Long Point, Ontario

This page relates to a sandspit in Norfolk County, Ontario. For other places called Long Point, see Long Point (disambiguation)

Long Point, Ontario
—  Unincorporated hamlet in Norfolk County  —
Long Point Peninsula with bright sediment plumes. (The top of the image points southwest, rather than north.) Source: NASA
Long Point, Ontario Location of Long Point in Ontario
Coordinates: 42°32′51″N 80°3′33″W
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Established
Amalgamated	2001 (Single-tier municipality)
Government
• Mayor	Dennis Travale
• Governing Body	The Council of The Corporation of Norfolk County
• MPs	Diane Finley (Con)
• MPPs	Toby Barrett (PC)
Elevation	210 m (690 ft)
Time zone	EST (UTC-5)
• Summer (DST)	EDT (UTC-4)
Postal code span	1M0
Area code(s)	519 and 226
Website	www.norfolkcounty.ca

Long Point is a sand spit and medium-sized hamlet on the north shore of Lake Erie, part of Norfolk County in the province of Ontario, Canada.

It is about 40 kilometres long and is about a kilometre across at its widest point. Lake Erie lies to the south of Long Point, and the waters to the north side comprise Long Point Bay. The bay is subdivided into the Inner Bay and Outer Bay by a line that runs between Turkey Point to the north and Pottahawk Point to the south. Some of the towns along the bay's north shore include Port Rowan, Turkey Point and Port Dover. Long Point is north and across the lake from Erie, Pennsylvania.

Summary

The year-round population is about 450 people, but the population increases to about 5,000 in summer months when cottagers and campers visit. Long Point is popular destination for boating, swimming, fishing, waterfowl-hunting and canoeing, and more than 100,000 visitors each year. A large portion of Long Point is owned by The Long Point Company, a private organization that does not allow the public onto its property. Because of this, the bulk of homes, cottages and business are within the first few kilometres of the causeway that carries the road between Long Point and the mainland.

The recently renovated Old Cut Lighthouse.

In the 19th century, a powerful storm cut an opening through the middle of Long Point. A Lighthouse was built alongside the channel, which was the first of several on the Point. The opening became known as "The Old Cut." The Cut has since closed along the lakeshore, but boaters continue to use the northern portion to access the bay, homes and cottages.

During the mid-19th century some of local residents saw an opportunity to make easy money by "blackbirding." Blackbirding consisted of erecting fake lighthouses during times of low visibility. Ships trying to enter the old cut would run aground. When the crew abandoned ship the blackbirders would loot the ship of cargo and other valuables. With law enforcement based in London, Ontario, these blackbirders would store their loot on the many hiding spots that Long Point offered.

Another famous story about Long Point concerns Abigail Becker, a woman in the 19th century who waded into stormy waters to save the crew of a boat that had run aground. Long Point has caused many shipwrecks, with many of the more fascinating wrecks being right off the tip of point. More than 400 ships have sunk in an area called "The Lake Erie Quadrangle".

The region is an important location for bird migration in both spring and autumn, including half of the eastern North American Tundra Swan population. The region is a major staging area for many breeds of waterfowl.

"Long Point itself is one of the most important wetland complexes for migrating waterfowl in southern Canada, and is reported to receive the highest waterfowl use (based on numbers of waterfowl days during spring and fall migration) of any area on the Great Lakes (approximately 4 million days per year). Up to 30,000 Tundra Swans pass through the area in spring, and up to 8% of the world's Canvasbacks congregate in the area on any one day during spring and fall," according to a report by the Long Point World Biosphere Reserve.

In 1960, the Long Point Bird Observatory was established to monitor migrant birds on the Point. It is North America's oldest bird observatory. Asa result of a growing national focus towards saving the birds, the organization was renamed Bird Studies Canada in 1998. Its national headquarters overlooks Long Point Inner Bay on the western limits of Port Rowan.

Long Point is an outstanding example of sand dune and sand-spit formation in the Great Lakes region. In 1982, Long Point National Wildlife Area^(fr) was recognized as a wetland of international significance under the Ramsar Convention. It was designated as a World Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1986. The Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources classifies Long Point as a Macrosite, an area that contains numerous ecological or geological significant zones, such as Areas of Natural and Scientific Interest.

Long Point is the location of an Ontario provincial park, Long Point Provincial Park, a popular destination for day visitors and campers.

Criticism

Despite being recognized as a Biosphere, UNESCO World Heritage Site and home to migrating bird and resident marsh and beach species found nowhere else on the Planet, Long Point finds itself under increasing developmental pressure as a result of the actions of a few of the Councillors of Norfolk County. This group of four or five of the nine Councillors, lead by the Mayor, Dennis Travale, (who also voted in support of a condominium development project in this sensitive wildlife area, even against the recommendations of the Ministry of Natural Resources), and using methods that can best be described as "Avatar-ish", acted independently to clear cut and gravel over sensitive marsh land to put in roughly 250 additional parking spaces, adding to the more than one thousand parking spaces that already existed.

This clear-cutting, which may have involved trespassing on Crown Land, was done without even the most basic of environmental studies or consultations with area residents and has placed tremendous additional pressure on the severely threatened “species-at-risk” Fowler Toad, along with the more than 36 other endangered species that call the area home. Many of the Councillors' attitudes seems to be, “Who cares if another species is made extinct, as long as visitors to the region don’t have to pay $14.00 per day to use one of the area’s two well-established Provincial Parks.” In the meantime, the Environmental Commissioner of Ontario recently released a policy statement that said that Ontario’s biodiversity is in a state of “urgent crisis.”

The majority of the residents who live full-time in Long Point are battling to stop these non-environmentally aware Councillors from further negatively affecting this delicate region, but there is concern that it will take significant effort to stop the encroachment as well as try to help the area recover from what has already been done. It is also of interest to note that none of the Council members who supported clear-cutting as a means to achieve greater free parking are Long Point residents, and that the other Councillors who are intimately familiar with the area or who have lived in it themselves are also fighting to protect the region from this mindless destruction.

One area resident was quoted as saying, “It’s amazing to me that the Mayor and some of the other Council members want their legacy amongst their children and their grandchildren, as well as all the other children on the planet, to be one of being remembered for destroying one of Canada’s greatest nature preserves. They are literally paving over paradise to put in a parking lot.” Further to this, the environmental destruction taking place is of even greater importance as the period from 2011 to 2020 has been declared the “International Decade for Biodiversity” by the United Nations.

Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary General, 2010 said, “Let us reflect on the root causes of biodiversity decline and take action to arrest it. Let us adjust policies and mind-sets to reflect the true value of species and habitats. Let us recognize that biodiversity is life - our life. Let us act now to preserve it, before it is too late.” One can only assume that the Mayor and his fellow Councillors who support the destruction of a Biosphere and UNESCO World Heritage site haven’t yet come to realize that they also live on a planet whose very existence depends on responsible actions taken from a perspective well beyond the front seat of their Hummers.

Gallery

Views of Long Point, Ontario

The marshes of Long Point, as seen from the Provincial Park.   A flock of gulls on the beach.   Lake Erie   View of a channel through the marsh in Long Point Bay.

See also

• List of shipwrecks
• List of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Canada

References

Lore and Legends of Long Point, Harry B. Barrett, Burns and MacEachearn 1977, ISBN 0-887168-075-5

Long Point Last Port of Call, David Stone, Boston Mills Press, 1988, ISBN 0-919783-39-7

Waters Of Repose, Dave Stone and David Frew, Erie County Historical Society 1993, ISBN 1-883658-19-5

External links

• Long Point Provincial Park
• Long Point Provincial Park Campgrounds
• The Long Point Bird Observatory
• Hunting and fishing website This site is mostly a pay per click site.