Forest Travel Log: A Four Million-Year Hike on the GeoTime Trail in Waterloo

By Megan Thomson

My first hike of the season was a welcome change after a long winter staying cozy inside and bundling up to go out to the car, let alone getting out on the trail. On a beautiful, sunny morning, we packed up snacks and armed ourselves with a plastic grocery bag to pick up any litter we might come across. We headed out to the outskirts of northwest Waterloo to the GeoTime Trail: a 4.5 km loop through a mature hardwood forest that takes you on a trip through geologic time.

Despite starting out in the suburbs of Waterloo, we quickly found ourselves standing in the mud and enjoying the grandeur of tall (though still leafless) hardwoods while learning about Waterloo’s geologic history. Each metre of this trail represents one million years of Earth’s history! Signs along the route indicate to hikers how far they have travelled by detailing their spot in geologic time. Starting in the Archean Eon, we walked through the Proterozoic Eon, the Paleozoic Era, Mesozoic Era, and finally to our own time, the Cenzoic Era. The signage taught us about the landforms around us, the rocks under our feet, and what organisms would have appeared at different times. We even got practice reading a sundial. Pro tip: sundials don’t adjust to Daylight Savings Time, so add an extra hour when you read a sundial during the summer months!

The clear and beautiful day offered perfect weather for our outing. In addition to learning about the geology of the area, I tried my hand at some tree and fungi identification, with help from the app iNaturalist. We walked through plenty of mud to help reduce erosion on the trails. I look forward to visiting this forest again later in the season to see all of the other colours this forest has to offer.

Megan Thomson, a bachelor of education in Environmental Science student at Western University, is an intern at Forests Ontario.