APRIL AND WINTER STROLLING ARM IN ARM - THE BOGLANDS TRANSFORMED

Today the wind still bellows through the evergreens and half-fallen old birches, standing guard on the far embankment. The storm front that pushed over Muskoka, on the weekend, brought down a large number of old and venerable trees in this boglands. There are lots of fallen limbs and birch chunks smashed to the ground. The windsong of the air rushing through the pine-tops was as eerie and mournful as I’ve ever heard from our abutting woodlands. The roar, at times, seemed as if belonging to a train on some invisible track, headed right for this modest abode at Birch Hollow.

Late on Sunday evening, the snow squalls were intense, and by morning, we had a white canopy with considerable ice from a freezing rain, mixed in with the diverse weather that crashed the spring calm of the week before. Looking out over the bog this morning, one might think it was the first snow of the late fall season.....appearing more like the enhancements of November than of mid-April. The wind is still rigorous this morning, and has a cold stab to it, that makes me turn away during the most powerful gusts, cutting through and above this lowland. It is a dangerous walk as many puddles have frozen over, and the ice is coated by a thin layer of fresh snow. The gusting wind is still breaking off small limbs, and tumbling them down onto the white forest floor, and I’ve only just now, had to “dodge and dart” shattered branches, spraying from above, in order to avoid getting hit square on the head. I really shouldn’t be in here now, with so many old and leaning trees. But the view, out over the frozen bog, is so wonderfully bright and inspiring. The artist should be here to capture this frozen landscape.....the new growth breaking through the earth, last week, now covered in ice and snow.

This is a haunted and amazing place and it is worth the risk now, to stand here, looking out over the lowland, and wondering how artist Tom Thomson might have captured the scene on his paint boards.

It is legendary. Historic. A painting of nature, we are entitled to wander through at our leisure.