Burlington Outdoor Activities

The Lackawanna headquarters of Phoenix Scuba and Water Sports is situated so that it attracts both Canadian diving enthusiasts who drop in from the Niagara Peninsula as well as divers from throughout western New York State. Recreational-minded beginners hop into the facility's indoor pool to build skills and underwater experience before venturing out to the open water on one of the company's scuba charters. Meanwhile, Phoenix's veteran instructors work with professional divers-in-training who are trying to become certified. Instructional programs are also offered in adaptive diving, which trains those with physical disabilities to safely enjoy the joys of scuba. Through the years, the resident community of adaptive divers has made trips to exotic locales such as the Cayman Islands, where divers explore the ocean's depths and play Battleship underwater.:m]

A massive glass dome reminiscent of the Victorian Crystal Palace and verdant plant life stretching their green leaves toward the sun attract visitors to the Buffalo Botanical Gardens. The gardens span 11 acres and include three glass domes and nine greenhouses full of re-created tropical and subtropical climates. In the Fern House and tropical rainforest, banana trees surround a 30-foot waterfall as large dinosaur topiaries roam across a backdrop of hanging ferns.

Called a living museum, the botanical gardens is dedicated to enriching lives with nature and teaching guests to appreciate the natural systems and diverse plant life the earth sustains. Visitors can soak up Mother Nature’s splendor in addition to manmade wonders such as the 67-foot-tall Palm Dome.

Despite spending most of their 125-plus-year history as a minor-league organization, the Bisons began play as a major-league club from 1879–85. All told, nearly 3,000 players and managers have donned the Bisons uniform, including 20 who have been immortalized in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Currently, the Bisons compete every summer for an International League title, as well as the Thruway Cup—a regional- and bragging rights–based trophy chased by the Bisons, the Rochester Red Wings, and the Syracuse Chiefs. The Bisons have done half of their competing since 1988 at Coca-Cola Field, which boasts the largest video board in the minors and an infield kept moist by hoses that spray water and not soda as the field’s name would suggest.

Though the winter snow has melted, inner tubes continue to zoom down the routes at Chicopee Tube Park—now cruising atop Italian mats, designed for waterless tubing. A host of other outdoor attractions complement the park’s eponymous activity. Two ziplines—an 80-metre line for first timers and a 300-metre line for veteran fliers—let passengers glide above the treetops without having to hitch a ride on a passing pterodactyl. The Eurobungy trampoline also gives guests the gift of flight, granting harness-sporting park-goers the ability to leap up to 25 feet in the air, and the spider-web climbing tower offers stationary bird’s-eye views once climbers have hoisted themselves to its pinnacle. For low-to-the-ground fun, harnessed participants at the horizontal ropes can balance six feet off the ground, getting a taste of tightrope walking without that chalky, acrophobic aftertaste.

Adventurist Frederick Schuett launched One Axe Pursuits in 2001 to use outdoor adventure as a vehicle to promote active lifestyles. He sliced the company into three divisions: recreational programs, corporate team building, and filmmaking. The outdoor-adventure company specializes in recreational programs that send clients zip-lining over the Elora gorge, climbing up frozen waterfalls, and rappelling down limestone cliffs. The corporate team-building division helps create cohesiveness among groups, and film-industry services—such as stunt work and training—keeps movie stars and the cardboard cut-outs they use as stunt doubles safe and intact.

Flag Raiders ensures fierce competition with outdoor arenas marked by a variety of obstacles, terrain, and setups. Paintballers and their friends can traipse through an urban cityscape, firing colourful orbs past buildings or over six full-size cars while dodging stern jaywalking cops. On the turfed speedball pitch, prowlers quickly take cover behind inflatable obstacles and advance before getting splat tagged.