Oak Ridges Moraine

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

In Ontario, the heavily populated Greater Toronto Area (GTA) forms a
band spanning the north shore of Lake Ontario. This urban belt is topped
by an irregular strip of hilly terrain known as the Oak Ridges Moraine,
which is essentially a 200- kilometre-long gravel and sand deposit left
by the last glaciers. On the surface, Oak Ridges Moraine is a narrow
green belt of farms, forests, kettle lakes, hiking trails, ski hills,
conservation areas, and sleepy little towns. Under the surface, it is
the essential aquifer for the GTA, the source of fresh, clean water for
the area’s major rivers, and the watershed for the largest population
concentration in Canada. The moraine’s valuable filtering abilities
are the result of its composition: sand and gravel—or, to put a
marketable label on it, aggregates. Enter the gravel pit operators.
Enter the gravel trucks, the pollution, the strip mining of those
peaceful green hills. Enter a very real threat to the GTA’s future
water quality.

And enter a very determined group of volunteers resolved to stop this
environmental disaster-to-be. This book is the product of that group’s
awareness-raising efforts. It is an energetic plea for ecological
sanity, made with a substantial quantity of good color photos, maps,
sketches, and 28 short, well-written essays covering every aspect of the
moraine (birding to fishing, geology to skiing). It should be mandatory
reading for everyone in the GTA.