Draft talk:Baker's Woods

Sourcing

The substantive description of the forest — its area, composition, the 85 maples over a century old, the interior habitat and the 2011 opening ceremony — comes from Local Enhancement and Appreciation of Forests (LEAF), a Toronto conservation organisation independent of the City of Vaughan, which owns the site.

Points drawn from City of Vaughan material (the Baker family's use of the woodlot, the heritage designations, and the site's incorporation into Sugarbush Heritage Park) are marked with an explanatory note rather than presented as independently cited. Independent published sourcing for those points would improve the article, and Metroland's local archive for Vaughan is the most likely place to find it. KnowledgeMaple (talk) 14:59, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

{{One source}} tag

@John B123 — the tag is fair and I am not going to remove it. Noting here what I have already looked at, so nobody repeats the search.

The LEAF blog carries the substantive description. Beyond it I checked: the City of Vaughan's own news release and park material (the city owns the site, so it is not independent, and in any case it no longer resolves); the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority and York Region, both co-purchasers in 2000, which have nothing published on this woodlot specifically; and AllTrails, Trailforks and a hiking blog, none of which are reliable sources.

There is one promising lead I could not verify. A hiking blog states that Jonathan Baker Sr. bought the 200-acre farm in 1816, that the pine was cut for building while the maples were left to mature, and that the farm appears in the 1878 Illustrated Historical Atlas of the County of York. The atlas is a genuine published source and is digitised at Digital Archive Ontario, but confirming the Baker farm entry means reading the Vaughan Township plate itself, which I have not done. I am not willing to cite an atlas I have not actually looked at on the strength of a blog's description of it.

If anyone has access to Metroland's Vaughan archive (the Vaughan Citizen covered the 2011 opening) or can check that atlas plate, either would resolve this. KnowledgeMaple (talk) 19:24, 24 September 2026 (UTC)

Resolved. The Ontario Heritage Trust — a provincial agency, independent of the City of Vaughan — publishes an entry on the Jonathan Baker House through its Doors Open Ontario programme. It independently supports the three points the explanatory note had flagged: the Baker family as maple syrup pioneers among Vaughan's early settlers, the heritage protection, and the link to Sugarbush Heritage Park. It also adds the 1853 house and its uncommon horizontal plank construction.

I have added it, removed the note as redundant and removed the tag. The 1878 atlas lead remains unverified and I have not used it. KnowledgeMaple (talk) 19:30, 24 September 2026 (UTC)