Goldie Feldman Nature Reserve

Goldie Feldman Nature Reserve is part of the larger Happy Valley Forest, which is a 315-hectare forested area that is located on the Oak Ridges Moraine. The entire Happy Valley Forest is an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest that supports a mature deciduous forest that is on track to reach old growth status in 50-100 years. Happy Valley Forest is jointly managed by the Nature Conservancy of Canada, the Toronto Region Conservation Authority, the Regional Municipality of York, King Township, and the Oak Ridges Moraine Land Trust. Goldie Feldman Nature Reserve specifically is managed by the Nature Conservancy, and features 2.5 km of trails, including 770 meters that were built using accessibility guidelines created by the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA).

The Oak Ridges Moraine is a large geologic ridge, up to 250 m high at places, that runs in an east to west direction from Peel Region to Northumberland County. The moraine was created by the deposition of glacial sediments, including sand and gravel, during the last ice age, and is the headwater area for streams that flow south through the Greater Toronto Area to Lake Ontario; and streams that flow north through Simcoe County to Lake Simcoe. The moraine is characterized by sandy soils that support upland deciduous forests. Sugar maple-beech forest is the most abundant forest type in the area. Sugar maple-beech forests are forests that are dominated by sugar maple and American beech in the canopy, with associate canopy species, including white birch, white ash, eastern hemlock, black cherry, and red oak, occurring in lesser abundance. The southern corner of Goldie Feldman also harbors a patch of red maple-red oak deciduous forest, on which red maple and red oak trees form the dominant canopy, with associates of beech, white birch, eastern hemlock, ironwood, and large tooth aspen.

The northern edge of Goldie Feldman Nature Reserve is covered by naturalizing Scots pine and hybrid gray poplar (Populus x canescens) plantations, as well as old field plant communities. The old field communities are populated with a mix of exotic and native grasses and wildflowers, such as smooth brome, timothy, and orchard grass, asters, goldenrods, milkweed, wild carrot, clovers, and vetches. Young birch and trembling aspen trees have begun to reforest the edges of the old field habitats.

Happy Valley Forest is located directly on the route of the Toronto Carrying Place where it crosses over the Oak Ridges Moraine. The Toronto Carrying Place was a 45 kilometer- long overland portage route that connected the north shore of Lake Ontario to Lake Simcoe, via the Holland River. The Carrying Place was Huron-Wendat homeland (also spelled Wyandot, Wyandotte, and Huronne) for over five centuries prior to the mid-1600s, and used by them to travel between their villages and hunting grounds and to conduct trade. The Wendat historically built large, palisaded villages made up of several longhouses that supported hundreds to thousands of people, and that were primarily supported by a combination of agriculture, hunting and fishing. Huron-Wendat villages have been excavated nearby in Whitchurch-Stouffville (the Mantle and Aurora sites), Vaughan (the Damiani and Seed Baker sites) and Richmond Hill (the Lost Brant site). After around 1650, as a result of the Beaver Wars, the Huron-Wendat Nation relocated to its current location of Wendake.

During the Beaver Trade and Wars of the mid-1600s to 1700, the Carrying Place was used for conducting military actions, and came under the control of the Seneca Nation, who built strategic villages along and at the southern ends of the Carrying Place. The Seneca Nation moved into former Huron-Wendat village sites, when they moved east to Québec. After the end of the Beaver Wars when the Senecas moved south again from the north shore of Lake Ontario, the Mississauga Nation built villages in the area, and continued to use the Carrying Place.

In 1787, the British Crown purchased a large tract of land that consists of modern-day Toronto and York Region from the Mississauga of the Credit First Nation as part of the Toronto Purchase, which was later revised in 1805 as Treaty 13. The Toronto Purchase facilitated the settlement of the north shore of Lake Ontario by settlers of European origin, including many United Kingdom loyalist refugees who fled to Upper Canada at the end of the American War for Independence/Revolutionary War. John Graves Simcoe, who was the Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada at the time, conducted a survey of the Toronto Carrying Place and the surrounding land for settlers, and throughout the 1800s, the colonial government granted many 200 acre lots of land to loyalists. Many of the first settlers in the Happy Valley Forest area were Quakers from Pennsylvania, who created the first small communities. These early hamlets were located around the Holland and Rouge Rivers, which provided flowing water for the operation of mills, and included Kettleby, Lloydtown, Schomberg, and Springhill (now King City).

Due to fears of a military threat from the newly-founded United States, Simcoe, judging the Carrying Place to be inadequate for military transportation, commissioned the construction of Young Street in 1793. However, the new Yonge Street was so poorly constructed and maintained that the Toronto Carrying Place continued to serve as the route of choice for military movement during the war of 1812. Only after Yonge Street was improved in the 1820s and 1830s did its use increase, and soon after, the Toronto Carrying Place fell into disuse.

The Goldie-Feldman Nature Reserve, Happy Valley Forest, The Nature Conservancy, home page: NCC: Where We Work - Ontario - Goldie Feldman Nature Reserve, Happy Valley Forest, Ontario (natureconservancy.ca)

The Toronto Carrying Place, about the trail: https://www.torontocarryingplace.ca/about-the-trail