Sharon Boddy, Community Activist, Writer and Founder of Friends of Hampton Park
“What some consider fun building material—the plants, twigs and branches lying around on the forest floor—is the breakfast, lunch and dinner of the next generation of healthy soil and, by extension, healthy trees. When it’s moved, the forest is being put on a diet it shouldn’t be on.”
Photos: Tree Fest Ottawa
Q.1. When did you first become interested in plants, trees and nature? Do you have a particular childhood memory associated with spending time in a forest?
I can’t remember a time that I wasn’t interested! I was born into a family with a dog, so I connected with animals first. Before I left home at 19, I’d lived with some combination of dogs, cats, hamsters, gerbils, rabbits, goldfish, and budgies. My mum liked nature documentaries so I learned about habitat protection early on. I loved the Hinterland Who’s Who public service announcements and used to collect Canadian Wildlife Federation nature booklets. I wish I still had some of those.
Our house was surrounded by trees with a huge sugar maple on one side, a cedar hedge on the other (which was later taken out and replaced with another maple), two spruces and what was likely a horse chestnut along the back. Considering how keen I am on mushrooms now, I was terrified of a particular mushroom that grew on a tree on a nearby street. It’s a type of tooth fungus, but when I was three or four years old it looked like brains and two of my sisters took particular delight in tormenting me with scary stories of evil fungi.
In high school, my Environmental Studies teacher took our class to Hampton Park to identify tree species. More than likely, that’s when I started to become a tree geek. My local park suddenly became that much more interesting because I suddenly knew a little bit more about it. And of all the textbooks I had in high school, Native Trees of Canada by R.C. Hosie is the only one I kept.
Photos of Hampton Park, including some of the high impact activities such as mountain biking through the woods, that threaten the future of the forest.
Q.2. What is your connection to Hampton Park, a relatively large urban park with a woodlot and significant mature trees? What does Hampton Park mean to you?
My parents bought a house on Helena Street in 1965 and I was born in 1966. I lived on the east side of the park for the first 20 years, and on the west side for the last 30, so not only was I probably in Hampton Park before I was born, I’ve always considered the park an extension of my own backyard.
As a kid I walked our dogs, paddled at the pool (and almost drowned when another kid sat on me), read books, picked raspberries, looked for tadpoles, played on the swings, and skated on some of the ponds that show up every year along Island Park Drive.
Hampton has always been my go-to place. These days, I may plan for only a quick walk but I won’t get home until two hours later. I can easily get waylaid by a mushroom, a tree, an insect, or a conversation.
I work as a freelance environmental researcher and writer, and spend my free time as an amateur naturalist and forager, so Hampton Park is a living lab that I can use for my own professional development. By observing the forest and its environs closely, for such a long time, I’ve seen firsthand what the impacts are and will continue to be, and have deepened my knowledge on a range of environmental, financial, and social issues.
Q.3. Can you briefly describe the trees that live in Hampton? What are the main species found in the park and how old are they?
Hampton is a mixed deciduous forest with some very large conifers. There are at least 40 species of tree including oak, pine, spruce, apple, elm, tamarack, hemlock, yellow and white birch, aspen, ironwood, black cherry, and several species of elm and of maple. There are also some invasive tree species, such as Japanese tree lilac.
In two official species inventories (NCC, 1977 and City of Ottawa, 2003), the three most significant species in Hampton are Sugar Maple, American Beech, and Eastern White Pine.
Sugar Maples are a dominant species in the park and some of the largest ones are likely between 200 or 250 years old.
Some of the American Beeches could be even older. One was estimated by Owen Clarkin of Ottawa Field Naturalists Club to be between 250-300 years old. Beeches grow slowly but seed easily so their nuts are a great source of food for wildlife.
I’m not sure of the ages of some of the larger Eastern White Pines. This species grows quite fast, as much as half a metre (about 2 feet) per year, so they are likely under 100 years old.
The forest has different eco-zones that can support different types of tree species. For example, the largest conifers can only be found in the northern section of the woods. There, the ground slopes and the soil is drier. The southern section, however, has more clay soil and is too wet for them. The evergreen species that have been planted, and have survived more than five years, are on the edge of the southern woods, not within them.
Q.4. How long have you been involved with the community group Friends of Hampton Park, which works to preserve and protect the park? What led you to initiate this volunteer group?
I formed Friends of Hampton Park in March 2019. I had been working with Friends of Carlington Hill in River Ward on matters affecting the Carlington Woods since 2016. Carlington Park was another fixture of my childhood because of the old ski slope, and I had “rediscovered” it about 15 years ago when I started foraging.
Despite tree canopy damage in 1998 from the Ice Storm, the Hampton Woods took a real nosedive when the NCC removed 400+ diseased ash trees in January 2015. Without the trees to shade out invasive species and block new entrances, invasives took off, and more unofficial trails were made into the woods, damaging the surrounding vegetation and soil.
For several years I had been controlling some invasive species and picking up trash on my own, but by 2019 it was abundantly clear that I couldn’t do it alone anymore.
Q.5. In recent years, the pressures on the park have increased. What are the main threats to the health and ecological integrity of Hampton Park?
I’d say that there are three main threats: climate change, invasive species, and population pressures.
Climate change models for the Ottawa area haven’t changed much in the last three decades. All UN International Panel on Climate Change models indicate warmer and wetter. In Ottawa’s case, we’ve already seen far more extreme storms than normal, including the record floods of 2017 and 2019 and the tornadoes of 2018. Extreme storms have felled dozens of trees in Hampton Park in recent years, or severely damaged their canopy leaving them open to disease or infestation.
Invasive species include both insects and plants. For example, the emerald ash borer, an invasive insect, destroyed all of the mature ash trees in Hampton Park (400+). Japanese knotweed, a highly invasive plant, has all but wiped out a decades-old Ostrich fern colony. There are more than 20 known invasive species in Hampton Park.
Population pressures are perhaps the most insidious. No one wants to stop people coming to the park and enjoying the woods but the scale at which it’s happening isn’t sustainable. The local population has increased dramatically in the last five years, and several new large residential developments are on the park’s doorstep.
High impact activities include making new trails, building forts, digging soil, moving forest debris, and using wheels of any kind (bikes, wagons, strollers) in the woods. What some consider fun building material—the plants, twigs and branches lying around on the forest floor—is the breakfast, lunch and dinner of the next generation of healthy soil and, by extension, healthy trees. When it’s moved, the forest is being put on a diet it shouldn’t be on.
These activities and the increased human and dog traffic have created soil conditions in Hampton Park that almost guarantee young trees won’t reach maturity. Even aggressive plants, like Lily of the Valley, have been almost completely eradicated from some places. Trees need those smaller plants for aeration and to provide leaf litter for proper soil health.
Q.6. In your opinion, how could people enjoy the park while doing 'no harm'?
Walk slowly. Go alone every once in a while and consider leaving the dog at home. Put the phone away. Stop every now and again and just have a slow look round, listen, smell.
Always be curious. Hampton Park is such a great outdoor classroom for students of all ages, and it can be tied to almost any issue, interest, or school curriculum. I love seeing how many more people are using sites like iNaturalist and eBird to deepen their understanding of the species in Hampton Park.
I walk in the park almost every day, but only about once a week in the woods themselves. Regardless of my intentions, I’m still having an impact, so I’ll do a once weekly woods walk to pick up litter, or check for downed trees or signs of damage. I don’t expect anyone else to restrict their access like I do, but not being in the woods is my way of protecting them.
Eastern White Pine and friends.