Story

There is only one Niagara Escarpment. It’s one of Canada’s natural wonders and it is recognised globally as a UNESCO biosphere.

It’s our wild place here in Southern Georgian Bay and we need your help and donations to save it.

The Niagara Escarpment is our natural corridor. It’s home to old-growth trees, the headwaters of our rivers, ancient rocks, and countless rare flora and fauna. It’s our source of well-being and our escape to nature. It’s a rare gem and it’s our responsibility to protect it.

But, legacy planning decisions, some five decades old, are now a massive threat to this 450-million-year-old “masterpiece of living art”.

And no threat is bigger than the proposed new Castle Glen Development in the Blue Mountains.

If completed, the development will:

• Ruin the largest undeveloped property on the brow of the escarpment in the entire Collingwood / Blue Mountains area;
• Destroy vast amounts of forest and ecologically sensitive land across 1,532 acres;
• Build 1,600 homes, 2 hotels, 3 golf courses, kilometers of paved roads and hardscaping; and
• Devastate the essence of the escarpment with 54,000 sq. ft. of retail commercial space and a gas station – right on the Bruce Trail!

Our wild escarpment spaces will be replaced by a brand new mega-development larger than the town of Thornbury … a mega-development larger than any other in the history of the Niagara Escarpment Commission.

Great Gulf Homes, one of North America’s largest developers, acquired the Castle Glen property in April 2021 and inherited great-great-grandfathered approvals dating back to 1971 – over 50 years ago! Everyone knows that these approvals would never be granted today, so why are our local and provincial governments letting this happen? Our elected officials cannot allow our most sensitive natural spaces to be destroyed for corporate profits!

Castle Glen is the epitome of short-sighted, inappropriate development. It should be our newest Provincial Park, not a mega-development perched on the brow of the beautiful Niagara Escarpment. To learn more about the proposed Castle Glen development please listen to the CBC Ontario Morning feature interview and watch a recent deputation made to the Blue Mountains council.

Please support our fight to save Castle Glen.

Other glaring examples of tragic planning mistakes across the Escarpment of Southern Georgian Bay include the development of the Talisman lands and the Silver Creek Wetlands. And, as the second fastest growing area in Canada, development pressures across the region are only increasing. We need to stand up and say “enough” and we need to do so with urgency.

We are asking our governments to work with us and save, not just Castle Glen, but create a fully protected land and park system that stretches from Devil’s Glen to Georgian Peaks, from Castle Glen through Duncan and Kolapore and up and down the Beaver Valley. Protected. Deeded. Not subject to a Planning Act that could be rescinded at any time with a stroke of the pen.

Where it all started. 

Please help us keep our wild spaces on the Niagara Escarpment.

Please donate today!

This Small Change Fund project is in partnership with the Escarpment Corridor Alliance.