[LINK] "Grand River: A waterway’s rise to its former greatness"

[rfmcdonald]

In The Globe and Mail, Roy MacGregor writes about the renaissance of southwestern Ontario's Grand River.

The year in Southwestern Ontario comes to a close, the air surprisingly – perhaps even a bit alarmingly – warm, with the sun burning off an early morning fog along the Grand River.

The air is so still the mist hovers rather than swirls. The canoe and a couple of accompanying kayaks waltz through the random swifts and riffles, all quiet until a half dozen mallard ducks explode into the air from behind a large rock in the river.

The silence is notable in that this river and its many tributaries are surrounded by roughly a million people. There are industrial cities, college towns, tourist villages, First Nations, farms, freeways, back roads, wind turbines, discount tobacco shops and, by last count, 678 bridges along the sprawling watershed of the Grand River.

At times, with no structures along long stretches of its shoreline and no roads within hearing distance, the Grand can seem – in the words of Guelph’s James Gordon – almost “pastoral” as it gently twists through the rolling hills and farmland on its journey south to Lake Erie.

Mr. Gordon is a city councillor, a founding member of the Wellington Water Watchers and also a professional musician. As a solo artist as well as a member of the folk group Tamarack, he has recorded multiple songs about the Grand, tracing its First Nations history, its European settlement and its fascinating gorges.