WATCHER IN THE WOODS - A NEW YEAR AND MANY ASPIRATIONS

I watched some kids building a fort, in the woods this autumn, and thought it was nice they were actually playing outdoors for a change. Although we have quite a few youngsters in our neighborhood, usually you only see them coming and going from home to the school bus pick-up, and reverse in the afternoon but only occasionally after that......even during weekends, holidays and during the summer months. I do see them whip by on skateboards and bikes, and a few times in groups headed up town here in Gravenhurst, but as far as playing outdoors......hiking through these woods, not very often. Building this fort from spare items around their home(s) was at least getting these kids away from television and video games out into nature. There’s a troubling disconnect these days with modern living and child rearing, and immersion in the hinterland. Not happening like it should.

Both my wife and I had great and enduring associations with nature, growing up in respective areas of Muskoka. Suzanne grew up in beautiful Windermere, on Lake Rosseau, where they had both a cottage and home, a business on the lake, and a lot of nature surrounding each location. She was always trekking through the forests and pastures in the area, when not paddling along the shoreline in her favorite canoe. I grew up a little more urban than she did, first in Burlington, where I called a ravine with a creek my stomping ground, and then in Bracebridge, where Bamford’s Woods and The Grove were my hangouts from the bustle of town life and times. My life was directly hinged to the welfare and dynamic of these treed, natural places. In Bracebridge we didn’t have an abundance of nearby parks, especially in the Hunt’s Hill area of town, and having these tiny but thriving woodlots provided daily respites, the benefits I find difficult to explain simply. I could retreat to the woods fed-up and angry with the toll of the summer heat and responsibility, and within minutes of entering that beautiful forest, feel as if I’d crossed over to a soothing eternity. My mother Merle always new where to find me, that’s for sure. Suzanne and I have always found generous quantities of inspiration from nature, as we do today, here at Birch Hollow, our home adjacent to the beautiful “Bog,” we nearly lost several years ago in a development square-off with the Town of Gravenhurst.......wishing to sell off lots from the highly significant urban greenbelt. We won. Common sense won.

Seeing youngsters playing in the woods is reminiscent and encouraging, and it is critical to the overall appreciation of undeveloped areas in the urban scheme of the future. If future developers and investors themselves, never appreciated those gentle, spiritful liaisons with nature, growing up, and wouldn’t gladly choose a canoe outing over a weekend of video games in the recreation room, then how will they treat conservation issues with the municipalities they intend on transforming. I have met many of these folks who had never paddled a canoe, or spent more than a few days of their lives camping or being on outdoor adventures, beyond what school provided. These folks, in my humble opinion, will be crappy stewards of green places like The Bog, in the future. There idea and aspirations of civilization now, seems to be influenced more by the nuances of the urban jungle fore than outdoor living.

There isn’t a day that goes by, that I don’t wind-up wandering these few beautiful acres of snow and evergreen, leaning old birch trees and venerable maples, that have been here longer than this urban development. I see and hear things, of natural origin, each time I visit, and get real human joy knowing it is a sanctuary to all kinds of critters, from snakes and frogs, to deer and owls, the occasional passing moose, bear, racoons, hawks and weasels to name a few. You can hear the soothing trickle of some tiny crystalline waterfall, somewhere down in the snow-covered bog, and catch storied creaking of the “talking tree,” on the top of the hillside that I’ve been acknowledging, as such, for more than a decade. It is as much my Walden, as Walden Pond was to the good Mr. Thoreau, and my respect for it is shown daily, when I visit and celebrate the life within. So to see this modest but healthy immersion into the woodlands, of our neighborhood, is encouraging, and reminds me of the many forts I built in my youth, important portals to a life I wanted to explore.

Today began dull with a trace of snow flurries spiraling down over The Bog. By noon the sun was beating down on this white and green landscape, and it was wonderful to stand against the rail of the porch, and consume the nectar of a brand new year. I wish every one who races past here, in the harried mission from here to there and back, would pause, even for a moment.....possibly while picking up the mail, to pay some attention to the picturesque embrace of this special place. The future, afterall, depends on their interest in its conservation. I’m not at all confident of this outcome, as reality shows, the most attention The Bog gets these days from neighborhood adults, comes when they have some yard debris they wish to dispose of, and opt not to pay a dumping fee at the local landfill site. It’s true. I wish it wasn’t.

It always discourages us a bit, when a walk through the woods nets us a half bag of strewn garbage, pop cans, beer bottles, paper and plastic cast-offs from young and old. We’ve been picking it all up for years, and I expect many more to come. We are volunteer stewards and we take our role seriously.

We need to do more in schools, and within the community, to teach stewardship of all our precious resources. Right now, I’m just tickled to have kids roaming the woods the way they’re supposed to......and that is a start to a possible life-long relationship with the wild places that remain. The wild places we need preserved, in order to survive ourselves.

Just now two squirrels have raced branch to branch, disturbing the routine of some large crows, and chickadees flit about through the bare branches.....while blue jays call and a hawk circles overhead, and the sunlight makes this such a dynamic scene of profound light and shadow......that might have caught the attention of landscape artists like Tom Thomson, or A.Y. Jackson, as a scene to capture for posterity. A Canadian scene. One we are familiar with, and are beckoned to explore. And responsible for preserving for the benefit of future generations.

Have a wonderful year.