Holland Marsh

A farm field with a white tractor towing a long wagon with wood-plank walls used to collect vegetables. A farmer is standing on the back of the wagon, adjacent to a harvesting machine which uproots carrots from the field and sends them along a slanted conveyor belt to the farmer. In the foreground is a brown-coated dog.
Harvesting carrots at a farm on the Holland Marsh.
Holland Marsh Memorial plaque at the former city hall in Nieuwe Pekela, the Netherlands

The Holland Marsh is a wetland and agricultural area in Ontario, Canada, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Toronto.[1] It lies entirely within the valley of the Holland River, stretching from the northern edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine near Schomberg to the river mouth at Cook's Bay, Lake Simcoe. In its entirety it comprises about 21,000 acres (8,500 hectares), with two distinct divisions.[2] Historically it has simply been referred to as "the marsh".

The first area to be drained and reclaimed for farming is a 7,200-acre (2,915-hectare) municipally drained polder south-west of the town of Bradford proper,[2] of which 40% lies in King Township (York Region) and 60% in the town of Bradford West Gwillimbury (Simcoe County).

The other 13,800 acres (5,585 hectares) lie north and east of Bradford, fringing Cook's Bay in the towns of Innisfil and East Gwillimbury.[2] Portions of this area have been privately reclaimed for farming, such as the Ravenshoe Road and Bradford Marsh areas, and portions are recreational or undisturbed wetland. In some cases, recreational boating, wetland and agricultural areas intersect.

  1. ^ "Holland Marsh". Geographical Names Data Base. Natural Resources Canada. Retrieved 2012-09-08.
  2. ^ a b c Brownell, Evelyn and Scott, Gordon, "A Study of Holland Marsh, its Reclamation and Development", August, 1949, Department of Planning & Development, Immigration Branch, Ontario