Feature Article October 9, 2003
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Conservation Area and Trail Opens On Saturday, October 4, more than 100 people attended the official opening of Meisel Woods Conservation Area and the Sandi Slater Memorial Walk. The Rideau Valley Conservation Authority (RVCA) was represented by John Miller, Chair, RVCA Board of Directors, who emceed the ceremony. RVCA staff in attendance included Dell Hallett, General Manager, Cliff Craig, Director of Land Management, Charles Billington, Director, Corporate Communications and Rudy Dyck, Forestry Program Manager. Many of those attending had walked the trail earlier.
Official guests who brought greetings were Mayor Bill MacDonald of Central Frontenac, Councillor Boyce Peters who is the Central Frontenac representative to the RVCA, Charlie Stewart, president of Greater Bobs and Crow Lakes Association, and Mary Bryden, Chair, Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation (RVCF) who was represented by Mr. Billington. All expressed thanks to Dr. Meisel for the gift of land, and to Joe Slater for initiating the establishment of the trust fund and the naming of the trail as a memorial to his late wife, Sandi. Further thanks were expressed to their many friends who have contributed in various ways to the development of the trail.
Joe Slater spoke to the group of his and Sandi's love for the area, and of the enjoyment they had experienced together there in all seasons. While speaking, Joe was flanked by his son, Jeff of Guelph, his daughter, Sheryl, and her husband, Andrew Russell of London, U.K.
John Meisel, Professor of Political Science, Queen's University and donor of the land to the RVCF, also spoke, giving a history of the property while expressing his love for the area. Dr. Meisel was presented the original water-colour rendition by Laurie Dool, the Landowner Resource Centre artist, depicting the entrance to the Meisel Woods Conservation Area; this you have seen in The Frontenac News several times. In his speech, John Meisel said that there was another little known debt we must acknowledge.
Without the foresight of the late Geuel Anderson, after whose family the road is named, we would not be here breaking new ground. Geuel, strong of mind and body, and deeply attached to his bailiwick, assembled several pieces of separately owned land to create a woodland haven around lovely Beaver/Bass Lake. It was his vision that created what we are beginning to know as Meisel Woods. Fortunately he was willing to part with it and so enable my wife and me to develop a sanctuary for birds, animals and ourselves.
Although he found some of our ideas a bit weird, he approved of most of what we were doing on "his" land. Being a farsighted man, he would also have been very pleased, had he known that ultimately all this would lead to a retreat for neighbours in this area as well as for visitors from afar.
After the speeches, there was a "group unveiling" of each plaque, one to honour the Meisel family, and the other a memorial to Sandi Slater. The plaques are engraved on bronze and set on two large stones that flank the entranceway of the walk.
After the ceremony, attendants were invited to a light luncheon hosted in the old village school house in Crow Lake, and funded by the Rideau Valley Conservation Foundation.
