Bob, Jack, and I Visit Bruce, John, Laura, and Mel (10/30/24)

After a rainy Tuesday, today was warm and windy, with a high of 72 F. Lovely day for exploring. We headed out to the Decew House Heritage Park to walk a section of the renowned Bruce Trail. The full Bruce Trail is over 550 miles long, and there are another 250 miles of associated side trails. It runs through Southern Ontario from the Niagara River to the tip of Tobermory, Ontario.

We followed the well-signed trail that ran along Lake Moodie. While we didn’t photo them, this portion of the trail was being used by a fair number of others while we were there.

On the walk back to the park, we noticed this, the importance of which was explained later.

As mentioned earlier, the park is named the DeCew House Heritage Park. This structure below is the source for the name and sits at the park entrance. It is the remains of the home of Captain John DeCou (later DeCew). The home served as the headquarters of the British outpost during the War of 1812. The troops were alerted in June 1815 to the American advance by Laura Secord (see above). So, a little history with our walk today.

After our stop at the DeCew Park, we continued down DeCew Road for a short stop at the Mel Swart Lake Gibson Conservation Park. This is a cute little park, with a short circular walking trail as well as a boardwalk that juts out into Lake Gibson. Mel Swart raised his family in Thorold, the community where the park is located, was a nature lover, and served 21 years in municipal politics.