This episode covers the stretch of the Grand between Paris and the Glenhyrst Art Gallery in north Brantford. Paris to Glenhyrst by car is about 9.5 km and takes about 12 minutes. To follow the east bank of the river takes quite a bit longer, depending on which way you go. That’s because for the first time along the Grand River, you have a choice of routes, including two main ones and various interesting connectors and side trails. There is no public access to most of the west bank of this stretch of the river.
Cyclists will prefer the well-paved S.C. Johnson Trail (SCJT), which is the continuation of the Cambridge to Paris Rail Trail, and runs about 14 km from Paris to Brantford. However, this trail does not follow the riverbank closely. Here’s a link to the Grand River Conservation Authority map that gives a useful overview of the distances between Hamilton and Cambridge via Brantford on multi-use trails that are bike-friendly. Hikers will probably prefer the Grand Valley Trail (GVT) and its connectors, which follow the east bank more closely and are much less developed. To follow the riverbank whenever possible gives a hike of about 17 km and takes at least half a day.
After leaving Paris, the river passes at first chiefly through rural areas, then as you get closer to Brantford, major industrial and housing developments start to impinge. This episode explores the highlights (and lowlights) of the various routes, rather than following one of them exclusively.
Map 36. From the Dundas Street Bridge (A) to the Highway 403 crossing (B). The SCJT is marked with blue dots, the GVT and other trails with red dots. There is no provision for parking on Curtis Avenue South at the Paris end, but you can P on the shoulder of the west side of Curtis Avenue North. If you do so, carefully cross very busy Dundas Street at the light. Farther south, P in the lot at the west end of Powerline Road or in the turning circle at the end of Fen Ridge Court.
455. The bridge carrying Dundas Street East (Brant County Highway 2) over the Grand River southeast of downtown Paris. Constructed in 1967, it’s a concrete and steel I-beam five-span about 120 metres long. It replaced the Willow Street Bridge, a wrought iron truss bridge built in 1877 and removed in 1988.
456. Dundas Street, also known as Governors Road, is a historic thoroughfare. Hacked through the bush by the Queen’s Rangers in 1793-94, it connected King’s Landing (now the town of Dundas)* at the head of Lake Ontario to the Grand River. It was the first leg of a road-building initiative by John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada (now Ontario). His prime reason was military: by making overland troop movements easier, he intended to make Upper Canada more secure from the threat of invasion by the United States. (That invasion actually occurred in 1812, of course.) The plaque (top) is on a cairn in front of Brant County Fire Station #1 near the east end of the bridge. It correctly indicates that Paris could not have come into being without the connection to the Lakehead provided by Dundas Street.
This Dundas Street was the first of several of that name. It preceded the better-known Dundas Street that runs west-east through central Toronto, as well as the Dundas Street, once known as the Great Road, that connects Galt to Dundas. All these roads were named by Simcoe for his friend Henry Dundas, the British Home Secretary (1791-94), who later became the leading power-broker in Scotland. As Henry Dundas is thought to have deliberately delayed legislation to abolish slavery, there has recently been a movement to rename the road in Toronto. Some historians have pointed out, however, that Henry Dundas was actually an abolitionist who believed that anti-slavery measures needed to be instituted gradually for cold economic reasons. Certainly movements to “cancel” historical figures based on contemporary values should be based on a fuller appreciation of context than is often the case.
The “Exceptional Waters” sign (bottom) can be found near the west end of the bridge. It refers to the rather self-congratulatory Resource Management Plan of 2006 in which the quality of the water in the Grand between Paris and Brantford was declared “exceptional,” as it encouraged leisure activities such as paddling and angling. It’s not clear how more recent major industrial and housing developments on the east bank in Brantford have affected water quality.
*Counterintuitively, the town of Dundas was named for the highway, not the other way around.
457. The view downstream from the bridge. Suburban Paris occupies the west bank (at right) for some distance.
458. The S.C. Johnson Trail recommences on Curtis Avenue 200 metres south of Dundas Street. It’s a rail trail following the course of the defunct Lake Erie and Northern Railway and completed in 1998. It’s open all year for hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, etc., but hunting, camping, horse riding, and motorized vehicles aren’t permitted. S.C. Johnson, the trail’s sponsor, is the multinational corporation specializing in household cleaning products – Dranō, Pledge, Toilet Duck, etc. – whose Canadian HQ is in Brantford.
459. But with the prospect of a more interesting hike than a rail trail offers, we’ll continue down Curtis Avenue South. It passes through a small suburban area then quickly becomes rural. That’s an abandoned quarry returning to nature on the right.
460. As southbound Curtis Avenue curves left, a trail leads off to the right and down to the riverbank: the Cavan Flats loop. It’s entirely on private land (gratitude is due to the owner), and definitely a pleasant hike. It’s well waymarked, with blazes and even a stile or two. More than 160 different bird species have been spotted along this trail in the recent past, including ospreys, peregrines, sandhill cranes, and bald eagles. This trail joins the SCJT at its south end, so you can loop back to your car along it.
461. A fall riverside view at Cavan Flats.
462. A rather alarming dead tree on the Cavan Flats trail.
463. Back on the SCJT, we leave Brant County and enter the city of Brantford (pop. approx. 110,000). In one of southern Ontario’s many geopolitical quirks, the City of Brantford is entirely surrounded by Brant County (pop. approx. 40,000), but the two municipalities are administered separately. Both were named for Joseph Brant (Thayendanegea), the Mohawk leader prominent in the early history of Upper Canada. He was the founder of Brantford, and there’ll much more about him when we reach the central part of the city.
464. A delightful section of the GVT before the Highway 403 crossing. This is definitely the preferred route for hikers.
465. Highway 403 is the major east-west artery linking Toronto’s western exurbs, the Halton lakeshore, Hamilton, Brantford, and Woodstock (where it joins Hwy 401). Through Brantford, the 403 is called the Alexander Graham Bell Parkway, in honour of one of the city’s most notable residents. You can cross the 403 in two different ways. On the SCJT you go over it on a footbridge (top) at some distance east of the river crossing, while on the rougher riverbank GVT, you duck under the highway (bottom) as traffic roars a couple of metres overhead.
Map 37. From the Hwy 403 crossing (B) to the Glenhyrst Art Gallery (C). The “Industrial Tablelands” (see #470-471 below) include both the pink area north of Hardy Road, and the more recently developed brown area south of it. The new housing development (#473-474 below) is that network of streets marked H south of the brown area. As with Map 36, the SCJT is marked with blue dots and the GVT and other trails with red dots, though recent construction may change, temporarily or otherwise, the course of the trails marked. The Perched Fen is marked PF and the Oakhill Bridge is marked OB. There are several places to P: the west end of Fen Ridge Court; the west end of Kraemer’s Way; the south end of (old) Oak Park Road off Kraemer’s Way; the north side of Hardy Road opposite its junction with the SCJT; and the upper or lower lots at the Glenhyrst Art Gallery.
466. A lone angler at the mouth of Whiteman’s Creek across the river.
467. This riverside tree (top), with folksy wooden signs attached (bottom), marks for hikers on the GVT the start of the Blue Heron Trail. The tree also indicates the Westcast Loop, an 5 km inland hiking loop trail that starts at the Powerline Road P and takes the SCJT and the Blue Heron Trail. This last, a side trail running inland, is the one to take if you plan to visit the Perched Fen (see #469 below). If you’re on the SCJT, after Fen Ridge Court you edge around several enormous industrial facilities, and then you turn right off the trail at the sign indicating the way to the Perched Fen.
468. Hikers on the Blue Heron Trail cross this open area on the way to the Perched Fen. It’s an abandoned gravel quarry that’s been partly planted with those conifers in the distance.
469. You can’t enter the Perched Fen, so frankly there isn’t a great deal to see. But there’s plenty to read on the information boards that line the small fenced viewing area (top), so you can gain some understanding about what’s special about this terrain.
A fen is typically a marshy area in low terrain, caused by the presence of groundwater welling up to the surface. A perched fen, much rarer, is “perched” on higher ground, in this case on a kind of bench halfway up a bluff. The bluff itself is a remnant of the shoreline of proglacial Lake Warren, a now vanished body of water from the last Ice Age that preceded the establishment of the current course of the now much reduced Grand River and the shoreline of now much larger Lake Erie. This Perched Fen, a holdover from that period more than 12,000 years ago, contains a rare mixture of shoreline, wetland, and prairie plants that are dependent upon the purity of the groundwater in its aquifer (middle). It remains to be seen whether runoff from the “Industrial Tablelands” (bottom) that have recently been constructed above the Fen will compromise its precarious existence.
470. So let’s have a look at the “Industrial Tablelands.” To do so, you take the SCJT, which has been diverted onto public roads around them. Above are the twin depots of a logistics company on Kraemer’s Way, which the trail briefly follows before swinging back south towards the river along old Oak Park Road.
471. And this is the Hershey Canada Distribution Centre (2020), a refrigerated warehouse for the US-based chocolate giant. The building is 48,124 square metres (518,000 square feet), about the size of 9 football fields. I struggled to get this monster into the camera’s viewfinder! This and neighbouring facilities have taken advantage of cheap land on the site of former gravel pits, as well as the proximity to Highway 403, which connects the Golden Horseshoe with the US border at Windsor. Chocolate distribution, of course, takes place by truck, and this facility includes 80 truck bays.
472. We’re back along the narrow GVT that hugs the shore of the Grand. This provides a particularly attractive riverside ramble. And as the river gently curves to the south, it seems we’ve left this industrialized suburb of Brantford behind …
473. … only to be pulled up short a few hundred metres later. A large housing development is under construction here on the east bank of the river.
474. The survey occupies the whole upper portion of a bend in the river and is entirely below the glacial bluff, on top of which are the huge industrial facilities.
(Top) Some houses were under construction when I passed through in 2023; (bottom) others were already occupied. There is no other housing on this side of the river for several kilometres in all directions. Commendably, Brantford’s transit system does now cover this area, which would otherwise be entirely car dependent.
However, I couldn’t help wondering if this area might be subject to flooding. Certainly the southernmost houses in the development – the ones at the end of the street in the lower picture – are only a couple of hundred of metres from the low riverbank. And you may be aware that climate change renders floodplain maps, like the one provided by the Grand River Conservation Authority, quickly out of date …
475. You can continue on the riverbank trail around this development, although signs warn of construction. Now we reach the only river crossing between the Hwy 403 bridge and downtown Brantford: the Oakhill Trail Pedestrian Bridge. It gives cyclists and hikers access to the Brant Park Conservation Area on the west bank. It also allows a 15 km loop, which uses one of the bridges in downtown Brantford to recross the river. This is a popular cycling route – it takes about an hour – but it’s of less interest to hikers.
476. The stretch of the Grand between Paris and Brantford is probably the one most popular with paddlers. So the Oakhill Bridge and its vicinity gives you a good view of their various activities.
477. After the bridge the two main paths that we have been following combine, and as the SCJT it heads towards Hardy Road.
478. (Top) The Glenhyrst Art Gallery is signposted on the SCJT and reached by a short, steep road up the bluff. The property was bequeathed to Brantford in 1956 by Edmund Cockshutt, one of the prominent local family involved in manufacturing agricultural machinery. The gallery, whose street address is 20 Ava Road, is open year round, has ample parking, a tea shop, and is free to enter (donations appreciated). It displays temporary exhibitions that are often very interesting, and also serves as a more general arts hub for Brantford. The blue plaque to the right of the entrance reminds you that Lawren Harris (1885-1970), one of the founders of the Group of Seven and a great visionary landscape artist, was born in Brantford. Check Glenhyrst’s hours and current exhibitions here.
(Middle) Of the many artworks on display when I visited, I particularly enjoyed a series of photographs of the Arctic by Canadian photographer John Reeves (1938-2016), including this one entitled “Anglican Church – Cape Dorset” (1971). On a very hot day, just looking at it cooled me off!
(Bottom) The Glenhyrst has a sculpture garden and in summer is surrounded by beautiful floral beds …
479. … and the upstream view of the Grand and its islands from the bluff on which the Glenhyrst sits is one of the best in the vicinity.
Holmström Ruddick 