New book highlights hiking gems throughout Ontario's Greenbelt
CBC
According to Niagara native, Lindsay Davies, the complaint that Ontario is a boring province when it comes to outdoor adventures is just plain wrong.
“I hear, ‘there’s nothing to do in Ontario and Ontario has nothing going on’ and, well, there’s 36 places just right here,” Davies said in an interview with CBC's Fresh Air.
Davies says her new book, Greenbelt Trails: The 36 best – west of Toronto, from Oakville and Hamilton to Niagara and beyond, proves the point.
The book features dozens of hiking spots in southwest Ontario that Davies said are both close to her heart and close to home.
“It was about being able to share so many places that are special to me and again letting people know how much there is in our own backyard.”
Davies wasn’t always an avid hiker.
She said that at one stage in her life, she’d moved back home with her parents and needed to find something to get her out of the house from time to time.
The Greenbelt was nearby, so she started exploring the trails.
Soon, she was writing about her experiences on social media and in web and print articles, which eventually led to the book.
“It just so happens that the publisher [Formac Lorimer] found my website and some of the articles I’d done about trails and they were like, ‘hey, we really like your voice and it really lends well to tourism and trying to promote destinations and whatnot. So would you like to write a book?’ and I was like, ”Uh, sure?”
As research – like this recent study from MacMaster University in Hamilton – continues to show the benefits of walking, Davies was happy to do something that would motivate people to get moving.
Julie Richardson is a professor in the School of Rehabilitation Science at MacMaster and a co-author of the walking study. She told CBC that the findings indicate that the ease and speed with which one walks can reflect a person’s state of health, which is why she said, it’s important to walk regularly.
“If you can, you should try to walk five or six times a week for at least 30 minutes,” Richardson said.
In addition to benefitting physical health, Davies believes getting into nature is also good for mental health.
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According to Niagara native, Lindsay Davies, the complaint that Ontario is a boring province when it comes to outdoor adventures is just plain wrong.
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