My name is Paul Vermeersch and I grew up in Brights Grove Ontario which is now part of the city of Sarnia, Ontario. In Brights Grove I grew up on the shores of Lake Huron.

Lake Huron was important to me, we had beaches. Where I lived I probably grew up less than 200m from the beach, but also in Brights Grove we had Perch Creek. Perch Creek was part of the aquifer that emptied out into Lake Huron in that part of the country and being a boating family, when I was growing up we often launched our boat at the boat launch in Perch Creek and we’d have to sail through the winding creek to get out of the inlet that led into the lake. We would water ski and do beach visits and go fishing and the water was very important to me growing up.

We would go fishing at Kettle Point and Blue Point on Lake Ontario and would visit the beach near the house on our boat. In Sarnia, Lake Huron empties into the St. Clair River and we boated up and down the St. Clair River from the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair right on up, visiting all points in between. The boating culture and the lake culture, the water culture of Brights Grove and the Sarnia area was and is still a huge part of the culture of that area. I think what needs to emphasized is that beyond the ecological importance of waterways in our neighborhoods, in our province, there is also the cultural importance of waterways in our home towns and in our province. That is something I would like to emphasize is the cultural importance of those places and those waters.