WHAT IT ALL MEANS - ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE - AND THE PLACES IN NATURE WE HOLD DEAREST

I WATCHED A GENTLEMAN AND HIS SON DUMPING GARBAGE IN THIS BEAUTIFUL PLACE. WHEN I CONFRONTED HIM, HIS RESPONSE, LIKE ALL THE OTHERS I'VE CAUGHT IN THE ACT OF ILLEGAL DUMPING, RESPONDED, "I DIDN'T KNOW I COULDN'T!" I ASKED IF HE OWNED THE PROPERTY. HE DIDN'T. I ASKED IF HE KNEW HOW LONG IT WOULD TAKE A PLASTIC OIL CONTAINER TO DISINTEGRATE INTO THE SOIL. "I DON'T KNOW" HE SAID. I GET THAT A LOT AROUND HERE.

I STOPPED A LOCAL HANDYMAN, DOING THE SAME THING ONE DAY, AFTER WATCHING HIM MAKE REPEATED RUNS INTO THE WOODS, TO DUMP YARD DEBRIS. "THE OWNER SAID I COULD," HE DEFENDED, OF HIS ACTION. I SAID, "DOES THE MAN YOU ARE WORKING FOR OWN THE WOODLAND HERE?" I RESPONDED. "I DON'T KNOW," HE SNARLED. I SAID, "WELL, IF YOU AREN'T SURE ABOUT IT, WHY DON'T YOU ASK SOMEONE, WHETHER IT IS OKAY TO DUMP REFUSE IN THE FOREST?" "MAYBE I WILL," HE ANSWERED. "IN THE MEANTIME," I SAID, "UNTIL YOU FIND OUT IF HE OWNS IT OR NOT, WHY DON'T YOU GO BACK INTO THE WOODS, AND SCOOP UP ALL THE CRAP YOU'VE JUST DUMPED….JUST IN CASE HE DOESN'T OWN IT." I SUPPOSE THIS IS WHEN HE TWIGGED TO THE IDEA, I KNEW MORE ABOUT THIS PROPERTY, "THE BOG," THAN HE DID. SO HE DID MAKE A MINOR CLEAN-UP, AND I MADE A MINOR CALL TO THE BYLAW OFFICE TO REPORT HIM. FEIGNING IGNORANCE IS SOMETHING SPECIAL THESE DAYS, IT REALLY IS, AND THERE ARE ABOUT A DOZEN FOLKS, SOME FROM OTHER NEIGHBORHOODS, CONTINUING TO DUMP WHAT THEY DON'T WANT IN THIS SMALL BUT UNIQUE LITTLE BOGLAND, TUCKED NEATLY INTO THE URBAN ENVIRONS OF GRAVENHURST.

AS I HAVE WRITTEN ABOUT FREQUENTLY IN THESE BLOGS, AND OTHERS, I HAVE A VERY LOW THRESHOLD WHEN IT COMES TO FOLKS CONTAMINATING THIS BEAUTIFUL REGION, WITH A WIDE ARRAY OF GARBAGE AND ALL SORTS OF TOXIC WASTE. I WAS CONVINCED ONE DAY, THAT SOMEONE ON OUR STREET HAD BEEN DUMPING LEFTOVER PAINT INTO THE BOG. I COULDN'T PROVE IT, BUT I WATCHED THE CHAP IN QUESTION, EVERY TIME HE ENTERED THE FOREST PATH, FOR THE SLIGHTEST EVIDENCE HE HAD SOMETHING TO DRAIN INTO THE WATERWAY. SUZANNE WORRIES ABOUT ME CATCHING SOMEONE LIKE THAT, AND GETTING INTO SOME SORT OF SCRAPE. THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN, BECAUSE EVERY PERSON I'VE CONFRONTED SO FAR, WAS IN ENOUGH CRAP FOR ILLEGAL DUMPING, AND GETTING CAUGHT, THAT THE LAST THING THEY'D WANT, IS AN ASSAULT CHARGE HEAPED ON.

IT'S ONE THING TO FIND CHIP BAGS AND POP CANS LITTERING THE PATHWAY, AND ROADSIDE, BUT QUITE ANOTHER TO FIND A LOAD OF OLD SHINGLES DUMPED INTO A POOL OF WATER NEAR A STORM SEWER OUTLET. I'VE SEEN SOME STRANGE OCCURRENCES HERE, AND EVERY WEEK I FIND SOMETHING TOSSED THAT SHOULD HAVE GONE TO THE DUMPSITE.

As for environmental concerns these days, I've never been more anxious and worried about the governance of my country. I have always been a proud Canadian, and that didn't hinge on whether or not I supported the government in office. The way we have become known to the rest of the world, frankly, makes me feel let down by the people who should be representing us,……leading us, and protecting our integrity in all the international areas we expect as its citizens. I'm seeing a lot of parallels these days, between the government of the day, and the folks who think it's okay to dump crap into the wetlands…..because it's the cheapest, easiest thing to do. They rationalize as well, that they didn't know they were doing anything wrong. They figured, hey, "it's just a lowland, full of water and snakes and stuff." When I see their faces, and let them hang themselves by poorly chosen explanations, I can't help but think they've never been told otherwise…..they have no idea what damage they're causing by their indifference. Apparently, our government acts pretty much the same, and I would never turn to them, to sort out an environmental crisis.

Like this bogland, that not so long was the target of our own town, that planned to sell it for residential lots, it will continue to be in environmental crisis as long as we have the arseholes, who are too cheap and stupid, to dump their refuse at the landfill site. The environment of Canada. Well, we've got a problem. I'm counting on the citizens of this country to force the matter…..and they will in time…..but as it may already be too late to save the planet……I'll just settle, to try and save The Bog.

MUSKOKA AS WALDEN -

SPRING AS WINTER - WHEN WILL THE SNOW COME TO STAY?

It feels today, as I'm lazily strolling through an English moor, as if beneath the hillside perch of an ancient manor house, like Wuthering Heights, or Bracebridge Hall….the gray sky with misty rain, makes this scene hauntingly similar to the countryside of old England…..not Muskoka, which should by now been in the icy grasp of early winter. I should be shivering here, in the open, sneaking my chin down into my upturned collar. Instead it is not even a necessity of apparel, to don cap and sweater, to stand here on the woodland slope, overlooking The Bog. Instead of snow, there is a wafting, eerie mist laying low over the dry cattails, silvering over the field grasses still wavering in the shallow wind of a Muskoka morning.

We have had snow on several occasions this winter season already, but the temperature has not been low enough to maintain it on the ground. Without the cold temperatures, over many days, there is little chance of forming ice down into the soil, which keeps the snow frozen on the ground when it does fall. Today instead of hearing the snow hitting the outstretched evergreen boughs, and settling on the mounds of folded-over lowland grasses, I can hear the myriad tiny cataracts, along the snaking course of the little creeks that cut side to side, and lengthways toward the lake. From even the highest part of the backside, you can not clearly see these crystalline water declines, with the matting of grasses, hilled-up over decades of growth and decline. It is quite a sensation, to stand here and listen to all the subtle but intrusive noise, from these water-courses, causing at times, the feeling the whole landscape is eroding into water, and that the hillside might soon erode away, and fall into the muddy water racing over the declines toward the lakeshore.

Some voyeurs here, might think it uncomfortable to stand out here today. It is not pleasant weather-wise, yet because there is no snow, and temperatures are well above zero, at a wintery time of year, this watcher in the woods, is rather pleased by the spectacle, of nature so barren and beautifully rough hewn. No flowers, no fanning fern leaves, no butterflies or hummingbirds. No leaves on the hardwoods, no mushrooms flourishing at the base of birches. Just a vista of perceived melancholy, which isn't really, but to the casual passerby, it is less captivating than if it had a canopy of December snow. Even now that a heavier rain has begun to fall over this bogland, and our home at Birch Hollow, it is still a most alluring landscape, haunted, spirited, and strikingly poetic to those of passion for the supernatural; the paranormal that seems to abound in the minds of creative thinkers, story writers and spinners. This is a paradise of contradictions, between what is naturally beautiful, and what is appealing to the eye…..so that the sentimental heart won't be disappointed by the blandness beyond.

I will take this remarkable sojourn, in celebration of what it doesn't have, but what it does so poignantly exude, as a topography, in a truly haunted place on earth. I'm helplessly drawn to it as a poet, an artist, and in its bleakness, is a powerful enlightenment to be fulfilled, the questing heart.

One can look at the stark and prone figures of the fallen pines, their branches still reaching upward with regret, and rotting old birches, that cast thin shadows, and feel this is a desolate place. If on the other hand, as the artist, you found these same grotesque shapes, honest portrayals of our natural existence….., might you paint them onto the boards, that may one day hang as a reminder, when this place too, has been paved over and developed, to meet the urban standard. Pity, we don't find this a glorious place now, in its modesty, between autumn and winter.