Princess Point

Princess Point is located in the south east corner of Cootes Paradise marsh in Hamilton, Ontario, and is a principal access point to the surrounding natural areas. The property is part of the Cootes Paradise Nature Sanctuary owned and managed by the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG). The low waterside peninsula next to Chedoke Creek has made Princess Point a natural gathering place for people for thousands of years. Archeological discoveries have indicated that between 1000 and 800 AD the Middle Woodland Culture brought agriculture in the form of corn production to the region. The discovery of this has given rise to the term the Princess Point Complex, referring to this archeological group of First Nations people that cover a large region of eastern North America.

The current parking area was created in the 1950s by the RBG through substantial infilling of the marshland due to site popularity as well as pending construction of adjacent Hwy 403, and for several decades the area was manicured parkland. The site provides both canoe access to Cootes Paradise and starting point for the waterfront and natural trails of the area. The point has since become a grasslands/Oak Savanah restoration project site of RBG initiated in 2007. The site has never been farmed, and was specifically capped by the RBG for protection from use in the 1960s. Unusual species of oak trees and savannah plants remain, complimented by the plant diversity of the sites restoration. To manage the plant community ongoing regular controlled burns occur. The sites archeological investigations were imitated by McMaster University in the 1960s and continued by University of Toronto in the late 1990s to 2011.