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.