When is the economic development serpent satisfied?

I have been trying to fully appreciate recent news that a lot more poop than was first expected, is making its way, untreated, into Lake Ontario. Most environmental watchers in Southern Ontario, have known this as general knowledge for decades but may have been somewhat surprised by revelations about a larger volume free-flowing into an already highly contaminated North American waterway. Is it any wonder beaches are closed due to e-coli contamination every summer?
This blogger hopes the citizens of Toronto and other Southern Ontario centres, found to have inadequate sewage treatment facilities, will crowd into a municipal council meeting to strongly suggest the problem be dealt with “NOW.” And that before any more expansive urban development, upwards or hinterland-way, can commence, the unbelievable situation of turds flipping end over end into the lake, has to stop or else. Or else the province must step in and fix the problem and if the buck gets passed onward, the feds need to stop the great feces caper. But it will take a colossal effort by the citizens of the city and this province, to demand major preventative action.
As it relates to Muskoka, well, our local movers and shakers have been prostituting the region for decades now, attempting to transplant urban times upon the hinterland, in the name of “economic development.” Most of the candidates in recent municipal elections in Muskoka used “economic development,” to appease those of us who feel we need much more prosperity in our lives. Of course many citizens, told they can have “MORE” will find it difficult to settle for less, such that the quest is never likely to satisfy appetite. After the election, sensing that the citizenry is just as greedy as it was before the election, feel unfettered about accepting the development bids by any one with a couple of million to speculate on our region, whether it is what we need or not. I will argue this to my grave but there is something fundamentally wrong when economic development is more important than our ecological well being. Like many cities, Muskoka also has aging and outdated infrastructure. Instead of making sure, absolutely sure we can handle new development stresses on the system, our leaders put on that “Can-Do” expression, glad handing a future that for them is four years until end of an elected term. After that, who cares? Then we’re stuck with “their” vision of what Muskoka should look like. If the environment needs to be sacrificed that’s the price of achieving a “vision for the future.” Wouldn’t it be great if one elected official had “a vision” of “a healthy, thriving forest,” and a “clean, unpolluted lake,” ahead of the ceaseless quest for urban expansion.
When I was a kid, living in the young City of Burlington, I could smell Lake Ontario from our home a block from the lakeshore. Where I used to swim, you had to contend with dead fish. In your face, under foot, and everywhere else on that beachfront. You couldn’t have a picnic there because it smelled too foul to work up anything more than a dry heave. The water of Ramble Creek that ran through our neighborhood, smelled like chemicals and other related refuse, continually dumped down the embankment by residents who didn’t think it mattered what entered the water course. The fact that it drained right into Lake Ontario didn’t make much difference to them. I knew neighbors who ate the smelt netted in that toxic creek. I have watched myself for various forms of cancer because I got many soakers in those days (late 1950’s and early 1960’s) and seldom came home from playing in the ravine that I wasn’t wearing the moisture of Ramble Creek.
When I moved to Muskoka, with my family in the winter of 1966, I was in awe of the wide open spaces, the abundant forests, wetlands, creeks and lakeland. The critters. My god, so many wonderful critters. It was a beautiful, thriving hinterland. My new hometown was charming with its cohesive main street, building owners who also ran the storefront enterprises, and it was obvious the community recognized that its most significant enterprise was the tourism industry. In 1966 the business leaders knew the relevance of our natural resources to the financial bottom line. When the 24th of May weekend arrived with considerable pomp and circumstance, in respect to Queen Victoria’s reign, the towns of Muskoka were ready. They rolled out the carpet for our faithful, loyal visitors, who spent millions of dollars even then, as a much needed respite from urban stresses. Every business owner, every politician, every citizen knew what it meant to commence another “tourist season.” It would be a bustling, thriving district until the Thanksgiving weekend in October. Muskoka’s tourism industry began this way in the 1870’s as a going concern. Even at a time when homesteaders were carving out farms from the dense forest and rock, the city weary were retreating to Muskoka guest homes in droves, to benefit from clean wide open spaces, and the invigorating, health-promoting, soot-free air.
In the late 1970’s Muskoka politicians were being pressured to make the region more economically viable throughout the year. We needed more industry. More investment. More retail development. In short, we needed to be more aggressive to get our fair share of the cash being waved about by developers who were looking to speculate outside the city. What started as a high expectation did slowly become reality, and the hunt and seek for “progress,” was being notched up based on what was being “caught”. In the early 1990’s I predicted, with some accuracy, that Muskoka would experience huge development interest, and it would be incumbent upon every citizen to impress upon local government, the necessity for strict policies about the kind and extent of development we could safely handle. As you might gather, the horses were long gone before citizens mustered the courage to ask councilors to close the barn door. Thusly, we were graced the kind of urban sprawl in the name of….”you wanted economic development…..so here it is!”
The problem is that a majority of councilors, elected in Muskoka, are not as keen to report to constituents, they’ve spent their time working on projects to safeguard the eco-system, but rather prefer bestowing news about the advancement of yet another urban business or residential node in development. Just once in my lifetime, I would like to hear an elected official in Muskoka stand up and state that we are in serious danger of damaging the ecology of the region, if we continue to expand to meet the demands of the city. You know, the city that tends to use natural water course as an auxiliary toilet.
What troubles me the most is that I was part of the propaganda machine, in the late 1970’s, through mid 1990’s, composing thousands of regional features designed to present Muskoka in its best, most positive light. My historical features ran in almost every local paper, and my circulation was staggering for a small town writer who was content to stay that way. It wasn’t until the late 1990’s that I started to get requests for my writing services, to promote new development projects. I had written many business features and afterall, I was a struggling writer with a young family. Of course I needed the money, and I’d already been a shill for big business during my days with the community press. At the same time I had received considerable Outdoor Education tutoring from my friend David Brown, of Hamilton, one of the captains of out-of-class education in the province. I went on many cross country hikes with the good Mr. Brown in these concluding years of the century, sometimes with students, and on other eco-walks, one-on-one, criss-crossing both marsh and highland. I came to realize how absolutely critical it was that the young generations learn about nature and its welfare. Nothing Dave ever told me was propaganda. I could research anything he said or claimed, and uncover the ecological reality straight up. Having participated in several outdoor programs with my young sons here in Muskoka, I developed some serious after-thoughts about the promotional writing I had been pursuing as a second income. I began turning down gigs, if in any way, I felt uncertain about a project’s impact on our region. I made more than a few developers angry that the home town historian wasn’t prepared to endorse “Their” vision of “Our” future.
Without knowing it, I had been participating in a lengthy sale’s pitch to investors everywhere, to come and take advantage of our expansive and unlimited investment potential. I was just one small component of a welcoming-hand policy that has led to an ongoing interest in selling the district faster and more enthusiastically. When I read any political statement about “economic development,” and “attracting new investment,” I cringe, particularly when used in the same sentence or paragraph with reference to “environmental concern,” and “respect for our eco-system.” It never works out that way but as a word-smith who is perpetually concerned about the reaction of the reader, it reads and sounds like responsible governance. If it wasn’t for a few die-hard environmentalists beating their drums for public attention, our fate would be sealed much sooner, in a quagmire of too much development…..too much poop in our lakes and rivers.
The question I pose to any locally elected official, who will spare a moment of time, is whether or not there will ever be a time, when the number one issue of good governance, doesn’t fall under the umbrella of “economic development.” When will the citizens be satisfied with what they have? Simply stated, there is “No” finality to this quest for economic well being. No matter how many emotional, passionate presentations about the reasons we should accept the latest offering of urban sprawl, there will always be “the next most important development that will deliver us from economic hardship.” Yet try to impress upon a local politician that the “MORE” you acquire, the greater the demand on “EVERY THING.” Only a fool would believe development alone will deliver us from self proclaimed despair. This is a two headed serpent that will stagger our own limits to growth. In the process, we will slowly destroy our number one industry, tourism, because visitors will choose to go further north, (as they have been) to get beyond the grasp of urban reality. Our tourist population and second home owners, do not come to Muskoka for its shopping advantages. A developer will tell you differently. They will charm politicians with tales of magic beans and streets paved with gold, and convince the gullible that the box store experience will make us whole. Make us more competitive! Make us more attractive! I’ve never once been pleasantly startled to see a strip mall or box store monstrosity.
Until we have a political network of councilors who see the trap of over-extending our willingness to share, we will continue to see development and speculation run rampant. It’s happening in many target communities across the province, and the stories are pretty much the same. What a role model district we would be, if our government levels agreed, we are urbanizing too much, too fast, and sacrificing too much of our open space without knowing the true measure of consequence.
I do not belong to a political party. I don’t have a membership card from any environmental action group. I don’t heckle politicians who don’t agree with my plan, and only occasionally do I submit a letter to the editor. But in all my compositions now, I do, without apology, defend the integrity and well being of the nature around us. I make many requests of the education administrators in this region, this province and country, to infuse more money to keep outdoor education programs alive. The only way to save this earth, to save our offspring, is to educate students from the earliest grades onward, how they must be responsible for ongoing stewardship of the eco-system that keeps mankind alive. In every year of school study, environmental immersion is mandatory, if we truly expect to change the collision course we’re on toward our own eventual extinction.
I love my home region. I adore the hinterland around me. As the environment has long assisted my work as a writer, and inspired me generously in all my tasks, I have made it a mission, to never again turn my back on a dear, threatened ally in need. Whether you live in Muskoka or anywhere else in our beautiful province and country, please take environmental matters seriously. Start in your own neighborhood. When you hear or read about an outdoor education program being cut because of budget slashing, take a stand for its preservation. Take a few moments to help clean up a green belt or neighborhood park, and let you neighbor know it’s unacceptable to dump refuse into an adjacent woodlot or watershed; as I watched in that beautiful ravine where Ramble Creek snaked through the forest toward the lake.
Thank you for taking the time to read this humble submission.

At home for Christmas in these haunted woods

On even the coldest winter day, gale or blinding snow, I can find restorative sanctuary beneath these wavering pines. No matter how frustrated I might feel or what conundrum of circumstance battles pro and con in my mind, there’s a calming embrace of universe encountered down this hallowed path. I can arrive at the trail’s intersection with the neighborhood lane, feeling angry and unresolved, and in a matter of a few steps toward the interior, attention is subtly diverted from private affairs, to the realities of this peaceful environs, snow laden pine boughs softening the lines of the winter barrens. Gusting wind will suddenly explode the burdened pine branches, casting prism ice against the depth and darkness of the sculpted woodland.
A lot of self professed experts locally, talk about environmental issues as if they know this place where I stand today. At times their arguments seem sensible and responsible, and I feel they must have witnessed the transitions in these enchanted woods, as I’ve celebrated them for all these years. Yet their words are hollow, their mission quite political, and their editorials just wordsmithing for reader approval. I won’t arrive here in the morning, tomorrow, the day after, or on days evermore, and find the footsteps of the armchair environmentalist, pronounced clearly in this new snow. They don’t have time to venture into actuality which they find so inconvenient. Rather by protocol and contradictory indifference, they pen their thoughts about the fate of my woods, without standing once, even for a moment, in this portal to all nature. How can nature, this Ontario hinterland, the water, the air, be protected when those who go to bat as its defenders, believe immersion is irrelevant to the good work they intend?
I want the developers, the politicians, the planners and glad-handers of “progress at all cost,” to stand here with the so-called environmentalists, editorialists and gad-about experts, to watch this winter storm thrust down over The Bog. I want them to hear the voices in the wind, and sense the shock and awe of gale unfurled. I wish for them to feel the presence of power and greatness within, and feel the restorative embrace of nature upon our nature; and to heartily celebrate freedom beyond expectation, when the stars liberate our fettered souls, to wander freely the universe of untold possibility. I want them to feel the chill of frost, the tingling toes and fingertips, and to breathe deeply the pinery scent, of life-force eternal. Most of all, I would be profoundly impressed, should they feel humble in the presence of such magnificent creation, and return time and again to re-trace their own enlightened history along this well trodden path. And when a woodland is labeled in cavalier planning verbiage as “zoned open space,” you will keenly defend its honor, as habitat, as a sanctuary, a peaceful acreage for a pleasant hike, a healing place for the casualties of the modern way of life. While we shall never be able to protect every woodland, lowland and lakeshore from urban thrust, how encouraging it would be, to find new travelers, sightseers and watchers in the woods, to experience by actuality, what life and magic it has held for us, before the coming of the progressives…..turning paradise into speculation!
Over this winter period you will be able to see my trail packed into the snow, on my regular strolls down into the now frozen Bog. You will see those places I have stopped for a lengthy vigil; for example, the embankment above the lowland that affords an expansive view of the hollow. On some mornings I will go further afield, making a new trail through the pines and cedars. On other days, I will travel less distance but linger awhile longer, in a special arched enclosure made by snow-burdened boughs. My companion puppy Bosko will be at my side, and together we will watch over this place as Thoreau was the steward of his pond. I will look out at the frozen barrens and feel the presence of spirits, just as Washington Irving found favorite, storied haunts, along his favorite Hudson River. And I shall never once be disappointed with what nature provides the humble voyeur, searching for respite from the conflicts of the century. How pleasing it would be indeed, to know that you feel the same, and will seek out your own portal onto this beautiful world, and find the reason to defend its conservation.

In quest of an environmentally sensitive politician

A few candidates in recent municipal elections here in Muskoka, did use the word “environment,” and with tempered bravado made the suggestion, “we should all be concerned about its well being!” It wasn’t a priority pitch to the electorate. Why? Unfortunately, and it’s true in my neighborhood and maybe yours, nature is simply a strategically placed background in our lives. Nature is good when it’s clear, sunny and warm, and painfully inconsiderate when normal winter weather abruptly arrives. We might not get the full brunt of winter until mid-January. But to some folks it’s just not right that the most important players in nature, us mortals, don’t have the privilege of forcing the weather to suit our daily priorities. I guess it’s because of our massive intellect that we should logically trump the temperament of nature. By self-righteousness alone we should be able to defer a nasty weather pattern such that it would not interfere with an outdoor concert or a family picnic.
I recently overheard a visitor to Muskoka complain about the nuisance bears, and the critic’s advice to local government was to “shoot them all,” so they wouldn’t “bother us any more!” You’d be shocked to find that this attitude isn’t all that exceptional. There are far too many humans who believe nature itself is a burdensome reality. Despite considerable information about the serious environmental damage limiting our future life expectancy, the majority of us continue to subscribe to nature’s magical capability of bouncing back from the threshold of destruction.
Take my own neighborhood for example. We live adjacent to a thriving lowland I have entitled, “The Bog.” It’s a small, treed wring of woodland surrounding a swampy interior that is teeming with varied wildlife. In the summer it offers a deep green vista of typical wetland vegetation, wildflowers and ferns, and a wide array of creatures large and small. A tiny rambling creek snakes through the lowland, and if you listen carefully at various points around the bog, you can hear each small waterfall tumbling over the matted grasses of a hundred autumn seasons past. If you stopped to truly study this place, to listen to all the comings and goings of the creatures that make this modest terrain home, possibly you would think differently about dumping toxic refuse on their habitat. Might it inspire the cheapskate homeowner, to pay a couple of bucks in fuel, and a small dumping fee at the local landfill site, to dispose of oil bottles and shingles otherwise, than to flip them casually amongst the ferns. I suppose they believe a plastic container will act as habitat or that the shingles will eventually be reduced to soil. More likely they don’t think. They don’t care. Our family has pulled all types of debris from the bog, from household garbage to wood with large nails sharp-end up. You’ve got to be a moron to the exponent of ten not to expect a child, a woodland hiker, a neighborhood pet or general wildlife to step on that piercing point of metal.
Our neighborhood homes and properties are all well appointed, neat, with lush and manicured lawns. They are accented of course, with a sensible proportion of ornamental shrubs and hanging flower baskets. Heaven forbid a blade of grass should get one centimeter above the neighborhood standard. Of course we must also practice rigorous weed control with an array of products and methods of application. A few of us disagree, preferring instead to weed by hand and find little hardship viewing a paler shade of green. How pleased these homeowners are to look out over their modest yet elegant little estates, comparing their pampered lawns with the neighbors’ turf! And how hateful I can become, watching them discard their chemically treated grass clippings onto the bog as convenient, cost free disposal….where the rain will once more leach chemicals down into the wetlands to the disadvantage of all creatures that dwell and regenerate within. The homeowner’s mission is simple. The availability of the open space, our neighborhood parkland allowance, saves them in general appearances and money. They surely can’t live with a pile of decomposing clippings on their property. What would the neighbor’s think? Hauling the clippings to the landfill site is inconvenient. It’s just so much easier dumping what you don’t want into the bush. This must be the norm, because a heck of a lot of Muskokans practice the same “out of sight, out of mind,” disposal technique.
In all fairness to the “dumpers” out there, it was also like this over a hundred years ago. It has almost become a tradition. This regional historian is well aware of the thousands of “after hours rowboat ventures out on the lake,” to dump the “remains of the day.” Any thing that would sink was dumped. If it was too big to bury at the homestead dumpsite on the back forty, you found a pond, a river, a lake and a vessel to deliver the drop. I had a scuba diver tell me once, that many lake bottoms in Muskoka are strewn with antiquated appliances. Some regions might have shipwrecks. Muskoka has underwater appliance graveyards.
Due to the general shortfall of sustained outdoor education, mankind ignorantly believes there is no consequence attached to the act of contaminating the environment. When someone blurts news that a friend has just received a “cancer diagnosis,” the oft heard comment, “where would she get lung cancer….she never smoked a day in her life?” “Liver cancer? What would have given him that….he ate sensibly? Only had several drinks a month!” I draw them back to the wee lad who had to learn about peeing into the wind, by getting wet pant legs. At the rate we are all peeing into the wind, contaminating the environment we require to eke out basic survival, well, it’s pretty clear, cancer research will never run out of projects to save humanity.
It’s pretty discouraging in this beautiful hinterland, still a prominent North American vacation retreat, to find that environmental well being still falls well behind the concern about economic development. It’s as if economics can survive without clean water, clean air, and clean earth. As those drum beaters pound out the cadence for the onward and faithful march of “urban sprawl,” it just doesn’t seem important to judge proportionately whether or not our health and welfare will be enhanced by box stores, strip malls, industrial malls, moreso than by the influences of conserved forest and wetland. Maybe it’s an annoyance to the glad-handers of development but I truly believe statistics need to be gathered about the incidents of, for example, reported cases of cancer, and possible sources of neighborhood contamination past and present, that could have contributed to a particular and spreading malady. Dumped chemicals from a variety of industries? Where? Why were they dumped in a specific location? There are locations in this region that need to be profiled in this way, to find out if it they are indeed hot spots for specific illnesses, such as new cases of cancer. As a local researcher I have heard many claims over the years about the apparent higher rates of cancer in certain neighborhoods of our Muskoka communities. It’s all coincidence to local politicians who, if they were minding our interests, would at the very least wish to hear all the pertinent evidence, to dismiss or warrant a further investigation.
It seems our governance is more concerned about main street business retention, the flourishing prominence of municipal gardens, and attracting investment to town, versus the issue of environmental well being as the springboard of all life, our times, in all ways and places. The political indifference to environmental issues is much clearer these days with news of the ever broadening national debacle over the reduction of greenhouse gases. If national governance doesn’t give a rat’s arse about dumping gunk into air and water, why should my neighbor give a second thought to a wee bit of chemical disposal into the local watercourse? Think about the crappy stewardship we’ve bestowed the world, the bedraggled one our youngsters will inherit.
Worried sick about your child’s nasty cough? Consternating about the best school to enroll the wee child? Worth every penny to register your daughter into music lessons? Hope all the money you spent keeping the kids in minor hockey, baseball, soccer, football, tennis will pay off? So what fraction of a second in every year do these pro-active, protective parents think about the compromises to the environment? Have they anticipated the horrors their children will experience in the future, the result of a steadily declining global eco-system? The narrow view of life and times and what preserves our time on earth, has placed our children in a precarious and dangerous place. There are so very many contradictions.
The breaking point of all life as we know it? Is the end imminent? What will it be like?
I can remember one day paddling Algonquin’s beautiful Canoe Lake….the lake made famous by Canadian painters such as Tom Thomson, and members of the Group of Seven artists, and being engulfed by the hinterland pleasures of spring sun and gentle breeze, the deep and profound hue of evergreens against endless blue sky. Each paddle stroke took us further into the embrace of this enchanted place. As we let the canoe glide on the still water, we could see the rocks and the submerged stumps of a forest reclaimed. “Look dad, it’s a stove….and there’s a fridge,” my son seemed pleased to identify as the oddities of our adventure. I suppose I should have advised him in advance; something like….“by the way son, keep your eye out for some interesting appliances….you know….the stuff mankind likes to dump into the lake to make fish habitat.”
It seems so incredibly contradictory that for a progressive, educated, enlightened, proactive society, of this new century that we still have to beg for the fair treatment of mother earth. How desperate the mission to prove to the naysayers, the deniers and the ignorant, that the world is an endangered place. And what a helpless feeling to realize that in the very near future, our offspring will suffer the grave consequences of all these terrible failings of past generations. A terminal cancer. I have apologized many times to my own boys for the state of planet earth. I’m sure they question whether they should risk having children at all, pondering just what kind of world their offspring might be forced to contend.
I have approached a number of my neighbors, over the years, and asked them whether or not they could have afforded the several dollars it would cost to dump the same debris at the municipal landfill site…..instead of contaminating the wetland. The answer is usually the same. “Mind your own business!” or “It won’t hurt anything!” I have discovered by the experience of confrontation that it is best to teach by example, and we have taken it upon ourselves many times recently, in front of the polluters, to clean up the impromptu dump site ourselves. On a neighborhood basis it does seem to have a positive impact, and whether they decided to dump their garbage in some other forest area away from my scrutiny or not, a cleaner locale has been achieved. I’d like to think they took good advice and disposed of their refuse more responsibly. Of course, I’ve always been an optimist.
Education needs to put environmental conservation up front, NOW! The greatest investment is to increase funding for Outdoor Education in all schools including university, to enforce our national concern for a safer, cleaner, healthier environment. And we should be a role-model nation. We’ve got a lot of hinterland to protect.
Thanks for visiting this Muskoka blog!

Art as Salvation – “The West Wind”
I am realistic about change and the positives of certain aspects of new, sensible and needed development. I would never describe myself as anti-development but I will never support those initiatives that facilitate the cancer of urban sprawl in the guise of positive economic development. The stewards of our region, should demonstrate an unyielding respect for the well being of the hinterland that has generated and blossomed our tourism industry from the 1870s onward. Our number one industry in Muskoka is tourism, just as it has been for well more than a century. Should we truly wish to be enlightened by our visitors, our second home owners, about how we could improve the tourism industry in the coming decade, I would be willing to wager, there would be nary a request for more strip malls and box stores sprawling over the countryside. Arguably we have been complacent about the tourism industry, and forgotten why visitors flock to our region throughout the year. Me thinks, it has something to do with our natural assets…. natural assets that are compromised seriously each year by land speculators and weak willed politicians who simply can’t or won’t say “NO!”
It has been pointed out to me many times in the past, with considerable justification, that I have an unrealistic, romantic, sickly sentimental and non-progressive attitude, about how Muskoka should embrace new investment, and deal with increasing development interest (urban sprawl by any other name is the destruction of us all!). Instead of “fear mongering,” about the fragile state of the environment, my critics believe I should embrace change because afterall, it’s inevitable. Or so the vested interest claims. I have long agreed with the critics’ overview of my editorial opining but the very thought of joining them at the next bulldozing of habitat, with glaring support painted on my face, is a capitulation I shall never allow; particularly when it means that to be “one of them,” I would have no choice but to abandon a life-long respect and concern, about the well being of the natural assets of our home district. To embrace the glad-handing, “more is always better,” capitalist dream, and join pleasant companionship of those who do not wince when a wetlands or forest is sacrificed for yet another retail opportunity, I would indeed be throwing up my hands in a final embrace of moral bankruptcy.
It was back in my unhappy, confined days as a student that I developed this keen, unfaltering interest in my home district. Instead of being held captive in that classroom, I wanted to meander through the enchanted forest I could see through the pathetic border of fingerprints smudged onto the glass,…. left by inmates who, I assumed, also wanted to escape; I daydreamed constantly about wandering those lakeside paths, sitting atop that grand rise of hillside, overlooking lake and field, the glorious expanse of open space…..and that was my sense of ultimate “freedom,” a feeling I have celebrated every day since. But I had a hero, a mentor, who helped me in this daily bid to break free of my fetters. Here is a short biographical piece I wrote in the spring of this year, 2006, for my boys Andrew and Robert, who have long questioned their father’s obsession with the great outdoors, and his knack for annoying politicians, developers and land speculators.

Tom Thomson led the way

There is a tiny, crystalline waterfall spilling over the edge of an oddly positioned knoll, composed of long matted grasses and fallen chunks of rotting birch. It is an out of place obstruction amidst the flat lowland topography. The sound of water flowing across this uneven earth imitates the tinkling of ice against ice during the spring melt.
In the neighborhood this marshland is known, with some affection, as “The Bog,” a curiously haunted moor with its own tiny beck, where an intruder, in the wee hours, might expect to find fairies at dance in a moonlight revel.
The ribbon of run-off flows through a region of gradual declines, into a series of connected black pools, just over the wooded hillside from where I now stand. I can’t see the miniature cataract at this moment, because of the ridge that parallels the almost entirely obscured creek-bed. I can clearly hear it frothing and then whispering over the rocks, gurgling through the narrow crevices between the old mounds of marsh grass.
I don’t need to see the waterfall, or the snaking ribbon of black water, to be able to visualize its grandness. I thoroughly enjoy the woodland’s play of light and shadow, an enchantment thriving in this sparkling theatre of early morning light. There is a warm breeze rustling over the tall grasses, shaking the canopy of hardwood leaves, giving the effect of a sun shower down upon the rich green landscape, overtaking the trail in places, with huge ferns and sprawling plants holding close to the cool earth.
There is a rich, permeating aroma of old growth and new, the strong scent of decaying leaves mixed with the merging passions of fragrant wildflowers and earthy lowland water. I can detect a distinct odor from stagnant pools, and a vinegar-like scent wafting from the heart of a decaying log. There is an unmistakable effervescence here, representative of all thriving life-forms, nestled into the hollow of this gently meandering creek. I can shut my eyes and imagine every last detail, and I offer no apology for hiding away from a day’s toil. It is a bard’s sanctuary from the stresses of invention.
It was in the musty, smothering misery of a public school classroom, in Bracebridge, that I found my capability, at will, to escape my teacher guardians. I can remember looking through a school textbook one day, trying to find just one thing to abate, even momentarily, the deep-seeded pull of Thule. An almost cruel passion for outdoor adventure that commanded me to rise up from this fettering of desk and protocol, and smash through the classroom window toward freedom on earth.
Half asleep in the humdrum of uninspired tutorial, flipping through the pages that had been unceremoniously dropped onto my desk, I found amongst the clutter of print, an enchanting reproduction of the painting “West Wind,” by Canadian landscape artist, Tom Thomson; a name and connection with the art world that would change my life.
For the rest of that school year, whenever I felt the urge to break free from my captors, I could turn to that image of the “West Wind,” and cast-off all that tethered me to the classroom. My imagination was set free.
I stared at the image so intensely that I could see it colorfully emblazoned when I shut my eyes. I could sense with uncanny detail, the environs where Tom Thomson had camped. The vantage point he had found that afforded the perfect framing of windswept shoreline. I could feel the stab of a cold November wind, and hear the haunting wail of punishing storm; creaking pine, whitecaps smashing against shoreline rock. I was with Thomson. I could smell the paint from his palette. Feel the ridges of paint on board that made this cauldron art boil. I could feel the ethereal vapor of heavenly trail, through the cloudscape his brush caressed.
And I could half hear the sound of a teacher’s pointer tapping intrusively at my desk. “Where are you Mr. Currie,” the teacher beckoned of thin air while playfully, I suppose, twisting his pointer to illustrate that it could just as easily be my neck. My instructor treated me with less and lesser affection over the course of that entire year. “If you want to learn Mr. Currie, you must pay attention,” he scolded, and of this I agreed. I paid even more attention to “The West Wind,” and the art of Tom Thomson, through all the years and grating, boring-to-tears lectures that followed.
My failing in the classroom, as a sort of unanticipated “forward-backward principle,” actually fulfilled a gift of over-active imagination. Oh how invigorating it was, to trundle along with Thomson, paintboard and fishing-rod in tow, along those dark and narrow Algonquin trails, that led to spectacular plateaus and curious portals. Each unexplored lookout we came upon, quite by accident, offered the voyeurs exciting new vantage points. It allowed us in secret, to watch solitude then storm; the sparkling canopy of black against the light of heaven, then everso gently the paint and poetry of Northern Lights spiriting from the horizon.
It was said of Thomson that he was very re-active to changes in the environs and atmosphere around him, and it was not uncommon to have the artist suddenly withdraw from conversation if, for example, he heard the distant roll of thunder. Those with him at the time, would watch Thomson posture at a window, or out along the lakeshore, watching every moment of a storm’s etching over the Algonquin landscape. He would sketch right up to the time the heavy rain began to fall, and the wind made it impossible to work. For the painting of the Northern Lights, he would sit out in the chill air for hours, attempting to capture the true magnificence and coloration of the event, within the frame of the particular night. If you remarked to Thomson, that his painting made you feel cold and lonely, or that it evoked a strong spiritual sensation, he would be delighted and talk with affection about his experiences capturing the image.
If I had enjoyed the privilege of an audience with Thomson, back in my school days, I would have told him with heartfelt sincerity, his depiction of “The West Wind” had saved my life. At moments when I wanted to stab myself to death with a sharp pencil, to escape the monotony of instruction, the presence of art offered that reckless abandon of daydream. Thomson’s painting brought me spiritually to the very pinnacle of land where he found that storied evergreen. I could have described, with savage appetite for more adventure, how glorious it was to be set free by art. I would have embraced the man and thanked him whole heartedly, for making my school experience so much more pleasurable and invigorating. And I would have begged that he take me along by brush and paddle again into the hinterland. I was his faithful servant in life and eternity, for what spirit he had bestowed the once hopelessly uninspired.
I can retreat inside today and hole-up beneath the soft glow of a desk lamp, and compose at this typewriter as if I’m still holding vigil in The Bog. I can recreate the sensory joy of being shaded by the canopy of maple leaves and pine boughs, within earshot of waterfall and windsong, squirrel chatter and loon call. I can re-play it all, each pleasurable intrusion of pungent scent and sweetness, every waver of grass and creature crossing, and invent with striking actuality, the distant roll of thunder when mood prevails, and poetic reason commands. But this great freedom and frolic of imagination, I companion with today, had its blossoming in that same uninspired classroom of yore.
I resign to the infrequent thought that with this sense of history and reflection, I am like the others who occasionally, in some sentimental mood, recall the good old days of teacher and classmates. I’m sure my teachers, god bless them all, with the greatest reluctance, will remember the many challenges thwarting my great escapes. The ones Tom Thomson encouraged me to undertake for the preservation of kind heart and electric soul.
I shall always see the artful stroke of brush in oil, painted against the summer sky. When I hear the autumn gale pulsing over the lake, I will clearly visualize Thomson sitting on that rocky point of land, staring down legend, as if rooted securely, the painter himself the sculpted pine. In the Northern Lights I can feel his hand; in the tranquil bay, I see the calm of life instilled. The thunder heard of the approaching storm, will be the stirring caress of newly unfettered adventure. When the storm passes, the voyeur will feast again upon that painted light, the glow of inspiration, art to life, horizon to horizon.
I shall visualize the West Wind at my final accounting, as the natural grace of immortality.

A Short Sketch in Admiration of Tom Thomson

Note for this portion of the blog entry:
I wrote the following story, in between some pencil sketches I had unskillfully attempted, during a recent hiatus out in the midst of our cherished neighborhood forest. The story has a touch of Muskoka, and the Algonquin region as background, and hopefully it reflects how Tom Thomson’s art has influenced my life-long perception of the dynamic of nature around us; and created a sense of mission to help inspire others to travel along some of the same lakeside paths and winding trails through woodland and meadow……to witness the intricacies and magic of the environment…..that most have ignored through so much of their lives. If ever there was a time to re-educate stakeholders about the importance of a conserved environment, it is now….in Muskoka, in Ontario, in Canada, the world. And if you ever have a chance to make a stand for the importance of ongoing Outdoor Education in our education system…..then hopefully after these prompting words, you won’t begrudge tax dollars being so well invested in our youth.

The Inner Storm of Tom Thomson

Each bold, smooth brush stroke, laps down into the long furrow of emerging wake. The traverse imprints a profound and contrasting depth and breadth of shadow, paint and coloration, as impression whirlpools from the surface into undertow.
The paddle is thrust into a furious gouge, deep below the surface of this reflective lake. Paint streams in a confluence of art and nature in a silhouetted passage across an open, mirrored universe. The manifestation upon the painter’s board began in this violation of event against reflection, as the paddle-stroke evermore propels the canoe toward the open bay.
In this storied sanctuary, in the sage scented basin of legend and spirits, the artist finds the portal to oversee creation. A hallowed place to live and paint, one side in the actuality of Algonquin, the other in the ethereal current of ecstasy. The poet is the artist, the environs the pinnacle of enlightened observation, between realities and illusion, natural heaven and hell.
The devil stirs against a subtle divinity of calm. Above the contoured rocks on the distant shore, actuality is painted an ominous black against green. Demons generate free-will within the cavernous tomb of autumn storm, just this moment blocking away the sun. There is a threatening free-fall earthward of fear and trembling; a deep, vibrating roar beyond the jowls of stormscape. A hard, piercing, rythmic drumming of wind and rain, growing deeply fertile, fueled by the inspiration of still-warm air that spans the lakeland.
The first bite of ill-fame has clearly cut with a dagger point, across the uneven expanse of this once still life. The gale generated whitecaps rage along the blunt rock shoreline. Seeking refuge from the painter’s intent, the wind’s malevolent passion, the canoeist turns sharply back toward shore. The precarious balance between paddler and storm stages mortal and artistic co-habitation. It is the will of artist. The traverse must end. The cyclonic force at the heart of creative storm, will paint, without mercy, without apology, a soon-fatal blow. The paint-board presents this tragic wake, the biography of evasive yet found immortality.
A gallery voyeur has just taken a step-back, mindful that art and artist demand space in which to thrive. What then is this unsafe passage of imagination, but the cruel play now of creator on the unsuspecting?
This thrusting, bitter November wind pounds down against the Algonquin woodland with a brutal force, snapping limbs off the bare old hardwoods and sending the fallen leaves into a filmy crimson sheet, draping across the hazy passage ahead. The deeply rolling waves pummel the canoe, bashing against the stern, the wind and current beneath wrenching the bow toward the sawblade of rock.
It became impossible to make any progress up the shore toward Mowat. The bounce-back of waves off the rocks had become severe, and the only way to avoid capsizing, was to pull into the first shallow inlet. At times the manifestation of wind and whitecaps was so powerful that the wooden canoe seemed to lift fully into the air, a precarious, spirited flight across the peaks and valleys of this unfolding legend.
The irregular, unpredictable, violent thrusts of autumn gale, strike down upon this haunted lake with a murderous, determined, unfaltering stroke. A mournful, darkened sky tumbles along the horizon, the true rage of Algonquin storm yet to unfurl. The shrill and haunting windsong, of air current through the tight embrace of towering evergreens, enchants in a warning voice. There is no safe passage. The sharp slap and cascade of waves upon silvered rocks, the creak and groan of aged docks, holding as schooner planks in high seas, peaks the voyeur’s sense that the spirit-kind are at work, sculpting in essence the bust of a tragic hero.
Adrift in this cauldron of tugging undertow and battering wave, a tightly clenched fist of wind jerks stern then bow, inward hard against the rocks. Long canvas shards engrave windward, giving the appearance of razor-cut paper in the flight of a kite. A clench of malevolent history strikes upward against the wooden hull, now shattered and torn open violently to the flood of dark twisting current. There is an evil succession of crashing waves, a tangle of green serpents diving one through the other, in this constant, wicked caress of nature’s most evolutionary intent. Drowning in this abstraction of legend, the canoe-mate disappears into the fictional depths of our own spirit lake. The challenger of nature, the ignorant transgressor, is overcome today by manifestation of art and artist, brush stroke and inspiration.
The creator stops work abruptly, resting hand and brush on the open paint box, as if he has been suddenly disconnected from prevailing realities. It is necessary to re-acquaint with the storm’s fury, still etching across the white and black contrasted bowl of Canoe Lake. As the overturned canoe, wood against stone, bobs like a corpse in the foaming inlet below, the bare knuckle of storm-surge bashes down like a lover spurned. In the slow but profound fade of life-shade into death, at this precise moment of sacrifice, the protocol of legend has been satisfied. An ominous, transforming darkness encroaches upon the watcher’s soul; brush is returned to oil and board, as if carried by wind and wave; a spirited rush of energy from earth beneath, into conflict, toil and creation.
A poignantly haunted lakeland emerges in this new warm light exposed, over the cold clasping rigor-mortis of life imitating art.
Just when it appears a typhoon might at any moment unfurl from the deepest black of spiraling cloudscape, the trace golden lines of sun enhance in thin cuts, along the deep green and blue hollows of afternoon horizon. Striking imprints, curious painted evolutions of storm and legend, are roughly hewn from contrary environs of wild reality yet enduring sanctuary.
Suspended at this moment is a raw cocktail of vigorous inspiration and sage advisory, the firmly brushed imprint of fiction against actuality; the uncertain oblivion that exists between canoe and storm, reality and impression, and the artist at the mercy of raging emotion. A cold, wicked penetration of arctic air stabs into the flesh, while the warm intoxication of creation keeps artist at task.
In earnest devotion, and unfaltering faith, it is mindfully acknowledged by the creator, the story has been successfully composed. A re-animation of the dead, you might say. A fatal traverse of life and times, captured for posterity. The last brush stroke, an illusion, has chaptered painter within the storm. Fear and trembling, blood and soul, rock and sky, our mutual surrender to Algonquin in transition.
In the glow of a gallery light, the fury manifests anew, as if released in our presence, the passion and glory of ecstasy bestowed.
With every paddle stroke against the current, we revere the legend that brought us here. Faithful, silent witness to the spirit within the storm.
In tribute to Canadian landscape painter, Tom Thomson.

Dave Brown reminded us to listen to nature
I began this blog process in November 2006 out of an overwhelming sense of frustration and welling anger, that in Muskoka we are, in many cases, participating in the unconditional surrender of our environment to land speculators, developers and those who wish to transform the hinterland into the new reality of “urban sprawl comes to the country.” The proverbial straw came during a debate in the Town of Bracebridge, over whether an historic, century plus public park, should be sold off and developed into a university campus. The troubling aspect, moreso than the land grab itself, was the complacency of many citizens of the community, who willingly agreed to the proposal without any regard for the neighborhood most effected by the development, and the critical loss of open space and parkland in the town’s urban center. I played baseball in this park as a kid in the 1960’s, attended annual fall fairs here every September, skated here, and took my own youngsters here to play when we lived on neighboring Ontario Street. No matter where you were living in this community, or beyond, Jubilee Park was available for your recreational use. It was, for the lack of a better description, the proverbial “Town Square.” Every neighborhood held ownership in this central park. For the entire urban community, this small acreage not only serves the purpose of recreation but the need of every neighborhood to offer a little breathing room from the house to house, building to building, business to business existence. What irks me the most is that learned people, folks I’ve respected as leaders in the community for their sense of fair play and proportion, have jumped on the bandwagon, supporting the ill-conceived plan to sacrifice this tiny, modestly appointed open space in the name of post secondary school education “economics”. While the pro side of the argument claimed great financial benefit for the business community, and enhanced opportunities for local students, proponents seemed to forget the basic elements of small town life and values….and the inherent differences between a town in so called cottage country, and the fundamental differences of a community amidst the expansive embrace of Southern Ontario.
The issue unfortunately pitted neighbor against neighbor throughout the community, and 2006 will long be known by this writer-historian, as the pivotal time in history, when Muskoka’s future was hung unceremoniously and recklessly in the balance…..for profit! As if there is nothing better or more fulfilling in life. If this one hundred year old plus open space, conserved for all this time of ongoing urban dynamic, was to be sacrificed for economic interests, then it is to be expected “anything goes,” as far as future development enterprise, as long as there’s a really good cash or “pie in the sky,” value. Every resident of Muskoka needs to be aware how easily a park can be abandoned by elected stewards, and it could happen to a park near you. As we watch more of Muskoka’s open space being gobbled up by sprawl each year, possibly a few words about my outdoor education experiences with David Brown, will clarify the importance of paying attention to the environment around us, before it’s bulldozed for yet another shopping venue…. with a parking lot where a wetlands once supported a myriad of life forms. I originally sent this little environmental tome to a CBC Radio program but it didn’t make the grade. Don’t hold this against the value of the message. Please read on!


After all I had learned on my many nature walks with outdoor educator, David Brown, here I was just moments ago, in a consuming mental fog,…. an all encompassing modern era stupor, amidst this spirited, otherwise pleasant din of outdoor splendor.
I stood looking out over this thriving woodlot, watching the little creek intersect in black ribbons across the bog, yet I was mired uncomfortably in a sort of sensory deprivation mode. All I could imagine was those intrusive, ever hammering sounds of the techno-progressive world. The incessant chiming of cell phones from somewhere. The electric hum and wavering light of a computer screen. The memorable thunder of earth moving equipment, jack hammers and other sundry explosions that, as a right of passage, go along with a small town on the brink of citydom.
After all the years of under-study with the good Mr. Brown, one of Ontario’s revered and eccentric, yet amazingly effective outdoor educators, I had been bought and paid for by the progressives of our planet. I had succumbed to a world of unnatural sounds. Intrusions. Invasions of my personal space and privileges. My sensory perception was clogged up like the fat deposits that quiver the heart into an attack.
My first outdoor junket with David Brown, was during a special program, organized by the art department of the Hamilton school board, in the mid 1990’s, at Muskoka’s Camp Kwasind, situated in shadowy, windswept forest along the shore of Skeleton Lake. Dave was in charge of the outdoor portion of the camp, and it was his challenge to expose inner city kids to the joys of nature. I was there to do a story on the camp event for Muskoka Today, a community publication in Gravenhurst, operated by the jazz-man cum publisher Hugh Clairmont, one of Muskoka’s best known characters of print and music. Hugh and son Mark, the editor, liked the idea of promoting the cause of outdoor education, and gave me ample space to run the several part feature article.
Dave advised me before the nature hike that I might wish to focus the article on the reality, as would soon become apparent during the outing, that there is a serious, and ever expanding disconnect between inner city kids, and the appreciation of what actually exists in the hinterland. I didn’t know Dave all that well, at this point, so I made it clear the editorial content was my baby, and his was to lead us into the embrace with nature. “It’s your article,” he said, “you make up your mind why outdoor education is relevant….especially to kids that think a parkette and a ball diamond is the great outdoors!”
You know… that insightful overview by Mr. Brown, rings just as true now as it did then, during that memorable hike through the Muskoka woods. Here I was, just moments ago, standing in a thriving woodlot, yet unable to absorb its essence. It was like my body was wrapped in duct tape. I had clearly become desensitized and felt I had struck dishonor to the memory of the late Dave Brown.
What this reporter discovered, during the school excursion, was a fettering of humanity. A ponderous chain forged link by link, as Dickens’ once wrote about the life-long burden of ignorance and insensitivity upon the soul. The group of students was wrapped by the cumbersome, body numbing excesses and man-made intrusions of everyday city-life. At best they could only barely appreciate their surroundings. During one particular exercise, Dave had the students sit on a fallen log, and take a few moments to study their environs, and identify the sources of sounds and certain scents, such as the aroma of evergreen and mosses, even the smell of lake water and a warm mother earth.
For about fifteen minutes these youngsters struggled to open their senses to this new wide open space. When Dave then asked if they could identify the sounds around them and their sources, it was disconcerting to watch them struggle to hear anything other than the recollections of city life. The environs where man-made din prevails as natural sound. In their awkward pursuit to hear nature, to truly sense this new environment, they could not appreciate the rustle of a nearby chipmunk in the old leaves of another season. They could not differentiate between the slithering sound of a garter snake, from the “scrounge and pause,” of a mouse circling beneath the ferns. Bird chatter in the overhead boughs hadn’t even affected the slightest interest. Dave had to ask them specific questions about, for example, what was causing the “whooshing” sound along the lake shore, which he later told them was the wind gusting through the grasses and ferns. And then the rustling sound a moment later, that had confounded the students,….until a squirrel came into view climbing up the trunk of a nearby tree.
When we finished our walk. you could clearly see a minor awakening in the expressions of the hikers, making the casual observer aware something had manifested, ….something that might even become engrained after a few more forays deep into the Ontario wilds.
Dave told me during an interview, at the end of the camp session, that for most inner city kids anywhere, it generally takes four or five hikes before the students are able to clearly hear and sense the natural surroundings. “Then they’ll start reminding me about some sound or item they have found, to demonstrate a new skill. They’re pleased with their own progress, and they start comparing these observations with their mates. They’ve finally opened their senses to natural discovery. Back in the city they will eventually succumb to the sounds of urban living, but I always hold hope this outdoors experience will make them aware…. there is a mother earth beneath all the concrete and asphalt, and important life-heralding sounds beyond sirens and jack-hammers.” Dave was an optimist to the end, but there are thousands of students who remember his walks and demands to look further afield.
I used this sensory approach, once in a speech I made to a group of Muskoka developers, ones who I could clearly see were entombed in that pervasive roar of jet engines, the frustration of traffic congestions, and the thick oily aroma of progress at a pinnacle. I took them on an imaginary walk, much as I had physically hiked with Mr. Brown and his art students, hoping to invigorate some sensory perception, some compassion for the nature they were planning to compromise with chainsaw and bulldozer. I had hoped you see, that one or two had known Mr. Brown as students, and had possibly visited his Hamilton outdoor education centre near the Botanical Gardens, and could at the very least retrieve some shred of natural experience that would spark some modicum of sensitivity. I left the podium feeling that at best I had only offered a coffee-time break from discussions about zoning bylaws, minor variances and shoreline setbacks.
I remember falling back in my seat, suffering a cold sweat, pondering how nature could ever be safeguarded by this group of movers and shakers, when by their ambitions, the environment itself was nothing more than an inconvenience to adapt into plans, a forest to remove, a pond to drain, a septic system to gouge deep into the earth. How truly troubling now then, to find myself, once enlightened, numb to these natural pleasures of bird song, squirrel chatter, and the soothing trickle of a crystalline waterfall into the dark pools of this old companion,… the bog. The sanctuary amidst the progress of our times. What I really worry about is that here I am, someone who has spent all his time living and working in the heartland of Muskoka, joining the ranks of the sensory challenged. It wasn't just an urbanite who could lose touch with nature. It wasn't just a city kid who needs a walk in the woods to restore perception and respect for nature.
As Dave and I often philosophized with trace optimism, wouldn’t it be a blast for mankind, if being “progressive” and being a “conservationist,” was the common theme. A developer who earnestly saw the need to harmonize progress with “nature the healer.”
I am earnestly glad to have known Dave Brown, who tore away my own sensory barriers, and thankfully it has saved me again, by simple recollection of an outdoor experience of once, long ago. Give nature a chance. Experience it today.

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What I learned from author-historian Wayland Drew

I believe it was the winter of 1978. The first meeting of the soon-to-be Bracebridge Historical Society, was unofficially held at the home of well known Canadian author Wayland Drew. It was a meeting between a citizen, this writer, who was interested in preserving an historic building in the Town of Bracebridge, (an octagonal home constructed in the 1880’s by former woolen mill owner Henry Bird)……and the second party, at the informal meeting, Mr. Drew, was in my mind, a writer-historian of considerable national reputation, (eg. the landmark text entitled, “Superior, The Haunted Shore.”) That’s correct. I’m so very proud to write that Wayland and I made up the first full planning meeting of the soon to be elected historical society. As an aspiring writer, I was in awe that he would give me a private audience to discuss the possibility of forming a local historical society, to implement a conservation strategy to save Woodchester Villa (the Bird House). I had been attempting to drum up support for a citizen-driven initiative to create a community museum, and Wayland must have thought I had at least a spark of credibility to follow through on the project. He called me over to his house for a discussion about all the possibilities of saving this particular Victorian era home. We worked well together and our plans merged to give rise to a new historical preservation group, and eventually, with a huge commitment of citizen involvement, a newly restored town museum would open on that pinnacle of land above the cataract of Bracebridge Falls. My first position was “Recording Secretary,” which I conducted poorly, but rebounded some years later as President and then site manager. Much of the credit goes to Wayland for negotiating so well for the Historical Society generally, and always being its ambassador.
This editorial segment is not a biographical study of my writer-associate, Wayland Drew, or a re-telling of the work of the Bracebridge Historical Society. There is a story about Wayland I have often repeated in environmental presentations ever since, about the importance of listening and learning from expertise. And while we might all believe we’re the best experts we’ve ever met, I was to learn up close and personal how little I knew about the bigger picture of conservation. This is a story that’s of great importance to this on-line inventory of blog editorials because it is at the root of every entry in one way or another.
Several years into the museum’s operation, a situation arose with the town about the necessity of removing numerous large trees lining the old laneway at the front of Woodchester. If memory serves, the problem was that if any emergency vehicle had required access to the building, via this riverside route, the narrow artery would not allow safe, unobstructed passage particularly for the larger fire-fighting equipment. It probably was the case as well that the large border trees would cause great difficulty for snow removal, important for emergency vehicle access as well. The town public works department had recommended the removal of those trees that limited the width of the driveway, and the recommendation did not sit well with Wayland and several others. At the time Wayland was no longer a director of the Historical Society, but was part of a delegation that attended to object to the cutting.
I sat as a voting director.
As I recall now, Wayland made a sensible, balanced, gentle argument to spare the trees by making accommodations with a rear parking area, offering adequate clearance for the larger emergency vehicles. I don’t remember all the details of that lengthy afternoon meeting, except that I acted as the part of “ass” very well. I shot down Wayland without mercy, suggesting that emergency services access to all corners of the site greatly outweighed the scenic splendor of a few large evergreens to be expended. He wasn’t against making provisions for emergency services in numerous other ways, including carving out some of the embankment, all alternatives being well thought out and workable I might add. He was adamant the trees, having been there for a good part of a century, and being an important part of the Woodchester and Muskoka ambience, deserved to be spared the teeth of the industrial strength chainsaw.
I have no idea now what really generated my opposition to alternatives that would spare the trees. I know it was largely a case of ignorance on my part, and a general immaturity, that I would ever have challenged someone who made such a sensible, researched, community minded presentation. I can still recall the shocked look on his face when I cast forward a resounding reprimand for even thinking about any compromise that would limit entrance to the property; and that afterall, “they’re just trees…..they’ll grow back.” I had shown great disrespect to a person who I had always admired in both historical preservation and conservation of the environment. I voted against the conservation of those trees but the good news is my position wasn’t on the winning side. I believe a compromise was reached and although some trees may have been removed, (I don’t remember exactly the reduced cull), Wayland’s argument made sense to the group at large. Although Wayland never said a word about my indifference to the matter of Woodchester’s natural heritage, he didn’t have to say anything at all. It was an awkwardness in our conservations from that point on but always the result of the unfortunate weight of my own conscience. I should have been wise enough to realize that if Wayland Drew had thought it important enough to interrupt his busy day to discuss several trees in peril, it must be a landmark situation deserving the most clear thinking appraisal in response.
A short time before Wayland passed away, after a lengthy illness, we found ourselves both sitting comfortably in the cool shade of a perfect summer day, during a writer’s gathering held ironically at Woodchester Villa. It was a modest, unplanned homecoming to Woodchester, dealing with writing this time, not history, with nary a chainsaw rattle within ear-shot. I took a turn at the podium to read one of my short stories and following the presentation, Wayland left his seat to congratulate me on the subject of my recitation, a fellow writer, (and student from Bracebridge High School) named Paul Rimstead, well known Toronto Sun columnist who had died a short while earlier. It seemed Wayland and I agreed upon the great talent of the “Rimmer,” and that the world would be disadvantaged without his daily barbs and insights.
At the time Wayland knew his life was being seriously shortened, and as it turned out this was the last time I would talk to this amazing, talented gentleman. I can remember wanting so badly to offer a sincere, belated apology for the great tree-debate of once but foolish pride got in the path of an honest, heartfelt regret. I let him walk away without clearing my conscience about a ill-conceived, childish stubbornness that very nearly cost this beautiful tree-lined property even more of its historic, natural charm.
I have attempted many times since Wayland’s death to make amends with the issue, as if expended ink can make up for what I didn’t accomplish in person. Wayland’s passionate appeal for environmental conservation did however, over so many decades of re-consideration, generate within this writer the first and enduring interest to get involved, and speak out about the reckless destruction of forests, the infilling of wetlands, and the damning realities of urban sprawl across the entire Muskoka hinterland.
I wish I had listened more patiently to the sage advisories of the good Mr. Drew. He wasn’t wrong, and his concerns were just as valid then as today. I seldom if ever visit a Muskoka woodland for a hike, that I don’t tribute the experience and enjoyment, in some way, to the inspiration I received from a true friend of Muskoka. My only wish, as a writer, is that I could one day be as effective and enlightened an author, as the man who challenged me to take up the pen in the first place.
Thank you Wayland Drew. The experiences you shared have not been forgotten, the lessons you taught have not diminished; your passion to protect the environment, is the passion now carried forth by your students.

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A Wee Bit of Sanctuary

There is a small parcel of open space across from our home here in Gravenhurst, Ontario, that is supposed to remain untouched, as laid out in the terms of the original subdivision agreement. I don’t know whether this is true or not, as we haven’t read the original agreement but any attempt to hack this wee parcel of sanctuary into a condominium project, will certainly necessitate a chain, lock and a sturdy tree to hug. If it goes, we go! And possibly it won’t be a pretty picture, seeing as we won’t give our forest up without a fight.
Since we arrived at the Gravenhurst residence in the late 1980’s, this nicely treed acreage, with a flourishing marshy bowl in the middle, has been our constant reminder that we live in the so called hinterland of Ontario. Muskoka! What our visitors refer to as “cottage country.” We look out over what we call “The Bog,” each morning, and cherish the vision of enchanted woodland. It is a habitat to a wide variety of creatures, from moose, deer, bear and the occasional lone wolf, to neighborly raccoons, skunks, fishers, squirrels, chipmunks and most recently wild turkeys. The Bog (lowland) is fully occupied by its plethora of regional critters, and the tree tops are thoroughly utilized by our feathered friends. Owls, hawks, crows and blue jays. Although it is only a tiny parcel allotment in municipal terms, it is none the less a wildlife sanctuary. It is enjoyed by subdivision residents who cherish it as a buffer to the rest of the urban way of life. There is a wonderful spray of ferns in the late spring, and a silver mist over the matted lowland grasses in early November. It might be seem in the spring moonlight to be an English moor. It could have been a place that inspired poet Robert Frost, who just might have stopped for a moment’s contemplation, on a snowy winter’s eve.
As a writer-historian in residence here, I’ve written about The Bog in hundreds of published feature articles over the years. It has been an ongoing source of calm and gentle inspiration for all of us inmates at the abode we call Birch Hollow. Its good nature has been weaving its influence into most of the pieces I’ve composed, since setting up my office to overlook this full-of-life woodland. When I write about the nature of Muskoka and those who want to strip it away in the name of “economic development,” I can’t help but think about The Bog, and how much our lives would be diminished if it was cut down and the lowland infilled; all the life forms that depend on it destroyed for the cause of building more of what we don’t need.
In this supposedly enlightened period of history, with most mortals knowing at least something about the limitations of the potentially “late, great planet earth,” you would think there would be a dramatic rise of survival instinct, sensibility and environmental activism about cutting away and bulldozing down the nature that gives us life. Global warming? Greenhouse gases? Diminishing polar ice? Oceans running out of fish? It would seem that these “quality of all life” issues would stir the blood of at least several municipal councils, out of six making up the District of Muskoka, to place environmental well being ahead of economic development. A few of us ponder the value of ever-expanding shopping venues when we might soon be gasping for a lung-full of clean air. Call it fear mongering if you wish but you most definitely will be faced with many new barbs of “fear,” if we maintain our ongoing greed-driven destruction of “home.” And I’ve been a hopeless romantic thinking that one day, a council, maybe just one councilor representing this beautiful hinterland, will stand up to the developer’s almighty buck and say…..as if Shane to a gunslinger, “We don’t want your box store here! Get out of town!”
What irks me most these days is the rabid, frothing, ugly overflow of propaganda about all those development-generating jobs. As a reporter I’ve heard these claims and arguments a thousand times, the lubricant to ease along a project and to soft sell the fact we must lose something to make gains. Claims of jobs, and the numbers of openings soon to be available, are most often fudged in the name of good theatre and compelling argument. Who follows the claims up after the project is on track? There have been numerous development interests in the past year that have made unsubstantiated claims about the impact they would have on a particular community, if only we’d loosen up restrictions and willingly sacrifice more of our (in their opinion) under-utilized open space. If you add up all the other promises that have been broken, well, if each one was a tree, we’d have a thriving forest.
When a developer tells me that my life will be improved when the box store is operational, I’m convinced this is the number one reason to challenge the project, because frankly my life’s pretty good already. I couldn’t stand all that betterment in one lifetime. I’ve been promised this many times before by a plethora of golf course developers, strip mall proponents, box store zealots and a host of other urban sprawlers, who actually believe in their own mistruths about quality of life issues. I can’t imagine the rhetoric needed to have retarded my logic to the degree necessary, to make me believe that our lives would have been so much better if our family had spent our years, staring out over a strip mall parking lot, instead of this pleasantly appointed open space, The Bog.
A few of my critics have called me “tree hugger,” “pain in the arse” (which is deserved), “activist,” and “loose cannon.” Maybe I deserve all of them. The fact they, including many local politicians, consider it necessary to discredit the environmental columnist, is undeniable proof they’re nervous of reality stopping up fantasy. The “greed-inspired-amongst-us,” will never cease trying to claim the last bit of open space for economic development. I’m sure the shills for a better economy would still be trying to convince citizens to embrace another box store, for the betterment of community life and times, if members of the audience were all wearing oxygen masks, and being forced now and then to gouge chunks of soot from their respective filters.
I’m not an opponent of all development as my adversaries would have you believe. I’m a progressive thinker and a wee bit of a self proclaimed visionary. We need employment opportunities and yes, as the need has existed from the first stroke of time, there is the necessity to sacrifice something for the gain of something else. I dwell a lot on the suggestion of “sensible proportion,” like knowing when to kick back from the dinner table before eating oneself to death. But I have never been so daft as to believe that progress has to spell “imbalance,” “urban sprawl” or “destruction of wetlands,” just to put the municipal books in the black.
My greatest aspiration with this blog, this humble, personal editorial message, is to convince you to take a closer look at Muskoka’s urban sprawl, compared to parallel initiatives of environmental protection. And if you feel we’re taking on the appearance of “city-not-wanted,” please feel free to take issue with those who wish to impose their values on our hinterland.
Muskoka has been my unfaltering source of inspiration. As a writer, I have benefited constantly from this close relationship with our natural resources. As it has nurtured and rewarded me for all of these years, I will never drop my loyalty or mission to create an enlightened awareness about the conservation-perils facing the home region.
Thank you for reading part two of this new online blog, from the home office on “The Bog!” Stay tuned for more Nature of Muskoka in the coming weeks.
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Winter of Reflection

It only takes me several minutes to pass back into the soothing, life restorative embrace of The Bog. The portal onto the untouched Muskoka I passionately adore, and use as a source of inspiration for a wide variety of present and future writing projects. Whether it’s at first light on a winter morning, mid-afternoon, or at the midnight hour, this tiny pinnacle of land I visit, affords me an unobstructed view of the frozen marsh, and the snow-clad woodlands on the far side of this evergreen rimmed bowl of lowland. I have huddled against a particular tree here, offering modest protection from a howling wind coming off Lake Muskoka, and watched with profound curiosity as the landscape was sculpted with half ice, half snow, the dance of half light, half darkness. On particular vigils watching this aggressive winter transformation, I can attest to a stark sensation of both fear and trembling, as if the watcher in the woods had seen malevolent spirits at work. I may have witnessed the handiwork of legend and lore manifesting with wind, snow and moonlight breaking through the storm clouds. In the unclenching palm of winter season, this Bog will change appearances from hour to hour, like a shaker left still on a mantle, to then be violently shaken into the fury of storm. The tree boughs will be thrust free of the most recent fall of snow, and be exploded into the whirlwinds of west wind carving and gouging down deep into this now barren sanctuary. It is the stinging, spiritual stir upon mortality that pulls imagination free of its bounds. The voyeur stands in awe of the scene unfolding, as if it is the very center of the universe, in a passionate uncoiling, rising to reclaim the earth.
Whenever I find myself weary of the progressives, the earth pounders and sundry other capitalists who see money where I celebrate sanctuary,…..those who wish to replace the woodlands, the lowlands, the pastures and lakeshores with structures and profitable land-uses,…… these quiet, regular and uplifting sojourns to The Bog, enjoying the sanctuary of nature at its centre, is enough of a respite to, as they say, live to fight yet another day!
I would like to have a politician, a developer, any urbanite at all, with me at these poignant moments, when nature is the study. The only study. I would love them to witness, from this same modest portal, a winter storm sweeping powerfully down upon the forest acreage; the cyclonic manifestations, carving and sculpting drifts where moments earlier none were visible. How subtly and softly the witness can be covered over, entombed, frozen into winter’s sparkling, beautiful domain. What a profound event it would be, in the company of the uninspired, to watch the dynamic reckoning of winter’s howling rage, transform heaven into hell-frozen-over. Consumed by all the enchantments unexplained, the ecstasy of sensation, feeling the helplessness in the palm of nature’s fury, when soon again, as saving grace, the December moonlight revel on the snow conjures up images of the fantastic, universal yet undetermined;…. and daybreak again displays the wee footprints and trails of existence beyond expectation. Might the unfettered witness to these natural forces and enchantments, thusly feel compelled then to return with keen anticipation, hopeful nature will afford yet another glimpse of the “remarkable,” without even a faint silhouette of urban skyline to corrupt the magic.
I dedicate this portion of Currie’s blog to the memory of well known and revered Outdoor Education teacher, Miles David Brown, of Hamilton, who taught me how to immerse in the natural world, to celebrate all the life thriving within. As he did with thousands of students over the decades, he showed me the path into the woodlands, and I’ve been immersed in exploration and discover ever since.

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Welcome to Muskoka. What's left of it, some might argue! Our disappearing hinterland that is! The urban sprawl beast has been set loose and I'm doubtful it can be stopped. I don't like what has happened in my home region during the past decade, and it seems I'm going to be involved in a weighty number of protests upcoming, in an attempt to spare Muskoka its entry into the "looking like every other urban community in the world" era.
I've been an active Muskoka historian since the late 1970's. I've been a newspaper reporter, editor and feature writer working in this region of Ontario for about the same period. I'm a past editor of numerous publications in Muskoka, and a founding director of the Bracebridge Historical Society. I believe I've got a pretty firm grasp of Muskoka history and feel I'm up to speed on a majority of the District's most pressing modern day issues. I've spent a considerable amount of time thinking and occasionally writing about the perils, particularly environmental, facing Muskoka in the next decade, and because of the chagrin I feel about the sell-out and sell-off of our district to developers, it seemed to be the right time to pen some editorial opinions about our fragile state of affairs in so-called cottage country.
One of the primary reasons for considering the Blog venue, is my deep and profound disappointment with the local media. I can't read a newspaper these days, supposedly ones representing our regional interests, and find anything more than surface scraping of important events and news coverage. I don't feel comfortable that our communities are being served by anything more than courtesy coverage, and that's keeping a lot of critical information under wraps and out of the reach of public scrutiny. I can't recall how many times recently I've turned off the television or tossed down a publication in disgust because of the poor treatment of story, issue, and the complete absence of "investigative anything."
Should we be concerned about the most recent fumbling by local government? Will our newly elected municipal councils work to safeguard the environmental well being of our "paradise nearly lost?" I've long burned my bridges in this area with editorial insolence and insubordination to my superiors, in this supposed-to-be-dynamic news gathering enterprise. I've been shown the door many, many times, because I didn't tow the publisher's line. I didn't make a habit of shaping news to keep advertisers happy. Actually I did a poor job according to most of the advertisers at publications I worked for, because I didn't see what they wanted me to see about the dream communities "they" wished to achieve. They thought it would be nice if we published more positive news stories, and lots more grip and grin photographs on the front page,.....instead of breaking news coverage, auto wrecks and burning buildings. Unpleasantness apparently is a drag on profitability.
I watched carefully the so called economic movers and shakers and the unfolding of agendas. I don't recall many occasions when environmental well being topped any of these agendas. It was about money making then just as it is now, and it keeps us tree huggers busy because commerce and progress, "the urban sprawl way," usually makes short work out of nature in its path. I can get sick to my stomach watching a stand of pines come crashing down in the flash and thrust of the mighty chainsaw.
I have a profound concern there are many projects in the wings that will be thrust upon us when it is simply too late to mount a defence. We've seen evidence of this in the past year particularly in Bracebridge and Gravenhurst. There are overlapping developmental projects, with explosive potential to bulge into larger commercial nodes that could swallow up large tracts of forest and wetlands, and change the historic character of our communities forever.
This isn't a tell all, negative, fear mongering blog site but rather a collection of hopefully insightful editorial pieces about the imminent threats to our region; and a few stark observations about making a last, effective stand, to deal more successfully with future development applications, and counter against a council's blind faith that any progress is good progress. I will throw out a few suggestions about how we can get the message across to our elected representatives, that we need to proceed with caution. The best investment in our Muskoka region is your heart and soul. I love Muskoka and will do what is necessary to protect its integrity. Hope I can count on your support.
I have lived and worked in Muskoka as a writer-historian since arriving in Bracebridge, as a weary, bedraggled cast-off of city life in 1966. It was from this starting point that my passion for Muskoka's conservation became an obsession. I would like to take you on some historic, outdoor adventures in this region, as well as offering some home town reminiscenses, to illustrate my ongoing commitment to represent Muskoka's future with equal, unyielding commitment.
Thanks for joining this first Blog from the Gravenhurst office of the critic's critic, Ted Currie.


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