Frequently Asked Questions

Citizen Science is a program that involves you, as a member of the community, helping us to conduct research on trees on your own property. For more information, please click here:

Email katie@fotmw.org to sign up.

You must have at LEAST two trees of the same species and roughly the same size in a similar environment. We prefer that the trees be of a Muskoka native species and over 10 cm in diameter and not near surface water.

Data can be submitted using the webform: https://fotmw.org/citizen-science-2022/, or you can email katie@fotmw.org with your data. Please be sure to clearly label all photos.

Friends of the Muskoka Watershed was founded in 2013.

Friends of the Muskoka Watershed in a not-for-profit organization that conducts and supports research on the effects of residential wood ash (ash that comes from Muskoka homes) on trees. To do so, we have reached out to members of the community to donate their wood ash to our ASHMuskoka program. As an expansion of the ASHMuskoka program, we now have the Citizen Science program. Our other focus is the use and impacts of road salt on our natural environment.

For more information on our Citizen Science program, please click here:

Friends of the Muskoka Watershed is located at 126 Kimberley Avenue, Bracebridge, ON P1L 1T7.

The ASHMuskoka program seeks to reduce the impacts that acid rain had on our watershed. We’ve found that wood ash can supply the nutrients the soil needs to return to pre-acid rain conditions.

We welcome you to donate your wood ash to us at our regular ash drives at Rosewarne Transfer Station in Bracebridge. Stay tuned on our Facebook for dates of our ash drives and all upcoming events!

We also encourage you to become a volunteer, financial donor or citizen scientist. If you’d like to sign up, please email tim@fotmw.org or katie@fotmw.org.

Ash drives are held monthly from September to April from 9am to 1pm. Please look on our Facebook @friendsofthemuskokawatershed for specific dates.

The FOTMW suggests you consider donating your wood ash to us, but if you cannot make it to our ash drives, you can spread ash on your own property. Please review the following FAQs before proceeding.

If you have cold ash that has been filtered (nails, staples, etc. removed) that you’d like to spread on your own property, we recommend that using a 750ml plastic yogurt container, you sprinkle it thinly around an area of 1 square meter. You will only need to apply the ash once on that specific area once. Please wear gloves, long sleeves and a mask as wood ash can be an irritant.

Cold, filtered ash can be spread on your private property on the forest floor, in your garden or on your driveway (it is a great alternative to salt). Do not spread ash near surface water or your well. Do not spread ash in high traffic areas as it can be an irritant to people and pets and wear long sleeves, gloves and a mask when spreading.

Road salt is harmful to the water quality and local wildlife (such as fish, birds, and turtles). The road salt leaks down from the road and gets into our rivers and streams, which then flows into the rest of our watershed.

The FOTMW does research and regularly monitors the levels of salt in Muskoka’s waters. We are also raising awareness of the issue.

Consider using an alternative to road salt like sand or calcium magnesium acetate (CMA). CMA can be purchased at most department stores like Home Depot.

Here is a news article on how Ryerson University developed a method to reduce the use of road salt: