Submitted by Sources of Knowledge
With 14 speakers and a geology hike, our 14th annual Forum was a great success. Approximately 90 – including 70 registered attendees, speakers and significant others – enjoyed a great banquet catered by Pharos restaurant. Our speakers included leaders in the field of sustainable tourism (ST) representing business, tourism, government, citizens’ groups and a variety of agencies, and provided a wide range of knowledge on ST.
The official program began Friday with Daryl Cowell leading a geological field trip (geotourism) in the Dyers Bay area. This area is rich geologically including a flowing sinkhole, fractured bedrock, an approximately 420-million-year-old reef complex, a small cave/spring complex, and, of course, the famous Devil’s Monument flowerpot. The evening concluded with a light-hearted talk from Simon Appolloni (University of Toronto), where he suggests greater emphasis on the interaction among environment, culture and the economy is essential when discussing ST.
Saturday began with an opening prayer from a SON Elder, and formal welcomes from SON, the SOK program chair, Parks Canada, and the Municipality of Northern Bruce Peninsula.
Saturday’s formal program commenced with Michael Hallé discussing business opportunities for tourism within the Niagara Escarpment’s Biosphere including tour package products. He was followed by our Municipality’s CAO, Peggy van Mierlo-West, who summarized the formation of a Sustainable Tourism Action Group (STAG) in 2018 and the subsequent development of a Sustainable Tourism Action Plan (STAP).
Caley Doran from SON’s environment office provided an indigenous perspective including a brief history of Treaty Agreements (and broken agreements!) and detailed recent educational and infrastructure activities in Cape Croker Park. The morning concluded with Ethan Meleg updating attendees on visitation in the national parks including trends and sustainable management of visitor activities.
Saturday afternoon began with a presentation from GreenStep (William Hogg) which has become a leading consulting group in the area of ST including certification of businesses and destinations. Former councilor Megan Myles then examined ST in terms of “A Low Carbon” future which looked at the intersection of tourism and climate change. This included a discussion of actions by several communities in Grey, Bruce and Dufferin counties. Megan also introduced a citizen’s led stewardship initiative to focus tourism within the Beaver Valley Watershed to local communities. Kate Russel, a member of the Beaver Valley Destination Stewardship group, followed up with more details on their program.
The afternoon ended with a guided hike provided by the Peninsula Bruce Trail Club after a hopeful talk from the Meeting Place (TMP) about an e-bike social enterprise. Presented by Noreen Steinacher and Erik Koning, this is a collaboration between TMP and Westlake E-Bikes to provide e-bikes for short or long-term rental to seasonal residents and tourists alike who want to change up how they’re travelling locally, or who may not have transportation otherwise.
Tony Piggott, Executive Director of DEEPTIME, was our guest speaker following the banquet. He outlined plans and opportunities associated with the development of a UNESCO Global Geopark for the Georgian Bay region. Geoparks are platforms for education, research, geotourism and community involvement. This will be the world’s largest, focusing on 8 subregions (“Chapters”) including our own Saugeen Peninsula, Manitoulin, Georgian Bay itself, the southern shore and 4 others north and east of the Bay.
Sunday morning, as usual, was open to the community at large and featured local ST actions undertaken by our regional tourism organization (RTO7), a provincially supported arms-length agency covering tourism in Bruce, Grey and Simcoe counties. Kim Clarke, well known in our community, provided a summary of RTO7’s activities including recognitions of “Tourism’s Invisible Burdens”, that is, financial and cultural costs to host communities associated with capacity constraints.
The program finished with a workshop consisting of four local residents representing tourism businesses (Darci Lombard – Summer House Park, and Adam Robins – Escarpment Heights Motel); government (Councilor Laurie “Smokey” Golden); and eco-tourism (Elizabeth Thorn – Bruce Peninsula Biosphere Association) followed by questions and open discussion.
For a more in-depth overview of the event, visit our website (www.sourcesofknowledge.ca). All formal presentations will be made available as podcasts, streaming details will be announced soon. Attendees are also asked to go to our website to fill out our feedback form so we can continue to refine and improve the SoK Forum experience.
We want to thank Parks Canada and their staff for hosting all of the formal presentations on Friday evening, Saturday morning and afternoon, and Sunday morning.
