By John Francis
Councillor Megan Myles (she can keep the title until November 15) is doing an MSc in Rural Planning at the University of Guelph. One of her courses is called “Healthy Rural Communities”. She and a few classmates are researching and writing an “Active Transportation Plan” for Tobermory as their course project.
She asked me for input for her project, so I dutifully gave her a list of (what I think ought to be) the highest priorities for walking/cycling paths in Tobermory. (Note that I say paths rather than sidewalks — there is no need for pavement except on hills where erosion would be a problem.)
For the record, I think the locations most urgently in need of paths are:
1) Bay St N, from the Princess to Earl St
2) Harpur Drive and Earl St
3) Big Tub Road
4) Legion St
5) Brock St/Nicholas St
But that got me thinking about what a walkable/cycleable community would look like, both from a tourist’s point of view and a resident’s point of view.
Which got me to thinking about the most walkable/cycleable destinations I’ve been to: Cinque Terra. Florence and Venice, Italy; Tavira, Portugal; Seville, Spain; Sanibel Island, Florida; Mackinac Island, Michigan. These leap to mind, but there are many others. (Very few of them in Canada, by the way, other than Lion’s Head.)
What do these places have in common? A whole bunch of things to do and things to look at, close enough together that you can just walk (or cycle) from one to the next. It makes walking/strolling/cycling a pleasure.
Venice is probably the best example — there are no wheeled vehicles at all and nobody misses them. Strolling about is what you go to Venice for.
Lion’s Head is one of those perfect places. With a kilometre or so of public shoreline, including a gorgeous sand beach; with Bruce Trail segments heading north and south and the Lookout trail going east; with a tight downtown core offering restaurants, a pub and a full range of retail. All within fifteen minutes on foot or five minutes on a bike. What more could a resident (or a visitor) ask?
Tobermory is a very different scenario. It has much less public shoreline and almost no attractive public shoreline.
The east side of the harbour is mostly low cliffs or rough rocks. The ferry dock is, well, butt ugly. A monstrosity of pavement and concrete where the village’s business core used to be. The Government of Ontario expropriated the guts of Tobermory’s commercial sector to put in that parking lot. Was there room elsewhere? Yep. There still is. They could easily re-jigger the ferry dock to free up a couple of hundred feet of shoreline. But I digress…
The east side of Tobermory Harbour offers a wonderful view, or at least it would if there was a comfortable place to stand and the view wasn’t blocked by trees and scrub.
Europe figured this out centuries ago. They built belvederes. (Wikipedia tells us that the word is derived from the Italian for “beautiful view”; “…an architectural structure sited to take advantage of a fine or scenic view”.
Tobermory and Northern Bruce Peninsula Chamber of Commerce is proposing a viewing deck on the south side of Little Tub Harbour by the Minch anchor. This is a brilliant idea and I encourage our new Council to jump on it with both feet — it’s also an easy way to show people that we’re doing something with their paid parking revenues.
But the Minch Belvedere (sounds better, doesn’t it?) should not be a one-off. It should be the proof of concept, the prototype, the first of many.
Imagine another belvedere further down the harbour, just above the fisheries. A couple more north of the fisheries, including an expansion of the existing “Tugs” snorkel/dive platform.
And don’t forget the “Gap”. Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a belvedere there? Back at the top of the low cliff, so it wouldn’t interfere with people using the shoreline?
We could build all of those in the next ten years with paid parking revenues and have money left over when we’re done.
And what a difference it would make to our community! With attractive places spread out around the village, it would become a place to just stroll around and soak up the ambience. The commercial sector would grow up around that new pattern of movement, which would make the village even more attractive.
One of the important things about strolling is that it’s not weather-dependent. It’s just as much fun on a mild day in November as on a hot day in August. We’re already seeing a lot of visitors before Victoria Day and after Thanksgiving. Let’s give them — and ourselves — a better village to stroll around.
And a hundred years from now, what will our villages look like? My guess is that there will be a lot of belvederes, a lot of places to experience the shoreline and look out over the water.
For a sneak preview of the possibilities, look at Tobermory online in Bruce County Map Factory. Look at the unopened road allowances. There’s one at North Point, three along the shores of Big Tub Harbour. Plus Dunks Bay, of course. Tobermory could be a wonderful place to just stroll.
But it all starts with building the Minch Anchor Belvedere.
