Windsor Ontario News / Nature & Recreation

Parkway rips up concrete, returns creek to its natural environment

The consortium building the Windsor-Essex Parkway won’t only be putting in a lot of concrete to build the new 10-lane road from Hwy. 401 to a new Detroit River bridge, they will also be removing it.

Parkway planners will be restoring Turkey Creek, which runs downstream or west of current Huron Church Rd. to the Detroit River.

They will be removing concrete already in the channel and returning the stream to a natural environment.

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Implement collector's winter project? Restore chuck wagon

Amherstburg resident Morris Kurzuk is savouring his latest find.

It’s the remains of a 1920s era chuck wagon.

Morris is a collector and restorer of farm machinery.

His barn on Concession 6 North has scores of tractors, conveyors, plows, even vintage cars and trucks.

Morris, who grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan but has lived in Essex County for decades, is well known in the local steam engine and farm communities.

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Conservation area privately-run

It’s something of a unique concept.

It’s a publically-owned conservation area managed by a private organization – and has been for 20 years.

Two Creeks conservation area is in Chatham-Kent, just east of the Essex County line, on Kent Rd 1 between Wheatley and Tilbury.

It’s 85 acres, has 20 km of trails – 10 for walking, 10 for cycling – a large pavilion and an amphitheatre for a summer long Sunday night concert series.

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Fort's remote controlled mower

It’s likely the only remote controlled lawn mower in Essex County.

It’s called the Spider, and Fort Malden National Historic Park has one.

The Spider is made in the Czech Republic and has helped revolutionize grass cutting for organizations that own land that is difficult to cut using conventional mowers.

These include hills, tall grass fields, and even slightly muddy land.

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Urban beach for downtown?

An urban beach in downtown Windsor?

That’s what MPP Sandra Pupatello proposed in a speech last week to the local chamber of commerce.

Pupatello was brainstorming for the audience about how Windsor could continue to put itself on the national and international stage, now that it has been rated one of the world’s most intelligent hi-tech communities and there is a huge downtown redevelopment that will soon take place.

The beach would be modelled after Toronto’s Sugar Beach which opened last summer beside the Redpath sugar refinery on Toronto’s waterfront.

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Greenway exemplary for safety

In more than its 10 year life the Chrysler Greenway has been remarkably free of crime or even major accidents.

Kevin Money, director of conservation areas for Essex Region Conservation Authority (ERCA), says he has hardly ever had a report of a problem on the 50-kilometer hiking and biking trail from Oldcastle to Ruthven.

The trail, which opened in 1999, traces a former rail line and also serves as an underground utility corridor.

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