The Snow Has Left The Woodlands

Gravenhurst's Favorite Bear, Kinsmen Park - Photo by Fred Schulz

THE AMAZING CHANGES IN ONLY A FEW DAYS, FROM WINTER TO THE NURTURE OF SPRING

     I HAVE JUST THIS MOMENT RETURNED FROM MY EVENING WALK, WITH BOSKO MY CANINE COMPANION, HAVING WALKED SLOWLY, AND ENJOYABLY, ALONG THE UPPER RIDGE OF THE BOG, ACROSS FROM BIRCH HOLLOW. THE WARM APRIL WIND IS GUSTING, AND WHILE I WAS IN THE FOREST, TWO DEAD TREES OUT IN THE LOWLAND, CRASHED TO THE GROUND. A LITTLE UNSETTLING, AS THIS IS A PARALLEL SOUND TO WHEN A MOOSE BOLTS FROM ITS GRAZING IN THE LOWER MARSH. I'VE HEARD IT MANY TIMES. IT GIVES THE INTERLOPER HEART PALPITATIONS, WONDERING WHICH EXIT FROM THE BOG IT WILL TAKE THIS TIME. IT IS NOT PRUDENT TO BE IN ITS PATH, AT THAT MOMENT OF SUDDEN PROPULSION FROM THE DEEP MUCK OF THE LOWLAND.

     A FEW BRANCHES SNAPPED OFF FROM DIEING PINES ALONG THE PATH, BUT I ESCAPED WITHOUT GETTING HIT.

     I'M SURPRISED BY THE WAY THE SNOW HAS MELTED AWAY SO QUICKLY, FROM ONLY SEVERAL DAYS AGO, WHEN THERE WAS STILL EVIDENCE OF OLD HARD PACKED SNOW DRIFTS….THAT LOOKED AS IF THEY WOULD BE IN PLACE UNTIL MAY. MOST OF THE SNOW IN THE WOODLANDS, AND DOWN IN THE BOG, HAS NOW MELTED AWAY…..AND MOST OF IT IN THE PAST FORTY-EIGHT HOURS, IN PART DUE TO THE HEAVY RAINS OF LAST NIGHT…..AND OF COURSE, THE WARMTH OF THE PAST TWO DAYS. THE LITTLE CREEKS ARE NOW SWOLLEN, AND I CAN SEE FLOODING FURTHER DOWN THE ACREAGE, TO WHERE IT RUNS DOWN THROUGH THE WIDER CREEK, AND DOWN INTO MUSKOKA BAY SOME DISTANCE AWAY. WITH THE WIND TONIGHT, ALL THAT IS AUDIBLE BEYOND THE WASH THROUGH THE EVERGREENS, ARE THE OCCASIONAL CRACKS AND THUDS OF OLD BRANCHES FALLING TO EARTH. THE TYPICAL DIN OF THE EARLY EVENING CAN'T BE HEARD, AND EVEN WHEN A CAR PASSES ON THE ADJACENT LANEWAY, THERE WAS NO FOREWARNING SOUND. IT IS AN AGGRESSIVE SOLITUDE, WITH THIS DRYING WIND, PUSHING DOWN OVER THE FAR HILLSIDE, WAVERING THE OLD DRIED GRASSES AND THE CAT-TAILS, NOW BENT OVER TO THE GROUND BY THE AIR CURRENTS SWEEPING ACROSS THE LANDSCAPE.

     This can be an eerie place, at this time of year, making the voyeur feel as if the spirits of a thousand years, are roaming about in the prevailing, turbulent atmosphere. In the rasping of the wind at this basin of dried grass, in curious mounds and ridges, it sounds to the traveller, as if a name is being called out, by some invisible entity from somewhere out in the shadowed fringe. There are no floating waifs, not apparitions of old souls, who once walked this marshland. There aren't any other hikers this evening. It must all be in your imagination.

     In the fractured light of late sun and dusk, one might expect to see a ghost wandering a familiar path….hear the faint, pensive voice of a child, calling to another, from a time, once, long ago. In the calm, between the gusts of wind, there is a sensation of occupation, and that at any time, a silhouetted figure might be seen on the far hillside, standing out on the earthen ledge, looking over the expansive lowland in transition…..as a great bard at the site of Wuthering Heights. The wind soon chases away the speculation, with a preponderance of reality…..as it continues to blast its way through the old pinery, and the leaning birches, ripping off limbs, and casting them profoundly, poetically to the ground. The skeletons of the old year….the old season.

     It is these spirits of the spring, I seek out in this place, as the strange fictions of our precious urban oasis, The Bog.

     Thank you for taking a few moments today to visit.