Everyone should experience this side of Muskoka – of Ontario – of Canada
You just want everyone to experience this scene. As if it will change opinions and philosophies about earth and its stewardship. Seeing this morning’s first light breaking through the trees is an enlightening span, a subtle, effortless time travel through the ages. From my vantage point on the hillside, overlooking The Bog, the scene unfolding was timeless. This same vista has existed for centuries, and I might just have found myself back in the 1600’s, as in the present domain of this new century. It’s what to me at least, remains so fascinating about these natural places remaining on earth, still largely untouched by progress, yet so precariously on the verge of change to meet the demands of the all-consuming modern-day citizenry.
But you need to see this kind of natural wonder regenerating here, to appreciate the true magnificence of the ever-changing, ever adapting realm of environment. We are humbled in the presence of such grandeur and complexity of life and its powerful forces. Imagine how this one vista, this one tiny bit of wild acreage amidst the urban jungle, will transform in a matter of weeks now, to an almost tropical vegetation of ferns and marsh grasses that will block from view all that is presently clear. Even the black, snaking ribbon of creek that dissects the lowland will be invisible in several weeks, and I will only be able to imagine what the tiny crystalline cataracts will look like, as they gurgle and churn in black pools along the watershed to Lake Muskoka.
It’s at first light that this place is most healing to the weary soul. You can’t stand on this point of land, jutting out above the bog, and not feel in some way invigorated by the way life pushes up from the decay of the past seasons. From these heavy burdens of old brown grasses and fern canopy will generate beautiful new vegetation that will weave like a carpet to the adjacent tree line of evergreens and birches. I could never come away from here, this vigil, and feel uninspired. I’ve arrived at this portal feeling depressed and distressed about life and times, and left again as if granted new wings of flight. I have mired down in self-loathing at this same typewriter and then strolled to The Bog as respite, and been restored to hopefulness that another story-line has been born. I come away with a feeling of calm. My only regret at times likes these, is that I couldn’t stay longer to watch the rest of the day unfold….to be able to watch the tiny rolls of fern unfetter themselves from tight buds into full, rich, deep green sprays that dance tenderly in the sheer poetry of windsong.
You can’t get an environmental conscience overnight, or simply from the lead-stories off the evening news, or from the banner stories in the daily press. You can attend rallies for the environment and commence a new “green” way of living but to be part of this world in earnest, requires a full and committed immersion. Not simply stepping outdoors and then initiating a hasty retreat but actually appreciating the true dynamic of earth and its cycles. Like getting your feet wet in this bog, and truly celebrating the privilege of being part of its life force. Standing here while the new sprouts are breaking through the newly thawed ground. This is where it’s happening. This is the zone that will make you a believer, mother earth is worth saving. If you are not humbled by this scene, or any other immersion in a pasture, a woodland, on a hilltop or down in a bog like this, then you haven’t yet found the meaning of life. It’s here. Right here. To find your place in nature, raise you arms, do a wee twirl if you like, look up, look down and all around, and thank your maker for allowing you this role, this heavenly experience right on earth.
Long before there was a bandwagon to jump upon, in the new century bid to save the environment from its intrusive, “we’ll fix it tomorrow,” human-kind, I was preaching to any one who would listen, about the critical need for outdoor education to immerse youngsters in the real nature of things. I campaigned for years and received nary a nod of approval for my efforts. When I confronted educators about the time and budget of curriculum devoted to technology, computers out-weighing almost everything else in assumed importance, finding a few extra bucks to make outdoor education available to more students each year was simply out of the question. A ridiculous endeavor, they said, to think that students would be better prepared by graduation, having studied from a canoe on an Ontario lake, or hiked the forests and lowlands in quest of the meaning of life. As I made it clear ten years ago, I shall state once again that unless the curriculum wizards get youngsters outdoors more often, and balance outdoor educational opportunity with in-class study, we will continue to launch careers of environmental destruction, instead of graduating good stewards of mother earth.
There is no way to save the environment the way we are going. The massive change necessary requires a sensibility of conduct that seems impossible. Convincing even a public schooler to come and explore this lowland “without a cell phone,” or other, would prove daunting and punitive. Getting a business obsessed adult to step into these woods without some form of technology to interfere, would be next to impossible. Yet it is imperative we get the message across, of just how fragile future existence will be, at the pace of environmental destruction. If indeed we are to save what has already been given a catastrophic blow for all these decades, enlightenment is the only grail that’s holy. If we want to save ourselves, our offspring, we need to re-introduce nature in its deserved light and integrity. Not as a backdrop for our sprawling subdivisions and urban tarmac winding from horizon to horizon. Not viewed as an inconvenience, “an unfavorable weather report” when the conditions turn adverse, offering rain, then snow, then black of night to some mortal’s chagrin….that it all can’t be changed to suit lifestyle pursuits. Designer weather possibly! We are a silly bunch of asses aren’t we, that we have for all these years taken our life force, or sustainability on this planet for granted?
The way to save Muskoka is first of all, to recognize that it is in serious danger of being over-developed by societal craving and greed. The only way to fight this is to see for yourself what is at stake in the next ten years. This lowland, this beautiful, peaceful, life restorative place, might one day soon be the host site of a new condo project, or a recreation centre….maybe a tennis court or sprawling, silly looking bungalows. Instead of these leaning birches and hunched-over evergreens that add so much life and poetry here, we might have street lamps and boulevard signs to point us from here to there.
I don’t make a visit to The Bog at any time of any day that I don’t offer some reservation about leaving, such that I might arrive again to find a bulldozer diverting a waterway for building convenience, or then infilling a pond full of life, to make a cul-de-sac for yet another subdivision…… for the ample profit of the money spinners.
If you want to help the environment, immerse yourself in the nature you are a part. Instead of driving by and looking at the hiking trail across the Muskoka hinterland, park the car and go for a walk. Please. See nature up close and personal, and I guarantee you’ll be damn mad about the bullying that’s been going on around here…..and then possibly you won’t mind lending a hand to an old friend.
Give a thought about how many creatures will be affected by those landmovers. I can tell you with grave honesty, I could not survive in this locale if this bog was destroyed. So like the wee creatures of the bog habitat, I would have to find somewhere else to live. I would surely perish in heart at least, to find this wonderous, enchanted, life giving place compromised by the greed of social circumstance.
Excuse me now. It seems I have to go and discuss the inappropriate act of “refuse dumping” in the forest, perpetuated once again by a neighbor’s hired help,…. who insists on fouling the good graces of The Bog with materials he won’t pay to dispose of otherwise. Apparently it’s his democratic right, or so he thinks, to change natural history to suit his disposal needs.
And we wonder why we have an environmental crisis.
PLease check out my other blog at www.gravenhurstmuskoka.blogspot.com
You just want everyone to experience this scene. As if it will change opinions and philosophies about earth and its stewardship. Seeing this morning’s first light breaking through the trees is an enlightening span, a subtle, effortless time travel through the ages. From my vantage point on the hillside, overlooking The Bog, the scene unfolding was timeless. This same vista has existed for centuries, and I might just have found myself back in the 1600’s, as in the present domain of this new century. It’s what to me at least, remains so fascinating about these natural places remaining on earth, still largely untouched by progress, yet so precariously on the verge of change to meet the demands of the all-consuming modern-day citizenry.
But you need to see this kind of natural wonder regenerating here, to appreciate the true magnificence of the ever-changing, ever adapting realm of environment. We are humbled in the presence of such grandeur and complexity of life and its powerful forces. Imagine how this one vista, this one tiny bit of wild acreage amidst the urban jungle, will transform in a matter of weeks now, to an almost tropical vegetation of ferns and marsh grasses that will block from view all that is presently clear. Even the black, snaking ribbon of creek that dissects the lowland will be invisible in several weeks, and I will only be able to imagine what the tiny crystalline cataracts will look like, as they gurgle and churn in black pools along the watershed to Lake Muskoka.
It’s at first light that this place is most healing to the weary soul. You can’t stand on this point of land, jutting out above the bog, and not feel in some way invigorated by the way life pushes up from the decay of the past seasons. From these heavy burdens of old brown grasses and fern canopy will generate beautiful new vegetation that will weave like a carpet to the adjacent tree line of evergreens and birches. I could never come away from here, this vigil, and feel uninspired. I’ve arrived at this portal feeling depressed and distressed about life and times, and left again as if granted new wings of flight. I have mired down in self-loathing at this same typewriter and then strolled to The Bog as respite, and been restored to hopefulness that another story-line has been born. I come away with a feeling of calm. My only regret at times likes these, is that I couldn’t stay longer to watch the rest of the day unfold….to be able to watch the tiny rolls of fern unfetter themselves from tight buds into full, rich, deep green sprays that dance tenderly in the sheer poetry of windsong.
You can’t get an environmental conscience overnight, or simply from the lead-stories off the evening news, or from the banner stories in the daily press. You can attend rallies for the environment and commence a new “green” way of living but to be part of this world in earnest, requires a full and committed immersion. Not simply stepping outdoors and then initiating a hasty retreat but actually appreciating the true dynamic of earth and its cycles. Like getting your feet wet in this bog, and truly celebrating the privilege of being part of its life force. Standing here while the new sprouts are breaking through the newly thawed ground. This is where it’s happening. This is the zone that will make you a believer, mother earth is worth saving. If you are not humbled by this scene, or any other immersion in a pasture, a woodland, on a hilltop or down in a bog like this, then you haven’t yet found the meaning of life. It’s here. Right here. To find your place in nature, raise you arms, do a wee twirl if you like, look up, look down and all around, and thank your maker for allowing you this role, this heavenly experience right on earth.
Long before there was a bandwagon to jump upon, in the new century bid to save the environment from its intrusive, “we’ll fix it tomorrow,” human-kind, I was preaching to any one who would listen, about the critical need for outdoor education to immerse youngsters in the real nature of things. I campaigned for years and received nary a nod of approval for my efforts. When I confronted educators about the time and budget of curriculum devoted to technology, computers out-weighing almost everything else in assumed importance, finding a few extra bucks to make outdoor education available to more students each year was simply out of the question. A ridiculous endeavor, they said, to think that students would be better prepared by graduation, having studied from a canoe on an Ontario lake, or hiked the forests and lowlands in quest of the meaning of life. As I made it clear ten years ago, I shall state once again that unless the curriculum wizards get youngsters outdoors more often, and balance outdoor educational opportunity with in-class study, we will continue to launch careers of environmental destruction, instead of graduating good stewards of mother earth.
There is no way to save the environment the way we are going. The massive change necessary requires a sensibility of conduct that seems impossible. Convincing even a public schooler to come and explore this lowland “without a cell phone,” or other, would prove daunting and punitive. Getting a business obsessed adult to step into these woods without some form of technology to interfere, would be next to impossible. Yet it is imperative we get the message across, of just how fragile future existence will be, at the pace of environmental destruction. If indeed we are to save what has already been given a catastrophic blow for all these decades, enlightenment is the only grail that’s holy. If we want to save ourselves, our offspring, we need to re-introduce nature in its deserved light and integrity. Not as a backdrop for our sprawling subdivisions and urban tarmac winding from horizon to horizon. Not viewed as an inconvenience, “an unfavorable weather report” when the conditions turn adverse, offering rain, then snow, then black of night to some mortal’s chagrin….that it all can’t be changed to suit lifestyle pursuits. Designer weather possibly! We are a silly bunch of asses aren’t we, that we have for all these years taken our life force, or sustainability on this planet for granted?
The way to save Muskoka is first of all, to recognize that it is in serious danger of being over-developed by societal craving and greed. The only way to fight this is to see for yourself what is at stake in the next ten years. This lowland, this beautiful, peaceful, life restorative place, might one day soon be the host site of a new condo project, or a recreation centre….maybe a tennis court or sprawling, silly looking bungalows. Instead of these leaning birches and hunched-over evergreens that add so much life and poetry here, we might have street lamps and boulevard signs to point us from here to there.
I don’t make a visit to The Bog at any time of any day that I don’t offer some reservation about leaving, such that I might arrive again to find a bulldozer diverting a waterway for building convenience, or then infilling a pond full of life, to make a cul-de-sac for yet another subdivision…… for the ample profit of the money spinners.
If you want to help the environment, immerse yourself in the nature you are a part. Instead of driving by and looking at the hiking trail across the Muskoka hinterland, park the car and go for a walk. Please. See nature up close and personal, and I guarantee you’ll be damn mad about the bullying that’s been going on around here…..and then possibly you won’t mind lending a hand to an old friend.
Give a thought about how many creatures will be affected by those landmovers. I can tell you with grave honesty, I could not survive in this locale if this bog was destroyed. So like the wee creatures of the bog habitat, I would have to find somewhere else to live. I would surely perish in heart at least, to find this wonderous, enchanted, life giving place compromised by the greed of social circumstance.
Excuse me now. It seems I have to go and discuss the inappropriate act of “refuse dumping” in the forest, perpetuated once again by a neighbor’s hired help,…. who insists on fouling the good graces of The Bog with materials he won’t pay to dispose of otherwise. Apparently it’s his democratic right, or so he thinks, to change natural history to suit his disposal needs.
And we wonder why we have an environmental crisis.
PLease check out my other blog at www.gravenhurstmuskoka.blogspot.com
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