Save the Grove Again

It was the perfect day for our Grove Rovers to get a closer look at the places and people that shape the landscape of and around Gillies Grove forest.

Our leader Philip Powell shared his passion for heritage, telling compelling stories of the settlement and development at the confluence of the Madawaska and Ottawa/ Kichi Zibi rivers. Thank you Philip, and also to Diane who shared helpful and interesting images with the group on a tablet.

As he described, this landscape was a free and accessible meeting place for peoples for tens of thousands of years. It is a really remarkable thing that two lumber barons and generations of the community have cherished and protected it, so that it remains accessible to the community still to this day. It is our goal at Friends of the Grove to make that happen.

We extend a heartfelt thank-you to the generosity of the Galilee Centre and to the homeowners of Gillies House, so that we could cherish closer looks at these special spaces!

Interested in learning hearing about what we learned on this special heritage access event? Email us at savethegroveagain.com to get on our mailing list for a blog about this Grove Rove, and for upcoming newsletters and events 💌

Accessible Grove Rove on Saturday August 22 at 10:00 am - please join this free guided tour which will be lead by local historian Philip Powell, who served as the President of the Arnprior & District Historical Society. We will learn about the people, places and events that have shaped our beloved old-growth forest.

This will be an accessible event so people with limited mobility can join comfortably. We’ll explore the McLachlin and Gillies families, their estates, and how they shaped both this landscape and the community we know today. You may have walked through the Grove and surrounding properties many times before; come get a closer look at why these landmarks are so special.

Special Note: we will start at The Galilee Center at 398 John St. (parking & meeting near the tennis courts)

When: Saturday, August 22nd at 10 am -12 pm
Where: 398 John St. N, Arnprior
Cost: Free!

New blog post alert! ⚠️ 📃 Read a review of the latest Grove Rove, featuring bat expert Brian Hickey from The River Institute:

https://savethegroveagain.com/blog/posts/blogPage0031

This past weekend we had the pleasure of welcoming back Batman aka Brian Hickey to lead our Grove Rove for July 2026. As a senior research scientist and educator with the River Institute in Cornwall, Brian is a wealth of knowledge and a passionate teacher. We enjoyed learning about, hearing, and seeing several bat species together! 🦇

Our guided walk started at the entrance of Gillies Grove old-growth forest, where Brian shared lots of interesting facts about bats while we waited for the sun to set. Dusk is the best time to observe bats, and our forest offers three elements to support a healthy bat population: proximity to the Ottawa River / Kitchi Sibi, the presence of snags in the old growth forest, and the accompanying meadow on the western edge of the forest.

Look out for our next notification with a blog post where you can read more details about the event and what we discovered together 📃

Join us this weekend for a special Grove Rove at dusk! Bat expert Brian Hickey returns, this time during peak bat season. Learn about the nocturnal critters that inhabit the forest and meadow 🦇

Cost is free; donations to Friends of the Grove gladly accepted.

Have you heard? We're hosting another Grove Rove - tomorrow morning!

When: Saturday June 13 at 10:00 am EST
Where: 165 Ottawa St, Arnprior ON
Duration: 2 hours (10:00 am - 12:00 pm)
Cost: by donation

This month's walk will focus on "Conducting Natural Heritage Surveys" - lead by Mark Heaton.

Mark Heaton is a retired Fish and Wildlife Biologist with a Bachelor of Science from the University of Western Ontario, who spent 34 years with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry (MNRF) before transitioning to roles as a Senior Biologist for Ontario Streams and a consulting Ecologist for Symbiosys Ecology. Throughout his extensive MNRF career, he evaluated thousands of development and resource planning proposals under major provincial and federal legislation to avoid and mitigate environmental impacts on fish, wildlife, and wetland habitats. Mark possesses deep expertise in natural heritage systems planning, stream and wetland restoration, and specialized wildlife management. His decades of leadership and dedication to habitat conservation and river rehabilitation have been recognized with numerous prestigious honours, including the 2017 Latornell Leadership Award and the 1998 Roderick Haig Brown Award.

Topics covered on the walk will include:
📋 Survey ethics
🗺 Geographic Information System mapping resources
🎚 Monitoring equipment
📉 Data analysis

To get the most out of the experience we recommend that attendees load their cell phones with the following apps: Merlin & Seek (iNaturalist) 📱

Hope to see you there!

What a welcome 🌳 🌿 🌲

Grove Roves are back! Come learn about spring in the forest from local expert Arthur Goldsmith: migratory birds, ephemeral flowers, and more!

When: 10:00 am - 12:00 pm on Saturday May 23
Where: 164 Ottawa St: Entrance to Gillies Grove Nature Reserve
Duration: 2 hours to cover around 4 km
Cost: free, but donations to Friends of the Grove are welcome

What an Earth Day treat: some sweet fox kits frolicking in the meadow next to Gillies Grove old growth forest 🦊 Four kits were spotted tumbling and playing in the grassy space. This called an ecotone: an even more biodiverse threshold between two ecosystems. This land is not protected by the Nature Conservancy of Canada like Gillies Grove is, and was recently purchased by a construction company. We're so happy to see these sweet creatures, and determined to protect them and their home from a sub division development. Thank you to the community member who shared their photo with us 💚