The final phase of Baxter Conservation Area’s accessible boardwalk is set to be completed this summer, marking the last step in a nearly decade-long effort to transform the site into Eastern Ontario’s most accessible park.
“We’re trying to move past that point of what you normally do, versus what you can do,” said Diane Downey, director of communications and outreach with the Rideau Valley Conservation Authority.
“Then ask: what can we do better?”
Located along the Rideau River floodplain near Kars about 30 kilometres south of downtown Ottawa, Baxter Conservation Area features marshland, forest, an educational pond, a nut grove and a sandy beach, drawing thousands of visitors each year to explore its diverse wildlife.
The conservation area’s abundant accessibility features include specially designed boardwalks to better accommodate visitors using wheelchairs and other mobility devices, as well as a beach mat for traversing sand and picnic tables and outhouses with inclusive adaptations.
“It doesn’t matter whether you have a disability or you don’t,” said Mike Nemesvary, a leading advocate for the park’s accessibility features. “Nature should be for everybody, regardless of gender or age or mobility.”
The final 300-metre stretch of boardwalk to an expansive pair of viewing platforms overlooking a marshland habitat will complete more than 700 metres of wheelchair-accessible boardwalk at Baxter, including extra-wide platforms, gentle slopes, seamless transition poionts, safety rails and connections to key amenities designed to support independent use.
The addition builds on earlier phases of the project, including an “impressive” 100-metre marshland bridge, replacing what was once a deteriorating and largely inaccessible trail system.
The Vision
That transformation began nearly a decade ago with Nemesvary, an Ottawa-based advocate and founder of the Nature For All committee — a group focused on building inclusive and accessible outdoor spaces.
Nemesvary, a decorated World Cup alpine skiing champion and founder of numerous charitable initiatives, began rethinking access to outdoor spaces after a training-related spinal cord injury in 1985 changed the trajectory of his life as a quadriplegic.
He has been visiting Baxter for more than two decades and said he was struck by both its natural beauty and the barriers that limited who could fully experience it.
“I thought, my god, ‘this is the most amazing location’,” he said. “But it (isn’t) very user-friendly.”
Nemesvary said many people with disabilities are often shut in or excluded from outdoor experiences, despite having the time and desire to be involved.
Even for someone who is ambulatory, Nemesvary said the trail could be dangerous.
“That bridge was an accident waiting to happen, and it was probably the most important part because it took you from one ecosystem over to the other.”
The idea stemmed from the Manotick Remembrance Park project that involved a small committee Nemesvary was a part of.
He said he thought if they could do it for the Remembrance Park, maybe they could do it on a much larger scale.
“If you can conceive it, you can visualize it, you can get enough people to see that vision, then pretty well anything is possible,” he said.
The Nature For All committee eventually brought the proposal to the conservation authority.
At the time, Dan Cooper, the RVCA’s director of conservation and land stewardship said the idea felt ambitious.
‘If you can conceive it, you can visualize it, you can get enough people to see that vision, then pretty well anything is possible.’
— Mike Nemesvary, founder, Nature For All
“We were almost just humoring the idea,” he said. “We understood it was something that should be done, but we weren’t sure it could be done.”
The scale of the project, both financially and logistically, made it a significant undertaking.
The “Marnie Matrix”
But accessibility consultant Marnie Peters helped that become a real possibility by developing the “gold standard” of accessibility guidelines.
What the team now refers to as the “Marnie Matrix” is a design framework that expands on the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act to better fit the realities of building in outdoor spaces.
“Baxter has a little bit of everything,” she said. “So we had to look at all the leading documents out there and figure out what works best.”
To build it, Peters said she pulled from guidelines across jurisdictions, including Canada, the United States and Europe, comparing best practices for outdoor environments.
The matrix outlines hundreds of considerations, from trail width and slope to signage, surface materials and transitions between terrain.
That framework became the foundation for the project’s design and helped shift the approach from meeting standards to exceeding them.
“Baxter wanted to do better,” said Peters. “And they’ve certainly gone above and beyond what is required.”
Funding
At the outset of the project, securing financial support was a challenge.
Early efforts relied on community fundraising through the Nature For All committee, which raised more than $10,700 in private donations.
Downey described the amount as “small yet mighty in many ways.”
‘Baxter wanted to do better. And they’ve certainly gone above and beyond what is required.’
— Marnie Peters, accessibility consultant
The community support they received from clubs showed people cared and wanted to get involved, said Nemesvary. “We kept thinking, at some point people are going to realize what we were trying to build.”
That early support strengthened applications for larger funding, including municipal, provincial and federal contributions.
“It seems like it is always hard to get that first entity on board,” said Nemesvary. “But once you do, nobody wants to be the last.”
The final phase, scheduled for completion around Canada Day, also received $57,935 through the province’s Enhancing Access to Spaces for Everyone grant, which supports accessibility-focused infrastructure projects.
“Ensuring Ontario’s public spaces are accessible and welcoming for everyone is a priority for our government,” Raymond Cho, Ontario’s Minister for Seniors and Accessibility, stated in a March funding announcement. “Investments like the EASE Grant help communities create environments where older adults and people with disabilities can participate fully in community life.”
Baxter Conservation Area welcomes approximately 75,000 visitors and 8,000 outdoor education students each year.
“Our big hope is that everyone in that class gets on the bus and has a similar experience,” said Cooper.
“One thing that breaks your heart is thinking a student might have to stay behind.”
Next Steps
A section of Baxter’s Fiddlehead Trail closed April 20 as work began on the final stretch of the accessible boardwalk, with detours maintaining access to the bridge and lookout.
With Baxter’s showcase accessibility features nearing completion, the conservation authority is already planning to apply the same “nature for all” model to other sites, including Chapman Mills Conservation Area in Barrhaven and Foley Mountain in the village of Westport (about 100 kilometres southwest of Ottawa), with crews expected to move to Champan Mills once work at Baxter is complete.
For Nemesvary, creating space to uplift people remains at the core of the project, with hopes it can serve as a global example of what is possible.
“Why wouldn’t you want to bring everyone up with you?” he said. “The sky is not even the limit.”
