GUELPH POLITICAST #392 – Caution’s Creek Part 1: The Past

This is one of those episodes that’s based on events that predate many of us that have come to call Guelph home in the last few decades. It’s also a story about land issues, and the desire to protect sensitive land from development. It's had a lot of names over the years including the Kortright Waterfowl Park, the Niska Lands, and the Hanlon Creek Conservation Area, but the story around this property is just as complicated to sort out.

Perhaps the most concise history of the area was written in an article by Cameron Shelly for Metroland in 2021. It starts with a man named Horace Mack, a person of unique vision who bought a piece of property at the mouth of the Hanlon Creek for a bird sanctuary in 1948. He called it Niska Farm, “Niska” being the proper Cree name for the Canada Goose, but Mack only got to live his vision a short time. He died in 1959, but his dream would live on till 2005 when the area was finally closed to the public.

Now, nearly 20 years later, there's a plan on the floor about how to proceed with the four portions of the Niska Lands now under management of the Grand River Conservation Authority, and there's pretty much one person to thank for this. Dr. Hugh Whiteley, a retired professor and hydrologist from the School of Engineering at the University of Guelph, secured a pathway to ensure a public process for the redevelopment of this area. So how does he think it's going?

That’s one of the questions Dr. Whiteley will answer on this week’s podcast along with discussion of the site's vast history, the various plans for the area that have come into play over the last seven decades, and the City of Guelph and the GRCA's roles in determining the property’s future. We will also talk about his decision to bring the appeal of the Official Plan to the Ontario Municipal Board, and whether he thinks all sides have lived up to the spirit of that agreement. Plus, what does the future look like?

So let's dig into the past of the Niska Lands before we dig into the future on this week's Guelph Politicast! 

You can see background and information on the Grand River Conservation Authority website. You can also see the GRCA’s future plans for the site and some of the notes provided by the members at their last meeting in the latest Guelph Politico coverage. A final decision about the Niska Lands is likely to come before the GRCA membership at their November 24 meeting

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Photo credit: Former Kortright Waterfowl Park executive director Eileen Hammill in 1975 from the Guelph Public Library archives.