Early Winter Trails

Balsam Bed. Glad Trail

I am a forest woman.

Lab Tea. Regatta Bay Trail

Labrador Tea. Regatta Bay Trail

I walk the trails and I bushwalk too.  Every day the forest is a different place.  My forest is the South Mountain.  It is a mixedwood forest.  Last week I walked every day.  Goldeneye Lane. Glad Lake Trail.  Regatta Bay Trail. Copernicus Hill. The Forestry Centre Trail.

Snow Moss. Regatta Bay Trail

It was warm and wet.  It snowed at night, and rained by day.  But up at the highest elevation in Manitoba, under the shade of gigantic white spruces, tightly knit black spruces, steep folds and dense bush, the snow held firm, making the walk easier, in some cases and more difficult in others.

Please Click on any photo to enlarge it.

Trail Lake

Regatta Bay Trail Blocked

Not Alone Ms Elk

Regatta Bay

This is a small photo montage of what we saw as we hiked.  Last summer there were devastating winds in The Valley.  The South Mountain was also scarred by the winds.  The trails are open now, mostly, for hiking.  The second loop of the Regatta Bay trail was the most difficult due to trees that had been downed by the wind.  About a kilometer of the trail on the north east side of Arrowhead Lake was covered by a black spruce bog that had been completely upended.  About 500 trees were down, and beneath was wet marsh grass, crunching and breaking through to loonshit.  It was near the shore but the lake wasn't frozen yet so it was tough slogging through there.  Other than that stretch, the trails were presentable.

Tree Root Cave

The labrador tea was most colourful.  A lovely sight to behold.  The snow mosses were alive and bright.  Shorelines were freezing but the breezes were still creating chop on the water.  And I was not alone.

 
There were lots of tracks on the trails.  Moose.  Elk.  Deer.  And other smaller critters, some dragging a tail, and others with hopping strides.  I walk with a dog, so I don't see the wildlife.  Just their aftermath.

Downed Spruce Copernicus Trail

Arrowhead Lake

Since these hikes The Valley was struck with a nasty blizzard.  I have not been back up The Mountain since 40cm of snow, and possibly more on these trails, blanketed our landscape. 

Please Click on any photo to enlarge it. 

The blog also has a slide show utility.  I will caption locations.  If you have any questions about photos, please leave me some comments.

Loggers Burning twxt Line & Wellman

panorama from Copernicus Tower

Panoram Gallant Lake

Glad Freeze up 2012

T

11/11/11 - Give Peace a Chance

You may click on these

images to read the text.

In December of 1980 I was working in the radio industry.  It was an era when pop country was stepping over dying disco for airwave radio dollars.  Rock and roll was floundering into the eighties with punk popularity and princely confusion.  Where I worked, we were making profit, with an "F", riding on the crossover from rock to country with acts like Alabama and Waylon Jennings.

We worked long hours and drank lots. On December 8, for some reason, I was late at the station. It might have been ilicit, or it might actually have been legit.  I didn't work news and in a small market station, there was never more than one person in the news room. Usually in the evenings, the person spinning tunes was the one reading the news wire copy.

I am not a thief.  I am an archivist.


I heard the DJ deliver the news of John Lennon's death from within the station.  Ten minutes later, I relayed  the news to my friends at the bar.  There were no tears shed.  But there was disbelief.

I don't recall any special tribute that night.  Today, I am reminded of the controversial photograph of young people sitting on the Jersey shore one warm September day, while the twin towers were imploding behind them.  They knew it was a horror, again, on Manhattan Island, but they were young and had a world of living ahead of them.  There was no need for them to wallow in the horror of the moment.

 

The next morning I went to work.  Across my desk came the new Billboard magazine, a mainstay in the music industry.  So I delivered it to the newsroom to replace the earlier edition.  As I lifted the back issue from the bunk I was faced with the back cover. Gulp. A lump floated from my chest to my throat.  Such a gentle kiss.  Dateline November 22.  Double Fantasy.  Full page ad.

Then I looked at the paper trash, there was no recycling in those days.  The morning news crew had dispatched yesterday's news into the circular file, and there were three teletype print-outs.  I slipped them into the magazine and carried the package back to my desk.

Okay.  I stole it.

But I have protected it.  And now I am sharing it.  1980 was pre-fax, let alone, pre-internet.  Teletype was monospaced courier font allCAPS on paper one step above toilet paper.

I rescued these historical records.... and stored them in the magazine, until today.

The first and second wire copy show the Lennon story unfolding.  The third one gives a bit of context about what was happening in the world, besides the death of John Lennon.  The cold war was in full swing and Pierre Trudeau was our Prime Minister.

Today is remembrance day.  11/11/11

Give Peace a Chance.

Beyond Thunder Bay

Access to this beautiful park was closed when I travelled east, unsure when I'd be back that way.  As I picked my way through the heavy construction of the Ontario highway crews twinning the blacktop east of Thunder Bay, the Green Sign God pointed me toward a memorial.  My eyes glanced upward, across the oncoming traffic limping through the roadworks.  I saw something.  A flash of something, high above the granite cliffs that had been blasted out of the sloping Superior coast to make the road bed.  It was just a glimpse.  I was not even sure what I had seen, but it put a lump in my throat and choked me up.  I got goose bumps.  Then I was past.

Weeks later, indeed, I found myself heading west, across the same stretch of highway, now smooth and freshly lined.  The workers had done themselves proud.  The further behind I put Nipigon, and the nearer I came to Thunder Bay, the more frequent the cliffs and the sense of the big peninsula creating  The Lakehead Harbour, and the more determined I became that I would visit this park.  It had left a sense in me.  Nobody had recommended this place.  I had past easily thousands of signs along my 15,000 kilometer journey enticing me in to visit, taste, view, stop, buy, and sleep.  I had learned to ignore the promotional media along the road.  But this was different.  

The first time I had driven through a wave of something.  I remembered.  And I wanted to get closer, and see it with my own eyes.  Truly, I was drawn.

So, I took the exit.  The new entrance way gracefully  circled me around the park, and up a gentle slope to a most beautifully groomed park and interpretive centre.  People had dogs, threw frisbees, looked at the sea.  Mostly, they just spoke quietly and stopped for a few minutes, (not many stayed long) to bask in the ominous presence created there.

People were not there to pay tribute.  This was a place where we were given grace.

click on the images to take a closer look

Ford Country

This is just an ordinary day in June. In any other part of Manitoba, this circumstance would result in news. Road closures would be posted. Radio stations would be warning drivers to take caution.

The Swan River Valley is 60 kilometers across and has no fewer than a dozen rivers flowing through it, ultimately north-eastward into Hudson Bay. The depression era and post WWII "good roads" program came to the valley, but there was not enough money for bridges. Solution? Ford Crossings. In The Valley there are more than 80 Ford Crossings. In the winter, these appear as little dips and dales on snow-covered roads. In the spring, the roads are soft and the crossings are impassable. Travellers simply have to go around, circumventing, sometimes making three or four attempts, until they find a bridge and can continue on their way.
But it is the summer surprises that make a day's outing in The Valley a particular adventure. Sometimes when you approach a ford, you will see a few inches of water crossing the road, and will risk the crossing. Other times, you will see white-water torrents and will have to get out and evaluate the situation. Everyone in The Valley has stories about attempted or aborted crossings, lost time, or unplanned picnics by a rushing river.

The rivers of the Swan River Valley come from what are affectionately known by locals as the "North Mountain" or the "South Mountain, the Porcupine or the Duck Mountain, to folks from further afield. All of the rivers run. Some seem quite modestly small in the heat of a dry August, but a sudden torrent can put the rivers to work, as spillways for the excess that flows from the beaver ponds and lakes that populate the lush, dense mixed wood forests of the north and south mountains.

So, next time you travel through west-central Manitoba, do not be afraid to venture off Highway 10. There is local lore, that indeed, every ford crossing has a cache, or a treasure, in fact, a clue. The story cannot be completed until you witness the cache and gather every clue. The keepers know that the caches remain intact and the story that unfolds as you build your intimacy with Ford Country is of an amazing Kingdom. The Swan River Valley.