To the Editor,
For more than a decade, during the Spring, Summer, and Fall, I’ve been taking my two sons to Hawkesbury’s Chenail Island so they can run in the park, dip their toes and feet into the water of the Ottawa River, and just cool off in general while watching the geese, ducks, and other birds raise their kids as well. Unfortunately, someone on local council has decided to put down a foot-high, eight-foot-wide barrier of six-inch stone between the water and the parking and play areas all the way around the Island. So now the Geese have to waddle across near-razor sharp stone to get to the grass, one of their food sources, and the ducks have completely lost a place to wander. Over the weekend, we watched a few geese slowly, very slowly, try to cross the rocks in a line, and they were not having fun doing it. Most of them stopped or never started. And, of course, now the people who used to come to the island — walking, biking, parking in their RV’s, to dip their toes in the water or go fishing, will be missing out as well. I’m not sure who thought surrounding a public park — where kids used to sit in the water, where people used to launch their paddleboards, where people would bring their dogs to play in the water, in sharp rocks, would be a great idea — maybe to stop erosion, but I don’t see the reasoning of coming to that decision without leaving a tiny bit of room for a little open area where we can access the River.
Victor, Quintin, and Gabriel Landriault
