A Nature Walk, October 6

Our fourth seminar of “Walking Paths to Discovery” began a little differently than usual. We met as a class to catch a bus which was organized to take us to Cambridge for a hike.  On the bus, Dr. Sharpe provided us with maps of the area we would be hiking through, and a poem entitled Nutting by William Wordsworth. We were asked to read the poem to ourselves on the bus, and to keep in mind the ideas and meaning of the poem throughout our hike.

After about half an hour we arrived in Cambridge at the rare property, where Dr. Sharpe gave us a brief history of the area. We then began our hike. Not far along the trail, we observed an archway made entirely of natural resources designed by local artists. This was a very interesting way to begin our journey through nature.

Along our hike, we also learned of the bird monitoring activities on the rare property, which involves bird banding in order to keep track of bird populations. One of the most interesting things that we learned about on our hike was geocaching. We learned that geocaching is a treasure hunting game where you use a GPS to hide and seek containers with other participants in the activity. We were lucky enough to find a container filled with notes and random items from different people at different times. As a group, we decided to add the poem Nutting to the container to leave our mark.

This seminar was one of the most informative and relaxing thus far. We are looking forward to our next walking experience.

By: Shannon Reeves, Janneke Van Den Nieuwelaar, and Anique de Bruyn Kops

Uptown Waterloo, September 29

Our third seminar of “Walking Paths to Discovery” began with brief presentations from all students on our ideas for our research papers. Everyone had unique ideas about the research paper which ranged from how walking is used as a method of protest to how walking is used to create suspense in movies. One of the most common themes was how danger can be felt while walking.

After sharing our ideas, Dr. Sharpe took us for the Waterloo loop. We started the walk by strolling on Bricker and Ezra Avenues through, what some residents fear has become, a student ghetto.  On these streets, almost all the housing, including older decrepit homes and new apartment buildings, are occupied by university students.

We then made our way along Albert Street to Waterloo Park, a hidden gem in the city.  In the park is a zoo which once housed large animals but now is primarily a petting zoo because of humanitarian reasons.  There is also a boardwalk which is a walker’s paradise that traverses a century old, mill-pond know as Silver Lake.  Although this is a beautiful site, the trained eye of the geographer will spot the substantial silt deposits caused by erosion upstream. We learned that continuous development along Laurel Creek upstream from Waterloo Park and on the west side of Waterloo has caused the erosion of silt which travels down river until it is deposited in the pond.  We continued our walk through up-town Waterloo where we took note of some heritage buildings and observed the character of the uptown core. Our walk ended at the former residence of one of Dr. Sharpe’s geography professors on Albert Street. We are looking forward to our next walk, which will be through a secluded woodlot setting.

By:  Warren Brayne, Stephen Di Carlo and Dylan Ingram