June 12, 2009, Richmond Hill, Ontario — Just days after receiving a decision of the Conservation Review Board of Ontario, which called upon the Town of Richmond Hill to consider preserving the majority of the 189-acre David Dunlap Observatory (DDO) & Park, a local member of parliament is commending the local community’s vision to protect and preserve the entire site.
Peter Kent, MP for Thornhill, and Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas), said “The Dunlap Observatory and surrounding lands are priceless elements of Canadian history. I’m working with a number of cabinet colleagues on ways we might support the efforts of a passionate group of York Region citizens to protect and preserve the Dunlap Observatory site.”
Minister Kent’s statement is the result of top-level meetings held in Ottawa in early May between concerned York Region residents and government officials. The group met to discuss the possible future of the David Dunlap Observatory and Park, including use of its substantive cultural heritage resources as an economic engine for York Region.
York Region residents knew delivery of the Conservation Review Board report – June 4, 2009 – would create an opportunity for additional provincial and new federal protections to be exercised on the site, alongside those of the Town of Richmond Hill.
“The CRB did just that,” said Marianne Yake, President of the Richmond Hill Naturalists and Ottawa meeting attendee. “It recommended “double-designation” by the Town and Province to protect the Dunlap’s built-heritage, cultural associations, its viewscapes, landscapes, and its natural environment resources. This report opened the door to federal considerations and makes possible a ‘hat-trick’ of heritage protections – local, provincial and federal.”
“As well as the several powerful heritage and environmental arguments for preservation of the Dunlap Observatory park lands, we have to recognize the significant potential groundwater damage to Richmond Hill, and for that matter, Thornhill, if development disrupts the already precarious balance of nature,” said Minister Kent.
Believing passionately the Dunlap site was of national significance, and with little local government response to their concerns, community members contacted the Federal government. On May 7th, 2009, the members of this York Region Delegation, drawn from a cross-section of the community, traveled to Ottawa.
Members of this delegation included:
- Ms. Karen Cilevitz – Chair, The David Dunlap Observatory Defenders,
- Ms. Marianne Yake – President, The Richmond Hill Naturalists,
- Ms. Valerie Burke – Markham Town Councillor,
- Dr. Ian K. Shelton – Astronomer, former Dunlap outreach specialist,
- Dr. C. Thomas Bolton – Professor Emeritus, former Dunlap Astronomer,
- Mr. Chungsen Leung – York Region business entrepreneur, and
- Mr. Joseph Shaykewich – Retired Environment Canada meteorologist.
Ms. Carolyn Quinn, of the Ottawa-based Heritage Canada Foundation, also attended the meeting, in support of the York Region residents plan to revitalize the Dunlap site.
The last remaining open green space in south Richmond Hill, the Dunlap site sits at the headwaters of the Don River, and is part of the Oak Ridges Moraine Aquifer Complex. Evidence of pivotal historic events in Ontario are a part of the Dunlap lands – the 1795-6 blazing of Yonge Street from the forest, settlement by United Empire Loyalists, preparations for the War of 1812, the Rebellion of 1837, the establishment of the Presbyterian Church (1817), the country’s first astronomy campus and it’s largest telescope (1935) and the discovery and confirmation of black holes (1972).
An archaeological survey of the property also raises strong potential for aboriginal impact upon the Dunlap site, prior to its use by European settlers.
“It was an extraordinary meeting. Our presentation was very well received and we’re pleased with the immediate interest shown by our Federal representatives and officials. For the first time in over 19 months, we really feel the Dunlap site could be returned to public hands where it has always belonged,” said Karen Cilevitz, Chair of the DDO Defenders.
“The realization the Observatory site was an economic engine for York Region and Ontario was immediately apparent by all in attendance,” she said.
Astronomer Dr. Ian Shelton said, “This is where the first Canadian astronomers were trained, and many DDO staff members have played important roles in the history of modern astronomy. The discovery and confirmation of the first stellar mass black hole by Professor Tom Bolton is just one example. I had a real sense from our Ottawa meeting that the substantial list of Dunlap accomplishments won’t be just footnotes in an astronomy textbook.”
He continued, “I very much hope all of the heritage contents removed from the Observatory site are returned where they belong, and we can permanently establish the legacy of donor Jessie Donalda Dunlap and astronomer Dr. Clarence Chant. The interiors of these buildings were like walking back in time, filled with 70 years of instruments and literature that were used to keep pace with our rapidly evolving understanding about the true scale and complexity of the universe. This was, and is, a very special place.”
Minister Kent agreed, and called for all scientific and historic artifacts to be restored to the Dunlap site. “The heritage value of the contents are significantly lessened by these removals, context is everything,” he said.
The Great Telescope, Observatory buildings and its site was donated in trust to the University of Toronto in 1935 by Jessie Donalda Dunlap, in memory of her husband David. Last July, the University sold the property to Corsica Development Inc., a corporation owned in part by Metrus Development Inc.
The University of Toronto continues to have a relationship with its former astronomical campus, as it holds a $35 million dollar mortgage on the property, which it gave interest free to Corsica, for two years. The University subsequently removed the Observatory’s contents, some of them given to a museum in Ottawa.
Nearly three-quarters of a century ago, the Dunlap Observatory site was an asset to a community of 900 farmers, which catapulted the little village of Richmond Hill to the absolute centre of the British Empire. Having one of the world’s largest telescope’s has brought millions of visitors into Richmond Hill and Markham Township, and this injection of economic stability was a financial engine in the local economy during the Depression of the 1930s.
Said Ms. Cilevitz: “The local communities have always known and appreciated the cultural heritage worth of the Dunlap Observatory and Park. We now feel more confident it will indeed receive the protection and recognition it so richly deserves – that of a National site of great scientific, ecological, and economic significance.”
For further information, contact:
Karen Cilevitz
DDO Defenders
(416) 990-6694
[email protected]
Marianne Yake
RHNaturalists
(905) 883-3047
[email protected]
Dr. Ian Shelton
Astronomer
(905) 762-0072
[email protected] (905) 886-9911
David Belous
Special Assistant (Community Affairs)
Hon. Peter Kent, MP Thornhill
[email protected]