Published: July 29, 2016
When it’s steaming hot in Toronto, it’s heartening to know that less than an hour away there is a huge stretch of land where you can walk in the shade past spectacular waterfalls and streams, or check out the berries and the latest greens that the farmers are cultivating on the land.
All this is only a short drive from a major metropolis.
It’s called The Greenbelt.
I’ve spent plenty of Sundays walking on the Bruce Trail, but like most people, I didn’t know that Ontario has the largest Greenbelt in the world.
The light turned on when Burkhard Mausberg, CEO of Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation, came to us with a fascinating manuscript about how the Greenbelt happened, and some incredible pictures that show the diversity of this vast belt of green.
I’m pleased to announce we’ll be publishing his book next spring, and we’ve just named it The Greenbelt: Protecting and Cultivating a Great Ontario Treasure.
Cover design by Gary Beelik is underway, and Gary has his pick of amazing pictures of waterfalls, the Niagara escarpment, the rich agricultural lands north of Toronto, and the Oak Ridges Moraine.
It’s quite a story. Three premiers induced the provincial legislatures to pass laws to protect this land from development, and it’s a good thing they did, because as the book says, the land protects and nurtures us, and our mental and physical health.
Yet the real stars of the book are the people inhabiting the Greenbelt. They make beer and wine. The climb up cliffs and bike through vineyards and fields. They grow the berries and greens that I just bought last weekend at the farmer’s market at the Brickworks.
This will be a celebration of their achievement in protecting and cultivating the Greenbelt, and it’s just the kind of book that we’re proud to publish.
