By: Wayne Doyle, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Source: BarrieToday.com, Nov 01, 2024
The view from Wiidookdaadiwin Lookout is amazing. On a clear day from the observation deck, about 30 metres above the ground, you can see forever — the horizon little more than a faint line in the distance. Below, the land spreads out in every direction. It disappears into the haze to the east and north and runs into the Niagara Escarpment to the west. Standing on the observation deck late Wednesday afternoon, Springwater Coun. Anita Moore was looking north, lost in the natural panorama before her, golden light from the setting sun bathing the landscape. “This is spectacular,” she said. “From this view, you get an incredible sense of how vast and beautiful this township really is.” Moore organized a tour of Wiidookdaadiwin Lookout on Wednesday for her fellow council members before the facility closed for the season. She extended an invitation to BarrieToday to join the tour west of the city.
Built on top of former Vespra Landfill No. 14 on George Johnston Road, just south of Snow Valley Road, the site features a huge observation area, hundreds of native plantings, signs explaining the history and importance of the site and a life-size bronze sculpture of two figures — one, an Indigenous scout, the other a canoe-carrying European — and their luggage. Gobsmacked by the work that’s been done at Wiidookdaadiwin — Ojibwa for “working together, and helping one another” — Moore’s trying to find a way to get the township involved moving forward, to convince her fellow council members to throw some municipal support behind the project.
The township, the Chippewa Tri Council, Barrie’s three Rotary clubs and Simcoe County have already contributed $225,000 to the project. Moore’s first inclination is to leverage the site, and nearby Historic Fort Willow, as a learning tool. “I want to try and promote it in an educational fashion,” Moore said of the site, which is in her ward. “It’s got an historical component, a First Nations component and a rehabilitation component. “I think it would be a perfect study site, along with Fort Willow, that might allow students to get a real sense of what this area was like in 1812,” she added. Her idea may resonate with site organizers.
Tony Guergis, chair of Friends of Wiidookdaadiwin (FOW), said the educational component and opportunity is one of the main pillars of the FOW board’s mandate. To illustrate his point, he mentions the story boards in the centre gardens that talk about Indigenous medicinal plantings. “Board member Elder Bill Jamison’s vision for these gardens was a medicine walk to teach about the ways plants, trees and all things found in nature were part of the medicine and health of their culture,” Guergis said in an email. “We hope that the Indigenous culture is made more familiar and relatable to those that visit the site.” According to Guergis, the FOW board has plans to discuss the site with local school boards about making the site an integral part of their curriculum from a historic, geopolitical and cultural perspective. “We intend to recruit an educator to the FOW board to assist us with liaising with the education boards,” said the former Springwater mayor and county warden. He said Moore’s idea of incorporating a chapter on site rehabilitation would be something the county would decide. “The idea of rehabilitation education would be a discussion and decision of the county,” Guergis said. “Personally, I have promoted that idea from Day 1, but that’s their call and outside the FOW mandate.”
Guergis said when the site is officially opened next spring, he expects there will be many educational, historical and recreational groups come forward with proposals on how to use the site. “Camera groups, star gazers, bird watchers and yoga classes are just a few of the groups that have already suggested interest,” Guergis said. “The site will be of significant importance to many people in many ways.
“It’s the only new tourism destination site like it in Ontario.”