Nature in the Kawarthas

Inc.

1

The Physical Landscape

A Land Shaped by Ice and Water

John Bottomley

The Kawarthas are a great place to see a wide variety of physical landscapes. Most of this variety is easily seen on a drive from Bewdley on the shores of Rice Lake to Apsley, by way of Peterborough and Lakefield. As far north as Burleigh Falls, the landscape is generally agricultural. Farther north, agriculture is patchy and forests dominate. An observant traveller will also notice that exposed rocks look quite different in the north and south and that the rounded hills typical of the Peterborough area are not found in the north.

Although the details of how these landscapes were produced are complex, there are two facts that are of overwhelming importance.

First, the north is comprised of the ancient igneous and metamorphic rocks of the Canadian Shield. Igneous rocks are created from magma (molten rock) that has moved toward the surface from deep beneath the Earth’s surface and has subsequently cooled and solidified into a crystalline mass, whereas metamorphic rocks are formed though the modification of pre-existing igneous or sedimentary rocks through the application of great heat or pressure. Underlying the southern Kawarthas are younger, although still ancient, sedimentary rocks. These are rocks that are formed by the laying down of layers of material at the Earth’s surface and within bodies of water. The material laid down in a layer can be coarse, fine, or of variable size.

The second great shaper of the Kawartha landscape was the ice sheet that retreated from the region about 12,000 years ago, leaving behind evidence of its activity in the landforms we see there today.

The northern half of the Kawarthas lies on the Canadian Shield. The Shield in this region consists of Precambrian rocks that are as much as three billion years old — some of the oldest exposed rocks on the planet. The Shield is the geological core of the North American continent, with younger igneous and sedimentary rocks arranged around it in bands of decreasing age. Geologically complex in detail, the Shield has been subject to the effects of erosion by wind, rain, and ice for three billion years, and has been, as a result, an area of relatively low relief since the end of the Precambrian, some 550 million years ago.

The southern half of the Kawarthas is underlain by sedimentary rocks formed during the Ordovician era, approximately 470 million years ago. The surface boundary between these and the more ancient Shield rocks runs approximately east–west through Burleigh Falls. A change in landscape here can be seen by anyone driving north on Highway 28. The rocks of the southern Kawarthas consist of approximately 120 metres of stratified limestone and shale lying on top of Precambrian Shield rocks below. These limestone and shale beds are of varying hardness, an important factor in the formation of the Kawartha Lakes.

The Shield landscape is dominated by exposed Precambrian rocks, coniferous forests, lakes, and wetlands.

Gordon Berry

The landscape south of the Shield is primarily agricultural, with pockets of remaining deciduous woodlands on underlying sedimentary limestone rock.

Don Pettypiece

That some of the Shield was once overlain by these rocks is shown by the existence of small areas of un-eroded Ordovician sedimentary rock lying on top of Precambrian rock to the north of their current boundary. These areas, known as outliers, more closely resemble the southern Kawarthas than the surrounding Shield. Such an outlier can be found a few kilometres north of Buckhorn, around Quinn’s Corners. Likewise, there are areas south of the boundary where the Ordovician rocks have been worn away to reveal the underlying Precambrian rocks of the Shield. These areas are known as inliers and are also distinctive landscape features. Lynch’s Rock, to the east of Lakefield, is such an inlier. Following the deposition of Ordovician sedimentary rocks, the Kawarthas were stable, geologically speaking, until the coming of the ice age, approximately two million years ago.

During the Pleistocene ice age, which began 1.2 million years ago and ended approximately 10,000 years ago, the Kawarthas were subject to the advance and subsequent retreat of four waves of ice sheets, or glaciers, some as much as three kilometres thick. The last advance, the Wisconsin advance, ended only 12,000 years ago as the last vestiges of the ice sheets in this area melted away. These glaciers, and the meltwater associated with their retreat, eroded rock and soil from across the region and subsequently deposited and sometimes moulded them elsewhere. Generally speaking, erosion dominated in the Shield, with much eroded material being transported farther south by glaciers and deposited over wide areas of the southern Kawarthas.

Major landscape features of the Kawarthas.

Chrismar Mapping Services Inc.

The broad features of the Kawartha landscape were shaped by the movement of ice sheets during the Wisconsin advance. Approximately 14,000 years ago, two lobes of the continental ice sheet were present in the Kawarthas. One, the Lake Simcoe lobe, advanced from the northeast toward the southwest. The other, the Lake Ontario lobe, advanced from the east toward the west and northwest. As these lobes met, they deposited much of the eroded material they were transporting at their bases along the boundary where they came together. Over time this material accumulated to form what is now known as the Oak Ridges Moraine, the de facto southern boundary of the Kawartha area. A moraine is an accumulation of boulders, stones, or other debris carried and deposited by a glacier. There are a number of distinct types of moraine, depending on how material was deposited. Interlobate moraines, such as the Oak Ridges Moraine, see material deposited between the lobes of two ice sheets.

During the final retreat of the ice sheets, meltwater was produced in such volume that several glacial lakes were formed. Among these were Lake Peterborough and Lake Jackson, which covered much of the area between the present site of Peterborough and Rice Lake.

The large volumes of meltwater present also meant that the glacial lakes that evolved into the current Great Lakes were more extensive and had higher surface levels than do current lakes. During the Wisconsin retreat, Lake Algonquin, the predecessor of Lake Huron, covered an area that included the current Lake Simcoe and further areas to the north and east. Approximately 12,000 years ago, water from Lake Algonquin began to flow parallel to the ice front in an easterly direction, into what became the Kawartha Lakes. The level of these lakes became sufficient over time that they began draining to the south, creating valleys known as glacial spillways. These drained into Lake Peterborough and Rice Lake and continued on into Lake Iroquois, the predecessor of Lake Ontario. These spillways are still with us in the form of the Otonabee and Indian River valleys and other channels. These valleys are larger than they would have been if they were formed by the rivers currently occupying them. They are the most obvious landscape features of the southern Kawarthas formed through the erosion during the ice age and the action of meltwater.

The impact of the glaciers on the Shield was largely through erosion. Both soil and rock were dragged across the surface in a southwesterly direction by the movement of the ice. This material was later deposited in the southern Kawarthas and farther south when the ice sheets retreated, around 12,000 years ago. The landscape of the Shield today is one of very thin soils, numerous depressions that form lakes or swamps, and bare rock knobs and ridges. Rocky landforms known as roches moutonnés are one outcome of the erosive impact of ice sheets on the Shield. They are large, exposed rocks with smooth, gentle northeasterly slopes and rocky, steep southwesterly slopes. These were formed as ice moved to the southwest and in so doing ground away the facing slope of an outcrop as it rode over it and plucked material from its lee side as it moved away.

The impact of the ice sheets in the southern Kawarthas was largely depositional and was more complex than was their impact on the Shield. Almost the entire area is covered by material eroded from the Shield. This material consists of till — unsorted sand, gravel, and boulders — laid down directly by the ice; sand and gravel laid down by meltwater streams; and clays, silts, and sand laid down in lakes. Some material was moulded into the distinct landforms discussed below.

The Indian River valley is part of an ancient glacial spillway seen here at Warsaw Caves Conservation Area.

Gordon Berry

The most distinctive elements in the landscape of the southern Kawarthas are drumlins. A drumlin is an elongated hill with roughly the shape of half a hen’s egg that is formed through glacial action. Its long axis parallels the direction of ice movement with the blunter and steeper end usually facing into this movement. Drumlins may be up to 50 metres high and as much as one kilometre long. Armour Hill and the Lady Eaton Drumlin west of Trent University are just two of many drumlins in the Kawarthas, where they occur in a field of approximately 4,000 similarly shaped, sized, and oriented hills. They lie in a southwesterly direction that parallels the movement of the Lake Simcoe lobe in this area. They are so numerous that, from the air, much of the southern Kawarthas has a fluted appearance, with drumlins and the low areas, or swales, between them both oriented toward the southwest.

An unusual feature of the Peterborough drumlin field is the drowned drumlins in Rice Lake. These drumlins were created under the ice and subsequently partially submerged as meltwater filled the depression that is now the lake. They are easily seen from Highway 28 and from the waterfront at Bewdley.

Eskers are another distinctive landform found in the southern Kawarthas. These are low, sinuous ridges consisting of sand and gravel. They are the deposits of streams and rivers that flowed either through or under the ice sheets as they retreated. Because the deposits were moved by water, they are sorted into layers of material, each of a consistent size. A layer consists either of sand or gravel, but not both. Eskers are, unsurprisingly, much exploited as sources of aggregates. Although sinuous, the eskers in our region are oriented in the direction of ice and subsequent meltwater flow (i.e., to the southwest) and, as such, reinforce the general trend of the country created by the drumlin field. The three most prominent eskers in the Kawarthas are the Norwood Esker, easily seen from County Road 8 just north of Norwood; the Omemee Esker, known as the Hogsback and visible from Highway 7 just west of the village; and the Bridgenorth Esker that can be seen from various locations along the road from Bridgenorth to Selwyn. Other eskers can be found in Ennismore, Douro, and Dummer townships.

These drumlins, exposed in Rice Lake, show the distinctive rounded ends, elongated shape, and alignment with the path of a retreating glacier.

Gordon Berry

The ice sheets also left minor depositional features known as glacial erratics. These large boulders were moved from their original location by ice sheets and deposited with till as the ice sheets melted and retreated. The Kawarthas is dotted with numerous erratics, of which the most readily seen is Council Rock in Buckhorn.

Much of the area to the immediate west and south of Peterborough was once the location of glacial Lake Peterborough and Lake Jackson. Lake Jackson occupied what is now the valley of Jackson Creek and its tributaries. Lake Peterborough was larger and occupied what are now the valleys of Cavan Creek, Baxter Creek, Squirrel Creek, and Meade Creek. These areas are flat and associated with clays deposited on the lake bottoms. They are swampy areas and can be seen from Highway 115 as one leaves Peterborough and heads southwest. Much of Cavan Swamp is associated with these old lake beds.

A particular landscape is found immediately north of Warsaw. In the area around the Warsaw Caves, glaciers removed soil and rock to expose limestone on the surface. Limestone is porous, resulting in disappearing and underground streams, canyons, caves, kettles, and a barren, deeply jointed surface. In Ontario, this type of landscape is known as an alvar.

The Kawartha Lakes owe their origin to the erosional impact of ice sheets and associated meltwaters upon the pre-glacial landscape. The sedimentary rocks south of the Shield consist of layers of differing hardness. Immediately to the south of the hard rocks of the Shield lies a bed of relatively soft rock that is overlain to the south by harder limestone. It was through this lower area of softer rock that meltwater from Lake Algonquin flowed 12,000 years ago. Drainage to the south was originally to the southwest, away from the Shield, in valleys cut into the harder limestone. These valleys were deepened by glacial erosion as ice sheets advanced and their southern ends became blocked by glacial till when they retreated. As a result, streams in these valleys began to flow north as tributaries of the eastward-flowing rivers in the soft rocks immediately south of the Shield. These valleys are currently filled by slow-flowing streams and by Chemong, Scugog, Pigeon, and Balsam Lakes.

Because these valleys received large deposits of till, their shores are not rocky. The much-deepened east–west valley in the softer rocks to the north became the location of Little Bald, Big Bald, Lower Buckhorn, Stony, and Lovesick Lakes. As largely erosional features, these lakes typically have rocky shorelines in contrast to the lakes to the south.

One final note regarding the Kawartha Lakes is that their current levels result from the work of man. Almost without exception, dams have resulted in the lakes being larger and deeper than was formerly the case. The southern ends of Lake Scugog and Pigeon Lake were originally swamps, and Upper Chemong Lake and Chemong Lake were at one time only connected by a small stream.

2

Regional Ecosystems

A Land of Great Diversity

Michael McMurtry

The physical environment, that is, the geology, landforms, water bodies, and climate, sets the stage for the plants and animals that can survive and flourish in a region. These organisms, their environment, and the interactions between them make up the ecosystem.

Geological processes shaped the Kawartha Lakes region and its dominant landforms. The climate has fluctuated over geological time, but in the last few thousand years has been relatively stable and moderate in climate. Plants and animals, and the ecosystems they are part of, have adapted to these conditions.

The ecosystems that are characteristic of the region, and the physical conditions on which they depend, are described here. The emphasis is on native species, especially plants, and native plant communities.

Changing Ecosystems

The Kawartha region is actually at the junction of two major eco-zones: the Mixed Wood Plains and the Boreal Shield. Generally speaking, the southern part of the region has limestone bedrock overlain with a thick layer of glacial till and relatively thick, nutrient-rich soil. These soils are the result of weathering of the parent bedrock and till, deposition of organics from plants and animals, the leeching of materials that occurs with water drainage, and other chemical processes. Farther north, the soils become thinner and lie over a limestone plain up to the contact line with the Canadian Shield. The waters of the Kawartha Lakes flow through the area of the contact line, then into the Otonabee and Indian Rivers, and on to Rice Lake and Lake Ontario. The part of the region located on the Shield also has thin soils, or may lack soils, except in low-lying areas and rock crevices.

Given that the last ice age was quite recent in geological time, the species and the ecosystems of areas that were ice-covered are also quite recent. The plants and animals of the areas under the ice were completely eliminated and these areas were re-colonized following the retreat of the ice sheet. Pollen analysis of Rice Lake sediments indicates that conifer forests dominated by spruce and pine predominated about 10,000 years ago. With fluctuating temperatures and moisture regimes, these forests gave way to the forests that we are familiar with today in southern Ontario. Prior to European settlement, most of the southern part of the Kawartha region would have been dominated by deciduous and mixed forest. Woodlands on the tops of drumlins and in other undisturbed upland areas today are typical of pre-settlement vegetation that would have occurred in the region. These woodlands were interspersed with tallgrass prairie and savannah communities (to be discussed in a later chapter), where wildfire and fire managed by Aboriginal people kept the landscape more open. To this day, prairie ecosystems depend for their continued existence on the presence of fire disturbance.

Upland areas were dominated by deciduous woodland in the Kawarthas prior to European settlement.

Mike McMurtry

Low-lying wet areas in the southern part of the Kawarthas that did not retain standing water throughout the growing season would have supported shrubby or treed swamps. Marshes formed where standing water remained longer, such as at the margins of lakes and rivers. A few wet areas that lacked surface water flow became bogs or fens — those with only input from precipitation were