Хэлтон-Хиллс: природа, история и экология канадского города.

Halton Hills is a town in the Regional Municipality of Halton, located in the northwestern end of the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada with a population of 62,951 (2021). There are many natural features within these bounds; they include the Niagara Escarpment, and the Bruce Trail. Many of these local features are protected by the Conservation Halton, Credit Valley Conservation & Grand River Conservation Authority.

The primary population centres are Georgetown and Acton. Additionally, there are a number of hamlets and rural clusters within the town, including Ashgrove, Ballinafad (straddling the boundary with Erin), Bannockburn, Crewsons Corners (straddling the boundary with Erin, Guelph Eramosa and Milton), Glen Williams, Henderson's Corners, Hornby, Limehouse, Mansewood, Norval, Scotch Block, Silver Creek, Speyside, Stewarttown, Terra Cotta (straddling the boundary with Caledon), and Wildwood. The area was first settled in the 1820s.

Halton Hills is located in the transition zone between the Huron Ontario Forest Section of the Great Lakes St. Lawrence forest zone to the north and the Niagara Section of the Carolinian forest zone to the south. Both forest zones are part of the Mixedwood Plains Ecozone. The natural vegetation in the Huron Ontario Section is dominated by mixed wood forests. It is a transitional type between the southern deciduous forests and the northern coniferous forests. The forest communities of the Niagara Section are dominated by broad leaved trees. Overall, Halton Hills consists predominantly of agricultural lands with scattered woodlands and wetlands. The woodlands are mainly deciduous forest and the wetlands are either cedar swamp or cattail marsh.

American ginseng exists in the town, and is protected under the Endangered Species Act, 2007. Butternut trees are also threatened by the butternut canker. The hooded warbler and the Jefferson salamander are also designated as threatened species. Brook trout had been eliminated from the Black Creek watershed for many years, following the ongoing environmental disaster due to the excessive consumption of faecal mater as well as the trailer park polluting the water in the town of Erin. The trout have not returned, and anglers report that most of the fish have almost entirely disappeared from the area. and distribution of surface material in the Town of Halton Hills are the result of glacial activity which took place in the Late Wisconsinan Substage of the Pleistocene Epoch. This period of time, which lasted from approximately 23,000 to 10,000 years ago, was marked by the repeated advance and melting back of massive, continental ice sheets. The Niagara Escarpment dominates the physiography of the town and greatly influenced the pattern of glaciation in the region. The Escarpment, formed by erosion over millions of years, is a high relief bedrock scarp which trends to the north through the central part of the town. To the west, on the upper surface of the Escarpment, hummocky morainic ridges deposited by glacial ice form part of the Horseshoe Moraines physiographic region. To the southeast below the Escarpment, is a smooth glacial till plain partially bevelled by lacustrine action, which forms part of the South Slope and Peel Plain physiographic regions. The Town of Halton Hills is underlain by Ordovician shales of the Queenston Formation east of the Niagara Escarpment, and by Silurian dolomites of the Amabel Formation west of the Escarpment. The escarpment face exposes a complex succession of shales, sandstones, limestones and dolomites of the Clinton and Cataract Groups. Red shales of the Queenston Formation underlie the eastern half of the town and are generally covered by more than 15 m of glacial sediments, predominantly the Halton Till. There are several areas of thin drift cover south of Georgetown. The quarrying of limestone has been undertaken since the 19th century, and the lime industry was once quite prevalent. In 1886, the Toronto Lime Company had operations in Limehouse and Acton, employing a total of four draw kilns and eleven set kilns, producing common lime and water lime. At Limehouse, rock from the Clinton formation yielded green and brown shales and blue marl, which were used in the manufacture of mineral paints. with oil being discovered in 1912, significant strikes did not occur until 1954. The town is located in an area that is considered to be of low seismic potential, and the largest recent earthquake to take place within its limits was of magnitude 3 on 29 June 1955. There is a POLARIS seismic monitoring station located just west of Acton.

+ Citizenship and immigration status Group 2016 Census 2011 Census 2006 Census Population % of total Population % of Total Population % of TotalCanadian citizen By birth 50,310 83.6 No data 46,380 84.3 By naturalization 8,120 13.5 6,845 12.4Permanent resident 1,630 2.7 1,515 2.8Non permanent resident 140 0.2 280 0.5Total60,200 100.055,020 100.0
In 2021, Halton Hills was 84.6% white/European, 13.6% visible minorities, and 1.8% Indigenous. The largest visible minority groups were South Asian (5.6%), Black (1.7%), Chinese (1.2%), Filipino (1.0%) and Latin American (1.0%). 80.8% of residents spoke English as their mother tongue. The next most common first languages were Polish (1.7%), Portuguese (1.6%), French (1.5%), Punjabi (1.4%), Croatian (1.2%), Italian (1.0%) and Spanish (1.0%). 2.2% of residents listed both English and a non official language as mother tongues, while 0.5% listed both English and French. 61.4% of the population were Christian, down from 72.1% in 2011. 34.3% were Catholic, 16.8% were Protestant, 6.2% were Christian n. o. s, 1.6% were Christian Orthodox and 2.6% belonged to other Christian denominations or Christian related traditions. 32.2% were non religious or secular, up from 26.3% in 2011. 6.4% belonged to other religions, up from 1.6% in 2011. The largest non Christian religions were Islam (2.0%), Sikhism (1.9%), and Hinduism (1.5%). + Mobility over previous five years Group 2016 Census 2011 Census 2006 Census 2001 Census 1996 Census Population % of total Population % of Total Population % of Total Population % of Total Population % of Total At the same address 38,745 67.8 37,510 68.630,270 58.9 25,135 56.4 22,370 57.4 In the same municipality 8,125 14.2 7,460 13.6 8,480 16.5 17,540 39.3 7,175 18.4 In the same province 9,190 16.1 8,625 15.8 11,180 21.7 8,285 21.2 From another province 435 0.8 520 1.0 765 1.5 1,920 4.3 735 1.9 From another country 655 1.1 525 1.0 720 1.4 430 1.1 Total aged 5 or over 57,150 100.0 54,640 100.051,420 100.0 44,595 100.0 39,000 100.0