Hey Peterborough! Hey Jackson Park! Congratulations! We did it! On December 6th 2021 city council voted to add Jackson Park to the official heritage register under the Ontario Heritage Act. For over 100 years Jackson Park has been a fixture in the Peterborough community. Envisioned by the Nichols Trust as a respite from the growing city; this beloved park has more than fulfilled it’s role.
Tomorrow we’ll get back to work, but let’s celebrate this beloved park. By the numbers, Jackson Park is an impressive place. A summary to date (December 2021):
- 143 Bird Species have been catalogued on the Jackson Park Ebird hotspot
- 1232 iNnaturalist observations
- 244 identified species of plants
- 4.5 hectares of Old Growth Forest
- 15 degrees cooler than the rest of Peterborough!
- 250+ year old trees
- 4.5km of Trans-Canada Trail
- Countless annual visitors
All of these things add such great value to Peterborough, and it is all worth protecting for the future. There is lots of hard work to be done to further protect and restore this important heritage location. From invasive species, trampling of the undergrowth, to climate change, or even just trails in disrepair there is still lots to do. I’m personally looking forward to tackling these challenges to pass this space along to future generations.
Jackson Creek looking west 
Looking over Jackson Park towards downtown Peterborough 
Bloodroot on the forest floor 
Wild Mint growing at the water’s edge. 
Limestone exposed by the river at the valley bottom. 
An enormous ice jam holding water in Jackson Park.
Thanks so much to councilor Kim Zippel to bringing this motion forward from the Heritage Committee. And thank you to council for seeing this motion through to completion.
Comments
Thank you for all your hard work. This park is especially important to me. I have a photo of my beautiful mother on one of the large stones in Jackson Park dated August 1949, she was twenty.
so well done
Congratulations! What does this mean in terms of protection for the park?