How do you move a creek?
At some point in the 1960s, McMaster University did just that. Like many universities, McMaster owns a significant amount of land beyond the main campus. In the postwar era, that campus was besieged by a startling increase in the number of faculty, staff, and some students driving to get to the office or to class. This was, in part, due to the Baby Boomers coming of age and becoming the first generation in history to flock en masse to university, rather than seek employment straight out of high school. Responding quickly to the cultural shift postwar affluence had brought to southern Ontario, McMaster immediately started planning for ways to manage cars on campus, and this included the practicalities of where people could park.
Initial proposals in 1964 focused on the land immediately surrounding campus, with the aim to build a parking garage to contain the “nuisance” of cars on campus. However, McMaster borders Westdale, a wealthy “original six” suburb whose residents protested the destruction of Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary, which comprises 99% of the unaltered Lake Ontario shoreline and is managed by the Royal Botanical Gardens. When the university shifted its plans to construct a garage at the centre of campus, students protested, and pushed instead for a car-free campus.
It was then that university administration decided to focus its plans on land located on the other side of Cootes Drive. This land fit the desired specs perfectly as it didn’t border any residential areas, and it was located far enough away from the central campus, but close enough that able-bodied staff and students could walk there. The only problem was that there was a creek running through this land. Illustrating an approach to land management so common at the time that Joni Mitchell wrote a song about it, McMaster decided to simply “move” Ancaster Creek and pave over its original location and connecting springs.
Since Parking Lot M (as it is now known) was constructed, McMaster has lost all institutional memory of “the time before” they moved the creek, and only now are asking questions about its original location as plans for a new Indigenous Studies Centre are taking shape and a desire to move Ancaster Creek back to its original location is gaining popularity.
As a member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Natural Lands (PACNL), I thought a historical study of the land Parking Lot M now covers could add context to McMaster’s future plans for the site. I was preparing to teach a grad class on Canadian Environmental History at the time, and decided that investigating the history of Ancaster Creek would be an exciting project for the class. I have always believed that the study of history has a direct application to present and future issues, and this was a way I could demonstrate this to my graduate students.
Central to the project was the support of Wayne Terryberry, a key PACNL member and Coordinator, Outdoor Recreation and Natural Lands. Wayne completed an MA in McMaster’s Department of History on Hamilton’s Conservation Authority and is a fountain of knowledge on the university’s land. Wayne took my class on a 2-hour hike through the area surrounding the current location of Ancaster Creek during the first week of the semester, revealing layer upon layer of history as he did so. Students were delighted by the deer tracks, the rewilding, the hidden infrastructure of a defunct railway, and so much more as we walked the area as a method of research so intrinsic to environmental history.
Students were then tasked with identifying an aspect of Ancaster Creek’s history, researching it, and writing a short piece detailing what they discovered. I always want students to break free of the traditional essay model and add to their professional online profiles through academic work. These research write-ups were going to populate an ArcGIS StoryMap for a collaborative study of Ancaster Creek’s history. I’m still so impressed with the amount of work my students put into this assignment, with one even becoming so enthralled by what he was discovering in the archives that it changed the trajectory of his upcoming PhD project.
The StoryMap reflects the individuality of each of my students in terms of which aspects of the land’s history they chose to focus on. This includes Haudenosaunee cultural understandings of waterways like the creek, soldiers appropriating livestock during the War of 1812, property law in Upper Canada impacting the women descendants of Thayendanegea/Joseph Brant, flora and fauna, conservation efforts and more: each entry tells a unique, yet interconnected story of this land and offers McMaster an opportunity to learn from the past as it plans for the future.
My students did phenomenal work on this project and are rightly proud of what they’ve produced and how it looks online. In fact, they’re still talking about the project and the ways it’s helped them see McMaster’s land differently, this semester. If McMaster ever does decide to rip out Parking Lot M and return Ancaster Creek to its original location, they will have contributed a foundational study to its reclamation. Please take some time to explore the various microhistories they’ve uncovered. If you’re coming to CHESS 2025, we can take some time to follow this map and travel back in time to uncover the deep history of Ancaster Creek.
