Heart Lake Conservation Area (HLCA) occupies 169 hectares (418 acres) in the

Etobicoke Creek Etobicoke Creek is a river in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. It is a tributary of Lake Ontario and runs from Caledon to southern Etobicoke, part of the City of Toronto. The creek is within the jurisdiction of the Toronto and Regio ...

watershed, within the City of

Brampton Brampton ( or ) is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Brampton is a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a lower-tier municipality within Peel Region. The city has a population of 656,480 as of the 2021 Census, making it ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

. It is owned and managed by the

Toronto and Region Conservation Authority The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA) is a conservation authority in southern Ontario, Canada. It owns about of land in the Toronto region, and it employs more than 400 full-time employees and coordinates more than 3,000 voluntee ...

(TRCA). HLCA’s diverse ecosystem includes Heart Lake, the headwaters for Spring Creek, a wetland complex, one of the largest individual blocks of forest in the Etobicoke Creek watershed, and surficial geology of

glacial till image:Geschiebemergel.JPG, Closeup of glacial till. Note that the larger grains (pebbles and gravel) in the till are completely surrounded by the matrix of finer material (silt and sand), and this characteristic, known as ''matrix support'', is d ...

and river deposits. HLCA offers many activities to the public, including hiking, fishing, swimming, Treetop Trekking and more. The conservation area is open to the public from the end of April to Thanksgiving weekend, weather permitting. The opening of a Medicine Wheel Garden was celebrated May 20, 2010. It came as a vision from a male elder of the Anishnawbe Nation. Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, Peel Aboriginal Network, Heart Lake Community Action Area Group and the City of Brampton, created the Medicine Wheel Garden (Gitigaan Mashkiki).

Hiking Trails

Heart Lake Conservation Area is home to five hiking trails, with 11 km of trails in total. Pokemon Go stops have been added to TRCA parks including Heart Lake. These include: In spring 2017, a new fitness trail was added with strength training and enhanced stretching.

Heart Lake

Heart Lake is the main focus of HLCA, offering users many water-based activities including fishing, boating and canoeing.

Fishing

HLCA offers visitors the ability to fish lakeside or from boats. Heart Lake is stocked with rainbow trout, raised by TRCA at Glen Haffy Conservation Area’s Fish Hatchery each year. Other fish found in Heart Lake include bass and sunfish. During the summer, Heart Lake is one of the hosts for the Learn to Fish Program.

Boating

Visitors at HLCA can enjoy boating activities on Heart Lake. HLCA offers boat rentals on-site.

Cross Country Running

The ROPSSAA Cross Country Championships are hosted at Heart Lake annually towards the end of October. In 2012, Heart Lake was the location of the OFSAA Cross Country Championships.

Pool and Splash Pad

The Wild Wetland Splash and Pool Facility at HLCA includes an 840 sq metre, beach-entry swimming pool, with the deep end being 8 ft. in depth. Along with a heated swimming pool, the water facility also includes over thirty wetland-themed water features.

Treetop Trekking

Treetop Trekking Brampton is an aerial ropes and

zip-line A zip-line, zip line, zip-wire, flying fox, or death slide is a pulley suspended on a cable, usually made of stainless steel, mounted on a slope. It is designed to enable cargo or a person propelled by gravity to travel from the top to the bo ...

course located within HLCA. The course offers visitors 6 aerial courses, 7 zip lines and over 65 aerial games to enjoy. The course became a part of HLCA in 2013.

References

{{Reflist Geography of Brampton Conservation areas in Ontario Tourist attractions in Brampton Protected areas of the Regional Municipality of Peel Zip-lining