Travel Close to Home # 9: A Place of Imagination

 As a lifelong history buff and historian, I am always fascinated by historic sites with only the slightest remnants of whatever was once there -- and the way such sites force me to use my imagination to populate them and bring them to life.  

Today's post deals with such a place, one that I tripped over only because I zoomed in closer on the right segment of Google Maps while looking for something else altogether.  If there's one lesson I've learned during this series of travels to sites of interest, it's to zoom in closer on Google Maps -- just in case.

Southwold Earthworks lies in western Elgin County, south by southwest from London, along County Road 14.  It's 8 kilometres southeast from Highway 401, through Iona Station and Iona, and just a few hundred metres north of County Road 16.  Follow the exit signs from Highway 401 for Iona, and as soon as you're off the main highway you will see signs giving direction and distance to Southwold Earthworks.

It's a National Historic Site maintained by Parks Canada, but there is no admission fee.

The earthworks in this case are a double line of earthen mounds surrounding an oval-shaped site of level ground.  This was the site of a longhouse village of the Neutral peoples between 1500 and 1650, likely closer to the beginning of that time period.  The earthworks formed a foundation for the wooden palisades which surrounded the village.

Like their compatriots of the Six Nations, Huron, and others, the Neutrals settled in villages so they could cultivate fields of beans, corn, and squash.  These produce items, together with gathered nuts and berries, and the catch from hunting and fishing, gave the people a broad-based and nutritious diet.  The size of the village enclosure, and the number of foundations excavated within it during the 1930s and again in the 1970s, suggest that the population of this settlement could likely have exceeded 800 people.

So with that introduction, let's turn on the imagination and visit this site.  From a small roadside parking area, you enter a grassy walkway between fences, which separates the site access from adjacent farmland.

Inside the entrance, you come to the first of three interpretive signs, this one with a map showing the locations of other similar earthworks that have been found across Ontario.  The sign mentions that this is the only known location in Canada of a double earthwork, which also indicates that there would have been a double palisade.

It took me about 7 minutes of walking at a leisurely pace to reach the main site.  The ground is reasonably level, with no steep hills, but rather bumpy -- like a suburban lawn that hasn't been rolled since halfway to forever.  The earthwork mounds are not especially tall, but the artificial nature of the work is plain to see.

A second sign at the edge of the site shows the approximate layout of the site today, together with artist renderings of some of the artifacts excavated here.

Today, the site is home to a couple of dozen mature trees, but these have grown up at some time during the centuries after the site was abandoned by the Neutral people.  The land would have been completely cleared for the village within the earthen mounds.

In the middle of the site, a third sign gives an artist rendering of the village at its peak, based on the findings of archaeological excavations in 1935 and 1976.

With upwards of 50 people living in a single longhouse, and with the houses fitted so closely together, the village would certainly have been a busy place in its heyday.

The entry walk brings you to the southwest corner of the site.  I walked across the centre of the circle, and then stood on top of the inner mound at the north side to take this picture across the site as a whole.  

Here's the same picture, with an arrow indicating the location of the second of the three signs.  That one is located just outside the outer mound at the far side of the site, which gives a good indication of the total size of the village when it existed.

It was an entertaining exercise to try to imagine the bustle of the settlement, and to populate this parkland with all the people who once lived here.

Southwold Earthworks doesn't require a lengthy visit -- I spent a total of 25 minutes there -- but it does provide an enjoyable and easy walk in a peaceful setting, and the chance to touch at least a bit the lives of people who lived here as much as five centuries ago.

To conclude, here's a map to show the location of this national historic site.

 

Travel Close to Home # 8: The Winter Woods Are Ready

Taking advantage of what was almost certainly the final day of our warmer-than-usual early November period, I drove up to the conservation area at Hilton Falls in Halton Region.

As with the other Halton Region Conservation Parks I've visited (Rattlesnake Point and Kelso), so here too advance reservations are required to enter.  Here's the reservation link again:

Halton Parks Reservations

In common with the other parks, this one had an area of mown lawns surrounding the parking lot and the small visitor's centre located near the entrance, with washrooms.  A gravelled path leads past these buildings up to the access road and then across the pavement to the woods.  At once the path turns left and begins to climb -- and it's definitely a keep-your-eyes-on-the-ground path, liberally studded with rocks.

Of course, what you are climbing here is none other than our old friend, the Niagara Escarpment, which has figured in several of my adventures -- not only in the other Halton conservation areas but also in the provincial park at Mono Cliffs.  Look around to the left as you climb and there, across the valley and Highway 401, is the high bluff at Kelso Conservation Area, on the north end of the Escarpment's Milton Outlier.

At the top of the last, steepest bit, the trail levels out.  

The first hundred metres or so of the trail at the top of the hill are lined, along the left side only (odd), by multiple clumps of rounded boulders, coated with generous layers of moss.  I wonder if these were rocks that were dug up and tossed off to the side during the work of levelling and widening the path.

It's ironic that a trail which has such a rocky start should actually turn out overall to be one of the easiest hikes I've taken in Escarpment country.  As you wend your way northwards into the forest, the trail is broad and well levelled, with only minimal curves and hills to add variety.

This late in November, the winter phase of the forest's life is well prepared.  The leaves are all down, except for a very few stubborn holdouts, and the bare trees actually admit more natural light than at any almost other time of the year.  Only when the ground is covered with the reflecting coat of snow will it appear any brighter than it does now.  Shorn of their foliage, the tree trunks become striking natural sculptures, silhouetted against the blue sky. 

To no one's surprise, there are choices of trails to follow, as shown clearly on the trail map posted at the park entrance and also at a junction near the falls.

This close-up of the map shows only the southern one-third of the park, which extends much farther north and west out of my picture frame.  I was following the yellow Hilton Falls Trail, the most direct route to the falls.  I'll save the much longer Red Oak Trail for another visit when I am not so time-constrained by the Covid-related 2-hour time limit on visits.  The round trip along the trail, with time to look around at the Falls, took me about 75 minutes.

This park also had better and more consistent use of trail markers and the numbered junction signposts than Rattlesnake Point, and far more comprehensive signage than Kelso.

As I arrived at the Falls proper, the first thing I noticed was the familiar sight of trees struggling to get a foothold on the staircase layers of rocks, and especially on the very brink of the canyon into which the falls tumble.

Hilton Falls itself turned out to be a lacy cascade, not much more than a mere thread of water, as you would expect this late in the year.  The eroded rocks of the bowl around the falls, and the undercutting of the upper layers, show very clearly that there can be far more water falling over this rim during flood times and spring runoff.

A footnote: I was at Hilton Falls around 10:45 in the morning.  It would be more advantageous to come in the early afternoon, when the sun would shine on the falling water, creating a much more sparkling effect.  It was a lovely sight, even so.

I'll wrap up with a map showing the location of Hilton Falls in relation to the major towns and cities of southwestern Ontario.

Like all of the natural areas and parks which I've travelled to share with you in this series of posts, Hilton Falls is a beauty spot that would definitely repay future visits in any season of the year.