By late morning on April 25th, the trails along the Neebing McIntyre Floodway had that early-spring look—patches of brown grass, a few stubborn bits of snow in the shade, and the quiet sense that the season was just beginning to turn. That’s when people started to arrive.
Not in a rush, not all at once. From the Fort William Rotary Club, Port Arthur Rotary Club, and familiar faces from the Rotary Club of Lakehead there were handshakes, a few waves across the parking area, and the easy kind of greetings that pick up right where they left off. TBay REAcT had brought them together for the Rotary Great Lakes Watershed Cleanup, but once everyone was there, it didn’t feel like an “event” so much as something natural...like neighbors deciding it was time to take care of a place they all shared.
Gloves were passed around. Garbage bags opened with a snap. They spread out, falling into step with one another. Some worked in pairs, others alone for a while, then drifted into conversation. There was no hurry to it. Just steady movement. A bottle lifted from the grass. A piece of plastic pulled from the edge of the water. Small things, one after another. What stood out wasn’t the scale of the work, but the way it was done.
For a couple of hours, the lines between Fort William, Port Arthur, and Lakehead had simply disappeared. Not because anyone tried to erase them, but because they didn’t matter out there. What mattered was the water moving beside them, the trail under their feet, and the shared understanding that taking care of it together was worth showing up for.