By Louis Silcox as seen in the Wilmot-Tavistock Gazette
It was a dark and stormy night – at least that was the forecast. Still, it was time for another Let’s Tree Wilmot Wednesday Walk in Wilmot’s Wonderful Woods on Wednesday, June 5. So, umbrellas in hand, we ventured out to walk the Baden Hills Trail. Most of the trees we planted there last year are coming along. Somewhere in the woods on the hill are (apparently) hop hornbeams Hop hornbeams are so named for its flower that looks like hops, horn for hard and beam, an old English word for tree. These are also called ironwood trees as they have the hardest and densest wood of any Canadian tree. Can we find one? There are people living in our community who planted the pines on the hill as a school outing about 80 years ago. We did see dog-strangling vine, an invasive species, and black cherry on our way up, but just as we got to the top of the kame, the rain started and the umbrellas went up. Back down we went. We’ll return later to find the hop hornbeam (Ostrya virginiana). An air photo located Spongy and Hofstetter Lakes, kettle lakes formed just north and south of the hills and at about the same time as the last ice age was receding. For the last 100,000 years, this area has been under the sometimes thick and oscillating Laurentide Ice Sheet that had flowed this way from northern Ontario and Quebec. When it was over Toronto, it was about three kilometres thick – six times the height of the CN Tower (553 metres). Perhaps it was a bit thinner here, but still many times the height of the tower on Baden Hill (303 metres). After the last glacial maximum about 20,000 years ago, the glacier started a long period of melting, punctuated by smaller oscillations at the margins. Many rocks the size of sand and gravel it had picked up on its long journey washed out to form the hills (kames). Enormous blocks of ice calved off and were later surrounded by water, sand and gravel flooding off the glacier. When the blocks eventually melted, they formed the lakes surrounded by low-nutrient soils. Other nearby kames include Chicopee Hill, Pinnacle Hill near Doon and others. Join us for future walks. Go to events at letstreewilmot.ca to learn more.
