It’s known to have some of the most fertile land in Canada and on Tuesday people across the region marked the 90th anniversary of The Holland Marsh Drainage Project.
It’s canal stretches 28 kilometers – protecting what many call “Ontario’s salad bowl” and Art Janse says if there was no canal we would be flooded.
“We would be flooded,” he says. There's 65,000 acres that drains into these canals. It is directly tied to Lake Simcoe – if the lake goes up the canals come up.”
Construction on the canals started 90 years ago on Sept. 15, 1925 and took three years to complete. Janse helped maintain and build parts of the canal for 40 years and says Mother Nature has changed the look of the canal over the years.
“When it was originally built, it was 38 feet wide in this area and after Hurricane Hazel it was about 56 feet wide.”
For decades the canal was located right beside the road, but Janse was instrumental in moving the canal back, making it safer for everyone. The canal is anywhere from four to nine feet deep but Matt Reesor says it's unpredictable.
“If you hit a clay spot, you can almost walk across it but if you hit a super mucky spot you'll sink right through like quicksand.”
Reesor dredges the canal, just one of many steps that are taken in maintaining it.
“We dredge because the silt on top of the marsh is so fine that any erosion from wind or rain or high volumes of water will cause the stuff to wash right down our ditches right into the river.”
Janse says it's hard to believe the canal is celebrating its 90th anniversary of construction. He remembers seeing the canal for the first time.
“I was a 6-year-old kid and my dad came to the marsh in 1944. That's when we came to the marsh. This is my heart and soul.”
