Story

As told by John

In 2010…

I was doing a project with Scouts that we called “In Search of Poison” teaching the youth how to identify poisonous plants in our area so they could avoid them.  I ran across a reference to giant hogweed, but thought it was a joke - because in all my extensive exploring I had never seen such a thing.  Then I discovered that this truly is a thing - and that it exists around here.  This required me to learn more.

Our ‘In search of poison’ event went on without finding any giant hogweed.  I did continue to look for locations and to talk to people who are intimately involved with the river - since I had read that the plants like to grow near the water.  We did find a patch and I worked with the local landowner to remove them.  She had the right tools, the herbicide licence, and I knew where the weeds were, so we took care of that patch (for 7 consecutive years).

In 2013…

It seemed that we needed to do some public education, so I arranged to use the church facility to put on a presentation.  Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters had a presentation slide-set on giant hogweed, but they had no one to present it at that time.  They offered that I could do the presentation using their slides if I recorded attendance.  That was easy.

In the presentation, there was a particularly disturbing picture of a 10-year-old boy who had cut down a giant hogweed and used the hollow stem as a telescope.  He had severe blistering on his hands and around his eye.  This image affected me deeply.  [Every 10-year-old should explore and why wouldn’t they use a hollow stem as a telescope?  No one knew this could be a problem.]

During the next few years…

We continued to hunt giant hogweed and educate the unfortunate landowner/recipients of the plants.  Presentations were made to other groups including County of Brant and Grand River Conservation Authority.

Fast forward to 2018…

We prepared a Solicitation of Interest document and sent it to the obvious stakeholders.  The response was disappointing; but I decided to go ahead anyway.  At that time, in 2018, the players were Grand River Conservation Authority and the Ontario Invasive Species Plant Council, Grand River Rafting and me.  The next year we had a little more interest in doing the actual boots on the ground work with a handful of others joining the fight. 

2019

Saw a freshly launched Giant Hogweed Mitigation Project that had a Facebook Group and later a Facebook Page and then after that, I made a shared Google Drive for those people who don’t use Facebook

I was planning control strategies and finding some details for the Mitigation Project - looking for specific research on how to control giant hogweed.  I ran across a thesis from Megan Grguric from University of Guelph. It was from 2017 so it was fresh - the newest info.  Her work was on control methods, she studied how to successfully dig them, and how to successfully poison them, and how to successfully cut off plants.  I found how to contact Meghan.  We chatted a few times.  I think she was pleased that someone was actually making (valuable) use of her work.  Later she became an ally.  We went down the river a few times, and she gave me some pointers and helped me dig out some plants.  Another time we were planning a large-patch seed removal.  I requested that she and friends or previous students might be interested in helping.  She showed up with a team - which was awesome!  That day we together collected 23 bags of giant hogweed seeds, which all went to the hazardous material disposal site.

Getting serious – and bigger

Stages of the project & structure had to be considered.  Was this going to be a business?  Was it going to be a charity?  Was it going to be a ‘nothing’ and just fizzle out due to lack of motivation?  What was the future going to be like?  What is the BIG picture?  What does the Bible say about his?  What do other countries do?  What did/do the First Nations Peoples do about this?  All these thoughts had to be worked through.  

The (now known to be errant) conclusion was that this project should only last two or three years.  Not a project to go on forever because the whole purpose was to reduce the plant populations - so that the reason for this organisation to exist would be gone.  In the interim - tasks would be to educate landowners, educate the public, and find out what legislation is in place – or could be updated. 

It wouldn’t be useful to be a corporation as that’s too expensive and complicated.  There’s no business to be had because there’s nothing to sell.  It doesn’t need to be a non-profit to avoid taxation.  So, we decided to be a volunteer group.

If you’re going to do a volunteer activity and you need supplies - so you need money to buy them.  That means you need donations/grants.  To get donations you want to be a charity or affiliated with a charity.  Becoming a charity takes about 18 months and then there’s corporation-like paperwork to do - so that seem to be a waste.  Finding a charity to take us under their wing would be the most efficient path and that’s where Freedom House came in - again.

Freedom House is famous for spreading kindness and transformation - two things that we’re trying to accomplish.  We want to protect our downstream neighbours and help those who need help.  I approached Freedom House to see if they would be a sponsoring agency.  They were more than happy to oblige.  That allowed us to have charitable status, so we can apply for grants, we could supply receipts for donations, and focus the volunteers on controlling weeds rather than business paperwork.  This arrangement also provides an accountability partner.

In the winter of 2023

We started the Giant Hogweed Task Force, which was formed from individuals that had some degree of influence.  So far we have had seven successful meetings.

The project continues to gain influence

Resistance from elected officials to take interest is surprisingly strong.  Plant population expansion rate is scary and it seems that we are making only slight changes – so far.  Educating the populus has been working.  We march on with hope and determination – to protect the downstream neighbours.