After the Gold Rush Multi-Cache
Cache-tech: Archived
Cache-tech
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In the scenic Forks of the Credit area - but come with us and we'll
take you to places the Sunday drivers never get to see! Snow
and ice can make a lot of this trail very slippery so be careful!
The Forks of the Credit has been a place of many happenings over the last 200 years. The earliest record of activity I found came in the winter of 1818 when a gold rush brought many prospectors to the area. In those days there were no roads from muddy York to the new frontier and many of the city slickers of the day weren’t prepared for the difficult trip. Some turned back but many blinded by the lure of easy riches pressed on and froze to death, or were devoured by hungry wolves! For the few who made it, no gold was ever found.
In 1837 during the rebellion of Upper Canada, William Lyon
Mackenzie and some Reformers hid out for weeks in the caves and crevices of the Forks. Mackenzie is said to have risked capture to attend church services every Sunday. There are other stories of near discovery by soldiers before his eventual escape to the United States. Although his rebellion was considered a failure there’s no question that his policies were ahead of their time and he eventually returned to Canada a belated victor.
In 1850 the Dominion Rd was put in to connect Cataract to the north with Forks of Credit to the south. Pioneering farmers were being granted parcels of land in the area and often duped into taking property which, because of its rockiness, was rather challenging to work! It soon became apparent that dolostone and limestone in the area made excellent construction materials for sturdy buildings – particularly those down the road in York. The railway arrived in 1879 and thereby provided an easy means to take
the stone to market and in so doing created a boom in quarrying which lasted until about 1895. A siding was even put in to help load the stone into the train cars. Open pit quarrying was replaced by mining for stone and many holes and tunnels where dug in the landscape – some hundreds of feet long. Unfortunately, all of them now seem to be covered over.
About 9 years after the railway was opened, the marvelous wooden trestle bridge was backfilled by simply dumping dirt between the ties - this is what's happening in one of the pictures. I wonder if the constant beating the bridge received from rather heavy train cars caused some concern that it might collapse under the strain?
As cut stone masonry fell out of favour by the late 1800’s a
lime kiln was built in 1890 at the Forks. It lasted only 3 years before it was determined that it couldn’t compete with bricks now being made in many parts of southern Ontario – some brick kiln ruins which you’ve probably stumbled across if you’ve been caching for any length of time. The remains of the Carrol and Vick brick kiln are still there despite being abandoned over 100 years ago. I always thought the construction of the foundation rather crude when compared to other masonry of the same period in the area. Come to
think of it, its crude even when compared with 13th century castles of Europe I’ve been to!
In 1899 there was built a hydro generating station just up the road in Cataract and some tile and brick making occurred on a moderate to lesser scale until about 1930. This is when the depression hit and it spelled the end of the industrial era of the Forks of the Credit.
In the April 14, 1932 issue of the Toronto Telegram, the Legend of Devil’s Pulpit of the Forks of the Credit was told. In short, the legend has it that an Indian brave fell in love with a maiden from another, warring, tribe. There was much fighting and it is said the maiden did not like her new home and pined away and died. God witnessing this strife struck the cliff behind the brave’s teepee with his hand and separated him from the rest of the cliff where he could not be saved and starved to death. It is also said the blow
killed all the game on the land and the fish in the river!
Enough of the history lesson! The cache is a Rubbermaid container stashed in a fairly obvious spot, but take along the hints anyway. Free parking can be found in many areas and the cache can be approached from Caledon Mountain Drive or Chisolm Street (not on many maps, but near Dominion St).
Cheers!
Coupar-Angus with help from Squeakieboots
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
xarr yriry va tnc fbhgu fvqr uvqqra va jnyy