©NRCan

What used to be a healthy ash forest now stands as a thin, brittle skeleton along Tay Shore Trail. Last winter’s ice storm didn’t just knock out power across southern Ontario, it uncovered a serious hazard: thousands of tall, brittle, and bone-dead ash trees, silent casualties of the emerald ash borer (EAB). Ash forests once stretched across Ontario floodplains, including pockets of Simcoe County. They filtered groundwater, stabilized riverbanks, and sheltered entire ecological communities. Indigenous peoples relied on ash for basket-making; farmers used it for tool handles; athletes swung ash baseball bats. To lose them so fast — in a single generation — is heartbreaking. Simcoe County is now fully infested. And we are entering the phase where the last remaining dead trunks are collapsing.