Truly a nature lovers dream! Nestled in North London close to Western University, this wilderness area offers a beautiful escape from the hustle and bustle of city life.
The mixture of rustic walkways and established trails allow you to take an adventure through the thick of nature and be able to experience a wide arrangement of terrain.
The floodplain forests, swamps, marshes, and wooded valley slopes provide the perfect hideaway for wildlife, including lots of birds singing away. If you're quiet enough during your walk you might even be able to spot a white-tailed deer poking around the woods!
Medway Valley Heritage Forest • London, Ontario
Opportunities for Education
Did you know that "the heritage value of the Lawson Site lies in its integrity, rarity or representativeness, cultural and temporal affiliations, and potential data productivity as a sixteenth century, pre-contact Neutral Iroquoian village. It is Canada's only ongoing excavation and reconstruction of a pre-contact village and one of the few Neutral village sites where earthworks are preserved. Excavations have recovered over 300,000 artifacts and the remains of at least 19 longhouses, 30 middens, and a palisade along the northern half of the site," (Canada's Historic Places).
TEACHING OPPORTUNITY
Life systems and living things are an important part of any forest! Explore the shared space where there is lots of plant life, animals and the chance to chat about how humans, past and present, engage in the space. Look and see if you can find any animals homes, or if there are any plants that might have been gathered by a forager.
Can you find a maple tree? Once you do, think about the maple syrup collection process in today's world and in the past. For your own reference point "the sap would have been collected in birch bark containers and then been processed into syrup or sugar by constant heating to evaporate the water in sap. Kettles and other technologies were adopted once they became more accessible through trade with European settlers," (Museum of Ontario Archaeology, A Rich History of the Maple Harvest).
BINGO! Check out ReForest London's BINGO sheet that can be used for any of London's walks or hikes. Print it at home and use it in your neighbourhood (or wherever it's safe to wander outside)! DOWNLOAD HERE.
