GHTC Newsletter - July 2013 - Page 11
“The O.R.” Sidetrail – Now Open! By Bill Mungall s you can see in the new edition of the Trail Handbook, GHTC now has a brand new 2.5 km addition to the Radial Line Trail, Section 1, in the form of a new sidetrail that runs up the east side of the Eramosa River, and Clythe Creek, within the City of Guelph. The aim is to eventually close a loop route between Victoria and Stone Road on both sides of the river valley….the completion of the trail leaves less than 400 meters to finish the loop, (which will be subject to negotiations with and permissions from two landowners, and approvals to construct a bridge over Clythe Creek.)
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The trailhead is located off York Road beginning at the City’s parking lot for Bicentennial Park. At the other end, it begins at the 1916 heritage bow-string concrete bridge on Stone Road East, with parking in the lot outside the Barber Scout Camp. In between, it runs past several interesting old quarries once
worked by prisoners from the adjacent Ontario Reformatory, who literally “broke rocks” there in the nineteen-twenties and thirties. It then passes outside the fence of the Cargill meat packing plant, where the Province thoughtfully left enough space for a trail on the top of the riverbank when they sold the land to the plant. There are some great views of the Eramosa and the distant cliffs on the west side of the valley from the high riverbanks. The trail also runs over a narrow, scenic neck of land between the river and The O.R. ponds, hand-dug over many years as a form of hard labour for miscreant prisoners. The Guelph Correctional Centre (closed in 2003) was called the Ontario Reformatory for most of its 95 year existence, or “The O.R.” for short, for Guelphites at least. The naming of the trail as such was endorsed by none other than a long-time GHTC member who formerly worked as a guard at this institution! Many thanks to Ann Middleton, Michelle Wan, Enid and Bob Fanning, Morag Whale, Mike Curtis, Peter Jaspers-Fayer, Jim Hoare, Al Couture, Paul White,