Last weekend we ran the Black River from above Cooper Falls to just shy of Washago. I paddled my inflatable SOAR canoe: a bit of a blunt instrument of a boat with poor tracking, but bombproof rapid-running capabilities. My cousin Josh Morgan shot this iPhone vid and though it shows …
I was out with my iPhone camera last week and spotted this old maple tree with a Bruce Trail blaze on it. This tree is near the end of its life, but not its usefulness. It provides habitat for countless animals, a signpost for hikers and a powerful monument to …
Great Lake Swimmers‘ songs evoke wild Canadian landscapes where the only human sound is singer-songwriter Tony Dekker’s voice floating like mist above the treetops. His forlorn, hazy alto is instantly recognizable and his melody lines suggest natural phenomena: wind through trees, waves on sand. The opening song on the latest …
It began innocently enough this past January, when my father forwarded this photo of a mountain lion. The email included original text: “This cougar was pearing [sic] through the glass patio door of a house in Duntroon, Ontario between Christmas and New Years.” I couldn’t believe it. Judging by the …
Originally published in Mountain Life magazine, Ontario edition. In the middle of the windblown channel, my father’s paddle breaks in two. We brought no extra, so I hand him mine. All I can do is watch the frenzied cross-chop of Missinaibi Lake engulfing our Grumman aluminum canoe. I’m 12 …
One hundred and forty years ago, the propeller steamer Mary Ward sank in Georgian Bay off Craigleith on November 24. She had a cargo of salt, refined coal oil and 20 carboys of acid (!). After losing sight of the Nottawasaga lighthouse in a gale, the ship hit a reef about …
Originally published in Canoeroots magazine. “The lake was ours,” wrote Konstantin Schwartz in his diary, recalling the moment he and a comrade paddled out of the reedy shallows and into the gently rippled expanse of Whitewater Lake in the Manitoba wilderness. Many canoeists alone on a secluded lake have …
Originally published in the Bruce Trail Conservancy Magazine. “I want to talk about the caves we’re not going into,” says Robert Bateman, ruefully. We’re standing on the cedar-shaded top of Mount Nemo, a safe distance from the precipice but surrounded by deeply honeycombed Escarpment topography. Bateman continues: “So these …
Originally published in the Bruce Trail Conservancy Magazine. Hiking transforms us. For those of us who hike regularly, this statement may sound surprising. How exactly does such a commonplace activity transform us? Stuart Phillips, a professor in the Kinesiology Department of McMaster University and a keen Bruce Trail hiker …
Originally published in Crosscurrents. Dawn Betts was reeling from a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, dysthymia and depression when she was invited to participate in a program called Photovoice, offered through the Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) branch in the northern Ontario city of Thunder Bay. Betts knew little …
Originally published in Mountain Life magazine, Ontario edition. Edward Burtynsky’s photographs of mine tailings, quarries and refineries capture unintentional and unexpected patterns and sometimes find a strange beauty in the massive and complex scars we leave on the natural landscape. The Canadian master’s first study was nature photography and …
Originally published in Crosscurrents. Mainstream film has never been very kind to mental health nursing. More often, it has either undersold the role of nursing – pushing it to the fringes as window dressing to the work of doctors – or promoted a stigmatized and distorted view of nurses …
Edited version published in Canadian Geographic, July 2011. In the summer of 1961, a farmer showed archeologist Charles Garrad a strange snail shell that turned up in the roots of a dead apple tree. Garrad had come looking for First Nations artifacts that farmers in the area around Craigleith, …
Originally published in the Bruce Trail Conservancy magazine, Summer 2011. Southern Ontario’s old-growth forest is scarce. We live with the legacy of our 19th century European settlers’ tree-cutting culture. These tireless pioneer homesteaders cut down, and often burned, uncounted millions of big trees. According to Canadian historian A.R.M. Lower, “The …
Edited version originally published in Canadian Geographic, January 2012. This morning is hot and sunny, though a few clouds huddle at the margins. Weather is much on our minds lately. Today is the day of our outdoor wedding on the banks of the Maitland River not far from my wife’s …
Here’s a little video Colin Field made of us assembling the PakCanoe 170. The company sent us a demo, which I all but destroyed on the Missinaibi River during a trip where we encountered low water and extremely sharp rocks. These foldable vinyl and aluminum-tube canoes have their uses, but …
Previously published in Mountain Life Magazine, Ontario edition. Every summer in the hills above Meaford, people pay to be irritained. On a 100-acre spread of farmland known as The Funny Farm the Electric Eclectics Festival of Modern Music and Irritainment may be the only Canadian event of its kind: a three-day …
Originally published in Mountain Life magazine. The proportions of the hydro-electric power station seemed the handiwork of some extinct race of giants. The men inside it, dwarfed by its scale, weren’t supposed to be there. Their plan was to explore and take photographs using powerful flashlights and flares to light …
Originally published in Mountain Life magazine. Julia White’s home studio stands in the midst of fields and trees near the hamlet of Walter’s Falls. On the sunny spring day I visit, Julia’s four-year-old daughter, Ariel, picks buttercups while her mother wraps red thread around a nearly finished sculpture. Julia’s husband …
Originally published in Mountain Life magazine. “Iguana fight!” We turn to see the tour group behind us veer off the path to watch a pair of large yellowish land iguanas sparring in the shadows on the edge of a grove of papery palo santo, or incense trees. We want …
Last weekend we ran the Black River from above Cooper Falls to just shy of Washago. I paddled my inflatable SOAR canoe: a bit of a blunt instrument of a boat with poor tracking, but bombproof rapid-running capabilities. My cousin Josh Morgan shot this iPhone vid and though it shows …
I was out with my iPhone camera last week and spotted this old maple tree with a Bruce Trail blaze on it. This tree is near the end of its life, but not its usefulness. It provides habitat for countless animals, a signpost for hikers and a powerful monument to …
Great Lake Swimmers‘ songs evoke wild Canadian landscapes where the only human sound is singer-songwriter Tony Dekker’s voice floating like mist above …
It began innocently enough this past January, when my father forwarded this photo of a mountain lion. The email included original text: …
Originally published in Mountain Life magazine, Ontario edition. In the middle of the windblown channel, my father’s paddle breaks in two. …
One hundred and forty years ago, the propeller steamer Mary Ward sank in Georgian Bay off Craigleith on November 24. She had a …
Originally published in Canoeroots magazine. “The lake was ours,” wrote Konstantin Schwartz in his diary, recalling the moment he and a …
Originally published in the Bruce Trail Conservancy Magazine. “I want to talk about the caves we’re not going into,” says Robert …
Originally published in the Bruce Trail Conservancy Magazine. Hiking transforms us. For those of us who hike regularly, this statement may …
Originally published in Crosscurrents. Dawn Betts was reeling from a diagnosis of borderline personality disorder, dysthymia and depression when she was …