This series, by Bill Haartman, started off as a history of the southern section of our trail - the Towpath Sector. Bill continued his writings and the end result is a historical account of the whole Grand Valley Trail from Lake Erie, near Dunnville to Alton, a village near Orangeville. Bill is a hiker, hike leader and historian. He is a longtime and active member of the Grand Valley Trails Association. For many years it was Bill who groomed the trail in the Towpath (Haldimand County) portion of the trail as the Towpath Trail Director. Thanks, Bill!
Picture > The picture is a composite of Bill Haartman hugging a hackberry tree outside the Gatehouse of Ruthven Park National Historic Site and the nearby Grand River. On October 03, 2007, a group of volunteers was in the Towpath Sector grooming the trail for a walk during the 35th GVTA Anniversary celebration on October 14th, 2007. Bill, even though technically retired as Towpath Trail Director, was out to assist the new Towpath Trail Director, Ed Dennis.
The Southern section of the Grand Valley Trail [ watershed map ] has been of particular significance for the settlement of English Canada. The completion of the Erie Barge Canal in 1825 in Upstate New York inspired William Hamilton Merritt to form a Company to link Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. They ran into trouble with the plans at Welland, where quicksand forced them to bend off towards Dunnville by digging through the Wainfleet marsh, or Wainfleet Bog Conservation Area [Google Maps location], (satellite view from "Images of Canada", Niagara Falls, Ontario + Greenways of Wainfleet Township map showing bog/marsh). So David Thompson and Merritt teamed up to form the Grand River Navigation Co., extending the Welland Canal to link to hinterlands as far as the Brantford- Cambridge area. A waterway was now available from New York via Albany-Buffalo to Ontario's heartland. It opened the way for many immigrants to transport their belongings to a region where inexpensive, fertile lands were available from such enterprises as the Canada Land Company and the Talbot Settlement. We have named the Southern section of the GVT the Towpath Sector of our trail since this was the way ships were moved upstream in those days by the "hoagies".
Yes!, the word "hoagies" seems to originate from that idea (whoa and gee - though the gies is a hard "g" ). It's not in the
dictionary - probably a half-forgotten word by now.
Each article covers about 12 km giving the user an historical guide for a day's hike. They start from the cairn at Lake Erie near the mouth of the Grand. The articles may be freely down loaded as they appear on our website. Enjoy the trivia and some of the stories.
... Bill
Series Index - 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 Postscript |
Updated 2007 OCTOBER 03
