Madeleine McDowell

Nominee for the Eric Arthur Lifetime Achievement Award

For decades, Madeleine McDowell has defended her beloved Humber River and the built heritage that flanks it with regality, determination and outstanding success, on an historic battlefield where, for most conservators, success is elusive. Without doubt, hers has been a lifetime of outstanding achievement!

For many years, every Saturday after Hurricane Hazel’s anniversary, Madeleine has lead heritage walks beside the Humber and given Hurricane Hazel talks, at Lambton House and in what is now Raymore Park.

In 2011 The Heritage Sub-Committee of the Humber Watershed Alliance (of which Madeleine was a member) was nominated by Architectural Conservancy Ontario for the Heritage Canada Foundation (now The National Trust for Canada) National Achievement Award, for its Humber River Bridge Inventory, which identifies and evaluates the structural history and cultural significance of 33 heritage bridges, and for The Shared Path, a loop trail on both banks of the Humber from its mouth at Humber Bay to Dundas Street, which parallels the southern stretch of the Carrying Place Trail to Lake Simcoe, Lake Huron and the west).