By Glen Turner – Special to the Sydenham Current
Water.
It has been a hot topic around here, for quite some time. Drinking water, and its source.
However, this is about a different aspect of water.
Namely, the local waterways.
When I first came to town, I used to walk beside the dirty brown Sydenham, and frankly, wasn’t very impressed.
My students used to go for a swim in the Sydenham at lunch time on hot days, and well… they often smelled really bad when they returned to class.
A few years ago, a teacher bud bought a boat, and I was introduced to local waterways.
Then, I bought a boat for myself.
What a change in me ever since I started exploring them. There are parts of the Snye where it looks like TOTAL wilderness. Nesting swans, ducks, Canada Geese, cormorants, terns and more!
And the Sydenham cruise to Lake St. Clair is now one of my favourite trips.
Out to the lake, stop in at Mitchell’s Bay, go out fishing, swimming at Grassy or the second sand bar… amazing!
What has REALLY surprised me lately is the number of people here who either have never been on the local waterways, or don’t even know that such beauty and fun exists.
I love taking people out for their first view of both rivers and the Lake. I particularly love their reactions to the logs covered with basking turtles, to a male Swan charging the boat to defend his family, or their pleasure at the beauty of the turns in the Snye where you can’t see a house, a dock, a barn or a road.
What surprises me even more is that our Economic Development people (based in Chatham, of course, not here anymore) haven’t caught on, and tried selling Wallaceburg and area as a perfect retirement location.
Just the waterways alone would be a huge selling point!
I remember a big push by those types in Elliott Lake.
When the mines were closing, they started selling it as a great retirement place, and an icon for “Retirement Living” is right on the home page of the town website.
Population is around 11,000, but used to be much bigger.
Weather isn’t as good as ours.
It’s isolated, compared to us.
Yet their sales pitch worked.
Why not here?
Bravo Glen. For years I have been boasting about the website Wallaceburgtrails, At least now it rates an afterthought mention in the tourist guide. Fix the roads, and Wallaceburg might be quite an attractive proposition.
First, I’d like say that I agree with you on the advantages that Wallaceburg has to offer. With some vision, it could easily be marketed as a retirement community (and one of the reasons we have to make sure our hospital remains open). However, I disagree on your assessment of the Sydenham’s water quality. I’ve lived on the North Branch for 30 years,and my kids and all the neighbourhood kids swam in the river, and they didn’t have an offensive odour. For that matter, the Sydenham’s colour can range from bottle green to silty brown depending on the amount of rainfall we get. The “quality” of the water has nothing to do with its colour. Truth be told, the most polluted river around here has been,and continues to remain, the St.Clair river due to industrial waste originating in Sarnia’s “chemical valley”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydenham_River#/editor/0
what we need is a contingent of citizens willing to put some legwork into the marketing of the town. The Wallaceburg Chamber is updating their website and will be having a page on it for visitors or potential newcomers…it will be a work in progress and will be updating as we see what needs to be on it. If we had a contingent of town ambassadors that could show people around when they come to town we could link them as we have people calling in the office on a regular basis asking about our town. If you are interested email me at debergh@kent.net