Virtual Tour: Archibald Homestead

The Archibald Homestead is about 170 acres, consisting of fields, forest, and rocky shoreline. Historically, this was an operational farm, but in recent years, farming had stopped and TKC started to become concerned with the ecological health of the property. The opportunity arose for TKC to purchase the property to protect it in perpetuity, which we did. 

When TKC acquired the property, we conducted thousands and thousands of dollars worth of environmental cleanup, removing old buildings, trailers, tires, barrels, and other items that were having a negative impact on the property. 

In the fields, we planted over 20,000 of trees in an attempt to turn them back into forests. The trees are coming up very well. In a few spots, the trees are actually taller than me now! There are some photos of these trees further down this post. We also have a Managed Forest Plan on the property. I'm definitely looking forward to seeing what the fields look like 20 years from now. I'm sure it'll look very different that it does now.

Rock Polypody, a species of fern that's commonly found growing in rocky areas

I started off my tour by exploring the shoreline south of the parking lot. With the calm water, clear skies, and beautiful scenery, I couldn't help but take a variety of scenic photos. This area is known as the Portlock Harbour. Just to the west of this property are Portlock Island and Dawson Island, two large islands that are mostly Crown land, but also have cottages on them.

As I was exploring the shoreline, I saw a female Yellow-rumped Warbler up in a pine tree. I got my binoculars on it and then noticed that it hopped into a nest! She sat there for a few seconds, but by the time I got my camera up, she flew off again. After examining my photo of the nest, it doesn't look like it's complete yet, so she's probably still busy working on it. I'll have to check this out again in a week or two to see how her progress is going. I did some research afterwards and they typically nest on a horizontal branch of a hemlock, spruce, pine, or cedar trees, so this location makes sense!

There were some birds out on the water as well. There were about a dozen Common Mergansers, a female is shown below. There were also some Canada Geese, Common Goldeneyes, Wood Ducks, and Double-crested Cormorants. I got a flight shot of one of the Wood Ducks as it flew by me. 

There wasn't a ton of plant variety yet, but there was definitely a little bit more than the last two weeks. In order below, we have Canada mayflower, an unknown species of haircap moss, yellow trout lily, bearberry, pipsissewa, and bitter wintercress. I'm guessing that my virtual tour for next week should have a few more flowers to show off!

I finally found some wildlife that wasn't a bird or a squirrel! There is a small creek that flows out into the Portlock Harbour and acts as the south end of the Archibald Homestead's boundary. As I approached the creek, I heard a splash into the water, and it sounded bigger than a splash that a frog would make. Luckily, the culprit stuck its head back up out of the water. It was a Painted Turtle!

At the very south end of the property, just above where the creek flows into the lake, there is a little open area that used to be used as a campsite. A small building still remains here. From this point, you can actually see right across to the Hilton Beach area on St. Joseph Island!

From here, I retraced my steps back to the parking lot then down the road out towards the entrance to the property. I stopped to see how the site of the old farmhouse was doing. Below is the photo of what it currently looks like, followed by a photo of the old house from before it was torn down. As much as we would've liked to keep the house there, it had just become too much of a liability and would've cost too much money to restore.

With the warm and sunny weather, butterflies are out along the road here. I saw three of them, two Northern Spring Azures (first photo below) and a Mourning Cloak (second photo below). 

There's an small gravel pit on the property. This is where a lot of the cleanup efforts were concentrated, as there was a lot of garbage dumped in the pit. After is was all removed, trees were planted. After each year that goes by, it's less and less obvious that this used to be a gravel pit!

On the edge of the gravel pit is a low area that gets a lot of water if we get a wet spring. A pair of Mallards flew out of it as I approached it. I looked around it to see if I could find any frogs, or maybe another turtle, but no such luck. 

Here are two photos of the trees coming up in one of the fields.

My visit to the Archibald Homestead finished with a Sandhill Crane flying over my head. Throughout the morning, I managed to record over 60 species of birds on the property. Most of them were singing away! I'm glad that this significant piece of property is protected so that all the wildlife species can thrive on it. 

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