The sixth annual Lock & Paddle returns to the Peterborough Lift Lock on Saturday (July 20) from 1 to 5:30 p.m.

More than 600 people took part in last year’s event, paddling their canoes and kayaks into the two tubs at the world’s tallest hydraulic lift lock to be lifted 65 feet (20 metres) into the air and then back down.

Organized by Parks Canada to celebrate the national historical site, the free event returned in 2023 after a three-year absence due to the pandemic. This year’s Lock & Paddle takes place on Parks Day when, for the first time, Parks Canada will also be hosting mass paddling events on the Rideau Canal in Ottawa and the Lachine Canal in Montreal.

Unlike previous Lock & Paddle events, registration is not required for the 2024 event. Simply show up with your canoe or kayak (stand up paddleboards and inflatable kayaks and canoes or other inflatable vessels are not permitted for safety reasons). Parks Canada will have staff on site throughout the event to answer any questions.

All ages and skill levels are welcome to participate in the event. To participate, all paddlers and passengers must wear a PFD. Pets on boats are not recommended for safety reasons. This is a smoke-free, cannabis-free, and alcohol-free event. Visitors who do not follow the rules and requirements will not be permitted to enter the tubs.

All participating paddlers should have a sound signalling device, a buoyant heaving line, and a bailer for each boat, along with a watertight flashlight, sunscreen and a hat, and a water bottle. This is a rain or shine event, so also bring an umbrella or raincoat if rain is in the forecast.

VIDEO: Lock & Paddle 2023

Grounds open at the Peterborough Lift Lock at 1 p.m., when the Bewdley & District Lions Club will be hosting a BBQ with food available to purchase. Local musician Cale Crowe will be performing at the lower reach of the Peterborough Lift Lock. Note that parking is not available at the Peterborough Lift Lock Visitor Centre except for vehicles with accessible parking permits.

Paddlers should be ready in their boats at the lower (south) side of the Peterborough Lift Lock by 2:15 p.m., with the first lockage beginning at 2:30 p.m. Additional lockages will follow if needed.

Paddlers will enter from the bottom of the Peterborough Lift Lock and ride up and back down. There is no through-paddling at the top of the Peterborough Lift Lock until after the event concludes at 5:30 p.m.

Paddling to the Peterborough Lift Lock

Here are put-in locations if you plan to paddle to the Peterborough Lift Lock. Note that if you are going through Lock 20 – Ashburhnam, you need to allow an extra 45 to 60 minutes to transfer and paddle to the Peterborough Lift Lock. There are no lockage fees for Lock & Paddle participants.

• Beavermead Campground (2011 Ashburnham Dr.) – 5-minute paddle to Lock 20, 45-60 minutes to transfer and paddle to Peterborough Lift Lock. Free parking.
• Rogers Cove (131 Maria St.) – 5-minute paddle to Lock 20, 45-60 minutes to transfer and paddle to Peterborough Lift Lock. Free parking.
• Millennium Park (130 King St.) – 20-minute paddle to Lock 20, 45-60 minutes to transfer and paddle to Peterborough Lift Lock. Nearby paid parking.
• Del Crary Park (100 George St.) – 35-minute paddle to Lock 20, 45-60 minutes to transfer and paddle to Peterborough Lift Lock. Nearby paid parking
• Eastgate Memorial Park (2150 Ashburnham Dr.) – 250-metre portage to paddle-access dock north of Lock 20 – Ashburnham; 20-minute paddle to Peterborough Lift Lock. Free parking.
• Trent-Severn Waterway Headquarters (2155 Ashburnham Dr.) – 250-metre portage to launch at the top and west side of Lock 20 – Ashburnham; 20-minute paddle to Peterborough Lift Lock. Free parking.
• Peterborough Lift Lock Visitor Centre (353 Hunter St. E.) – Reserved for accessibility needs and beginner paddlers. Drop-off only; no parking except for vehicles with accessible parking permits.

Boat and gear rentals

If you want to rent a boat or gear, you can get it at one of the following local rental suppliers:

• Kawartha Outfitters (Millennium Park at the Silver Bean, 100 King St., Peterborough)
• Wild Rock Outfitters (169 Charlotte Street, Peterborough)
• Liftlock Paddle Co. (online only at liftlockpaddleco.ca)
• Beavermead Campground (2011 Ashburnham Drive, Peterborough)
• Adventure Outfitters (1828 8th Line, Lakefield)
• Cottage Toys (37 Concession St., Lakefield)

For more information about Lock & Paddle 2024, visit the Parks Canada website.

Staying on point while shutting out extraneous noise is a challenge at the best of times. But when you’re tasked with hiring 101 school bus drivers by the start of the new school year, the stress associated with a ticking clock ramps up things considerably.

That’s the position Daniela Cerqua finds herself in.

As a regional manager with Toronto-based Wheelchair Accessible Transit (W.A.T.), Cerqua is hard at it, singing the praises of the 21-year-old student transportation company while rebuffing accusations that because W.A.T. is not locally based, it won’t hire local drivers to fill the routes.

On June 27, Student Transportation Services of Ontario (STSCO), which is responsible for planning school bus routes for the local school boards, announced that a lengthy request for proposal (RFP) process for the provision of student transportation was complete. That process saw school bus operators submit bids to secure all, or some, of the existing bus routes.

Among those companies that put in a bid was Lakefield-based Hamilton Bus Lines, owned by Attridge Transportation Inc., which was operating 87 bus routes for STSCO. According to STSCO, “Hamilton Bus Lines was not successful as part of the procurement and bidding process,” effectively putting the company’s bus drivers out of work.

W.A.T. also put in a bid and was ultimately awarded a 10-year contract by STSCO, including some of the routes previously operated by Hamilton Bus Lines.

Since then, an online petition in support of affected Hamilton Bus Lines drivers has drawn a huge response, with upset drivers and their supporters criticizing STSCO’s bidding process as well as lamenting the awarding of a portion of its bus route contract to a company that is headquartered outside of the region.

That’s the extraneous noise that Cerqua is dealing with as she works to establish W.A.T.’s local footprint — a process best exemplified by the opening of an office at 41 Bridge Street in Lakefield. As of this writing, drivers for 26 of the 101 W.A.T bus routes available have signed on — some of them formerly with Hamilton Bus Lines.

“To hire 100 drivers in two months, especially the summer months when they want to spend time with their family or are on vacation, is difficult,” says Cerqua, adding “We put together some flyers and handed them out, and we put together an information session.”

The information session, held June 3 at the Holiday Inn, saw a “pretty good turnout,” says Cerqua.

“Quite a few people attended; the bulk of them, it seemed, from Hamilton (Bus Lines). They had a lot of great questions and we answered them. Some weren’t happy with the change. I understand that and I empathize with them but, like I said then, our goal is to ensure that children are transported to and from school safely and on time.”

Of the 101 routes secured by W.A.T., just 30 came from Hamilton Bus Lines, clarifies Cerqua, while 55 came from Student Transportation Services, 15 from Century Transportation, and one from First Student.

“We’ve tried to put out there, as much as we could, what routes we have so drivers aren’t caught up in ‘I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go,'” says Cerqua, noting W.A.T’s goal is to fill each route with a local driver, whether it’s someone who lost his or her job as a result of their company’s contract not being renewed or someone who is interested in driving a school bus for the first time, for whom W.A.T will provide training.

“We put out information that if drivers want to follow their (former) route, they’re more than welcome. Just come and see us. There’s also monitors on the routes that made friends with school bus drivers. We have said ‘Great, we’ll take you too.’ We’re trying to make the transition as smooth as possible.”

Of note, W.A.T. is committing to providing incentives drivers have received in the past.

“We will pay drivers for all P.A. days and they will get paid for snow days but, in addition, we’ll also pay the two weeks that drivers are off at Christmas time and the one week that drivers are off during the March break.”

Cerqua says if W.A.T. can’t secure enough local drivers for its routes, it will “look at other areas we serve for drivers and bring them here to ensure kids get to and from school, but that’s definitely not my first choice.”

“We have our office in Lakefield with staff hired locally. We’ll be putting together some job fairs, some community barbecues, to let people know we’re here and we’re hiring. If parents want to come and meet us and find out who their child’s school bus provider is going to be, they’re more than welcome too. We’d love to meet them and let them know that they’re in good hands.”

As for displaced Hamilton Bus Lines drivers who want to learn more about W.A.T. and what it’s offering, Cerqua says they too are invited to drop by the office.

“Many of them have my email and my phone number, and they also have my HR department’s information,” she notes.

Looking ahead to September, Cerqua is “confident” W.A.T. “will have a driver in every seat.”

As for W.A.T being portrayed as the bad guy in the wake of Hamilton Bus Lines losing its contract with STSCO, Cerqua says she can only do what she can do: work to ensure all 101 newly secured W.A.T. routes have a driver.

“That’s why we made a point of having the information session, so people could get their questions answered. At the end of the day, there’s no pressure, there’s no poaching. We’re opening our doors and putting our cards on the table and saying ‘This is what we have. This is what we can offer you.’ If it works for you, great, we’d love for you to join our team. If it’s not something that works for you, that’s okay too, but we will continue to push hard to hire locally.”

For more information on Wheelchair Accessible Transit, visit www.wheelchairtransit.com.

A motorcyclist and his passenger suffered serious injuries after a collision near Oakwood east of Lindsay on Sunday (July 14).

At around 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, City of Kawartha Lakes Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and fire and emergency medical services responded to a report of a serious collision on Eldon Road at Skyline Road involving a motorcycle and a commercial motor vehicle.

As a result of the collision, the 57-year-old male driver of the motorcycle and a 53-year-old female passenger suffered life-threatening injuries. They were transported to Ross Memorial Hospital in Lindsay and later airlifted to Kingston General Hospital.

The 64-year-old driver of the commercial motor vehicle was treated for minor injuries.

Eldon Road and Skyline Road were closed for several hours on Sunday while police documented the scene.

The police investigation into the collision is ongoing.

The coroner is investigating the sudden deaths of two men in Peterborough over the weekend.

At around 7:10 p.m. on Saturday (July 13), Peterborough police officers were called to the area of Park and Romaine streets for the sudden death of a 35-year-old man.

The following day at around 6:30 a.m., officers were called to an area near the east side of the London Street bridge for the sudden death of a 24-year-old man.

Police have not released any details about the circumstances of the two men’s deaths, but say they do not suspect foul play at this time.

Both deaths are now coroner investigations, according to police.

Environment Canada has issued a severe thunderstorm watch for the northern Kawarthas region for Monday (July 15).

The severe thunderstorm watch is in effect for northern Peterborough County, northern Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton County, and Hastings Highlands.

Conditions are favourable for the development of severe thunderstorms that may be capable of producing strong wind gusts up to 90 km/h, large hail, and heavy rain with local rainfall amounts of 30 to 50 mm.

Thunderstorms are expected to develop late Monday morning. Some of these thunderstorms may become severe quickly before moving east of the area in the afternoon.

Heavy downpours can cause flash floods and water pooling on roads. Water-related activities may be unsafe due to violent and sudden gusts of wind over bodies of water.

Lightning kills and injures Canadians every year. Stay indoors when a thunderstorm strikes. There isn’t a place outside that is safe during a thunderstorm.

Today is the 20th anniversary of Peterborough’s historic flood, when a one-in-100-year storm dumped an estimated 14 billion litres of rain on the city in a single day — the same amount of water that courses over Niagara Falls in about 40 minutes.

In 2004, as much as 240 millimetres (9.5 inches) of rain fell in the city from the evening of Wednesday, July 14th to the morning of Thursday, July 15th, most of it falling within a five-hour period on the morning of July 15.

A rainfall event of that magnitude is known as a one-in-100-year storm, meaning there’s a one per cent chance of such a storm occurring in a particular location in any given year.

That one-in-100-year storm began with a weather system that affected Alberta three days before. On Sunday, July 11, 2004, the City of Edmonton experienced a small but spectacular storm that dumped more than 150 mm of rain in parts of the city in less than an hour.

Mud and water poured down streets and through windows. A record flash flood washed out roads, filled underpasses, flooded basements, turned streets into rivers and intersections into lakes. Enormous water pressure in the sewer system blew hundreds of manhole covers into the sky.

That same storm system slowly worked its way east across Canada, travelling 2,700 kilometres until it reached Peterborough. There, fed by cool air from the north and moist air from the south, the system produced intense rainstorms that began on Wednesday evening and continued for five hours during the early morning hours of Thursday.

The amount of rain that fell on Peterborough during the storm varied, from 100 mm (4 inches) recorded at the Peterborough Airport to 240 mm (9.5 inches) recorded at Trent University. Much of the rain fell in under five hours early Thursday morning, with 78.8 mm (3 inches) falling between 3:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. alone.

Peterborough’s drain and sewer system was unable to cope with that much storm water. Normally, the city’s sewage system deals with about 1.3 million gallons per day; during the storm, the sewage treatment plant measured a peak flow of seven million gallons of waste water.

At the time of the storm, over 80 per cent of the pipes in the city’s storm water system were undersized and didn’t meet modern standards (some had been built in the prior century), creating bottlenecks in moving the flood water.

Downtown Peterborough, where the rainfall was concentrated, consists of largely impervious paved surfaces, including streets that are not well designed to convey flood water over land. Raging flood waters from Jackson Creek, which runs through the downtown, overwhelmed not only the roads but also some historical buildings.

Throughout the city, groundwater that seeped into cracked or misaligned sewer pipes created excess water in the system, leading to back-ups and basement flooding.

Peterborough’s Fire Department was inundated with calls from across the entire city, ranging from flooded basements to fire alarms. City utility and social services were overburdened with responding to the consequences of the flooding.

On Thursday morning, then-Mayor Sylvia Sutherland declared a state of emergency, which stayed in effect for two weeks. Many city staff worked 18- to 20-hour days until the state of emergency was lifted.

Here are some interesting facts about the impact of the flood:

• 171 long-term care residents were evacuated from Extendicare Nursing Home to the Evinrude Centre
• 500 homes and businesses had hydro meters pulled from flooded basements
• Hundreds of flood-damaged water heaters required replacement
• 1,000 homes had gas lines disconnected
• 498 electrical systems were disconnected
• There were 28 motor vehicle accidents
• The city issued emergency clothing to more than 1,300 people and emergency food to more than 1,000 households
• The Salvation Army served over 10,000 meals
• Firefighters pumped out over 1,868 basements, garages, and backyards
• 25 people who were trapped in or on cars needed to be rescued
• Cleaning up flood-related garbage and debris was a major undertaking. Around 12,500 tons of materials were placed in the landfill in the two weeks following the flood (four times the normal amount)
• Both the Peterborough Public Library and the adjoining Peterborough Museum and Archives were flooded, with 10 per cent of documents, photographs, and negatives in the conservation area and storage vault under water for 24 hours.

In the end, the flood resulted in $95 million in insured losses in Peterborough, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada. Overtime and expenses for city staff responding to the flood amounted to $1.4 million.

Costs of repairs and restoration (including roads, bridges, culverts, buildings, and the Museum photo archives) equalled $21 million. In addition, the Province of Ontario provided $25 million for emergency repair and restoration costs for city infrastructure. The amount of revenue and productivity that businesses and residents lost because of the flood can only be estimated.

Making matters worse, the 2004 flood came only 25 months after another major flood in June 2002, when Peterborough suffered through a severe summer storm that generated more than 70 mm (3 inches) of rain in a 24-hour period. Many Peterborough residents and business owners had just recovered from damages caused by the 2002 flood when they were hit again by the 2004 flood.

Shortly after the 2004 flood, the City of Peterborough hired UMA Engineering Ltd. (now known as AECOM Ltd.) to prepare a Flood Reduction Master Plan (FRMP). Since the completion of the plan in 2005, the city undertook a series of studies to assess vulnerability and to update stormwater management designs and infrastructure to protect the city from future flooding damage.

Following the flood, the city completed numerous projects, including studies recommended by the FRMP, diversion projects, storm sewer retrofits, and culvert replacements.

The highest-priority project to come out of all the flood reduction studies was the Central Area (Bethune Street) Flood Reduction project to install a massive storm sewer and upgraded sanitary sewers under Bethune Street between Jackson Creek and Townsend Street to carry high flows from the creek around the downtown core to Little Lake. One of the largest infrastructure projects in Peterborough’s history, construction began in 2019 and was largely completed by September 2023.

The scope of the work included building an inlet for the storm sewer on Jackson Creek, the storm sewer outlet at Little Lake, rehabilitating the bridge under George Street at the outlet, the big dig and installation of the storm sewer under Bethune and Townsend streets, and upsizing the sanitary sewer.

While the underground work was the main component of the project, a secondary aspect was the streetscape design with the rebuilding of Bethune Street after the underground work to create a street with a greater emphasis on pedestrians and cycling but still maintaining access for vehicles.

The total cost of the project was $53.5 million, which included $7.97 million from the federal government and $7.97 million from the provincial government from the Small Communities Fund for climate adaptation projects.

In addition to upgrading infrastructure, the city continues to offer financial incentives to encourage the disconnection of foundation drains from the sanitary sewer system, use of rain barrels, the installation of backwater valves in previously affected areas, and the creation of rain gardens.

For more information about the 2004 flood and the City of Peterborough’s response to it, visit the city’s website at peterborough.ca/2004flood.

For more information on how the City of Peterborough now prepares for flooding and mitigates the potential for flooding, visit the Emergency Services – Flooding and Water and Sewers – Flood Reduction pages on the city’s website, with the latter including information about the city’s Flood Reduction Subsidy Program and Flood Reduction Master Plan.