With the disappearance of races and running events from our calendars for the past several months, and with the deterrent effect of the pandemic on the fraternization associated with our experience of running, it’s been tough at times to maintain motivation for putting on our shoes and going out for a run. Consequently, as a way of restoring joy to what has become somewhat mundane, Judy and I have sought out new places to run in our city. One of the best things about running is that you can practice the sport almost anywhere—on single track trails and overgrown paths as easily as concrete sidewalks and paved roads.
Which led us this year to begin to visit the Westminster Ponds/Pond Mills Environmentally Significant Area (ESA) on a frequent basis. Although we’ve lived in London for almost 13 years now and have driven by two of the main access points to the ESA hundreds of times, until this year we never ventured into this vast nature preserve in the heart of the city. Covering more than 250 hectares, the ESA is the largest natural area in the city. It lies within what is known as the Ingersoll Moraine, an east-west ridge of stony soil that was deposited along the retreating edge of a glacier at the end of the last ice age more than 12,000 years ago. The eponymous ponds are “kettle ponds” created when large blocks of ice were left behind by the glaciers, creating permanent depressions that filled with water. The five major ponds and numerous smaller ones are now fed largely by surface runoff, with the larger ponds deep enough to support a healthy fish population.
For an amateur naturalist like me, Westminster Ponds is a wonderland. Each of the kettle ponds in the ESA has a different form of vegetation along its shore. The dry ridges between the ponds support a typical sugar maple forest, with a mixture of other tree species including oaks, ironwood, American beech and the occasional black cherry. The low wet areas between the ridges support an entirely different type of forest consisting of red maple, yellow birch and silver maple. The forest guards a national treasure, the Meeting Tree—a 700-year-old white oak tree that is believed to have served as a meeting place during the mid-1800s for thousands of asylum seekers who escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad.
In addition to its various vegetation communities, the Westminster Ponds / Pond Mills ESA attracts a large number of birds because of the diversity of vegetation and the presence of the ponds. Past studies have found over 200 species of birds in the ESA; today, you can spot osprey, bald eagles, red-tail hawks, woodpeckers, herons, owls, and (inevitably) Canada geese there. The area is also home to those mammals common to urban areas: beaver, coyote and white-tailed deer. The ponds provide a habitat for four species of turtles and nine species of toads and frogs.
When Judy and I run at Westminster Ponds, we do a 5 km loop that circles Spettigue, Tumbleson and Saunders Ponds. The time it takes us to complete the loop depends on how long we stop to wonder at the beauty and diversity and take photographs. The trail is mostly level with a few short, sharp climbs, several sections of boardwalk, and enough exposed roots to make the trails technically challenging. Because the trails through the low-lying areas were created over clay soil, they are very prone to becoming muddy. The last time we ran in the ESA a week ago, we both lost our footing in the mire at least once and came out covered in mud from ankle to thigh.
Such joy. Such diversity. Such beauty. And hidden in plain sight from us and so many other Londoners. But the area would not have been there for us today had it not been for the dedication of generations of Londoners who sought to guard this unique area for the preservation of the natural habitat and the enjoyment of all. Efforts to protect the area began with William Edwin Saunders, London pharmacist and naturalist, who purchased 32 hectares of land adjacent to Saunders Pond a hundred years ago. His property along with much of surrounding land was expropriated by the federal government for a veteran’s care and rehabilitation centre in 1943. When London Health Sciences Centre acquired those lands from the federal government in 1980, the transfer included a restrictive covenant that said that “lands shall be used exclusively for public park purposes and for purposes related to a health care centre for veterans and other persons”.
Discussion of developing the area around the ponds as a park began in the 1960s, but a focus at the time on the development of park lands along the Thames River combined with excessive prices being asked for the properties effectively halted efforts to preserve the Westminster Ponds / Pond Mills area. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the City of London and the Upper Thames River Conservation Authority purchased approximately 200 hectares for the purpose of establishing a conservation area. In the meantime, public opposition prevented the expansion of a city-owned landfill site in the northeast section of the present ESA and the extension of a street that would have effectively severed the ESA in half, caused pollution problems and disrupted the drainage system. More land has been acquired since the 1970s, including land donated by London Health Sciences Centre in 2004. All those who walk or run on the trails or fish in the ponds today are indebted to W.E. Saunders and those like him who believed that there was greater value in protecting the ecological integrity of these lands than in seeing them developed for another residential subdivision, strip mall or manufacturing facility.
If Judy and I could drive by this 250 hectare nature preserve for almost 13 years and remain oblivious to what it contained, what else is hidden in plain sight? We are living through a prolonged season of restraint, deprivation and loss, and perhaps now more than ever before we need to look around and look within to discover those things of provision, opportunity and beauty that we have overlooked. Time on your hands because you can’t travel? Maybe it’s time to pick up that musical instrument you haven’t touched in years or reinvest in a hobby long neglected. Feeling deprived because of lack of social contact? Perhaps it’s time to recognize and appreciate the easily-overlooked qualities in the ones who live under your roof—that one who brings you a cup of coffee in the morning or the one who sweeps the snow off your car without asking because they figure that’s what love does. If we choose, our hunger for something new and exciting can be satisfied by taking a fresh look at what is right at hand, hidden in plain sight.
In his collection of stories One Story, One Song, the Anishinaabe author Richard Wagamese wrote,
There’s no one among us who hasn’t been floored by something unexpected, new or strange. All of us have been touched by the wondrous in something simple or common: the gleam of a dragonfly wing in the sunshine, the whirr of a hummingbird, the haunting call of a bird in the dark.
Judy and I have been floored by the unexpected beauty and diversity in the Westminster Ponds/Pond Mills ESA. Every time we return we see something new. As you journey through these difficult times, may you experience a similar sense of wonder as you discover and recover those gifts that are hidden in plain sight.
Photos and text © 2020 Ed Wilson
