Posts

Going South to Hamilton /Sept.1864

Image
Wild Turkeys on the road south from Orangeville. On the walk that John Muir did in the late summer and into the Autumn of 1864, we know from letters that he sent home to Wisconsin that he was on his way down to Dundas to meet his brother Daniel. This brother had already been living in Ontario for a year since he too was avoiding the Civil War draft. What I could discern from the way that the plant specimens were collected was that Muir had done his first major saunter starting in May. He had gone west from Bradford and over a three week period apparently made it as far west as Luther Marsh which was then called Luther Woods. Muir  then returned to Bradford and was there until late August. I can imagine since he was a "farm boy" that he came back to help out with the harvest at the Campbell farm. Arthur Campbell the father had died a decade earlier so Muir would have been a great asset to this struggling pioneer family. The view from the Dundas Train Station. Dundas ...
1 comment
Read more

A Summer Hiatus

Image
As I have followed John Muir's summer of 1864 I have tried to imagine what was going on in the bigger community of rural Ontario that he had landed in. We know that he was staying with a Scottish family - the Campbells and they were just starting to get a little prosperity happening despite the fact that the father of the family had died a few years earlier. John Muir had gone out for a three week ramble that I talked about in the earlier postings. He then returned to the farm at Bradford and from the lack of botanical specimens from that period I can only imagine that he was actually working with the family on the farm. He would have arrived back in the prime time for "haying" on an Ontario farm. At that time it was all done manually; scythes for cutting, hand bound and then stooked (stood on end to dry) and then hauled to a barn with a horse or an oxen to be stored for the winter. the Campbell farm today Since John had grown up on a farm in Wisconsin ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Disappointment at the Devil's Pulpit

Image
The trail to the Devil's Pulpit It is hard to unravel a mystery without actually getting "on site". Every detective from Sherlock Holmes down to Jimmy Perez in the BBC show Shetland has to get to the scene of the crime. They look for clues and observe and interview and ponder. So I too must get "on site" and once again return to the Forks of the Credit nestled in the Niagara Escarpment to search for the Devil's Half Acre. From the previous posting here I mentioned that the distance is correct and the timing of the blossoms of the Calla are correct, it just comes down now to beating the bushes. I had always heard about the Devil's Pulpit that exists here in the "Forks" but had never climbed up to it. Anyone who has hiked the Bruce Trail through this section knows of this brutally steep section of trail. So I too must climb to the Pulpit. Yes BRUTAL. Yes fascinating. The trail follows an unopened road allowance straight up the escarpmen...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Devil's Half Acre

Image
Thistle Always in life there needs to be a "Plan B" and today was one of those days. The original plan was to travel to Luther Lake Conservation Area to obtain a plant specimen that John Muir had collected in the "Luther Wood" in 1864. The specimen was obviously a Water Lily but had the curious label of Dirca palustris and a local name of Wicopy. I contacted the writer Bonnie Gisel of the book Nature's Beloved Son to ask her about this. She had recognized that in fact it was mis-identified but kept it in as a historical oddity. So off I went in the search for a Nymphaeaceae - a generic water lily. Luther Lake on a hot summer day. This was to be another day of kayaking, this time on Luther Lake during a rare hot and humid day in southern Ontario. When I arrived at the Conservation Area it was closed since it functions as a major bird sanctuary until the end of July. As I cruised the perimeter roads I was able to see that with a short walk along a d...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Labyrinth and the Hills

Image
Red Elderberry /Sambucus pubens I had a good awakening last year when I attended a John Muir event in Wisconsin to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the National Parks of the USA. The organization that put on the event Wisconsin Friends of John Muir  were encouraging people to think about getting away from the concept of mindless mileage that we now call HIKING and instead slow the pace to be more present, more observant and more immersed in nature. They were promoting the term "sauntering" that Muir used when he first arrived in California and "sauntered his way into the High Sierras". My excursion this week to the Hockley Valley once again was to pursue that concept within the re-creation of a John Muir experience. Hiker meets fern. Since my youth hiking with a capital "H" has always been encouraged in the family. As early members of the Bruce Trail going back to the early 1960's we were at the beginning of that craze. Then during my ...
2 comments
Read more

Into The Holland Swamp

Image
Calypso Borealis - Muir's favourite plant discovery of his life. In the re-discovery of Muir's time in central Ontario there is one crucial event that needed to be researched. In his biography,the relating of the discovery of a famous very rare orchid the Calypso Borealis is a hugely important incident. Muir's quote was " Of all the people that I met in my life, the meeting of Calypso was one of the most memorable" I have been pondering Muir's life in Ontario for years and when I started to research his route to get to Meaford I knew that the orchid discovery in the early spring of 1864 would be the absolute starting point. Thus in the spring of 2016 I decided to go to Tobermory Ontario for the Annual Orchid Festival that happens in the National Park to see if I could photograph a Calypso. I had been to the Festival in the 1990's and was lucky at that time to see a Calypso but did not have the photo gear necessary to do a closeup photo. ...
1 comment
Read more