Welland River Keepers

The work of the Welland River Keepers contributes directly to local, regional, provincial and federal initiatives.

The WRK assists with the Welland Watershed Strategy and the Niagara Remedial Action Plan by working with organizations and agencies such as the Niagara Peninsula Conservation Authority, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment, and the Ontario Power Generation.

How you can help?

Volenteer!

Some of the many things we do in the area are: Build buffers (.pdf file). This helps increase water quality; Promost rebirth by planting native trees in mowen down areas, this helps increase habitate.

Come out to the meetings

The Welland River Keepers is made up of local volunteers that have a genuine interest in seeing an improvement in the Welland River. The mandate of the WRK's is:

"Educating the community to preserve and restore the ecological integrity of the Welland River"

Through hands on activities, the Welland River Keepers make it possible to get involved in restoring the health of the River. Some of the activities that the group undertakes includes

A Brief history of the Welland river...too thick to drink...too thin to plow

The original name derived from the North American Natives, for this waterway was Chppawa or Ojibway. The river flows west to east, draining lands in Haldimand, Norfolk, and Niagara to the Niagara River. I'ts source can be found near Mount Hope and , including its tributaries, covers some 880 square kilometers.

In 1791, John Graves Simcoe, first Lieutenant Governor of Opper canada named and renamed parts of his jurisdiction after Linclnshire, England. thus, the Chippawa River became the Welland River. This new title didm't sit well with the locals and both names have endured. A year later, Mrs. Simcoe, while traveling in the area of Chippawa Fort, now the Villiage of Chippawa, wrote in her diary, "The Chippawa River, which falls here into the St. Lawerence, is a dull muddy river running through a flat swampy country." How veery observant was this remark as the Welland River is more like a long pond with only an average gradient of 0.58 meter/kilometer (3 feet per mile).

The Welland river once srerved as an important transportation route. Before 1862 and the introduction of steam power for towing of scows and rafts, vessels were movedunder manpower, historically known as poling. Men were supplied with long poles, which were anchored into the mud at the forward end and pushed, walking the length of the boat or raft to the rear. The first steam tug to navigate the Welland River was the "Defiance". These vessels enabled transort of forests of lumber along the banks to be taken to mills.

In the 1920's, the mouth of the river was altered at the Village of Chippawa, diverting it's natural flow away from the Niagara River to the Ontario Power Canal. Now the waters from the Niagara River flow backward up the mouth to the Welland River and into the hydo canal for power generation. The effects of this can be seen as a flow reversal up the Welland River as far west as Port Davidson Weir,west of Wellandport. Various government agencies along with Ontario power Generation are working to mitigate the water fluctuations.

In England of old, River Keepers were those persons charged with the responsibility of protecting public waterways and tributaries against damages done by poachers and polluters, and others who would injure the private property lands adjacent to the rivers of the public resources of the "commons"