The Bruce Trail into Owen Sound - Sydenham Forest to Owen Sound

The Bruce Trail into Owen Sound

Hiking Cottage Country 

Waking up refreshed and ready this morning, we packed our gear and loaded our rental car up for our final day on the Bruce Trail for this trip.  Today’s hike saw us venture the 27 or so kilometres from Sydenham Forest East to the western side of Owen Sound.  While we were excited to reach our goal, this morning began with us heading back out for more long stretches of uninspiring road walking.  This situation was made more challenging by the fact that temperatures today were very warm.  Even just after sunrise, when we returned to the Bruce Trail it was already over 24 degrees.   The benefit of this meant that our lucky streak of walking in good weather with clear blue skies continued!

 
With our car packed, we checked out of our motel and took a taxi back to yesterday’s point of departure – Sydenham Forest East – to resume our hike along Ontario’s Bruce Trail. 

Sydenham Forest East 

Having spent 20 minutes directing a nervous taxi driver to the middle of nowhere, we unloaded from the vehicle and stepped back onto the Bruce Trail, and into Sydenham Forest East.   Thankfully, we began this morning’s trek under a lush canopy of shade trees, which protected us from the warm temperatures and blazing sun.  The pathway in Sydenham Forest traced the edge of the escarpment, which periodically offered wonderful views of stunning cliffs and the sprawling agricultural landscape around us. 
 

As we traversed the forest, we had to pay extremely close attention to where we placed our feet as the trail navigated around deep crevices and karst formations.  Not being fond of heights, meant that Sean gingerly stayed back from the edge of many of these crevices while I became fascinated with peering into them.  As we have repeatedly seen along the Bruce Trail since Queenston,  much of this region was defined by the Niagara Escarpment and the resulting Karst topography, which is a landscape primarily shaped by the dissolving action of water over materials such as limestone or dolomite.  Karst landscapes are important because they are ideal for the formation of aquifers and the storage of clean water for people, plants and animals.  This is one of the key reasons why many of the green spaces that the Bruce Trail traverses are protected regions.
 
Our shoes were soon soaked as we hiked Sydenham Forest as much of the trail was spongy underfoot.   As such, we were incredibly thankful to the trail builders for building the boardwalk across the stretch of marshland that the BTC traversed – it saved us from being entirely drenched at the outset of the day.  After tracing an old fence line, we returned to the roadway only a few hundred feet from our point of entry 30 minutes prior. 

Rural Routes and Country Walks 

Stepping out of the shady forest onto the gravel country lane, we were immediately hit by the rising temperatures.  Our next stretch on the Bruce Trail continued yesterday’s routine and saw us trekking 4-6 kilometres along Side Road 22 and the 8^th Concession Line as we boxed around Billy Bishop Airport.  This aviation facility was named after William Avery Bishop, popularly known as Billy Bishop, who was one of Canada’s most well-known military and air force heroes.  Billy Bishop was born and raised in Owen Sound before studying at the Royal Military College (RMC) in Kingston.  

Billy Bishop Canadian Museum Image

With the outbreak of conflict in Europe, Bishop enlisted to fight in World War I.  A country boy who was comfortable with horses, he was originally assigned to the Mississauga Horse Regiment and then reassigned to the 7^th Canadian Mounted Rifles in London, Ontario.   He was eventually sent to England and set to join the conflict when, upon his arrival, he requested a transfer to the Royal Flying Corps.  His request was granted and he was trained before being put into action in 1917. His exploits during the First World War as an accomplished Air Force pilot soon became a legend, describing him as one of the top flying aces of the time.  Billy Bishop was credited with shooting down over 70 enemy planes, and he earned the Victoria Cross, the Distinguished Service Order, the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Legion of Honour, and the Croix de Guerre. He would also later go on to serve as Director of Recruiting for the Royal Canadian Air Force during World War II.
 
Our route around the local airport suggested none of the adventures that Billy Bishop participated in during his time in the Air Force.  Instead, our trek was one along quiet, peaceful, tree-lined country roads past farms and corn fields, with a few small Cessna aircraft buzzing lazily overhead.  

Regional and International Heritage 

After an hour of walking country lanes, the trail turned off the road and we wove downhill into a forest.   Back under the shade of the canopy, we travelled along the edges of parts of the escarpment that were raised above the landscape.  There the Bruce Trail traced the base of the rocky outcropping and the walls of the escarpment stood impressively and imposingly above us some 20 or 30 feet tall in sections.  In some places, the trail led us through narrow crevices in the rock, making us grateful not to be carrying our full backpacks.  Today, not only the challenging footing but also the many tight spaces would have made hiking with our gear all the more difficult. 

 
Perhaps the most fascinating part of this green space was coming to a plaque beside a large beech tree.  Here we were reminded of the legacy and connection between generations, cultures, and moments that nature can provide.  We found ourselves awestruck by what the plaque referred to as a Bruce Trail Heritage Tree, otherwise known as the Polish Soldier Tree. Upon inspection, we found an inscription in Polish on the bark of the beech tree. According to local history, the inscription was made by a Polish soldier while training in the region in 1942 during World War II.  The Polish carvings purportedly read “Poland has not yet perished.” 

 
With a great deal to think about we continued on, weaving amid a maze of narrow crevices, canyons, and the dense forest.  Thankfully, consistent blazes and well-placed ladders led us successfully through without getting lost. 

HWY 26 and the KOA Corridor 

Unfortunately, the Bruce Trail next led us out onto the very busy, paved, 4-lane Highway 26, which we had to follow for a brief period before re-entering an adjacent forest.   With no name in our BTC guidebook, we dubbed this section the KOA corridor, given that it provides access to a local KOA campground that we had once considered as today’s stopping point.  Walking through this relaxing green space, we were thankful to not be trekking along HWY 26 directly into Owen Sound.  It has long amazed me that there are times when we want the direct route and to feel like we're making progress and other times when we are entirely fine with taking our time getting there.  Today was the latter – we were willing to take our time, enjoy the journey, and not be on the roadway.

 
Enjoying our trek, we climbed the escarpment and soon found ourselves venturing through an open meadow which was alive with the colour of spring flowers and the varied greens and yellows of tall grasses. Here we passed the side trails connecting the main pathway of the Bruce Trail to the KOA and Tefler Creek.  We soon passed out of the meadow, exchanging its colours and the blue skies above for tall stands of pines which stood around the pathway like huge sentinels.  Here again, the escarpment pulled up and overlooked the trail.  Too soon once again, our route emerged from the forest onto a road allowance that became Side Road 15, which we turned off following the 10^th Concession. 

Keeling Connector 

Our quick road trek completed, we stepped off the gravel roadway and entered into a tunnel of conifer trees – our way indicated by a plethora of Bruce Trail signs and blazes.  Here we entered another green space, which we termed the Keeling Connector, which would take us to the boundary of Harrison Park and the Inglis Falls Conservation Area.

 
En route, we navigated across open fields where the trail was lined with scrub brush and tall grasses, over a series of disconnected boardwalks traversing a wet and marshy stretch, and through a grassland under power lines. Next, as had happened a number of times today, the trail pulled up, regaining its rocky nature and leading us to tread alongside outcroppings of the Niagara Escarpment.  Once again, high cliffs and crevices abounded in a stretch that seemed to encourage exploration.   Enticed by the terrain, crevices, and uneven walls of stone, we took the opportunity to wonder, weaving amid the outcroppings and pushing our bodies into and through some very tight areas.  Throughout, walls of stone stood mightily around and above us – the majesty and power of nature on full display.  Amid it all, the Bruce Trail – both shaped by and undaunted by the rocky escarpment - continued westward along the base of this geological formation, and under the canopy of the forest around us. Between walls of stone that no words, only firsthand experience, could relate to, our trail continued onward.
 
Leaving the forest, we followed a post and wire fence along a property line with a golf course on one side and planted fields on the other. Here we again crossed under regional power lines before rejoining with a paved roadway.  What followed was a horrid and terrifying 2-kilometer walk along Superior St., which turned out to be a very busy route full of distracted drivers.  This city street also marked the point at which we could declare that we were now essentially in Owen Sound.  

Owen Sound and Region 

The city of Owen Sound is one of the few larger urban areas we've come to since we hiked out of Hamilton and the GTA many hundreds of kilometres to the south of us.  It is also the geographical starting point of the peninsula region, which will eventually lead us to Tobermory.  

The area around Owen Sound was purportedly visited by Samuel de Champlain in 1616, who met the First Nations peoples who called the region Wadineednon or “beautiful valley”.  Later, this region was the site of the Aboriginal village of Newash, but by the mid-19th century, it had been taken over and settled by Europeans.  They referred to the area as Sydenham or Sydenham Bay, after Charles Thomson, Baron of Sydenham and governor-in-chief of British North America (1838-1841).   In addition, sailors purportedly referred to the region as Owen’s Sound, after Captain William Fitzwilliam Owen, who had charted the nearby waters in 1815.  At present, the city of Owen Sound is home to the Tom Thompson Art Gallery, which focuses on the works of Tommy Thompson and the Group of Seven, as well as the Billy Bishop Museum. 

The Palisades 

Crossing the road, we followed what was clearly more of a city park pathway than a BTC wilderness trail.  Almost immediately we came to a local landmark, the Centennial Tower.  At the base of this concrete structure was a plaque, which informed us that the building and municipal park were created to celebrate Canada’s 100^th birthday.  It was constructed using funds raised by local schools and built on the foundation of a historical lime kiln.   The Centennial Tower stands 10 meters tall on the ridge of the Niagara Escarpment overlooking Owen Sound and was opened to the public in 1969.  Given that we only had around 14 km left to reach the end-point for the day, we took the opportunity to climb up the spiral staircase. Once on top, our reward was a stunning view over the city and harbour of Owen Sound.

 

Descending from the Centennial Tower and back on the Bruce Trail we continued south, weaving through a narrow corridor and tracing the edge of the rocky escarpment face. Amid this stretch, we met a local hiker who stopped to chat.  He asked us about our trek.  He asked about our starting point many hikes ago, and our destination still many treks in the future.  Finally, he advised us to take our time in the coming few kilometres, as it is a tough but beautiful stretch of the Bruce Trail.  As he set off to continue his own walk, he waved and called out to us “By the way…Welcome to the Palisades”. 
 
Uncertain of what to make of his commentary, we pushed on only to quickly discover that the next 2 to 4 kilometres of trail traversed a region unlike anything we had yet encountered.  Soon the wide, well-defined, urban pathway disappeared, and in its place the trail wove along the bottom of the escarpment, navigating extraordinary rugged terrain, around large boulders, over gnarly tree routes, and through cracks and crevices in the rock.  Once again, each step we took forced us to watch our footing and ensure that each step was carefully placed before shifting our weight. For the second time today, the uncertain talus slopes and narrow crevices that we had to push through made us grateful for not having our full backpacks on for this section.   For short stretches, the path did level out, but these islands of calm in the storm were fleeting, and invariably we had to again walk on, taking everything one step and one moment at a time. Adding to the challenge of maintaining our focus while making such measured and deliberate progress, the air around us was filled with mosquitoes and black flies that saw us as a slow-moving buffet.  Don’t get me wrong, this area was undoubtedly naturally beautiful.  I have fleeting memories of a stunning assortment of ferns, improbable rock formations, and an awe-inspiring landscape – but amid all of these, the Bruce Trail was, for us, just one heck of a challenging trek.

With bodies drained by nervous exhaustion, we passed the Harrison Park Side Trail – and after covering a grand total of only 2 kilometres of rugged pathway over the last hour, we earnestly considered making this our final point for the day.  However, the thought of stopping 11 kilometres short of our thru hike’s goal was abhorrent to us – despite the temptation of the moment. 
 
The Harrison Park Side Trail connects hikers and visitors to Harrison Park, and downtown Owen Sound to the Inglis Falls Conservation Area.  The crowds throughout the region suggested that had we intended to spend the night in the Harrison Park campground without a reservation, we may well have been out of luck in finding an available campsite.  The sheer number of people on the trail following this city connector was a quick reminder that we had walked out of the long and largely uninhabited regions of the trail and right into the busier cottage country of the Bruce Peninsula. 

Inglis Falls Conservation Area 

The chasm of exhaustion now behind us, the trail arrived along the shores of a rushing waterway and soon after wove up the escarpment. In short, order, once we passed the public parking lot for Inglis Falls, which is a popular tourist destination, the narrow thread of the Bruce Trail quickly transformed into a wide-level walkway.  Here, BTC white blazes were joined with conservation area arrows and maps.  At the same time, we transitioned from lone thru-hikers to just two more people in the crowd.

 

The conservation area around the historical Inglis Falls was established around the various Victorian Mills built and later owned by Peter Inglis.  His industries included flour, grist, and saw mills, and were in operation from 1845 until 1945.  They were owned for the majority of this time by the Inglis family and eventually destroyed by fire shortly after they were sold.  The foundations of these structures can still be seen throughout the park and along the waterway.  The Inglis family stable, a two-story stone building on the water’s edge, has been transformed into the Escarpment Discovery and Information Centre.  Passing the closed building, we crossed the waterway on a bridge, which provided us views over the top of the waterfalls and of a mural of the Inglis Grist Mill.

 

The city trail we followed next wove us along the other side of the river to a point across from the top of the escarpment - allowing us an unimpeded view back across the Discovery Centre and the fast-flowing Inglis Falls, an 18-meter-high pyramidal falls.  Standing next to this stunning show of nature we were reminded of the collection of wonderful waterfalls around Hamilton that we were also privileged to visit so many hikes ago on the Bruce Trail in the south.

 

West Rock and Springmount Forest 

Having visited Inglis Falls, the BTC turned north for 3 kilometres, taking us along the top of the escarpment to Second Avenue.  Here, and on the unimaginatively named Concession 3, we trekked along the two roadways that joined Inglis Conservation Area to West Rocks.  This stretch once again evoked memories of our hike through Hamilton, as the path took us through a dense forest despite being close to the suburbs of Owen Sound.  Despite the suburban development, the trees amid West Rocks and the adjoining Springmount Forest were stunningly tall.  Indeed, the only hint of urbanization that periodically could be spotted was amid brief glimpses between the trees, when the rooftops of homes and neighbourhoods appeared.

 
Our time in these two city parks contrasted with our experiences from earlier in the day.  Here we enjoyed long flat stretches where the trail, lined with colourful trilliums, meandered peacefully on its way.  The greatest challenge at the end of our thru-hike was struggling to navigate down a ladder which took us vertically down the side of the escarpment to HWY 21.  While this location was our goal for the week, the fact is that leaving Springmont Forest, the BTC continues north, crossing the busy 4-lane highway into the Pottawatomi Conservation Area.  However, this park is for our next adventure on the Bruce Trail.  Instead, we left our ribbon of pathway and walked into downtown Owen Sound along the busy roadside to our waiting car for the long drive home. 

 
With our arrival into Owen Sound one of our longest consecutive stretches on the BTC came to its conclusion.  After 7 days of hiking from Maple Ln at the beginning of the Beaver Valley section to Springmount Forest in the city of Owen Sound, we have covered almost 215 km of the Bruce Trail (113.8 km across all of Beaver Valley, 100.9 km so far in Sydenham Section).  In the process, we have completed all of the Beaver Valley section of the BTC and more than half of the Sydenham section. 

An End of the Bruce Trail … of Sorts 

The completion of this thru-hike also brings us to a conclusion … of sorts.
 
As those who have read since the beginning of our Bruce Trail blog may realize, many of the sections of the Bruce Trail were not hiked in order – and have instead been published in geographic order from south to north.  While our blogs will continue as we take readers right to Tobermory, the fact is that our arrival at Owen Sound means that Sean and I have now hiked the entire Bruce Trail system!
 
The fact is that in 2014, our very first long-distance hike, and our first summer family trek, was on the Bruce Trail between Owen Sound and Tobermory.  Put another way, the first section we hiked will be the last section we will share.

 
Since our time on the Bruce Trail in 2014 our love of nature has exploded in unexpected ways, taking us along nine Camino routes and across three European countries on foot.  The Bruce Trail led us to Newfoundland’s superb East Coast Trail, to venture the length of the challenging Fundy Footpath, to walk tip-to-tip across Prince Edward Island, and ultimately set us on the way to being two of only six people to hike 14,000 km of the Trans Canada Trail system from the Atlantic to the Pacific.   In the process, we have been named Ontario Hike Leaders, Fellows of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society, featured in magazines and newspapers across the country, and given hundreds of presentations on connecting with nature.
 
Our time on the Bruce Trail changed our lives and led us down pathways we never expected to explore.  At the moment though, these are all other adventures for other times.  

 ** To read about our #Hike4Birds along the Trans Canada Trail / Great Trail. 

Heading Home and Heading Off 

Today we drove back to our home base for a week of rest, relaxation, and preparation before heading back to Spain to undertake a birding pilgrimage along three of Spain’s Camino routes.

** To read about our birding hike along the Camino Madrid click this link.
 
** To read about our birding hike along the Camino San Salvador click this link.
 
** To read about our birding hike along the Camino Primitivo click this link.

See you on the Trail!