Into The Holland Swamp

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.

So with a vague memory of twenty years ago I headed off to try my luck. Thank God for vague memories, they work just as well as good memories! Yes within minutes along the trail I was able to find a patch of Calypso(s). There in the dappled sunlight was the wonderful little Lady. Yes I would call her a Lady. With the incredible shapes and colours and her pristine presence, there was no way that you could think of this flower as a masculine object. Maybe that's why Muir fell in love with her! Standing only three inches high with a flower the size of your thumbnail it was just an extraordinary experience. I could totally sympathize with Muir for the hours that he spent lying on his stomach studying this plant.

Since I was alone I grabbed the first shots before the mood could be shattered. Then slowly took my time to get better and better photos. For those of you who wish to know about the shot at the top of the page: Flower Pot Island, first weekend of June, Nikon D300 camera with a macro lens and the use of a dedicated Nikon 800 flash. I was just as delighted as Muir was with being able to commune with this little Lady before the thundering herd of Orchid Fanatics arrived from the tour boat. I could hear the National Park naturalist saying that they had not yet found a Calypso this year. I was staring at one as I heard him making his pronouncement! Thus I had the honour of sharing my discovery with the crowd - apparently the first person to discover a Calypso that year. Must have been the spirit of John Muir guiding me to that location!

Historically what you have to know is that Muir found his Calypso in the Holland Swamp north of Toronto close to the town of Bradford. (the Holland name comes from a person who was a Military leader in the War of 1812) As I have shown in early postings, Muir was staying with the Campbell Family - one of the families that left the Scottish "Selkirk Settlement" in Winnipeg Manitoba in 1819 to look for safer lands in Ontario. By studying the area around the Campbell Farm on Google Earth I could see a creek that transited the farm eventually wound its way into the swamp.  I assumed that one day John would have followed that creek all the way into the swamp. So I did the same thing but I had kayak with me and as soon as I could float it I was into the creek and then the swamp, but not to experience the desperate survival episode that Muir talked about on the day that he found the Calypso when he was lost in the swamp - wet and cold. 

As Campbell Creek enters the Holland Swamp - June 2017

Into the thick of it all.

Actually it was probably quite bizarre and seemingly very dilettante to the high tech commercial farmers trundling by in their million dollar machines that some guy was off loading a kayak to go paddling in a swamp. Well yes it did seem a little incongruous for me until I paddled around the first bend and with the road left behind I was swallowed up by a swamp as intense as the Everglades. There was living biomass all around me; trees overhanging, birds railing at me for disturbing their peace, huge carp roiling the water beneath me and multitudes of flowers everywhere. Water lilies and aquatic pond-weed was thick as soup making it hard at times to move the boat forward. I could work my way over to the indistinct banks of what seemed like floating swampy islands and then pull myself along at eye level to view the dry land plants. But alas No Calypsos. 

The biomass of the swamp

Plants growing on the drier ground.

I knew it would only be gracious good luck that I would find one. I had a feeling that although Muir found his Little Lady here in early June, the warming climate has most likely altered the blooming date to a much earlier times at this more southerly latitude than the National Park at Tobermory. Indeed having learned more about orchids, I know now that they coexist within an area of undisturbed rotting forest floor litter. Having seen and now photographed a Calypso it was not hard to imagine Muir in this very swamp being lost and disconsolate and being hugely rewarded by his discovery. If he was trying to emulate the famous explorer of the time, Alexander VonHumboldt (who first explored the Amazon for European audiences) he was doing a very good job of it. Obviously me sitting in my nice dry kayak with a compass on the deck was no Humboldt nor Muir!

Having now become engaged with the concept of "sauntering" I was doing the same thing in my kayak. It was more like "messing about in boats" to quote the famous book Wind in the Willows. But always in the adventuring soul is the need to see what is just around the next bend. Pushing forward the swamp widened out to become what felt like a delta or an estuary. Eventually I was slammed back to the reality of NOW as the last bend turned into a drainage canal lined with steel pilings at the edge of the now drained marsh. 

The reality of the Holland Marsh - now an agricultural resource.

I could now see acres and acres or industrial scale farmland studded with greenhouses. As I looked to the east a major four lane highway "the 400" spanned the canal on a huge bridge and carried on to bisect the marsh. Oh well I thought lets paddle over and be under "the 400" just to say that I had done that once! Paddling close the noise rose to a crescendo as the pounding traffic flew by overhead. But as I slid under the bridge a muffled silence enveloped me and the space turned into a cathedral style ambience complete with multiple pillars. Who would have known? Not the experience that Muir had here but still a unique one to finish my day. 

In the Cathedral like space under Highway 400

© Robert Burcher 2017