What started as an aesthetic project to transform a messy landscape became an exemplary ecological endeavor to preserve heritage features and recover environmental integrity – as well as a hands-on learning opportunity for Trent students.

Trent Chancellor Stephen Stohn and his wife, television producer Linda Schuyler, privately restored an historic, deep-water, grist-millpond wetland on their property in Northumberland Country: the Shelter Valley Creek Deep-water Marsh.

“This restoration evolved from a simple beautification project into something far deeper and more meaningful,” says Mr. Stohn. “It turned into a very happy opportunity when we learned what an enormous environmental impact this project would have, not just on our property, but all down Shelter Valley Creek, right to Lake Ontario.”

Working with consultant Dan Mansell, a former ecologist with Ontario’s Ministry of Natural Resources, and Garrett Graham, who has a background in forestry management and oversees the property, Mr. Stohn and Ms. Schuyler worked to address a range of issues across their 100 acres of land. Not only were they concerned about water quality and the health of the fish community in the mill pond, but also deteriorating conditions of the dam and dyke that created flood and erosion risks.

After years of planning, surveying, restoration, and monitoring, Mr. Mansell published the project as a case study at the request of Mr. Stohn and Ms. Schuyler to teach students learning about wetland management and restoration.

Students in Trent’s Ecology and Management of Wetland Systems course were the first to visit the property to derive lessons from the complex and costly improvement of a degraded riverine wetland.

“Wetland restoration is about a quarter of what we will cover in the course,” says Dr. Tom Whillans, the course’s professor. “The students’ big assignment is to choose one of six other wetlands in the Kawarthas that have management problems and develop a proposal for an ecological or social solution. Walking them through the innovative approach to restoration and management taken by Dan, Garrett, Stephen and Linda gives them a real world completed example to consider for the other situation they choose.”

Edward Smith, a joint major at Trent in Environmental Science and Economics and member of the Trent chapter of the International Society for Ecological Restoration, is taking Professor Whillans’ course and says the trip to the Shelter Valley Creek Deep-water Marsh was a valuable learning opportunity.

“It was interesting to hear that they had to look at the history of the property before any anthropogenic changes and had to deal with all three levels of government,” says Mr. Smith. “We were standing over the dam and salmon and rainbow trout were jumping up the dam, trying to get up to the pond to spawn. First time I had ever seen that in Ontario. The clean water had really changed their ecosystem.”