Iroquois Sand and Gravel Bar

Iroquois Sand and Gravel Bar. . , Quick Facts: Glacial feature - 12,000 years old. - Former shoreline of Lake Iroquois, You are standing on the Iroquois Bar, a long, low hill that extends from the base of the Niagara Escarpment at John Street through downtown Hamilton. It separates Cootes Paradise from Hamilton Harbour/Burlington Bay, and ends at the Rock Garden of the Royal Botanical Gardens (RBG). The Bar was created by the glacial streams of Dundas Valley meeting the currents of glacial Lake Iroquois (now Lake Ontario) at the close of the last ice age, twelve thousand years ago., - Wealthy citizens built homes on top of the bar for better views and drainage in the nineteenth century. , - The former Crystal Palace (1860 to 1891) stood on the bar's high ground in Victoria Park. , - Gravel from the bar quarry, now the Rock Garden in the RBG, was used for the first Hamilton to Toronto highway, around 1917., The Iroquois Bar forms part of the shoreline of the historic Lake Iroquois, which was much larger than present day Lake Ontario. Its raised beach is visible from Queenston through Toronto. The Hamilton Beach Strip was formed in the same way by Lake Ontario.