LaSalle
LaSalle is a town in Essex County, Ontario, Canada and has a 2016 population of 30,180. It is a bedroom community of the City of Windsor and part of the Windsor Census Metropolitan Area, and is located just South of Windsor. LaSalle, along with Windsor, is the oldest French settlement area in Southwestern Ontario, and the oldest continually inhabited European settlement in Canada west of the Quebec border. The town was named for explorer René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle and includes Fighting Island, in the Detroit River at its western side, an island that is privately owned by the world’s largest chemical company, BASF.
One of LaSalle’s biggest events is the annual Strawberry Festival which takes place on the first weekend in June. The annual LaSalle Craft Beer Festival, put on by the Corporation of the Town of LaSalle, is also in its third year. The festival features a number of different types of beer, from popular brands, such as Corona, to smaller microbreweries.
LaSalle also has its own small but growing bicycle trail network, the “LaSalle Trail”, which links up to neighbouring Windsor’s “Windsor Trail” network, allowing people to ride from Sandwich Secondary School all the way to Windsor’s Riverfront Trail. The town has expressed interest and intentions to connect LaSalle (and indirectly, Windsor) to the Chrysler Canada Greenway by constructing a link to the Trans Canada Trail near Oldcastle.
The town also features the Vollmer Culture and Recreation Complex. The complex has multiple rooms for hosting of events, 2 arenas, an Olympic-sized pool and slide, outdoor skate park, soccer fields, and baseball diamonds.
