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Facts & Figures
Rouge Park is Canada's premier urban wilderness park. Over 47 km2 (11,500 acres) in size,
it is protected park land in the Rouge River, Petticoat Creek and Duffins Creek watersheds, in
and near Toronto, Canada's largest city.
The headwaters, or source, of the 250 km-long Rouge River system are in the Oak Ridges Moraine,
an important geologic feature north of Toronto. The Rouge River and its tributaries flow south into
Toronto, through the marshes at Rouge Beach, and empty into Lake Ontario.
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Some Interesting Facts about Rouge Park
- Rouge Park is Toronto's largest park, and is already 13 times as big as New York's Central Park, or 33 times the size of London, England's Hyde Park.
- Outcrops of rock formed during the last glacial period are found in Rouge Park and are important to geologists studying seismic activity, in particular the risk of earthquakes in the Toronto area. Faults are visible indicating significant earthquake activity between 80,000 and 13,000 years ago.
- Rouge Park is home to the eastern arm of the Nationally Historic "Carrying Place" trail, which was an original portage route between Lake Ontario and Lake Simcoe.
- An active farming community is part of the legacy that Rouge Park preserves, protecting the only rural landscape and working farms in the City of Toronto.
- The mouth of the Rouge River stays frost-free one month longer than northern areas of the river system on the Oak Ridges Moraine.
- Rouge Park has the largest and best examples of Canada's rare Carolinian habitat in Toronto and is the only officially recognized site in the Toronto area.
- Inspired by the scenery during the 1950s, FH Varley, one of Canada's renowned Group of Seven painters, captured the banks of the Rouge River in Markham on canvas as a lasting memory of their beauty.
- Rouge Park's natural setting has provided filming locations for decades, posing as a backdrop for an array of landscapes, from the far north to the bayous of Mississippi. A Canadian filmmaker had a studio in the Park for many years, filming underwater beaver activity and simulating birds in flight.
- Rouge Park is the only place where the Ontario Greenbelt reaches Lake Ontario in the City of Toronto.
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