Larch Creek, aka Lorch Creek and Schwindt Creek

Henry Regier, 23 June 2009, Revised 10 May 2010

For the past decade I have 'monitored' all parts of Canagagigue Creek at dozens of locations. My monitoring runs were conducted from late morning to early evening on one of the hottest days of the summer after some days of a hot spell and during a relatively dry spell. So I've seen the stream at times that it has the highest temperature (plus or minus a couple of degrees C), the lowest flow and the most algal guck (in a few locations). Native fish are generally stressed at such times.

I have been told that the creek that flows into the mainstem of the Canagagigue Creek at the north end of downtown Elmira used to be called Schwindt Creek or Lorch Creek, with each name that of a farmer who lived somewhere along its banks; a sign along the Kissing Bridge Trail now reads Larch Creek.I have also documented where some springs are near this Creek. Ken Reger and Fred Hager have helped me with that. Both these gentlemen used to fish locations of this stream for trout; Fred talks of a deep hole upstream somewhere that is/was spring-fed where he used to catch trout but also where he kept his beer cold. Sometimes the beer went missing and he suspected that his friend Ken had come by.

This creek is relatively short, only about 6 km long from the eastern edge of Yatton and a couple of other western tributaries/springs near the gun club property. It has a number of springy-wetland areas.

The stream is readily visible on the current Google Earth map.

It has never dried out nor been reduced in flow to a mere trickle during the decade that I have observed it. This is in contrast to some streams immediately to the north which run into the small reservoir above Floradale.

Though the stream, 'Larch Creek', has been neglected it is not a complete write-off.

Where it crosses under the road south of Floradale, its water quality is good, it has decent flow and its temperature maximum has always been less that 25 C degrees during the past decade. On the basis of these admittedly simplistic measures I infer that it should support a population of brook trout but I don't know if there are suitable spawning beds in this stream. I have seen two small salmonids floating belly-up here.

Where the northward extension of Snyder Road passes over 'Larch Creek' the maximum water temperature in most summers is about 25 C. In 2006 and 2008 the water temperature got to about 30 C. Upstream of this bridge the stream makes a long detour southward onto the gulf course where it skirts a pond; perhaps hot water from the pond was occasionally released into the creek, inappropriately.

With some rehabilitative work the stream could be made fit for trout right into Elmira, I speculate. It should have some shade trees and shrubs planted in areas where the stream is now exposed. How the gulf course folks treat the stream should be investigated; as a trout stream it might become more 'attractive' to the golfers. Small tributaries could be led out of spring-fed wetlands with short conduits to keep cool water flowing into the stream in several locations. (Spring water is about 9 C year round in our region.) Etc.

Jack Imhof, of Trout Unlimited in Guelph, is an expert assessor of potential or existing trout streams and could provide sound advice.