THE NOISE OF THE URBAN ENVIRONS - AND THE LOST SHRILL OF THE LOON

There are operations near us, here at Birch Hollow, that are intrusive noise makers. There are times when you expect some rogue train to come barreling through the woodlands, coming from this local institution. I try to imagine what could create such a terrible racket, if not a train. I wonder if the management of said institution has any idea what their equipment sounds like, in the neighborhood, and in the vicinity. There have been some earth moving activities, or so it sounds, these past few days, and the first time I heard it, I ran over to The Bog to make sure a bulldozer wasn't plowing through the lowland.

Early this morning, before the neighborhood pre-occupation with leaf blowers, riding mowers, assorted rough-shape lawn mowers and chainsaws, you could hear the gentle tinkling down of run-off water, over two or three crystalline cataracts. The matting of grass and overgrown trees puts these water courses, out of view but what a wonderful sound it is, to hear the life force moving through the landscape, like blood pulsing through our veins. I heard a loon's shrill cry. A small woodpecker was tapping away at an old pine. The sound of the wind, rustling the old field grasses, made it seem pleasantly haunted. But I had only just emerged from the woodlands, when the first lawn mower of the day started up. Then there was the guy who idles his car for a half hour, somewhere on the next street. Even as I sit at my desk, two hours later, there is still a lawnmower in full regalia, close enough to be intrusive. Last night, as I sat down to read Wayland Drew's book, "Brown's Weir," a charming little book, with an east coast patina, that he wrote with his wife and creative partner, Gwen,…. a neighbor, with a postage-stamp lawn, fired-up his riding mower (which sounds like three smaller mowers), and did the rounds before sunset. I had to put the book down. It wasn't right, to have a rattling lawnmower intrude upon an ocean-side paradise, of which Wayland writes about.

When we first arrived on Segwun Boulevard, in the late 1980's, we reacted with great interest, to the sounds of nature. It was a paradise, as far as we were concerned. We were in town but with the Bog, as a green belt, nature was definitely a buffer from the usual urban chaos. It was great. But nothing prepared us for the sounds of explosions, gun-fire, and sundry other strange noises, including screams, that should have drawn interest from everybody on the block. We'd run out of the house, sensing that a neighbor's home had been blown to smithereens, and find nary a puff of smoke or the audience we would have expected under the circumstances. Some clown would shoot at something or other, a half block away, and sometimes we'd be out for a walk at the time. We'd duck in case a bullet was coming over-land. You could never find where the sound was coming from, as if someone was actually shooting from an open window in a house. What we found particularly strange was that nobody seemed to worry about this stuff. An explosion would literally shake the house and its contents, and yet there was no construction going on near us. It used to happen in the early evening. It was unsettling. Now we find ourselves used to these intrusions, and unless we're out of doors at the time, we don't even look to see if there's any carnage to validate that an explosion just occurred.

People here don't give much thought to noise pollution. But in most garden sheds along the street, throughout the neighborhood, there are arsenals of noise intruders from leaf blowers to weed whackers, chainsaws to log splitters, and then there are the wood chippers. Through the day there are construction projects abounding in this bailiwick, all having some intrusive quality, mixed with the power mowers and massive boat engines churning the water of Muskoka Bay. It may seem petty that this is an issue for us purists. But when you realize what sounds these devices are blocking out…..well, that's unfortunate, because they are the sounds of life forces, and they need to be heard. The noise impacts nature generally…..not just the sensitive ears of the mortals.

For a few moments this morning, there were no thunderous dump trunks smashing down the lane. The earth movers were silent, and there was no vehicular traffic. A dog was barking somewhere close and a mother had not yet begun to scream at her youngsters. That would come in the moments before leaving for school. There were no slamming doors, no chainsaws or leaf blowers. No horns, no sirens. And there was a loon. The brush of limbs ruffled by two squirrels. Two venerable old crows cackled above, and I think I heard the sound of a deer brushing through the shrubs on the other side of the Bog. These are the sounds I seek out, and find so restorative. By nine this morning, it was a neighborhood of oppressive urban harmony, as if I was back in my Toronto rooming house, of years ago, listening to buses and feeling the vibration of the nearby subway, hearing the chorus of jackhammers, horns, yelling and yes….explosions of one sort or another. Most people here don't care if they hear the hoot of an owl, the cry of the loon, the tap of the woodpecker, and wouldn't find it interesting at all to listen to these tiny cataracts of water, as they send water down to the lake. What a wonderful din nature provides. Now my neighbor has employed a weed whacker, one of the most annoying species of modern noise making.

A GENTLE END OF DAY, A GENTLE BEGINNING - IF ONLY WE COULD FIND THE TIME TO ENJOY IT

When you stand on the rise above The Bog, and can spare a few moments to ponder the nature surrounding you, it’s easy to sense what Thoreau felt at his Walden Pond cabin. You can feel momentarily as if you are the only person on earth. You will feel that wondrous sense of entitlement that you have found this place in nature, this moment in time, and that it is all so precious and abundant. You can, at the same time, feel lonely, possibly frightened for a moment, timid, yet strangely invigorated.....keenly alert about what surrounds you. And momentarily the myriad sounds from this wild place will become clear, and that will enable the watcher to determine, without seeing them, which tiny cataract of many, carries the most volume of water over its decline. You will be able to recognize the sound of the breeze rustling through the brown, dry grasses, distinguishing it from the squirrels in a sunset bravado, running across the mounds of earth across the lowland. You might be fortunate enough to hear a deer brushing through the thicket, on the other side of the hollow. And it will all be an enlightening experience. You thought it was just a stop along the way! It is a compelling sensation here, with the gentle spring breeze bringing the fragrances of new growth and old mixed as an elixir.....a tonic to wash away what the winter encrusted upon our souls.

This evening, for me, a regular watcher in the woods, is just as amazing as this scene has so generously prevailed at first light, quenched by the soft fall of a spring rain. Even though the urban neighborhood of this Muskoka town is only a short distance away, from the heart of this greenbelt, at times you can imagine being truly lost in the wilds of the district. You might even miss the sound of car engines and truck traffic on nearby roads that surround this restorative place. So many urbanites have forgotten what Muskoka is all about, these days, and youngsters as well, might only visit here if there were interconnecting bike trails, and daredevil jumps, to ramp up excitement. Yet for the dreamers, amongst us, standing here for even a few minutes, thinking about the meaning of life, and after-life, and enjoying what is uncomplicated and free, this is a spectacular adventure that changes every time I visit.

When I returned to my office this morning, to write this little outdoor piece, I was thoroughly relaxed and contented by all that I had enjoyed of spring re-awakening, down in The Bog. Half way through this editorial piece, the computer.....my old adversary, froze in the middle of a sentence, a word and a thought. How appropriate. I was determined not to let technology ruin the mood. I was to calm to be anything but accommodating to the tabletop beast. Not being computer savvy, more than just being able to sit and tap away at this keyboard, I had to rustle up my wizard son to set me free again. Five minutes after leaving me to my own devices, the electronic marvel shut down again but I was able to trouble-shoot free this time. I credit my time, this morning, over at The Bog, for giving me the “serenity now” to finish the short tome, without even once feeling the need to clobber this computer for its quirks. I have a few of my own, so we are of the same ilk to some degree.

I will sign off this morning, to allow the technologist to work his magic at upgrades. It appears our computer is having a bad day. If I could fit it under my arm.....it’s an old desk model, maybe a stint looking out over the bog might do us both good. I’m told by the experts it’s time for a lap-top. I still have a preference for my own Smith-Corona typewriter.....and by golly, it was portable and didn’t need a battery.

I will retreat to the moor later this morning, with my friend Bosko, and we shall resume our bid to remove ourselves, once again, from urban and modern trappings, to feel for a few moments, what it was like when Thoreau opened his cabin door onto Walden Pond, for a wee escape from his writing. While he may have suffered the need for more ink, for his pen, he didn’t experience the let-down of a computer malfunction. That is a conundrum he is fortunate to have missed.

WANDERING AIMLESSLY A PASSION OF MINE

Since my day to day writing-job was abandoned, when I took up antique hunting over journalism, back in 1990, I’ve rarely had writing jags as prolific and successful, as I’ve experienced, quite joyfully, for the past six months. I love to write. Sometimes I do get anchored down by certain subject material, and this year it was local politics. I’ve never been a political animal, as a hobbyist, and have shied away from spending too much time analyzing it.....even when I was working as an editor for the local press......I’d make no apology for fobbing off a political story to a reporter interested in local government. I used to fall asleep at council meetings.....as did four or five other district councillors bored to slumber by the proceedings.

. I’m particularly strict about what makes it to print, these days, and what is destroyed before public consumption. I’ve always worked in this fashion....much like an artist with sketches and paint boards that don’t measure up, and are destroyed to avoid any future appearance in the public domain. Starting about six years ago now, I began seeking out all my early notes and essays, and commenced shredding like a man possessed. I couldn’t even stand to read opening paragraphs. I knew what they were, and my only question was why I had hung onto them for so long. I don’t want my family to have to make these decisions later on, about what can be re-published, and what should make the waste bin. So I have cleansed the trial and error copy and although I had regrets, over the reduction generally, it was a good feeling to cut the rope, on what I have long perceived, to be a cumbersome anchor, encrusted in the barnacles of writing misadventure. Now I’m far more precise and with the computer, versus the old Underwood typewriter, I can zap what I don’t want, without crumbling one page of actual printed copy.

Today it’s so nice to wander out here through The Bog.....my English moor, and think about some new writing projects I want to pursue this spring and summer. I’ve joined a new publication, The Arrow, up in Almaguin, and I’m re-introducing some feature columns on artist Tom Thomson.....and his mysterious death on Algonquin’s Canoe Lake, in July 1917. I like starting new, even on semi-retired research projects, such as the Thomson story, which I began writing initially for the Muskoka Sun, back in the mid-1990's. It’s a great story with all kinds of strange twists. But it’s Thomson’s fabulous art, more than anything else, that compels me to stick with the story-line. Out here this morning, I can see a number of natural scenes Thomson might have found worthy of closer study, possibly a sketch or two. What a privilege it is then, to be so pleasantly immersed in the middle of remarkable nature.

Over the past six months I involved myself with political debate and local government-themed editorials, on my blog-sites, and it is such a departure for me to do so, that Suzanne felt compelled to remind me of the more inspiring things in life, I’ve been blowing off.......in order to write about tax increases, social neglect, over-governance, under governance, and general malaise at town hall here in Gravenhurst. Not that I don’t believe my work over the past six months, was worthwhile, just that Suzanne knows that if I drop my landscape writing for more than a couple of weeks at a time, there’s an obsessive-compulsive problem brewing. I need to wander these well trodden paths, and stand here looking out over all the fresh growth, the new and emerging life forms, that call this splendid little haven, their home. For the first few serious outings, through the wetland, I will still grumble about this or that, an objection from some newspaper account I’ve read, or kick at some fallen birch, as if it represents all the political problems we face in this municipality. You should see what I kick when disenchanted about provincial and federal politics. I have to remind myself constantly that what I’m kicking is some

critter’s habitat. So I refrain.

I’m not interested in politics. I’m interested in good governance. It’s in darn short supply.

I will stand, overlooking The Bog this morning, and arrive at a more contented state of mind, feeling markedly more poetic than activist. It is election day in Canada. I hope everyone votes. This beautiful place will stay on my mind throughout the day now, and when I sit down at this keyboard, I will feel empowered, not burdened-down by things I can’t change or improve upon. This nature, I study, is perfect as it is. The freedom I have to explore it, is a freedom known to the spirit, as the greatest escape of all. A burden cast off,.... a heaven-on-earth to explore.