Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary

Spring for a change, from a visit today to the Aspen Valley Wildlife Sanctuary, near Rosseau, with Audrey Tournay. You don't necessarily plan on these things. Life happens when you're thinking of other things, an echo from John Lennon. Audrey was a schoolteacher in St Catherines when in the mid '60's someone gave her two orphaned skunks. "They're almost as nice as beavers, and funny too." Now it's 400 skunks later, and only skunked 8 times. It took a few more years and buying an abandoned farm to set her on her way. A vet from Parry Sound kept dropping over with various adorable wild animals he'd doctored, but not yet strong enough or old enough to get back to the wild. No one, Audrey found, not the government nor any other agency would care for them. So she wound up doing the job herself on her 800 acre farm. All sorts of animals, mostly local, some exotic like a lion she has now from BC, that grew too big for a pet. Animals with hard luck stories, the majority not injured like you might expect, but young and orphaned, parents killed by cars, but mostly by hunters. Bears for instance, about 90 today in a woodland pen, black and brown, really the same species, even born together in the same litter, are common guests. At about 18 months they go back to the wild. Documentary film crews have showed up for the emotional moment. Deer, wolves still, though with so few now, they're mating with coyotes who've moved north, even with dogs. Audrey's is part coyote, as it happens. Like her other friends, from around 200 in the spring to a thousand by fall, her dog found her too. And just about any other wild animal in these parts, from raccoons, to deer and owls. Audrey never turns a wild animal away.

Beavers are Audrey's favorites. Any current resident would make himself at home in your lap, and do in hers when pint-sized, feeding and nuzzling. Since they're to return to the wild, close human contact is kept to a minimum. They're as wonderful as Grey Owl says they are, the one who used to be a trapper and lived around Parry Sound. His cabin was loaded with them, very sociable and unstoppable. Can't sit still for a minute unless they're sleeping in your bed. If you're a cottager, they could wind up gnawing your furniture. See the Aspen Valley website on how to deal with furry and feathered visitors, in a kindly way. There's a downloadable pdf, Living with Wildlife. Animals should be respected and protected. With a little understanding, they'll mind their own business, even bears.

Deer are still a delightful sight, prancing across roads and highways, so always be prepared to stop in cottage country. At Aspen Valley, unlike many zoos, they're happy here. For one thing, they're in the country, and penned in very large woodland enclosures, and that only for a time, so they can go back into the wild when they're big and strong enough. The Sanctuary is open to the public from Victoria Day through Canadian Thanksgiving, admission by donation. It's a great outing for kids and not a commercial venture. Bring a picnic lunch and roam around. Visit some animal friends. It's amazing to be able to get close to them. Over the years, as more wild animals have descended, still with no other place to go, Audrey's had to expand. Fortunately through donations and sponsors, but still no money from the government, she's been able to hire a small staff and enlist some volunteers. They're an enthusiastic lot, usually a half-dozen students from Germany, Switzerland and England, some returning year after year. It's the enchantment of the wild and wide open spaces and of course the animals. If you're a cottager, staying for the summer, check out the Sanctuary's nature study courses for your kids. Drop in and see Audrey, a great and gracious lady. She's an artist and storyteller too, inspired by her bears and beavers.

Deep In Cottage Country

Near Tait's Landing on Lake Manitouwabing where you can rent one of these pontoon golf carts. A fun way to spend the day, away from people again. Wish there were more of Stephen Leacock's small towns. They've disappeared and Orillia has sadly lost its Sunshine Sketches, now a big, but still charming and attractive place. The Rathskeller has been bulldozed by the huge Chinese buffet. Still you do get some sentimental incidents that ping back from the old days. Fussy old ladies getting their hair done at jam packed beauty salons doused in stinging peroxide. People jumping out at you thinking they know you. Kids and dogs and picnics. Wet frisky dogs on the beach. The trip to the bank, an ordeal of a different sort. Book ahead, like at the beauty parlour, but they don't answer the phone or you can call an 800 number in Calcutta. Don't fret about polishing your shoes and the cravat knotted right. The guy behind the desk isn't the manager or the assistant manager or even the loans officer, but a customer service rep who types into his keyboard. It's the financial software and his printout that gives you the final, absolutely final, bad news about your loan application. Cubbyhole bars and bars tucked into restaurants can be social stomping grounds. The bigger places are just noisy or empty. Smokers don't like them anymore. You might find a few chewing emergency nicotine gum. Suspicious characters are still rare, but now you find them talking into their cellphones on street corners. Watch for the cop on his beat in his squad car at the only traffic light in town. Could cost you plenty. Weddings and funerals, the big social occasions right up there with church basement Jackpot Bingo. The strangers in town, the still contagious city slickers whether loud tourists or LL Bean catalog cottagers, and the occasional drifter who wants directions for somewhere else. Bibles on your doorstep from a half-dozen evangelical outfits and always a pair of Mormons somewhere. Hassles at the liquor store, a pint of whisky or an armload of beer, cut off by bourbon stuffed buggies hustling for the door and the double parked Mercedes. Or the revenge of the locals: Waiting at the Beer Store while pickups unload 300 cases of empties and cash them in. The rumor mill and the grapevine from the old Rathskeller now at the Tim Hortons. Ask a nosy question. Somebody has the answer, spell it for ya forwards and backwards.

Sentimental Places

Summer. Dillon, near Killbear. Cottage vacations always remind me of other cottage vacations. When I was growing up it was either that or playing ball during the long hot city summers. The rich kids flew somewhere with their parents. Getting in the car a few hours out of town was a big enough adventure. The air was sweeter. It made you eat a lot or sleep a lot or play a lot of cards at night on the porch. We didn't have our own cottage, so we rented this and that. Every day was great when it wasn't a drag or raining and boring. Odd things left behind in the cupboards, a Playboy Magazine found under the mattress, no hot water or no running water, just a kitchen hand pump and the outhouse outside. Poison ivy, mosquitoes and ticks. A local general store in the nearest small town or at the gas station for something to do, some still surviving like this one, nothing trendy and expensive, dropping in for a Coke, some candy and other junk for kids, plastic rafts that took dad a half hour to blow up, board games and jigsaw puzzles and comic books. Lazing on the beach with a transistor radio. Sunburn and Noxzema, and sand between your toes.