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!