The Pelee Island story continues

 Pelee Island was a major part of my career. It was a lot of fun, and also had many challenges associated with it. And there were always photographic opportunities, which I relished. Remember in a previous post, featuring the Fish Point Sandspit?

 Here is what that large triangular pond on the east side of the spit looked like, at sunrise.

 As mentioned previously, Pelee Island is an island with a limestone rock base. On the southeast side of the island, there are glacial grooves visible, that were scoured out during the last ice age!

And most of the shoreline is rocky, with slabs of limestone piled up from the recent wave and ice action.

Being a limestone based island, there are several places where rock quarries had been established. Some, like the one in this next photo, known as the Sheridan Point quarry, have been abandoned decades ago.

It is full of water, naturally, as well as having lots of vegetation around and even in it. And it is a haven for snakes, especially the endangered Lake Erie Water Snake. Here, several of them are taking advantage of a fallen tree trunk, to bask in the sunlight.

 This next photo shows the entrance in the rocks to a snake hibernaculum. 

Pelee Island is popular as a destination for people as well, although it takes some effort to get there. For many years, the main method of accessing the island was by a small ferry called the Pelee Islander, shown next. It traveled from either Leamington or Kingsville, to the island, and also made the trip to Ohio. 

 

 Over the years, it was becoming less adequate, and eventually a much larger ferry became the main on, called the Jimaan, or Little Canoe. It was a slightly smaller version of the Big Canoe, the ferry that travels from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island elsewhere in the Great Lakes system. This first photo shows the Jimaan at rest at the West Dock of Pelee Island, ready to depart first thing in the morning to go to Leamington or Kingsville.

...and here it is en route to Ontario.

 There is a lot of shoreline development, not surprisingly, for summer residents that want a shoreline property. Not all of it is developed, yet, and given that there is lots of rare species habitat along the shoreline, it caused challenges for both the landowner as well as people such as myself, whose task it was to try and protect endangered species habitat. And that certainly was one of the main reasons for so many trips over the years, to evaluate habitat. Some landowners, when they were allowed to build, decided to have a raised cottage, in part to reduce the impact on the habitat, but more often to avoid the problems that could arise if there was significant wave action.

And still others got approval, or more likely got away with doing something like what this next photo shows. Since they just piled a large number of large rocks, it did what it was supposed to, and didn't really destroy the sandy shoreline habitat at the outset. What may have become a problem later on, is that all the rocks may have created some type of habitat for things like the Lake Erie Water Snakes, and the landowners may not have wanted that, but since it was created habitat, there wasn't much that could be done to protect it if the landowners decided to alter it in the future.

 At any rate, a lot of undeveloped, but highly sought after, shoreline looked like this next photo, and it was great for several species at risk. We regularly had to examine the site carefully to assess impacts of human development. 

This next photo created an interesting scenario. The shoreline itself already had limestone boulders to protect the road and inland area from storm damage. However before the house was built, it was a fairly extensive and nice wet woods, and there wasn't a lot of that present on the island. However in our investigation, we couldn't determine the value of this wet woods for species at risk, and so the owner got permission to build.

 

After the house was built, and most of the property was altered with lawn, etc., a work colleague and I stopped in to see the owner. At the end of the on site meeting, I was taken aback when in all sincerity, he asked this question: "what could he do to make the property more natural?" I don't recall exactly what my reply was. How does one reply to such a question???

As mentioned earlier, there were various reasons to go to Pelee Island, and one of them was to lead tours for various sized groups, for birding or just exploring the island. In addition to the two main nature reserves, Lighthouse Point and Fish Point on the northeast and southwest corner of the island, there was the Stone Road Alvar, at the southeast part of the island. It wasn't originally an alvar in the true sense, compared to alvars elsewhere in Ontario. It had been altered in the previous century, and so took on the appearance and function of an alvar.  

There were many, many rare species that occurred in or adjacent to it, including such things:

Miami Mist

This next one is of Oval Ladies'-tresses, an extremely rare orchid that I believe was first discovered for Canada on Pelee Island.

 Here is a photo of Marie, Tim and Kristin in the lower left, along a few members of a group I was giving a tour for, back in 1996. We were on the Jimaan ferry.

 

 The Pelee Island story will continue in a future post.

 

 

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