Remembrance Day at Galt Cenotaph November 11, 2023
Category Archives: Cambridge
Rake-to-the-curb leaf collection starts Nov. 13 in West Galt
Halloween is history and it’s time to start thinking about the city’s rake-to-the-curb leaf collection, set to start Nov. 8 and continue through Dec. 6, 2023 in Cambridge.
City crews will collect the leaves for composting, once section of the city at a time. Look for an interactive online map at this link, under the “Cambridge Leaf Collection Program” drop-down section.
Leaf collection times
Here’s what West Galt residents need to know about leaf collection:
- Nov. 13- 17 – collection mostly in the triangle of west Galt between the Grand River, St. Andrew’s Street and the south city limits.
- Nov. 20-24 – collection west of Rosslyn Road and north of Bismark Drive; and south of Blenheim Road to St. Andrew’s Street.
- Nov. 27-Dec. 1 – collection north of Blenheim Road including Blair Village, west of the Grand River.
The city encourages property owners to leave leaves in place over the winter, providing habitat for pollinator like bees and butterflies.
Cambridge is designated a Canadian Bee City, for local efforts to protect pollinator habitat.
Or you can rake, mulch and compost, to keep the nutrients on your property for your 2024 growing season.
Yard Waste pickup ends week of November 22
Region of Waterloo curbside yard waste collection continues for two more weeks in 2023: Nov. 6 and Nov. 20.
You may also take your bagged leaves and yard waste to the Cambridge Waste Management Centre, 201 Savage Dr., Monday to Saturday between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. Fees may apply.
Here’s the city’s leaf collection tips video:
$1.2 M Dickson Park grandstand construction nearly complete in West Galt
UPDATE JULY 2024: Repairs to the historic Dickson Park Grandstand are complete in Cambridge.
It looks like the reconstruction of the Dickson Park grandstand will be done by winter 2023.
Work involves a top-to-bottom restoration of the 104-year-old historically designated structure.
Work started in late July 2023 on the nearly $1.3 million project, funded by the City of Cambridge and Ottawa.
Work involves repairs to the flat roof, replacing the wooden bench seating and concrete foundation, and new access step repairs.
To passersby, reconstruction of the Dickson Park grandstand looks like the time winter weather will do it arrives in December 2023.
On Sat., Nov. 4, 2023, painters worked in the unseasonably warm 9 C weather, working under the roof from a cherry picker lift.
The Dickson Park grandstand is an historically protected structure in Cambridge, Ontario, Canada. It was built in 1919. In 2003, it underwent a $1.2 million restoration. 
The historic Dickson Park grandstand in Cambridge, Ontario, closed in July 2023 for renovations costing almost $1.3 million. 
Painters finishing work under the roof of the Dickson Park grandstand in Cambridge, Ontario, on Nov. 4, 2023. 
The 2023 renovation of the historic Dickson Park grandstand in Cambridge, Ontario, included a new flat roof, wooden bench seating and access stairs. 
The 2023 renovation of the historic Dickson Park grandstand in Cambridge, Ontario, cost almost $1.3 million.
Dickson Park History
Dickson Park was created in 1871 when William Dickson Jr. donated 21 acres of land to the Town of Galt.
The original grandstand was built in 1891 or 1892, says Jim Quantrell, in his history book Time Frames, from the City of Cambridge Archives.
The grandstand was doubled in size around 1904, as the Galt Horse Show was a big annual event in Dickson Park at the time.
On Jan. 8, 1916, the grandstand burned to the ground. Three boys later admitted to setting the fire.
Today’s grandstand in Dickson Park was built in 1919. Today, it is a historically designated structure under the Ontario Heritage Act.
Detour: Blenheim Rd. closed Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, 2023, west of Parkwood Dr. in Cambridge
Blenheim Road closes from Oct. 30 to Nov. 3, 2023, between Parkwood Drive and Queensbrook Crescent in Cambridge.
That’s where the Canadian Pacific Kansas City Railway line crosses the two-lane road in West Galt.
It appears the road will be closed to allow Capital Paving crews to work, according to a City of Cambridge road works map.
The work is tied to the Cambridge West subdivision project, where hundreds of homes are under construction west of the CPKCR tracks.
Cambridge plans a $3.4 million rebuilding of Blenheim Road in 2024, between the Devil’s Creek crossing near the railway and Mount View Cemetery.
That project includes a new sanitary sewer and water main. It also proposes a pedestrian path along the south side of Blenheim, connecting the Devil’s Creek trail to trails in Victoria Park and Mount View Cemetery roadways.
No sweat! Don’t celebrate Canada Day like I used to on the family farm?
Canada Day was usually just another work day on the farm when I was growing up.
Not like today, when it’s a holiday with community parades and fireworks in Cambridge, Kitchener, or Waterloo. Or a backyard family barbecue might be more appealing.
Now that I’m a business communications professor at Conestoga College, I encourage the international students I teach to enjoy the break from classes, join in community events and learn more about Canada.
Canada Day events Waterloo Region
For my students at the Doon or Downtown Kitchener campuses, there are Canada Day festivities in Waterloo Region. The Canada Day parade down King Street in Cambridge ends at Riverside Park, where fireworks light up the skies.
And for my Brantford students, there’s plenty to do on Canada Day in Brantford, too.
July 1 now is so different than when I was growing up on a farm just south of Hamilton, Ontario.
Late June and early July was in prime time for cutting and bailing hay, before putting it in the barns to feed cattle over the winter. The weather was usually stinking hot and humid. And it felt even hotter when working the upstairs mow of the barn, under a sheet metal roof with minimal air circulation and clover dust burning my eyes.
Days that felt like 35 C outside felt more like 45C or 50C up in the mow. I remember sweat stinging my eyes and running down my back as I worked beside my dad and brother with hooks to drag, lift and stack 30 kg bales of cut and bundled grasses.
It looked like what was happening in this video, except we would always be wearing gloves. The video below shows how I remember the bales of hay carried up into the barn for stacking.
Didn’t care about Canada Day
Almost five decades ago, I didn’t care that most stores were closed on July 1. If was sunny and hot, we were putting bales up and in the hayloft, not shopping.
Now, I tell my international students that since July 1 is a national holiday, most stores and businesses will be closed across Canada.
It wasn’t until I turned 16, and started working part-time in a camera store in shopping centre off the farm, that I started paying attention to the Canada Day Holiday. Especially when it fell on a Saturday, like in 2023, when my holiday day might end up on Friday, or a Monday. I learned to like working on July 1, because I was paid a premium rate.
And later, when a newspaper reporter and assigned to work on holidays, the employee union contract guaranteed I receive double-time pay.
Some designated tourist areas, such as St. Jacob’s village and Farmer’s Market district north of Waterloo, Toronto and Niagara Falls, have exemptions that allow stores to remain open on a “statutory holiday” such as Canada Day.
You probably won’t find me at the St. Jacob’s farmer’s market on Canada Day now.
It’s a place far removed from the farm I grew up on. It’s dressed up for tourists driving Teslas, not this old farm boy who is fond of pickup trucks.
Without a bit of sweat on my brow, I have a tough time reliving warm memories of being with my family, on a working holiday celebrating Canada Day.
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