The City of Orillia has a myriad of parks: a couple on the shore of Lake Couchiching while others are scattered as tiny green spaces sprinkled within residential areas. Having grown up in Orillia, I have had the opportunity to visit most of these tree-filled areas of refuge, either to enjoy the playground or sit under the large shade trees.
A few days ago, I took the time to explore a park I have overlooked as I felt it couldn’t offer much in the way of nature viewing: Progress Park. (Spoiler alert: If you are an Orillian and are reading this, I see you smiling ruefully.)
Progress Park is situated in the south side of Orillia, and while many people visit it daily, it is not a recreational destination. This chunk of land is a light-industry park, with numerous auto repair shops, manufacturing plants, wholesale and retail outlets, fitness and dance studios, and the best chainsaw-sharpening shop I know of.
While this park lacks beaches and an ice cream stand, it does have a fair bit of manicured lawns and horticulturally enhanced landscape accents. On the day of my visit, at least two lawn care specialist companies were busy doing their thing. In summary, it’s a business park, not the sort of place one would go looking for the wonders of nature.
So, why was I here? Car repair. Rust-prevention coating to be applied. The pleasant young chap at the counter advised the process would take 30 to 40 minutes — I could wait or visit the coffee shop nearby. As the sun was shining and I don’t drink coffee, a walk-about seemed to be the only viable option.
While there are no sidewalks in this park, there is ample room to wander along the edge of the pavement (providing one stays hyper-alert to entering and exiting delivery trucks).
Being a well-prepared naturalist, my back-pocket notebook and pen came into play as each property was passed by, being surreptitiously scanned by my botanical eyes. (Note: Standing in front of a business, staring at its premises, taking photos, and making notes in a black notebook has a way of catching the attention of those staring out the front office window.)
The list of blooming wildflowers started off with the usual urban suspects: black medic, ox-eye daisy, blueweed, common vetch, and, oh, yes, dandelion. These were busy blooming in the ditches and the wild borders between establishments; seems the lawn care folks are very particular about whose property line they stop at.
A smattering of shrubs could be seen on some of these boundaries, and nannyberry and red-osier dogwood were well into their blooming cycle. Any trees, and there were a few, tended to be horticultural varieties, including the infamous Crimson King maple and the invasive Manitoba maple, but the robins and starlings used them anyway.
My random route took me around the corner from Ontario Street and along Progress Drive, where small patches of blossoms poked up from the ditches, with the bright yellow mouse-eared hawkweed dominating short stretches. Alsike clover (also called Dutch clover) grew in lovely colonies, as did the purple-blossomed thyme.
There is a dead-end offshoot from Progress Drive that takes one to a substantial pedestrian bridge that crosses a drainage ditch and then hooks up with the Hurtubise Drive cul-de-sac. I find it odd that such a well-made structure was installed in the ‘middle of nowhere.’ Whatever, it does provide an opportunity to view a large wetland.
The water was flowing steadily, making its way from this large collecting area downstream toward Ben’s Ditch and eventually Lake Simcoe. The wetland is comprised mainly of reed canary grass and Phragmites reed grass, but does have a variety of other wetland plants along the ditch itself.
Broad-leaf cattail, water plantain, and a few sedges species dominate the sun-soaked streambanks. A beaver has recently constructed a dam just beside the bridge and has restricted the water flow somewhat but is allowing oxygen to mix as the water spills over the weak spots.
While watching a red-winged blackbird and a pair of grackles forage for insects on a half-sunken log, a muskrat appeared from the shelter of a fallen tree and swam like a harbour master’s tugboat up the waterway.
Just as I turned away to return to my car (surely, they have it done by now), a rough-winged swallow flew in and landed on the telephone line to check the area for aerial snacks. After the briefest of pauses, it dropped down and flitted downstream in search of dragonflies.
By the time I completed the loop of roadways, the notebook list had 23 species of flowers in bloom, six species of birds observed and two species of mammals encountered. Not too shabby, providing I overlook that 95 per cent of the list contains alien species (not here naturally).
As I swung back into traffic (thank you to whoever decided to install traffic lights on Memorial Avenue), I reflected that this park has many qualities found in any park, and that nature is where you find it — should you go looking.
