Saunterings

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 ...

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. ...

A rainy day in the Mono Cliffs Park In my process to get deep into the comprehension of the summer of 1864 and of Muir, I had previously spent some research time in the nearby Dufferin County Museum. At the time that Muir was here there was no Dufferin County. Only Simcoe County is mentioned as the location of his early wanderings and  specimen collecting. Dufferin County was a later amalgamation that now contains Adjala and Mono Townships that Muir did his first three week wander in.  What I discovered in the museum was that the Mono Cliffs area that I had already explored was such a unique local site that the early settlers travelled there for their Sunday excursions. Since they honoured the "Lord's Day" by not working, what they would do after church is head over to this fascinating area for some social time exploring the area. I saw images in the museum of well dressed pioneers posing on the various rock formations. One particular site was called Jacob's...

In this Pilgrimage process that I doing of the Summer of Glorious Freedom for John Muir, I am trying to put myself into the head of a young man of 26 who is out making his way in the world. In this exercise of imagination I have to draw on a myriad of skills. I was influenced as a young student by reading a book called "Reading the Landscape of America" by May Theilgaard Watts where she encourages you to actually look at the many layers of history that can be interpreted in really "seeing" a landscape and not just "looking" at it. As I hike along I look on Muir's Route with an eye to the geology, the glacial landforms, the soils, the path of the native trails, the imposed grid of concessions and side-roads and the resulting development of farms, villages and towns.  Reading regional histories, checking old maps in the archives, and reading tombstones are all used to get a sense of the texture of the time and place. I am using Muir's botanical ...