and plants—they all have a spirit. We honour them. We see them as our relatives because one Creator created all those things, including us, so that’s why we see them as our relatives. That’s why we sing honour songs for them, because we know full well that if they died, we would die too.”

For the Algonquin creation story, Dumont tells of the Spirit World. “I believe the Creator let the spirits of Spirit Land know of the intention that would become a human being.” For survival on Earth, “the human being would be helpless and would need many things.”

The spirits agreed to help the human beings live. For example, a spirit came forward

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to say, “I will help the human beings to live by becoming something known as a maple tree. The human beings will be able to harvest my sap. They will be able to boil it and make syrup.”

Another spirit came forward to say, “I will become something known as a moose.

The human beings will eat my flesh and they will use my hide for clothing. They will use bones for tools. I will help human beings live that way.” On and on it went until the Creator was satisfied.

“If I say that I love the earth and I love the wind and I love the sun and I love the water as much as I love my children, some people might think that’s strange. I love those things as much as I love my own flesh and blood because my children would die if those other things weren’t there,” said Dumont.

He went on to say that human beings are expected to “heap praise” on everything the Creator brought into being. “It helps us live well. Our purpose is to heap praise on those things,” said Dumont about everything that helps humans to live. To illustrate his point, Dumont told a story.

“I knew a guy who had a house on the Ottawa River. When he bought the house, a little tree grew between his window and the river. The tree got bigger and bigger until one day it was blocking his view of the river at the window where he liked to sit.

“He told his wife one day, ‘I’m going to go cut that tree down so I can see the river.’

“He went outside with a saw in his hand. He went up to the tree and said, ‘Is it okay with you if I cut you down?’ He was joking. He said a strange wind came and the tree trembled. It was like it was afraid of him standing there with a saw.

“He said he just couldn’t bring himself to cut it down. ‘I’ll go look at the river from another window in the house,’ he said. He left the tree alone.

“That’s somebody who understands about heaping praise on the things the Creator gave to us. Just so that he could see the river, he would kill the tree. Doesn’t make any sense to me either. I couldn’t do that.”

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Dumont explained how honour songs are a way to give praise. “Indigenous people sing honour songs— whether it’s the trees, the grasses, or the birds—everything has an honour song.”

He believes he’s been given songs from Spirit, and they become part of his bundle (sacred objects that are compiled, such as an eagle feather, a rattle, a drum, stories, songs, or medicines like tobacco, sage, sweet grass, and cedar).

Dumont explained how Spirit gives songs to him. “They just come,” he said. “One time I was picking blueberries then all of a sudden, boom, there was a song.”

Honour songs and other teachings help humans to live in harmony with Creation.

To learn more, Creation and Clan Story workshops are held at Toronto Council Fire Native Cultural Centre. For more information, email millie.andpva@gmail.com.

BIO/ Millie Knapp writes about Indigenous art and culture, and is the Executive Director of the Association for Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts/Arts Indigena.

This is the first in a series of articles, by Millie Knapp, that will share understandings of Anishinaabe and haudenosaunee teachings about the land.

Design by Detail

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01

a concern for the survival of vulnerable species affected by urbanization. Two projects from 2009—a highway expansion in Hamilton, which affected an adjacent wetland, and a park design with a new sports field in Mississauga, which affected an existing wetland—both triggered provincial requirements for turtle habitat replacement.

At the time, this was new territory for Fell. I recently asked him: when a typical design detail doesn’t exist, how does one start the design process, and what are factors to take into account that influence detail design thinking?

Text by Victoria Taylor, OALA

Charles Harris and Nicholas Dines’ classic tome, Time-Saver Standards for Landscape Architecture, is, at 500+ pages, a landscape architect’s go-to book for peer-reviewed standard design details, providing a common language for inter- and crossdisciplinary communication, and a definition, as the writers state, “of what landscape architecture is.” However, on the subject of designing habitat for any of the more than eight million species with which humans share the earth—turtles, for instance—the book doesn’t offer much guidance.

Fortunately, design details for wildlife habitat are being developed through the creative and thoughtful work of a growing number of landscape architects working in ecological restoration and ecological consulting. This specialized work is driven by legislative requirements for impact assessments when construction plans alter natural habitat features.

Todd Fell, OALA, a landscape architect who works for the Guelph-based ecological consulting firm Dougan & Associates, combines design skills and ecological knowledge with

Fell’s answer revealed that the process for devising a high-quality typical detail for turtle habitat is similar to the way in which all landscape architects uncover high-quality design insights: through careful site investigation/ analysis and by listening to the client in order to draw out essential needs. In the case of turtle habitat, essential questions include: What are the ideal sun spots? Where are the best feeding areas and water holes? How to find shade? Where is a private space to have sex? Where can I lay my eggs? As Fell emphasizes, “You go back to the biology and you get to know your target species.” In other words, you need to take time to get into the field—to touch, smell, listen, and learn all you can about the species’ habitat, the site characteristics, how the target species (human or non-human) likes to spend their free time, what their life cycle preferences are, how they stay warm, etc. These are all critical factors that are used to make considered adjustments in order to arrive at a final design detail.

In the early 2000s, the City of Mississauga planned to convert a remnant piece of agricultural land surrounded by residential development and to fill in a small (0.25hectare), shallow cattail marsh in order to

accommodate a neighbourhood park and a new sports field—O’Connor Park.

The site’s hydrological connection to the Sawmill Creek subwatershed and its existing natural features and wetland areas triggered an impact assessment by Credit Valley Conservation. Dougan & Associates was hired, and their assessment revealed a small population of Eastern Painted Turtle—a native Ontario reptile (13-17 cm long) distinguished by a deep olive green to black outer shell and a bottom shell of plain yellow, rarely with markings. The firm proposed moving the turtle community approximately 30-40 metres to the west of their original home and designing habitat to accommodate the turtles’ needs in a new, expanded wetland.

The Toronto firm PMA Landscape Architects Ltd. was then hired to develop the park master plan and incorporate these new requirements, taking project coordinator Maili Sedore into new territory as a landscape designer. The opportunity to work closely with conservation ecologists, gain an understanding of the Eastern Painted Turtle, and help to envision a new park for a community while also expanding habitat for a wide range of plants and aquatic-loving creatures was “a life-changing project,” says Sedore.

Any design for turtles requires knowledge of existing and predicted water levels—along with an understanding of the whole watershed—in order to support a life cycle that depends on fresh, slow-moving water, the availability of muddy bottom soils (for hibernation), vegetation as a food source and protective buffer, and a dry, gravel substrate for nesting. Using best-available site information, the turtle island design developed by Dougan & Associates and used by PMA in this project matched each specific need with a design response. The new wetland design

Design by Detail

21

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dictated soil and grading specifications such as a soft, muddy bottom for underwater feeding and winter hibernation, and specific tolerances for sculpting wetland bottom subgrades in order to create deep channels to discourage predators. Turtles’ need for privacy during nesting (May to July) dictated the island’s siting within the expanded wetland and also the vegetative buffer that separates the island from the more active park zones.

Once the grading for O’Connor Park’s new western wetland was complete, the existing shallow cattail marsh to the east 01/

Turtle island at a wetland reconstruction project in Hamilton

IMAGE/

Dougan & Associates

02/

Schematic phasing diagram of west wetland, O’Connor Park, Mississauga

IMAGE/

Dougan & Associates

03/

Turtle island detail—plan view

IMAGE/

Dougan & Associates

oot Wads

8

Pieces

o. 11 Galvanized Cable

25

Linear Meters

hot Rock

7

Tonnes

ve Stakes

65

Pieces

ranular 'B'

25

Cubic Meters

02

NOTES Refer to construction details and 'Turtle Nesting Islands' Specification for more detailed description of above listed materials.

Secure adjacent waterlogs using min. 10mm coir rope. Rope shall be securely fastned/laced around posts to prevent uplift of the waterlogs. (Refer to detail 12B).

Install posts on inside and outside perimeter of waterlogs. Posts shall be pounded min. 1000mm into substrate and shall extend above finished grade of upper waterlog by 300mm min. (refer to detail 12B).

Backfill completed 'crib structure' using granular 'B' or sand/gravel mixture approved by Contract Administrator. Granular/sand backfill shall not be compacted. Slope of granular from perimeter to top of island shall not exceed 3:1. (Refer to detail 12A).

Install willow and dogwood live stakes between waterlogs. Live stake groupings shall be spaced a min. of 1500mm apart. (Refer to detail 12C).

Place a min. of 3 rootwad log structures around outside perimeter of turtle island. Log structures shall be a minimum of 100mm diameter.

(Refer to detail 12D).

Install two rows of coir logs 4000mm long by 300mm diameter on two opposite ends of proposed turtle island. Coir logs shall be supplied by Maccaferri Canada Ltd. (519-623-9990) or approved alternative. Coir logs shall be tightly secured with posts and coir rope.

Place min. of 8 rock structures around outside perimeter of turtle island. Rock structures shall be a min. size of 1000mm long by 600mm high by 600mm wide. Rock structures may be constructed using more than one stone. (Refer to detail 12F).

Install two rows of coir logs 6000mm long by 300mm diameter on two opposite ends of proposed turtle island. Coir logs shall be supplied

by Maccaferri Canada Ltd. (519-623-9990) or approved alternative.

Coir logs shall be tightly secured with stakes and coir rope.

Incorporate a min. of 3 turtle basking log structures into each island.

Bury root wad of basking log into granular/sand backfill and allow log to extend into water a minimum of 3000mm. (Refer to detail 12E).

NOTES 1) ISLAND SHALL BE CONSTRUCED IN DRY OR FROZEN CONDITIONS (OCTOBER-FEBRUARY).

2) IF CONSTRUCTION IS REQUIRED DURING WET CONDITIONS, SHEET PILING SHALL BE UTILIZED AND WATER SHALL BE PUMPED OUT OF IMMEDIATE 3) PROJECT ENGNEER / SURVEYOR SHALL SET CRITICAL ELEVATIONS (AS PER ILLUSTRATED IN SECTION DETAILS 12A-F) AT EACH PROPOSED TURT 4) ECOLOGICAL CONSULTANT MUST VERIFY AND APPROVE LOCATION OF EACH TURTLE ISLAND PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION COMMENCING. 5) LIVE STAKES SHALL BE APPROVED BY ECOLOGICAL CONSULTANT - APPROPRIATE SPECIES INCLUDE SHRUB WILLOW AND DOGWOOD AS PER SPECIFIED IN DETAIL 12C. 6) CONSTRUCTION DEBRIS INCLUDING CONCRETE RUBBLE AND FILL IS NOT SUITABLE BACKFILL.

12

WORK ENVIRONMENT. LE ISLAND PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION.

TURTLE ISLAND DETAIL - PLAN VIEW N.T.S.

03

High point of granular and sand ba

Design by Detail

InstallMUST two rows coir logs 4000mm long byOF300mm diameter on two 4) ECOLOGICAL CONSULTANT VERIFYofAND APPROVE LOCATION EACH TURTLE ISLAND PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION COMMENCING. opposite ends of proposedCONSULTANT turtle island. -Coir logs shall be supplied

by SHRUB WILLOW AND DOGWOOD AS PER SPECIFIED IN DETAIL 12C. 5) LIVE STAKES SHALL BE APPROVED

BY ECOLOGICAL APPROPRIATE SPECIES INCLUDE Ltd. (519-623-9990) alternative.

Coir 6) CONSTRUCTION DEBRISMaccaferri INCLUDINGCanada CONCRETE RUBBLE AND FILLorISapproved NOT SUITABLE BACKFILL. logs shall be tightly secured with posts and coir rope.

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12

22

TURTLE ISLAND - PLAN VIEW Place min. DETAIL of 8 rock structures around outside perimeter of turtle N.T.S.

island. Rock structures shall be a min. size of 1000mm long by 600mm high by 600mm wide. Rock structures may be constructed using more than one stone. (Refer to detail 12F).

74.94 (avera

Install two rows of coir logs 6000mm long by 300mm diameter on two opposite ends of proposed turtle island. Coir logs shall be supplied

by Maccaferri Canada Ltd. (519-623-9990) or approved alternative.

Coir logs shall be tightly secured with stakes and coir rope.

74.52 (avera

High point of granular and sand backfill. was drained into the new basin to begin Backfill turtle island 'crib structure' with granular 'A' or other sand/granular mixture flooding. A plug between the east wetland approved by contract administrator. Allow sand/granular mixture to settle, do not and the new, expanded wetland was kept compact during placement. Slope of 75.66 (historic average high water elevation in sand/granular mixture shall not exceed 2:1 June) in place until the sediment settled and the 2 slopes.

1 Incorporate a min. of 3 turtle basking log structures into each island.300mm diameter coir logs. turtles were rescued and relocated to the Bury root wad of basking log into granular/sand backfill and allow log Water level 74.94 (average water elevation in June) to extend into water a minimum of 3000mm. (Refer to detail 12E). west pond. Granular material was poured NOTES 1) ISLAND SHALL BE CONSTRUCED INto DRYcreate OR FROZEN CONDITIONS (OCTOBER-FEBRUARY).

Bottom of wetland 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation) the island’s underwater slopes, 2) IF CONSTRUCTION IS REQUIRED DURING WET CONDITIONS, SHEET PILING SHALL BE UTILIZED AND WATER SHALL BE PUMPED OUT OF IMMEDIATE WORK ENVIRONMENT. 3) PROJECT ENGNEER / SURVEYOR SHALL SET CRITICAL ELEVATIONS (AS PER ILLUSTRATED IN SECTION DETAILS 12A-F) AT EACH PROPOSED TURT LE ISLAND PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION. logAPPROVE structures rocks were placed NOTES 4) ECOLOGICAL CONSULTANT MUSTand VERIFY AND LOCATION OFand EACH TURTLE ISLAND PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION COMMENCING. 1) PLACE 5) LIVE STAKES SHALL BE APPROVED BY ECOLOGICAL CONSULTANT - APPROPRIATE SPECIES INCLUDE SHRUB WILLOW AND DOGWOOD AS PER SPECIFIED IN DETAIL 12C.SAND/GRANULAR MIX INTO ISLAND DURING DRY OR FROZEN CONDITIONS. 2) USE SHEET PILING AND PUMP OUT STRUCTURE IF BACKFILLING IS TO OCCUR IN THE WET. around the island’s (above the average 6) CONSTRUCTION DEBRIS INCLUDING CONCRETE RUBBLE AND FILL IS NOTedge SUITABLE BACKFILL. 3) CONTRACTOR SHALL TOP-UP SAND/GRANULAR BACKFILL TO SPECIFIED ELEVATION ONCE PREVIOUSLY APPLIED MATERIAL HAS SETTLED (ONE YEAR AFTER INSTALLATION). provide the sunny basking TURTLE ISLAND water DETAIL -level) PLAN to VIEW 12 N.T.S. TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND SAND/GRANULAR BACKFILL DETAIL sites needed by these cold-blooded reptiles.

12A N.T.S. Bottom muck salvaged from the east wetland provided an overwintering substrate for the High point of granular and sand backfill. turtles, along with a seedbank reservoir that, Min. 10mm diameter coir rope shall be used to tightly secure coir logs in place.

75.66 (historic average high water elevation in over time, re-sprouted local biomaterials.

High point of granular and sand backfill.

Coir rope shall be secured in such as June) fashion that prevents uplifting of water logs during high water levels.

Backfill turtle island 'crib structure' with granular 'A' or other sand/granular mixture approved by contract administrator. Allow sand/granular mixture to settle, do not compact during placement. Slope of sand/granular mixture shall not exceed 2:1 slopes.

On a more constrained site—the highway expansion in Hamilton—the turtle island 2 1 Dougan & Associates designed300mm wasdiameter formed coir logs.

Water level ge water elevation in June) by underwater “retaining walls” that were secured by a border of vertical posts Bottom of wetland ge wetland bottom elevation) pounded into the wetland bottom and D/GRANULAR MIX INTO ISLAND DURING DRY OR FROZEN CONDITIONS. stitched together with coir rope. Coir logs PILING AND PUMP OUT STRUCTURE IF BACKFILLING IS TO OCCUR IN THE WET. OR SHALL TOP-UP SAND/GRANULAR BACKFILL TO SPECIFIED ELEVATION ONCE PREVIOUSLY APPLIED MATERIAL and live cuttings of willow and dogwood (ONE YEAR AFTER INSTALLATION).

YPICAL TURTLE ISLAND SAND/GRANULAR BACKFILL DETAIL provided additional edge retention and T.S. offered more planting substrate and habitat.

ic average high water elevation in

Without precedent to guide contractors, who Secure adjacent waterlogs using min.

10mmdirection coir rope. Rope shall need clear for pricing, Sedore and be securely fastned/laced around posts to prevent uplift of the waterlogs. (Refer to detail 12B). the project team for O’Connor Park developed Install posts on inside and outside perimeter of waterlogs. Posts shall be pounded min.a 1000mm into substrate and shall extend seven-month, five-phase process to ensure above finished grade of upper waterlog by 300mm min. (refer to detail 12B). compliance with strict conservation criteria Backfill completed 'crib structure' using granular 'B' or sand/gravel mixture approved by Contract Administrator. Granular/sand backfill and clarify moves shall not be compacted.

Slope to of granular from site perimeter to top of for the construction island shall not exceed 3:1. (Refer to detail 12A). team.

This included specific timing for earth Install willow and dogwood live stakes between waterlogs. Live stake groupings shall be spaced a min. of 1500mm apart. (Refer to work using heavy machinery in saturated detail 12C).

Place a min. of 3 rootwad log structures around outside perimeter of soils for moving the turtles from their turtle island. Log structures shalland be a minimum of 100mm diameter.

(Refer to detail 12D). former home (in order to avoid disturbing the nesting period). Post-construction monitoring

by Credit Valley Conservation, with the aid of Install two rows of coir logs 4000mm long by 300mm diameter on two antennas placed onsupplied each opposite ends of proposed turtle island. Coir logs shall be by of the relocated Maccaferri Canada Ltd. (519-623-9990) or approved alternative. Coir logs shall be tightly secured with posts and coir rope. turtles, was important as turtles are especially Place min. of 8 rock structures around outside perimeter of turtle to1000mm relocation in urbanized areas: island. Rock structuresvulnerable shall be a min. size of long by 600mm high by 600mm wide. Rock structures may be constructed their(Refer innate sense of home draws them back using more than one stone. to detail 12F).

Install two rows of coir to logs their 6000mm original long by 300mmnesting diameter on two place, even if that opposite ends of proposed turtle island. Coir logs shall be supplied

by Maccaferri Canada place Ltd. (519-623-9990) or approved alternative. has been moved.

Coir logs shall be tightly secured with stakes and coir rope.

As wetland habitats come under increasing threat and as human activities impact turtle life cycles, how might we, as architects of land and water, expand our scope of work Incorporate a min. of 3 turtle basking log structures into each island. tologencourage clients to logadd opportunities to Bury root wad of basking into granular/sand backfill and allow to extend into water a minimum of 3000mm. (Refer to detail 12E). enhance the habitat of other species, even without legislative pressure? How might we WORK ENVIRONMENT. ISLAND PRIOR TO CONSTRUCTION. gather inspiration from these fascinating creatures that are simply—and with persistence, determination, and endurance— looking for home?

75.66 (avera

74.94 (average water elevation in June)

75.66 (historic NOTES June) 1) FASTEN IN DOES NOT F 2) BURY PO 74.94 (average 3) ENSURE A

12D

T

74.52 (average N

75.66 (histo

NOTES 1) INSTALL POST 2) POSTS SHALL COIR LOG. 74.94 (aver 3) POSTS SHALL

TYP

(aver 12B74.52 N.T.

NOTES 1) FINISHED E LEVEL IN JUN 2) CONCRET 3) ENSURE A

12E

T

N

Water level

75.66 (histo 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation)

Bottom of wetland Wooden posts of min. 100mm diameter shall be pounded 1000mm (min.) into wetland substrate. The posts shall be constructed from trees removed during construction process.

Ensure post is notched near top to ensure coir rope does not slip off.

Undisturbed subgrade of existing wetland

NOTES 1) INSTALL POSTS PRIOR TO PLACING WATER LOGS TO ENSURE A TIGHT/SECURE FIT. 2) POSTS SHALL BE NOTCHED JUST BELOW FINISHED ELEVATION OF COIR LOGS SO THAT COIR ROPE ANGLES UP AND OVER COIR LOG. 3) POSTS SHALL BE SPACED 1.3 METERS O.C. ALONG OUTSIDE AND INSIDE PERIMETER OF FUTURE COIR LOG STRUCTURE.

12B

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND WOOD POST AND COIR ROPING DETAIL

High point of granular and sand backfill.

300mm diameter waterlogs.

Place livestakes between coir logs during construction. Pound stakes into wetland substrate and or granular/sand backfill.

Stakes shall be a min. of 20mm diameter and long enought to extend above average June water levels. A min. of 5 livestakes per grouping is required.

Water level

74.94 (average water elevation in June)

Bottom of wetland

74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation) NOTES 1) ACCEPTABLE SPECIES FOR LIVE STAKING ARE: SHRUB WILLOW (SALIX ERIOCEPHALA), BEBB'S WILLOW (SALIX BEBBIANA), PUSSY WILLOW (SALIX DISCOLOR), AND RED OSIER DOGWOOD (CORNUS STOLONIFERA). TREE FORM SPECIES OF WILLOW AND DOGWOOD ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. 2) LIVE STAKES SHALL BE INSTALLED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF BEING HARVESTED 3) ENSURE THAT 2/3rds OF THE STEM IS BURIED, AND THAT THE BASAL END OF THE CUT PLANT (THE BOTTOM OR "ROOT" END) IS INSERTED INTO THE SOIL.

12C

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND LIVE STAKING DETAIL N.T.S.

04

High point of granular and sand backfill.

300mm diameter coir logs.

Place a combination of stump and log structures around perimeter of turtle island. Log structures shall be a min. of 100mm diameter. A min. of three structures per turtle island shall be incorporated.

Water level

75.66 (average high water elevation in June)

74.94 (average water elevation in June)

74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation)

Bottom of wetland

NOTES 1) FASTEN INDIVIDUAL STUMPS AND LOGS TO ISLAND'S PERIMTER POSTS USING NO. 11 GALVANIZED CABLE TO ENSURE MATERIAL DOES NOT FLOAT AWAY DURING HIGH WATER EVENTS. 2) BURY PORTIONS OF STUMP/LOG IN NATIVE WETLAND SUBSTRATE 3) ENSURE A COMBINATION OF BOTH STUMPS AND LOGS ARE UTILIZED TO CREATE PROPOSED STRUCTURES

12D

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND STUMP AND LOG STRUCTURE DETAIL N.T.S. High point of granular and sand backfill.

75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June)

300mm diameter waterlogs.

04/

A series of turtle island edge sections Place min. of 8 rock structuresconditions around showing different construction

perimeter of turtle island. Rock structures and materials.

IMAGE/

Dougan & Associates multiple smaller stones may be utilized to

shall be min. 600mm high and min.

1000mm long. Individual large, or create structures.

74.94 (average water elevation in June)

74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation) NOTES 1) FINISHED ELEVATION OF ROCK STRUCTURES SHOULD PROTRUDE PAST ABOVE MENTIONED HISTORIC AVERAGE HIGH WATER

74.52 (avera

NOTES 1) ENSURE EN TURLE EGGS 2) SELECT TR TRUNKS 3) PLACE MU

12F

N.T.S.

75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June)

74.94 (avera

Water level

Bottom of wetland

T

N

ular and sand backfill.

er coir be ular andrope sandshall backfill. ure coir logs in place. secured in such as er coir rope shall be nts uplifting of backfill. water ular and sand ure coir logs in place. ater levels. secured in such as er coir ropeofshall be nts uplifting water Water level atercoir levels. ure logs in place. secured in such as level nts uplifting Water of water aterBottom levels. of wetland

in. 100mm Water level Bottom of wetland ounded 1000mm

substrate. The in. 100mm ructed from trees ounded 1000mm Bottom of wetland nstruction process. substrate. The ed near top to ructed from trees in.

100mm es not slip off. ounded 1000mm nstruction process. ed near top to substrate.

The ructed fromoff. trees es not slip nstruction process. ed near top to es not slip off.

75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June)

livestakes per required.

Stakes shall begrouping a min. ofis20mm diameter and long enought to extend above Water level average June water levels.

A min. of 5 Bottom of wetland livestakes per grouping is required.

74.94 (average water elevation in June) 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation)

.41 Design by NOTES(average water elevation in June) 74.94 74.52 (averageSPECIES wetlandFOR bottom 1) ACCEPTABLE LIVE elevation) STAKING ARE: SHRUB WILLOW (SALIX ERIOCEPHALA), BEBB'S WILLOW (SALIX BEBBIANA), PUSSY Detail WILLOW (SALIX DISCOLOR), AND RED OSIER DOGWOOD (CORNUS STOLONIFERA). TREE FORM SPECIES OF WILLOW AND DOGWOOD NOTES

ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. 1) ACCEPTABLE SPECIES FOR LIVE elevation) STAKING ARE: SHRUB WILLOW (SALIX ERIOCEPHALA), BEBB'S WILLOW (SALIX BEBBIANA), PUSSY Bottom of wetland 74.52 wetland bottom 2) LIVE(average STAKES SHALL BE INSTALLED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF BEING HARVESTED WILLOW (SALIX DISCOLOR), AND RED OSIER DOGWOOD (CORNUS STOLONIFERA). TREE FORM SPECIES OF WILLOW AND DOGWOOD 3) ENSURE THAT 2/3rds OF THE STEM IS BURIED, AND THAT THE BASAL END OF THE CUT PLANT (THE BOTTOM OR "ROOT" END) IS NOTES ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. INSERTED INTO THE SOIL. 1)2)ACCEPTABLE SPECIES LIVE STAKING SHRUB OF WILLOW ERIOCEPHALA), BEBB'S WILLOW (SALIX BEBBIANA), PUSSY LIVE STAKES SHALL BEFOR INSTALLED WITHINARE: 72 HOURS BEING(SALIX HARVESTED WILLOW (SALIX RED OSIER DOGWOOD (CORNUS STOLONIFERA).

TREE FORM SPECIES OF WILLOW DOGWOOD 3) ENSURE THATDISCOLOR), 2/3rds OF AND THE STEM IS BURIED, AND THAT THE BASAL END OF THE CUT PLANT (THE BOTTOM ORAND "ROOT" END) IS TYPICAL ARE NOT ACCEPTABLE. INSERTED INTO THE SOIL. TURTLE ISLAND LIVE STAKING DETAIL 2) LIVE STAKES SHALL BE INSTALLED WITHIN 72 HOURS OF BEING HARVESTED N.T.S. 3) ENSURETYPICAL THAT 2/3rds OF THE STEM ISLAND IS BURIED, AND THATSTAKING THE BASAL END OF THE CUT PLANT (THE BOTTOM OR "ROOT" END) IS TURTLE LIVE DETAIL INSERTED INTO THE SOIL. High point of granular and sand backfill.

12C 12C

N.T.S.

12C

N.T.S.

300mm diameter coir logs.

High point of granular and sand backfill.

Place a combination of stump and log 300mm diameter logs. of turtle structures around coir perimeter island. Logofstructures be a backfill. min. of High granularofshall and sand Placepoint a combination stump and log 100mm diameter. A min. of three structures around coir perimeter of turtle 300mm diameter logs.shall structures per turtle island be island. Log structures shall be a min. of incorporated.

Place a diameter. combination of stump and log 100mm A min. of three Water level structures around of turtle per turtleperimeter island shall be incorporated. island. Log structures shall be a min. of 100mm diameter. A min. of three Water level structures per turtle island shall be Bottom of wetland incorporated.

Water level Bottom of wetland

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND LIVE STAKING DETAIL

75.66 (average high water elevation in June) 75.66 (average high water elevation in June) 74.94 (average water elevation in June) 75.66 (average high water elevation in June) 74.94 (average water elevation in June) 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation)

74.94 (average water elevation in June) 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation) NOTES 1) FASTEN INDIVIDUAL STUMPS AND LOGS TO ISLAND'S PERIMTER POSTS USING NO. 11 GALVANIZED CABLE TO ENSURE MATERIAL DOES FLOATwetland AWAY DURING HIGH WATER EVENTS. 74.52 NOT (average bottom elevation) Bottom of wetland NOTES 2) BURY PORTIONS OF STUMP/LOG IN NATIVE WETLAND SUBSTRATE 1) FASTEN INDIVIDUAL STUMPS AND LOGS TO ISLAND'S PERIMTER POSTS USING NO. 11 GALVANIZED CABLE TO ENSURE MATERIAL 3) ENSURE A COMBINATION OF BOTH STUMPS AND LOGS ARE UTILIZED TO CREATE PROPOSED STRUCTURES DOES NOT FLOAT AWAY DURING HIGH WATER EVENTS. NOTES 2) BURY PORTIONS OF STUMP/LOG IN NATIVE WETLAND SUBSTRATE TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND STUMP AND LOG STRUCTURE DETAIL 1)3)FASTEN STUMPS LOGS TO ISLAND'S PERIMTER POSTS TO USING NO. PROPOSED 11 GALVANIZED CABLE TO ENSURE MATERIAL ENSUREINDIVIDUAL A COMBINATION OFAND BOTH STUMPS AND LOGS ARE UTILIZED CREATE STRUCTURES DOES NOTN.T.S. FLOAT AWAY DURING HIGH WATER EVENTS. 2) BURY PORTIONS OF STUMP/LOG NATIVE WETLAND SUBSTRATE TYPICAL TURTLEINISLAND STUMP AND LOG STRUCTURE DETAIL 3) ENSUREN.T.S. A COMBINATION OF BOTH STUMPS AND LOGS ARE UTILIZED TO CREATE PROPOSED STRUCTURES High point of granular and sand backfill.

12D 12D 12D

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND STUMP AND LOG STRUCTURE DETAIL

N.T.S.

75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June) 75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June) 74.94 (average water elevation in June) 75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June) 74.94 (average water elevation in June) 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation)

300mm diameter waterlogs.

High point of granular and sand backfill.

Place min. of 8 rock structures around 300mm diameter perimeter of turtle waterlogs. island. Rock structures shall be min.

600mm high min.

High and and sand backfill.

Placepoint min. of of granular 8 rock structures around 1000mm long. Individual large, or perimeter of turtle waterlogs. island. Rock structures 300mm smaller diameter multiple stones may be utilized to shall be min. 600mm high and min. create structures.

1000mm long.

Individual large,around or Place min. of 8 rock structures Water multiple smaller stones may be structures utilizedlevel to perimeter of turtle island.

Rock create shall bestructures. min. 600mm high and min.

1000mm long. Individual large, or Water level multiple smaller stones may be of utilized to Bottom wetland create structures.

Water level 74.94 (average water elevation in June) Bottom of wetland 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation) NOTES 1) FINISHED ELEVATION OF ROCK STRUCTURES SHOULD PROTRUDE PAST ABOVE MENTIONED HISTORIC AVERAGE HIGH WATER LEVEL IN JUNE. NOTES Bottom of wetland (average wetland bottom elevation) 2)74.52 CONCRETE RUBBLE AND/OR CUT STONE ARE NOT SUITABLE MATERIALS 1) FINISHED ELEVATION OF ROCK STRUCTURES SHOULD PROTRUDE PAST ABOVE MENTIONED HISTORIC AVERAGE HIGH WATER 3) ENSURE A MINIMUM OF FIVE OF THE EIGHT ROCK STRUCTURES ARE CONSTRUCTED UP TIGHT AGAINST THE COIR LOG WALLS. LEVEL IN JUNE. NOTES 2) CONCRETE RUBBLE AND/OR CUT STONE ARE NOT SUITABLE MATERIALS TURTLE ISLAND ROCK STRUCTURE DETAIL 1)3)FINISHED ROCK STRUCTURES PROTRUDE PAST ABOVE MENTIONED HISTORIC AVERAGE HIGH ENSURE TYPICAL AELEVATION MINIMUMOF OF FIVE OF THE EIGHT SHOULD ROCK STRUCTURES ARE CONSTRUCTED UP TIGHT AGAINST THE COIR LOGWATER WALLS. N.T.S. LEVEL IN JUNE. 2) CONCRETE RUBBLE AND/OR CUT STONE ARE NOT SUITABLESTRUCTURE MATERIALS TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND ROCK DETAIL 3) ENSUREN.T.S. A MINIMUM OF FIVE OF THE EIGHT ROCK STRUCTURES ARE CONSTRUCTED UP TIGHT AGAINST THE COIR LOG WALLS. High point of granular and sand backfill.

12E 12E

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND ROCK STRUCTURE DETAIL

12E 75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June) N.T.S.

Bury intact rootwad of basking log into High point of granular sandlog backfill. granular/sand backfill.and Extend portion into water a min. distance of 3000mm.

Bury intact rootwad of basking log into granular/sand backfill.

Extend portion 300mm diameter waterlogs.

High point of granular and sandlog backfill. into water a min. distance of 3000mm.

Bury intact rootwad of basking log into 300mm diameter waterlogs. Water level granular/sand backfill. Extend log portion into water a min. distance of 3000mm.

Water level 300mm diameter waterlogs.

Bottom of wetland

75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June) 74.94 (average water elevation in June) 75.66 (historic average high water elevation in June) 74.94 (average water elevation in June) 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation)

NOTES (average water elevation June) 1)74.94 ENSURE END OF BASKING LOGSin ARE MIN. 5.0 METERS AWAY FROM DRY LAND IN ORDER TO PREVENT POTENTIAL PREDATION OF 74.52 (average wetland bottom elevation) TURLE EGGS BY SPECIES SUCH AS RACCOONS, SKUNKS ETC. NOTES 2) SELECT TREES WHICH ARE IN REASONABLY GOOD CONDITION FOR BASKING LOG STRUCTURES - AVOID BROKEN/SPLINTERED 1) ENSURE END OF BASKING LOGS ARE MIN. 5.0 METERS AWAY FROM DRY LAND IN ORDER TO PREVENT POTENTIAL PREDATION OF TRUNKS 74.52 wetlandSUCH bottom TURLE (average EGGS BY SPECIES ASelevation) RACCOONS, SKUNKS ETC. 3) PLACE MULTIPLE BOULDERS ONTO/INTO ROOTWAD PRIOR TO BACKFILLING WITH SAND/GRANULAR MIX NOTES 2) SELECT TREES WHICH ARE IN REASONABLY GOOD CONDITION FOR BASKING LOG STRUCTURES - AVOID BROKEN/SPLINTERED 1)TRUNKS ENSURE END OF BASKING LOGS ARE MIN. 5.0 METERS AWAY FROM DRY LAND IN ORDER TO PREVENT POTENTIAL PREDATION OF TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND BASKING LOG DETAIL TURLE EGGS

BY SPECIES SUCH AS RACCOONS, SKUNKS ETC. TO BACKFILLING 3) PLACE MULTIPLE BOULDERS ONTO/INTO ROOTWAD PRIOR WITH SAND/GRANULAR MIX N.T.S. 2) SELECT TREES WHICH ARE IN REASONABLY GOOD CONDITION FOR BASKING LOG STRUCTURES - AVOID BROKEN/SPLINTERED TRUNKS TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND BASKING LOG DETAIL 3) PLACE MULTIPLE N.T.S. BOULDERS ONTO/INTO ROOTWAD PRIOR TO BACKFILLING WITH SAND/GRANULAR MIX

O’Connor Park Project Team Client: City of Mississauga and Credit Valley Conservation Project Landscape Architect and Project Management: PMA Landscape Architects Ltd. Consulting Ecologist: Dougan & Associates Ecological Consulting & Design (Todd Fell, OALA, Director, Landscape Architect) Consulting Engineers: AMEC Earth and Environmental Engineers Landscape Contractor: Gateman Milloy Coir Logs: Maccaferri Canada Ltd. Size: 17.22 acres (7 hectares) Project Construction: 2011

Water level Bottom of wetland

Bottom of wetland

12F 12F 12F

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Water level Bottom of wetland

TYPICAL TURTLE ISLAND BASKING LOG DETAIL N.T.S.

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The O’Connor Park Development Project Team received the Brenda Sakauye Environment Award in recognition of the park’s advancement of the City of Mississauga’s Living Green Master Plan, as well as the 2012 Mississauga Urban Design Award of Merit for Community Scale, Living Green, Innovation and Execution.

BIO/ Victoria Taylor, OALA, is Ground’s Design

by Detail columnist. She engages with landscape as an artistic and cultural

practice through public and private commissions, curatorial projects, teaching,

writing, and temporary installation artworks. Taylor is the founding curator

of The Gladstone Hotel’s annual Grow Op exhibition, and, in 2016, co-founded

====\\DeRAIL Platform for Art + Architecture, an independent curatorial program that commissions temporary, place-specific art

projects in linear landscapes. Taylor is a sessional instructor and critic at the John H. Daniels School of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto, and at the School of Architecture, University

of Waterloo.

Suggestions of custom, atypical design details for future columns are welcomed. Please send to magazine@oala.ca.

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A series of turtle island edge sections showing different construction conditions and materials.

IMAGE/

Dougan & Associates

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View of expanded west wetland, O’Connor Park, Mississauga

IMAGE/

Dougan & Associates

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

Letter From‌ Rural Ontario

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Ripe for reinvention

Letter From…

Rural Ontario

Text by Brendan Stewart, OALA

Driving through the countryside of Southern Ontario, I’m reminded of the American cultural geographer J.B. Jackson’s quote that “landscape is history made visible”—that the patterns of our cultural relationships with the land are evident all around us if we train our eyes to them. An element of the rural landscape that I’ve been pondering a lot lately is the dry-stone wall.

My professional relationship with dry-stone walls started with my first project after graduating with a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture. I’d been hired by family friends to develop a plan for their rural property along the Speed River north of Guelph—to provide guidance for improvement projects they wanted to undertake themselves in phases. One of the projects was a freestanding wall of dry-laid fieldstone, collected from the property, which was to line a gravel entrance driveway adjacent to a row of existing apple trees.

Having had the opportunity to backpack around Europe, I’d been deeply impressed by the beauty and timeless quality of the ancient dry-stone terrace walls of Cinque Terre, Italy, and the stone fences lining fields in the Cotswolds of England. I’d also grown up seeing dry stone in the countryside in various states of repair: everything from loosely piled linear heaps of boulders to handsome walls of quarried and dressed

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stone. I understood this type of wall had rich character—that it seems to feel “at home” in the landscape of the region—but I didn’t know why that might be or, importantly for the job at hand, how they are built.

decades of frost action, but more likely a fence piled like this to begin with. Adjacent is a more refined wall, also of fieldstone, with tight jointing, a consistent batter, and some dressing of the facing stones.

Referring to some technical articles, I drew up instructions outlining key principles of drystone construction, and directed my client to a good book on the subject, Building Stone Walls, by John Vivian (1976). The wall project was undertaken over a number of years, and my client cites a workshop he attended with John-Shaw Rimmington, a waller who runs the website Dry Stone Walling Across Canada, as instrumental.

Later, consulting a free GIS dataset, Surficial Geology of Southern Ontario, I learned that these fences sit between two drumlins, on property classified as 5b Till, described as “stone-poor, sandy silt to silty sand-textured till on Paleozoic terrain.”

In the early fall of 2017, I visited the completed wall, which (to my great satisfaction) looks as if it has always been there. While chatting, I discovered that my client knew the location of some old and new walls nearby, and knew some local wallers. We made plans for a day trip to check them out.

In Alton, we visited the town square, a recently built public space featuring a series of dry-stone walls of varying techniques and materials, both fieldstone walls and walls of quarried and dressed sandstone and limestone. The walls integrate salvaged cornerstones and lintels from demolished local buildings with engraved names and dates of construction. Also to be found is metal artwork, a fountain, and sedums planted as a coping atop the wall.

Built by volunteers in the summer of 2013, this was a site of the annual Stone Festival, run by the Dry Stone Walling Association of Canada (aka Dry Stone Canada), featuring dry-stone organizations from Great Britain and the U.S., and including a two-day training course.

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The visit makes us wonder about the potential to build more dry-stone structures on public land, and the unique opportunity that the technique offers to engage the community in the build process.

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Fieldstone wall at a rural property along the Speed River

IMAGE/

Brendan Stewart

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Stone fence near the intersection of highways 124 and 136

IMAGE/

Brendan Stewart

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We set out north and arrived at our first wall near the intersection of highways 124 and 136, about midway between Erin and Orangeville. There are two portions of wall lining the road, allowing a side-by-side comparison. The first section is of loosely piled fieldstone—perhaps a poorly built wall that has failed and settled through

Letter From…

Rural Ontario

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Alton town square project

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Brendan Stewart

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The Blackhouse at Landman Gardens and Bakery

IMAGE/

Brendan Stewart

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Wallers John Bland (foreground) and Eric Landman (background)

IMAGE/

Brendan Stewart

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The mysterious “Triangle” in Caledon

IMAGES/

Brendan Stewart

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The serpentine wall in Caledon

IMAGE/

Brendan Stewart

We also consider the dissociation of these dry-wall constructions from their historic function in the vernacular, agricultural landscape.

Here, the walls bound the edge of the space, but rather than containing and rendering viable a privately owned working landscape, they enclose and enhance a publicly owned space of leisure, defining seating areas, creating comfortable microclimates, and inviting appreciation and exploration of the fine craftsmanship. Unlike its more humble antecedents, which typically sourced material from the site itself, some of the stone at the Alton project was quarried in Madoc (and provided by Upper Canada Stone), and the fieldstone was salvaged from a farm down the road.

The Alton project uses a construction technique and material palette familiar to the region, and to the casual observer the project might well appear to be quite old, but the raison d’être is different. These dry-stone constructions exist as a response to a contemporary set of cultural and economic forces: a desire to interpret and commemorate local history; to create flexible outdoor public space; and, presumably, as an economic development strategy aimed at attracting tourists from the city (and their dollars) looking for experiences of small-town charm.

Leaving Alton, we drive north to Landman Gardens & Bakery, a working farm just north of Grand Valley. We plan to pay a visit to Eric Landman, a dairy farmer who has been building with dry stone since 2004, but Eric is not there. His son tells us that we can find him building a wall at the nearby Dufferin County Museum and Archives. We explore the dry-stone Blackhouse, built on the property as part of a dry-stone festival in 2009, before continuing on our way.

At the museum, Eric, who is also the president of programs for Dry Stone Canada, is working with a colleague named John Bland, a waller from Montreal. John shows us pictures on his phone of a project on Amherst Island near Kingston—executed as part of a 2015 walling festival—which was designed to allow a beam of sunlight through an aperture (a Celtic cross) to a target (a Claddagh stone) at a predetermined time. John explains how he used Google SketchUp to work out the precise geometries before the build. Eric and I make plans to meet again the following week to see some of his work in the Caledon area.

The next week, Eric takes us to see two private residential properties in the Caledon Hills, where he and a loose guild of collaborating wallers have built some of their most ambitious projects to date—works that seem more related to the work of land artists such as Andy Goldsworthy or Harvey Fite than to the walls we’ve seen so far.

We explore a mysterious and exquisite structure of vertically laid Credit Valley sandstone, quarried on the property and built on a bedrock outcropping in a cedar forest. Designed incrementally on-site in collaboration with

Letter From…

Rural Ontario

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John Bland and Creemore-based waller Andre Lemieux, the structure forms an equilateral triangle in plan, each side with a slight concave curve adding strength to the walls, and features a circular inner chamber that is open to the sky. It feels like a site for ancient druid rituals, but is only a year or so old.

On another part of the property, we explore a spectacular fieldstone wall that snakes through a forest of red and white pines and is reminiscent of Goldsworthy’s wall at the Storm King Art Center in the Hudson River Valley, New York State. I ask Eric to talk about why he’s drawn to dry-stone walls, and what he thinks landscape architects should know about them. He shares a few ideas.

First, he points out that the walls are environmentally sustainable, with minimal processing and transportation-related costs, especially in the rural landscape where the stone is often readily available on-site or within a few kilometres. Second, the walls are inherently beautiful. He speaks about the depth and shadow lines you get because the joints aren’t filled with mortar, and of the texture that develops as the walls weather over time, especially in shady locations where mosses can establish themselves. Third, the walls seem to emanate a peaceful quality. Maybe this is another way of getting at the idea of the timeless quality that the walls seem to have, even new ones, and the way they seem to “belong” in the landscape.

Eric shares the idea that humans are hardwired to scan their environment and to identify potential danger. When you perceive something that is inherently “structural”— something that you innately understand to be solid, sturdy, and well-built—it puts your mind at ease. Eric thinks that the very nature of dry-stack walls—the tight joints; the slight batter from wider bottom to narrower top; the legibility of how it is put together—is perceived as safe at a subconscious level, and this contributes to a sense of peacefulness.

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Resources

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Getting ready to leave the property, the conversation turns back to the idea of building more dry-stone constructions in the public realm. Eric says that one barrier is cost, but another is finding engineers and building inspectors who understand how dry-stone constructions work structurally, and who are comfortable with the liability. Perhaps through more collaboration with the dry wallers, landscape architects could help iron out this wrinkle.

Eric prefers working with fieldstone over quarried stone. It’s more challenging to execute (you can’t shape the stone to make it fit), but he also talks about the sentimental value. The fieldstone he uses is usually recycled from an old pile on the site he is working on, and he likes to think about the cultural associations—the idea that those same stones were once worked by pioneers clearing fields, and now they are being put to a new use. The commemorative walls at the Dufferin County Museum and Archives have this value too—some are built of stone from old building ruins elsewhere in the county, the stories shared on interpretive plaques. I like to think about that, too.

BIO/ Brendan Stewart, OALA, is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at

the University of Guelph. Prior to joining

the faculty in 2017, he was an Associate at ERA Architects in Toronto, where

his practice focused on the intersection

of contemporary design and heritage conservation.

TO view additional content related to this Ground article, Visit www.groundmag.ca.

06

For a comprehensive and accessible overview of the post-contact evolution of the Ontario landscape, see University of Toronto geographer Thomas McIlwraith’s 1997 book Looking for Old Ontario: Two Centuries of Landscape Change. McIlwraith explains patterns of land division and privatization, and the immense and generations-long undertaking of clearing the land of trees and rock to create farms and fields. He tells the history of the types of fences that demarcated private property boundaries and internal field divisions. As resources changed, fence types evolved from the earliest forms: piled brush from tree tops; pole and log fences from trunks; rough boulder fences from glacial debris; snake-rail fences made of split cedar; and pine-stump fences pulled from the fields.

Later came dry-stone walls of fieldstone and river stone, and eventually the board, post and rail, and box-wire fences that are more common today.

McIlwraith quotes a report from 1856: “A few farmers in Caledon have built a considerable quantity of stone wall, which answers admirably, forming the most durable of all fences, and at the same time ridding the land of a troublesome incumbrance.” He notes that many early fences were lost post-World War I to road widening and field consolidation, and that Southern Ontario’s most attractive stone walls tend to stand on poor land with rocky soil. The book includes an interesting map, showing the predominant fence types across Southern Ontario in the late 19th century.

This map might serve as a useful reference for dry-wall enthusiasts looking to locate, explore, and document old walls.

Technical Corner

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Hügelkultur mound under construction at a workshop in October 2017 at the Dallington Pollinator Community Garden in North York Bob Frederickson

Text by Mary Beerman

Hügelkultur (pronounced H00-gullculture), German for “hill culture,” refers to raised beds that are filled with old and newer wood pieces layered with other compostable plant materials such as sticks, plant cuttings, sod, compost, soil, and leaves.

Permaculture, a form of natural agriculture, has taken this age-old practice and adapted it to just about any environment you can think of, with positive results. Using green waste materials and incorporating them back into the soil ecosystem develops humus and soils that are rich in

nutrients available for plant uptake and resistant to erosion. How did we move away from mimicking nature, thus creating larger and more complex problems over time? Hügelkultur can bring us back into rhythm with how nature works, in one simple garden bed, addressing soil water retention, soil fertility, water purity, pollinator and bird populations, and food security.

The Dallington Pollinator Community Garden in North York recently hosted a Hügelkultur workshop. At the event, participants learned about the many ways in which Hügelkultur is a beneficial growing system.

Technical Corner

• Hügelkultur is self-feeding. The diversity of building materials and the variations in particle sizes ensure a diverse nutrient supply through the natural process of decomposition. Continuous nutrient cycling means the right food at the right time for your plants—promoting healthy, strong, and productive plants.

• Hügelkultur is self-watering. The heavy wood serves two main purposes: water retention and nutrient storage.

Organic matter (OM) holds six times its weight in water. The more OM in your soil, the more moisture it can hold. Creating a growing environment that holds water and releases it slowly means rainfall is never wasted; during periods of drought, your plants have a steady supply of moisture, without supplementary watering.

• Hügelkultur’s sloped beds are cost effective. Developing sloping garden beds 1.5m high in a 1.5m x 3m bed expands your growing area from 4.5m² to 9m²—twice the amount of space.

(Tilling the soil is not necessary.) Raised beds are also knee, back, and hip friendly.

• Hügelkultur beds support local ecology. Supporting the soil foodweb supports higher population and species diversity all the way up the food chain, naturally creating pollinator and bird gardens.

• Hügelkultur beds reduce, reuse, and recycle waste. Built from waste material, Hügelkultur beds are ecosystems that cycle nutrients, producing an energy flow from lower to higher trophic levels.

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The basic steps of building a Hügelkultur bed include:

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• Hügelkultur mitigates climate change.

Every time we till the soil, we release stored carbon in the form of CO², a greenhouse gas. Storing wood and other compostable waste materials in the soil, and keeping the soil covered, sequesters carbon in the soil. Hügelkultur contributes to resilient ecosystems that can withstand the weather extremes of climate change.

The principles of Hügelkultur construction have multiple applications: for example, wind and sound berms or boulevard container plantings. To find out first-hand just how low maintenance and productive Hügelkultur is, visit the Dallington Pollinator Community Garden in North York, in person or online.

BIO/ Mary Beerman is a professional gardener, educator, and writer; her company, Mary

Living Outside, provides organic landcare services, Life-in-the-Soil Analysis and consulting, and workshops.

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Cite your Hügelkultur bed in full sun.

Determine the desired height of your bed: the higher the bed, the greater the surface area for growing and the steeper the slope.

Determine the structure of the raised beds: a) simple mounds, berms, or beds; or, b) contained within a constructed edge such as stones, wood frames, or loose logs.

Outline the perimeter and remove any turf, saving the clods off to the side.

Dig a trench, approximately 60cm deep, to create a lower bed for the large pieces of wood. Save the removed soil off to the side.

Put a layer of cardboard and/or newspaper at the bottom of the trench and water until soaked. Apply a layer of aged manure or compost.

Place large pieces of wood in this prepared lower bed. Layer smaller branches and twigs on top.

Layer the turf clods, green side down, across the entire bed. Water moderately.

Continue layering with your compostable materials, starting with the coarser materials. Water moderately.

Your final layer should be the leftover soil from the trench digging and compost. Water moderately.

Sow with a cover crop. (You can include vegetable seeds and/or seedlings with the cover crop.)

Water moderately.

Research Corner

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Commemorating World War II landscapes of confinement in British Columbia

Text and photographs by Desirée Valadares

The year 2017 marked the 75th anniversary of the start of the internment period (1942-1949) when more than 21,000 JapaneseCanadians were forcibly removed from the west coast of British Columbia. A 1942 Order-in-Council gave the British Columbia Security Commission the right to evacuate, detain, and remove men, women, and children of Japanese ancestry and relocate them to temporary homes (karizumai) scattered across the Okanagan Valley, the Kootenays, and farther inland.

The War Measures Act (enacted for a second time, following the 1914 internment of Ukrainian-Canadians during World War I) was used to disperse and allocate Japanese-Canadian families to one of four projects: male Japanese nationals to provincial road camps; nisei (first generation Japanese-Canadians) to Ontario road works or industry; fishing and farming families to Southern Alberta and Manitoba to work on sugar beet fields; and lastly, women, children, and the elderly to ghost towns and former mining towns in remote locations in the British Columbia Interior.

On April 1, 2017, the British Columbia Register of Historic Places recognized more than 56 sites, buildings, and landscapes as part of the Provincial Recognition Program’s Japanese-Canadian Historic

Places Project. Included in the recognized places are the internment camps, self-supporting sites, and road camps, in addition to fishing, mining, and logging communities that confined JapaneseCanadians from 1942-1949. The Nikkei National Museum and Cultural Centre in British Columbia recently held a “75th Anniversary Internment Bus Tour” in an effort to draw visibility to these sites and promote the study, management, preservation, and interpretation of these sites and their associated material culture. These cultural landscapes, albeit invisible to most, retain a profound materiality that has become symbolic of the ways in which moral anxieties and civic ambiguities surface in times of war. Architectural and landscape traces provide an enduring testimony to the conditions that characterized daily life in these spaces of displacement that confined “civilian enemy aliens” on the basis of their ethnic and racial identity, presumed loyalties, and alleged treasons.

The following images are from my journey to these internment sites, and highlight relatively recent efforts to commemorate, preserve, and restore these landscapes in the province of British Columbia.

BIO/ Desirée Valadares graduated from the MLA program at the University of Guelph in 2013. She is currently a PhD student at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Architectural history Department and has worked as a landscape historian with the national trust for

historic preservation, the u.s. national parks service, and the centre for

the environmental management of military lands.

Research Corner

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Pacific National Exhibition buildings, Hastings Park, Vancouver, B.C.

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In early 1942, the Pacific National Exhibition grounds in East Vancouver were chosen to temporarily house Japanese-Canadians until they could be placed in long-term camps.

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Desirée Valadares

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Hundreds of bunk beds for men and boys over the age of 18 filled the Forum exhibition hall. The capacity was 1,212.

IMAGE/

Desirée Valadares

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The Livestock Building has recently been designated a heritage building, based on its significant architecture, the association with the agricultural aspects of the Pacific National Exhibition, and its role in temporarily housing Japanese- Canadians during World War II.

IMAGE/

Desirée Valadares

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Momiji Gardens at Hastings Park, Vancouver, B.C.

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The Momiji Gardens, on the south side of the Garden Auditorium building along East Hastings Street, were completed in 1993 to commemorate the internment of 8,000 Canadians of Japanese origin.

IMAGE/

Desirée Valadares

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In 1984, the internment was acknowledged as a significant national event by the Parks Canada Historic Sites and Monuments Board and the Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation. After much debate, a plaque was unveiled in 1989, and, in 2012, the plaque was moved to its current, more prominent, location.

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Desirée Valadares

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A Historic Sites and Monuments Board plaque reads: “The incarceration, confiscation of property, and forced dispersal from the coast of 22,000 innocent Japanese Canadians from 1942 to 1949 was officially acknowledged as unjust by Canada in 1988.”

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Desirée Valadares

Tashme Museum and Internment Site, Sunshine Valley RV Campground, B.C.

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Tashme camp was the last to be built and was the largest and most isolated, located 22.5 kilometres east of Hope, B.C., in the Sunshine Valley, surrounded by mountains. As a self-contained city, this camp contained a livestock farm, logging camp, 50-bed hospital, large garden, soy sauce factory, butcher, general store, powerhouse, post office, and RCMP detachment. The interior of a renovated large barn is pictured.

Desirée Valadares

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A commemorative garden was created by residents of the Sunshine RV Campground to recognize Japanese- Canadian internment at Tashme.

IMAGE/

Desirée Valadares

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The camp was made of nineteen avenues of houses with 10 to 20 houses on each row and a boulevard along the south side. The street pattern remains extant, though the tar-paper shacks that once dotted this expanse have been cleared. Some residents and staff at the Tashme Museum created a reconstruction of a tar-paper shack in 2016 and are seeking funds to restore the RCMP detachment.

IMAGE/

Desirée Valadares

Research Corner

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Greenwood, South Central B.C.

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On April 21, 1942, Greenwood, an abandoned copper-mining town located between Penticton and Castlegar, became the first of the designated internment camps to be populated. Greenwood mayor W.T. McArthur welcomed Japanese-Canadians in his small town of 200 residents. Japanese-Canadian families moved into empty hotels, saloons, and business buildings with communal kitchens and shared plumbing, and were subject to a curfew. Each building was labelled with a numbering system: “Internment Bldg #1” and so on.

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Desirée Valadares

Christina Lake, South Central B.C.

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Located 37 kilometres east of Grand Forks on the shores of Christina Lake, this was one of seven self-supporting sites authorized by the British Columbia Security Commission. Families who fished and built boats were relocated here. Currently, this unincorporated recreational area in the Boundary Country of the West Kootenay region is home to summer houses and cottages that survive from the internment period.

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Desirée Valadares

Lemon Creek, Slocan Valley, B.C.

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Lemon Creek camp was built from scratch on a cow pasture located 9 kilometres from Slocan City. The camp got its name from a nearby creek that runs into the Slocan Valley.

At present, there are no extant remains of the internment camp, the baseball field, or the toboggan hill, though interpretive panels erected by the local historical association are located throughout the site.

IMAGES/

Desirée Valadares

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Research Corner

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Popoff, Slocan Valley, B.C.

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Popoff was another camp built on leased farmland. There are no extant remains of the street grid or shacks. Current farm owners offer tours to visitors and members of the Japanese-Canadian community on occasion.

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Desirée Valadares

Slocan City, Slocan Valley, B.C.

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Slocan City was a mining ghost town that had 350 Canadians of Japanese ancestry living in its environs in 1942. It was also used as a train transfer point for camps located farther east.

Japanese-Canadian men worked there as loggers, producing firewood, poles, posts, and logs for distant sawmills. The central image documents the extant remains of Japanese-Canadian author Joy Kogawa’s childhood home during the internment period.

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Desirée Valadares

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Sandon, Kootenay Region, B.C.

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Sandon, an abandoned silver-mining town, was located in an isolated valley east of New Denver, and can be accessed by a treacherous 14-kilometre road that often has rockslides.

Situated between two mountains in a narrow, dark valley, Sandon was known as the “Sunless City.” The majority of Japanese-Canadians relocated here were elderly. Sandon was the first camp to close in 1944.

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Desirée Valadares

Research Corner

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10 Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre, New Denver, B.C.

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New Denver, located at an altitude of 1,700 feet, was a commercial centre for the area in which miners lived. The British Columbia Security Commission tasked the Japanese-Canadians relocated to this site with building 275 shacks in an area known as the “Orchard.” In 1994, several surviving internment shacks were moved together to form the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre run by the Kyowakai Society. The site is listed by the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada.

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Desirée Valadares

11 Kaslo: the Langham Gallery and Kaslo Hotel, B.C.

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Kaslo, a once thriving mining town, housed more than 900 Japanese-Canadians during WWII. The British Columbia Security Commission leased more than 52 buildings, which were reconditioned and renumbered to house relocated families. Currently, these extant buildings hold exhibitions on their first floors, and their exteriors are marked with plaques acknowledging Japanese-Canadian internment from 1942-1949.

IMAGES/

Desirée Valadares

12 East Lillooet, B.C.

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East Lillooet was another self-supporting site (similar to Christina Lake), located east of the town of Lillooet. It contained 55 tar-paper shacks, and families could stay together if they paid their own way to relocate to this site and paid monthly “rent.” A baseball team was known to have bridged the gap between the not-so-friendly town of Lillooet and the interned Japanese-Canadians in East Lillooet.

There are no extant remains, though subsurface archaeological excavation might yield some findings of former habitation.

IMAGES/

Desirée Valadares

Notes

Notes: A Miscellany of News and Events

workshops For more than twenty years, the University of Guelph Arboretum has been providing workshops for adults and professionals. Upcoming spring classes include “Welcoming Trees into Our Gardens and Neighbourhoods,” which will explore the concept of a “pocket woodland” for urban environments, and “The Intriguing World of Spring Wildflowers,” with naturalist Richard Aaron. For more information, visit www.uoguelph.ca/arboretum.

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transportation A new report from the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation, “Learning to be a Bicycle Friendly Driver,” looks at the feasibility of offering additional training to drivers in Toronto (both professional and the public), with the goal of helping them more safely share the road with people on bikes. The report investigated bicyclefriendly driver programs currently being offered in Fort Collins (Colorado) and San Francisco. In both locations, municipal transit, as well as many private transportation and delivery companies have their drivers undergo training on this topic. The report identifies key requirements for success for a Toronto program. To download a copy of the report, visit www.tcat.ca.

new members The Ontario Association of Landscape Architects is proud to recognize and welcome the following new full members to the Association: Matthew Naylor Melissa Poulin Stacy Willick

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books A recently published book, Garden City: Supergreen Buildings, Urban Skyscrapers and the New Planted Space, by Anna Yudina (Thames & Hudson, 2017), profiles seventy projects from around the world in which nature is incorporated into the built environment. Some of the projects have already been built and some are planned for the future; all of them push the boundaries of vertical gardening and green roofs into new territory. Another recently published book, Rooftop Urban Agriculture, edited by Francesco Orsini, et al (Springer, 2017), is a collection of essays that guide landscape architects and urban planners on the implementation of sustainable rooftop farming projects. Covering a broad range of topics—including practices at the forefront of green roof food production such as aquaponics—the book presents up-to-date green roof agriculture research related to design, technology, soil, pest management, biodiversity, resource efficiency, policies, and more.

birds The non-profit group Nature Aurora recently released a publication, available for free download from their website, called Breeding Birds of Aurora, a multiyear study of bird habitats, behaviour, movement, and breeding trends in Aurora, Ontario. The report, written by David Tomlinson, OALA, maps the present distribution of breeding bird populations and documents changes resulting from development in the area. Included are a foreword by author Bridget Stutchbury of York University, and recommendations about how landscape architects, citizens, and others can work together to protect and conserve breeding bird populations and enhance wildlife habitats. To download a copy, visit www.natureaurora.ca.

trees The International Urban Forestry Congress (IUFC), this year titled “The Urban Forest—Diverse in Nature,” will be held in Vancouver, British Columbia, from September 30­­–October 3, 2018.

The congress brings together professionals, researchers, and educators in urban forestry, arboriculture, landscape architecture, urban planning, and related fields to share experiences and information.

The Canadian Urban Forest Conference (CUFC) will be a component of IUFC, as well. For more information, visit www.iufcvancouver2018.com.

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Garden City book cover

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Courtesy of Thames & Hudson

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Rooftop Urban Agriculture book cover

IMAGE/

Courtesy of Springer

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Interested in being involved with Ground: Landscape Architect Quarterly?

The OALA Editorial Board is looking for volunteers who can help out with various tasks, such as research, and writing. Any level of commitment is appreciated.

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Artifact

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Artist Sandra Brewster explores identity, history, and memory text by LOrraine johnson

What does it mean to be in place? To be displaced? And how does the land—of home place and of new place—figure into this equation?

These are just some of the many questions evoked by artist Sandra Brewster’s piece Hiking Black Creek, currently on view at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto as part of the exhibition Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art. Brewster’s mother emigrated to Toronto from Guyana in 1967, and sponsored her father, who arrived in 1970. Hiking Black Creek, with its blurred, creased, and complex surfaces, presents Brewster’s parents in a new place, but, as Brewster explains, “I am sure my parents found comparisons between this landscape and back home which assisted them in becoming more acquainted with this place, where they would spend the rest of their lives. It is as if they were looking for a way to feel at home.”

Continuing her explorations of identity, history, and memory, Brewster notes that Hiking Black Creek does not include the “common yet valid newcomer theme of struggle and conflict.” Instead, “They [her parents] seem to carry all aspects of time with them—their previous life, their present explorations, and an anticipation for what is to come.”

Here We Are Here: Black Canadian Contemporary Art is on view at the Royal Ontario Museum until April 22, 2018.

BIO/ Lorraine Johnson is the editor of Ground.

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IMAGE/

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Sandra Brewster’s artwork Hiking Black Creek is part of the exhibition Here We Are Here, on view at the Royal Ontario Museum until April 22, 2018.

Sandra Brewster

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