Nature Calls

Summer. Georgian Bay. In the country you have a better relationship with trees. Cities crowd them out or dwarf them with big buildings and concrete. Here they confer a feeling of peace and shelter. The painters of the Age of Romance liked to parachute them into the midst of ruins or over the heads of lovers. Nature settling back into place after people built and smashed their cities. Now it looks like big cities are here to stay, though given our history, I'm inclined to doubt it. The country always lures us back to a simpler life. People get dissatisfied and exhausted with a complicated world that robs them of their individuality and their tranquility. Suddenly they're ready to burn their prison camps and there's another war or revolution. If cities were more on the human scale they might have weathered these storms. Some old ones have. Though there's a new war-like mania in dealing with cities that don't suit us. They rot in places and then the developers come in, forever tinkering with them, to the point where it all gets out of hand and the city becomes a mish-mash of contrary impulses. The better parts that survive get knocked down to modernize everything, like the old buildings are out of place, or more like a reminder of how people used to live. As though no one should live like this anymore, knock these dissenters down to be democratic. No more privileged buildings or people, no more Old World. The war in the Middle East is about these things too, a clash of Ancient and Modern. And the West's longstanding intolerance of what is old and out of fashion has erupted from the smoldering Twin Towers to rain fire and punish these Medieval Arabs so they can have what we want for them, democracy, money instead of family, and religion on the back burner. The Arabs started it, but the West has been busy eroding their lives and culture for a century. Perhaps a rebalancing is going on between these two extremes, but it's a bloody one and could ultimately wipe out both civilizations. Back to the Stone Age. Hopefully the trees will still be waiting for us.

A Boston Fern Escapes

Summer. Wild Plants by Georgian Bay near Killbear. Refreshing to see houseplants in their native setting. A long time ago, like 300 million years before people started potting them, giant ferns grew like forests in these parts, and conifers too. A Boston fern a long way from home.

A Miniature Garden

Summer. Wildflowers by Georgian Bay near Killbear. In miniature these plants are a children's dream. Walking through woods, breathing air so clean and pungent with the heady tonic aromas of an ancient earth, is perhaps the best antidote to modern life. You wonder why architects and builders, bankers and businessmen, have turned their backs on all this for concrete and cash. Well, they haven't entirely. A lot of them have 3-4-5-10 million dollar cottages around here, going on their nature walks in ATV's and golf carts.

Pockets Of Light

Summer. Wildflowers by Georgian Bay near Killbear. Tiny flowers and ferns poke up out of pockets of light in the deep woods. Killbear as a Provincial Park and campground, protects its wildlife. You might see bears or moose, certainly deer, rabbits and other small friends. If the name puts you off, don't worry. It was never about killing bears. An Indian name for the place, rendered phonetically into English, probably not very well.

A Wild Marigold

Summer. Wildflowers by Georgian Bay in Killbear. If you want the super camping experience, this is it. The peninsula juts out into the bay with rock and beaches on all sides. The rich and eerie forest is what the Huron Indians knew in the days of Samuel de Champlain.

Tickle Me

Summer. Wildflowers and bug by Georgian Bay in Killbear. The park deserves a special star. It's the only old growth forest in the region, saved from logging and redevelopment by a kind-hearted and dedicated forest ranger who persuaded the Ontario Ministry of Mines and Natural Resources to buy the land. The luxury of a million tons of big old trees. And you can camp there. Book early.

New Arrivals By Georgian Bay

Summer. The new growth rushes in along the shores of Georgian Bay. Nature's always in a hurry before autumn runs her into the ground. Most trees aren't as young as this, but as you walk around, you can't help noticing the old ones are missing. They'll be back, but what's taking them so long? During winter they aren't doing much, but when they could be at their busiest in summer, the lack of rain and thin dry soils slows them right down.

A Warm Silence In The Woods

Summer. Forest Floor at Bala. With nature doing all the work, why not parklands linked by trails cutting through our cities? If you think it impractical, go see how it works at the enormous Englischer Garten in Munich, Germany. Bigger than Central Park, New York, it stretches about 5 km overall and includes a lake and 3 islands, plus 8.5 km of streams and 78 km of footpaths.

Friendly Foliage

Summer. Wildflowers at Bala. Country lanes and trails are the best shopping malls. And you don't have to buy anything.

Lovely Grasses

Summer. Wild Grasses at Bala. The cranberry marsh at Muskoka Lakes Winery. The footpaths along acres of green fields touch on gentle woods and water. One thing we don't see enough of are the great variety and abundance of wild grasses that used to cover the prairies and meadows. To see them now you have to go to a special reserve in the US, Wind Cave National Park, near Hot Springs, South Dakota. The beauty of these grasses is phenomenal. To think that all we've got left are lawns and golf courses and some grass in ditches. The cave gets top billing because it is fabulous too, 300 million years old with amazingly long corridors of rare calcite boxwork stretching over 116 miles, though so compact the cave system occupies an area somewhat over a mile square. You can camp there at Elk Mountain year round.

The Last Day Of Spring

Spring. Thunder Creek on Georgian Bay, near Parry Sound. The nice thing about small towns is the country's never far away. In this case an easy 20 minutes on foot from downtown to the beach and another 20 along the jagged shores of Georgian Bay. You can't drive there either. One day you take your jacket off and before you know it, the fresh cool spring blasts away into the mighty heat of summer.

Aren't You Glad

Spring. Big Sound on Georgian Bay, near Parry Sound. The snow's finally gone.