POINTS OF INTEREST
Gow's Bridge
This 1897 stone arch bridge replaced an earlier wooden bridge which offered an alternative route through the Beverly Swamp so travellers could escape the tolls on Highway 6 leading to Hamilton, a private road in the mid-1800s. The bridge is named after the owner of a tannery that sat on the South bank.
McCrae House
The childhood home of John McCrae, a doctor and soldier during WW1 and the famous poet who wrote “In Flander’s Fields”.
It sits on the far side of Water Street (stone cottage with the cedar shake roof, beyond the tan apartments). Inside this small museum are McCrae’s war medals, purchased for $400,000 at an auction by Toronto entrepreneur Arthur Lee. These were donated to the museum in 1997 as Lee’s thanks to Canada for his success since emigrating from Hong Kong.
The Boathouse
Our starting point! Home to a canoe club in the 1890s, a dance hall in the 1930s, and the Sea Cadets until 1995, this City-owned building was rescued from the prospect of demolition by the efforts of Heritage Guelph and others, and by the current operator of the restaurant, who carefully restored it under a private/public partnership agreement.
The Covered Bridge
Over the Speed River on your left, hundreds of delegates to the American Timber Framer’s Guild convention built this link in the trail network in 1992, at the suggestion of Gus Stahlmann, the City’s Director of Parks. It contains $500,000 of B.C. timber, and is based on an 1850 design by Ithiel Town, a Connecticut engineer.
Carpathian Cathedral
A.K.A. Holy Protection Mother of God Ukrainian Catholic Church; it’s hutzel (mountain) style features 3 domes, after The Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Guelph Junction
Railway Bridge
Canada’s longest municipally-owned railway was built to link the CPR main line outside of Campbellville in 1884. Commuter service to downtown Hamilton operated until 1955 from the old CPR station on Eramosa Road, which was demolished in the late 1960s.