Cedar Trail

The Cedar Trail will lead you through some important deer habitat. The cedar that you see here not only provides good shelter for the deer during winter but it is also an important food source. A good example of succession is evident along this trail where a field is slowly returning to a forest.

White Birch
White, paper-like bark peels easily. Birch sap can be processed like maple sap to make a molasses-like syrup.

Juneberry
Note the smooth bark marked with vertical lines. Many Indian tribes mixed the berries with dried meat and fat to make pemmican.

Rotting Log
This is home to decomposers - organisms (such as mushrooms and fungi and many insects) who break down and return dead tissues to the environment.

Sugar Shanty
This trail leads 10 the remains of an old sugar cabin. Some maple syrup facts:

• it takes 30 to 40 litres of sap to produce one litre of syrup;
• it takes 30 to 70 years for a tree to reach a tapable size of 25 cm in diameter; and
• sap flows when there are frosty nights of -3°C or lower and warm, sunny days of + 2°C or higher .

Ironwood
Ironwood can be identified by its bark which breaks into narrow, vertical strips that are easily rubbed off. Usually a small tree, there is an exception near the end of the Red-wing Trail on the left hand side. Try to spot it!

Owl Pellets
Owls have been observed in these big pines. Look under the trees for signs of a successful hunt --- pellets. Owl pellets are sausage- shaped clumps of the indigestible parts (fir, feathers, bones, beaks, claws, tails, etc.) that the owl "coughs up".

Beaver Felled Trees
Building a dam and flooding an area makes for easier transport of the gnawed limbs to the colony. However, a beaver will go to great lengths (including crossing highways) to fell a tree, cut off a branch and drag it to the water .

Basswood
Note the large, heart-shaped leaves. The soft, light wood is valued by hand-carvers.

Turtle Nests
Early June finds snapping turtles laying their approximately 20 to 30 eggs in holes they dig along the bike path. It also finds raccoons and skunks digging up the nests and devouring the eggs!

Poison Ivy
A vine or shrub with glossy green (summer) or bright red (fall) leaflets in threes. Contact with any part of the plant may result in a severe rash.

Queen Anne's Lace (white) / Chicory (blue)
From fall to early spring the roots are edible. Queen Anne's Lace can be cooked like garden carrots and Chicory can be roasted and ground to make coffee.

Milkweed
Poisonous to most animals, milkweed is the sole diet of Monarch caterpillars. As a result, they (and the butterflies they become) are toxic to potential predators.

Royal Fern
A large, wetland fern with spore cases in dense clusters at the top of fertile fronds (stalks).

Woodpecker Holes
The Pileated Woodpecker drills large, rectangular or oval holes and extracts insects with its barbed tongue. These cavities in turn provide shelter and nesting habitat for other species.

This information piece is funded by the Canada Trust Friends of the Environment Foundation and its customers. To find out how you can participate, visit your local Canada Trust branch.