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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