Old driveway, new road

MapArt map books of the Greater Toronto Area have been a tremendous boon to me in my quirky hobby of exploring closed and unused roads and bridges. Since I bought my first one in 1990, not too long after getting my license, the hours I've spent pouring over the road grid have been some of the most fascinating of my life. The hints at what was, or what might eventually be (and in some cases, has come to pass), have fueled so many of my trips, and since digital photography has come of age, it's been all the more rewarding... increasingly so as the city continues to change out from under photos I've taken before.

MapArt's start eventually blossomed into investigations of the aerial photos at the City of Toronto Archives. What the maps merely hint at, these photos can confirm or deny, as you'll see below.

One of the intriguing things I found, but until just last weekend never really followed up on on foot, was an aspect of the gap that used to exist in Etobicoke's road grid west of the Humber. Up until quite recently, there was a substantial dearth of means to get back and forth between Albion Road in the south and Highway 7 in the north. The principal means one would have rightly expected to use, Steeles Avenue and Finch Avenue, did not cross the Humber until rather late in the region's history. Indeed, for all intents and purposes, Finch Avenue was a dead issue altogether west of the Humber, to the point that it eventually had to elbow its way though existing subdivisions to eventually make its way west into Mississauga. With the exception of a Rowntree Road — a residential street whose narrow, one-lane, wood-decked bridge still exists but has been closed to traffic for decades — there simply was no way across the Humber in this area until Steeles finally leapt the river in 1983. Finch Avenue didn't continue west of the river until 1988, which is astounding to me.

The one "cheat" that always stood out to me was a two-lane hospital driveway leading up from Islington Avenue just a little south of its T-intersection with Finch over the river itself. It always looked to me like this might have been a shortcut across the stretch that, until about 20 years ago, was unserved by a proper road. It twisted and turned, but eventually would have led drivers to Kipling Avenue, and access to the roads of Rexdale (ever the poor cousin in Etobicoke, it seems to me).

The driveway leads to a hospital that seems, given the various names it's had over the years, to be dedicated to the health — particularly the emotional health — of the children of the region. When I was in university, I had an English professor, a Czech author of some renown, who made a sly comment on this trend of political correctness. Speaking of a woman who had been consigned to 'The Home for the Desperately Poor', he remarked, "...because in those days, they didn't use fancy names; they just said it." And so, the hospital in question, on the various maps I have, has been styled first "County Branch Hospital for Sick Children", then later "Thistletown Hospital", then "The Ontario Hospital for Emotionally Disturbed Children", and finally, "Thistletown Regional Centre for Children and Adolescents". Seems the pits for political correctness was in that third example, from c. 1970 to c. 1990.

Some time ago, I went to the Archives to photograph that intersection as it appeared over the years. You can see the driveway shoot off northwesterly at an acute angle, until eventually it was cut off by the construction of Finch Avenue, and to which, strangely enough, it does not connect.

Here's how Finch and Islington met in 1950. Islington Avenue comes in at the bottom, crosses the Humber on a narrow bridge, and then heads north-northeast, where a very anemic-looking Finch Avenue meets it gasping and dies in its arms. South of the river is the driveway to the hospital, neatly lined with what look like recently-planted trees.


Here's nearly the same view in 1960 (I didn't match this particular photo with the other three, which all do line up precisely). You can see that the principal change here over ten years has been the arrival of suburbia.


Here's 1973. You can see that the old narrow Islington Avenue bridge has been replaced by the one that exists now, and that a more-robust, but still truncated, Finch Avenue meets it directly over the river. What I found most fascinating in this view is the naked arrowhead of the bridge on the west bank, ready to one day shoulder the burden of Finch Avenue, should it ever dare to leap the river and continue west in the direction the bridge itself seems to be urging. I'm not sure when the bridge was built, but I do know that promise wasn't met for a very long time... not until about 1988.


Here's the view today, and more-or-less how things have looked for about 20 years, give or take. Finch Avenue finally crosses the Humber and heads west. Incredibly, even this was not the completion of Finch Avenue; there was still a short gap between Kipling Avenue and Albion Road, behind the Albion Centre mall, segregating most of Finch from the stretch slowly built up in the 70s and 80s to serve Humber College and the newly-constructed Highway 427 (none of which appears in any of these shots); a gap that persisted right into the 1990s. You can see that the driveway to the hospital is now completely cut off by the completion of Finch Avenue here along its ancient road allowance. The section of the driveway south of Finch is now nearly indistinguishable.


And so we come to my walk down the old driveway. I parked in the south lot of the hospital, got out, and headed down on foot. Just beyond the parking lot, the driveway is closed to vehicle traffic.


As I came to the major upper bend in the driveway, I noticed a little stone bridge and pathway on the north side, so I diverted from the driveway and had a look. It's a melancholy walk up to some of the buildings, and I can't imagine what it was ever built for. Even if one had walked to the driveway in decades past, the driveway itself didn't really lead to any amenities. It seems to serve no purpose, now or then, that I can think of.

But it was certainly photogenic.

I returned to the crest curve of the driveway. Even in broad daylight in the late summer sun, it's a cold, oppressive place.


A little further along still, I came to the mouth of a gravely road leading off to the north and skirting the heights over the river. In the 1973 shot a little further down, you can see this trail once let some some sort of outlier building or buildings. There seems to be nothing in that vicinity now but a clearing. Nevertheless, this trail seems to receive at least some measure of maintenance, though as you may have noticed, none of the neglected street lamps in this area have been kept up.

On the side path, I found a little stone bridge, and a manhole cover dated 1960. (P.S. Looking at the photo now, I strongly suspect that's poison ivy creeping along the edge of the bridge there...)


Back on the main road, I resumed my trek down to Finch Avenue.


At the end of the driveway, cut off from Finch by a chainlink fence and a drop of 2', I was nearly run over by a teenager racing down on a bike. He narrowly missed me and turned onto a footpath on the east side. I had wondered if I would find an access to the roads, or under them, when I got there, and his speedy, confident zip into the trees was my first solid indication that that was the case. So I followed.

The chainlink fence had been widely and thoroughly pried open by pedestians. One branch of the trail seems to lead down the steep hillside to the river; the other takes one to Finch Avenue.


To remind you of what you're about to see, and how it differs from the area traditionally, here's a wider view of the 1973 shot. Emerging from the woods, I would be climbing onto the point of that big white arrowhead — only today, it carries Finch Avenue west across the field on the left side of the image.


Finch Avenue. The apartment building, which does not appear in the 1973 shot, is on Islington Avenue. Islington Avenue itself, up to sometime in the 1960s, would have been at the extreme right of this shot, at the end of the row of trees along Finch, and would have crossed its original narrow bridge just behind me over my right shoulder.


The views below have only existed for about 20 years. Before that, you'd have seen a grassy field, and cars turning either north or south when they T-junctioned at Islington.


Looking west up the "new", post-1988 stretch of Finch Avenue.


A wide-angle view of the intersection, looking east.


Manhole cover in the "new" section of Finch. Dated 1988.


A millennium plaque on the bridge. This suggests to me the bridge must have undergone some sort of work in 1999 or 2000.


I headed back down the path, and back along the abandoned (by all except myriad pedestrians and cyclists, apparently) driveway.



I found this strange, leaning tree somehow a poignant icon of the nature of the place.

Canon Pixma MP540

About seven months ago I bought a Canon Pixma MP510 printer/scanner for a hundred bucks. Not quite three months later, it fatally fucked up when a page I was printing fed back into it and jammed it. It was a very minor jam, but the printer never recovered from it. I kept it around for a while on the hopes I could at least salvage the ink tanks when I replaced it, but I finally had to throw it out a couple of weeks ago.

So, I was without a printer for several months, but, more importantly, without a scanner for the first time in well over a decade, and that I particularly missed. Well, today, I finally decided to do something about so I looked around online and found as close a match as I could: a Canon Pixma MP540. Most places in Canada seem to be selling it for $125-130 at the moment, but Canada Computers was selling it for $80. The store nearest to me had just one left, so I snagged it. For what it's worth, I can now print photos, maps, and email, and scan old prints and text for OCR again. And I'm going to try my damnedest NOT to jam this one!

Take off your dust jacket, whoo-hoo!!

Check this out. This is a book a friend of mine is hoping to scoop once the price comes down or it comes out in soft cover. I had a rare charitable urge come over me to look at it on eBay and order it and maybe surprise him. There are some bargains out there but once you factor in the cost of shipping, they're not bargains by much. But this one really blew me away... check this out:

...The book they're selling for a buck... but to ship it costs nearly thirty-two dollars!! How the hell is it being delivered, by strip-o-gram? Talk about your high-end imports. :)

C'est fini, penses-tu?

Lately I've been noticing these Tory attack ads that go after Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. There are some things they say that hit the mark. It still doesn't sit well with me that this man could live pretty much my entire life in the United States, have referred to it as "my country", and then presume to parachute back here after decades, scoop the Grit leadership, and presume to run the country. Fair enough.

But the foul against him is the complaint he was ready to form a coalition with other parties (namely, the New Democrats and the Bloc Quebecois). It's disturbing because it assumes -- or worse, actually speaks to -- a profound ignorance on the part of average Canadians of our own system of government. Coalition governments are typical in parliamentary democracies; in other less staid and boring than our own, they're often the norm.

The crux of the matter is the suggestion that Ignatieff was ready to form a coalition with the Bloc, a party whose platform technically includes seeking the eventual separation of Quebec from Canada by peaceful, democratic means. This is especially galling given that the Bloc flowered directly from the deal with the devil the Tories made in the 1980s to get Mulroney elected twice. They wrangled these people into the Progressive Conservatives by issuing a flurry of constitutional cheques their right-wing asses couldn't cash, and when those formerly soft separatist in particular and Quebeckers in general realized it, the blowback was fearsome. Anyone over 10 in 1995 remembers what I'm talking about.

And so this morning, the sweetest tidbit of all. Facing a non-confidence vote in the Commons that would have defeated their government and forced an election (yet another), the Tories have had their bacon pulled from the fire by...? Guess who. You guessed right! The Bloc Quebecois, who have agreed to support the government in the upcoming confidence vote.

I'm counting the seconds until those "Ignatieff wanted to form a coalition with the Bloc" ads evaporate from the airwaves. How about you?

District 9

I saw District 9 with P-Doug and G yesterday. I was impressed with it and enjoyed it thoroughly. Aside from Disney/Pixar's Up, it's one of the few movies I've seen this year that wasn't disappointing.

Set in 2010, District 9 postulates an alternate history, in which aliens arrive at Earth in the early 1980s, at Johannesburg in South Africa (a nice change from the typical L.A. or Washington, and the movie itself makes a point of saying so, provoking a smile and a wink from me). Like in the movie Alien Nation (which was, of course, set in California), the beings on the ship are workers. Unlike Alien Nation, these aliens don't look especially human and don't simply merge into the community to become slick and enthusiastic wanna-be Americans (or in this case, South Africans). They become just what one would really expect: slum-dwelling refugees eking out a crude living, barely suffered to live by the humans around them and authorities over them (in some cases, not suffered to live at all).

The aliens are portrayed as, by and large, uneducated and unsophisticated, either easily duped by human authorities or fearful and suspicious of them. Not unintelligent, just out of their depths. Humans, wondering at the disparity between the advanced technology of the aliens (called by the epithet "prawns" throughout the movie) and the relative simpleness of the aliens themselves, speculate that a ruling class on the ship had somehow been lost. Despite the fact that they are larger than humans and physically stronger, it becomes clear that they have become a form of prey for humanity: they have a biologically-keyed weapons technology that humanity cannot operate but, of course, covets.

Enter Wikus van der Merwe, played deftly by Sharlto Copley. Wikus is a young administrator, obviously in over his head, put in charge of the forced relocation of the alien population of 1.8 million because he is the boss's son-in-law. Wikus is a bumbler; a nice guy who's deliberately not quite as sharp as the audience, who quickly see the convenient holes in his moral fabric (and by extension, that of the society in which he lives). The audience is witness to some appalling acts of cruelty on the part of Wikus, which he himself, in his ignorance, sees as simple light-hearted hi-jinx. In the course of the movie, a transformation comes over him — one aspect of it physical, one spiritual — that ironically make him both less, and more, fully human. This is at the heart of the movie. There's no missing that this is, at the bottom of it all, a comment on the rot that Apartheid set into the soul of white South Africa.

Wikus first persecutes, and then later befriends (at first provisionally, then finally sincerely), an alien re-dubbed Christoper by the authorities. Christopher, it turns out, has a far better grasp of things than most of his fellow aliens; he is portrayed as more sophisticated and sensitive, somewhat unprepared for what he is forced to learn about humanity during the movie. He and his young son become the key to the full blossoming of Wikus's humanity — but only after Wikus breaks faith with Christopher on more than one occasion. The movie times Wikus's redemption perfectly: it occurs at the very moment the audience finally gaves up on Wikus and is about to lose all sympathy for him. Only at this moment does Wikus finally come to understand what he can and cannot do.

The movie ends with appropriate question marks, as it should, leaving the audience to draw its own conclusions and speculate about the consequences. I really hope they don't make a sequel; the movie makes its points forcefully and effectively, and anything more would honestly be gratuitous.

Hallucinating Pluto Neptune

I had this weird dream this morning about them using neptunium to make frying pans; I think on the dream-sensible notion that, as a radioactive element, such a frying pan could cook without needing to be put on a stove.

I also remember trying to convince myself — in the dream — that this was a nonsensical notion. I decided that the half-life of neptunium was something in the range of about 1800 seconds or so — something approximating 20 minutes (yeah, I actually did math in a dream!) — so in a couple of hours, the frying pan would no longer be made of neptunium anyway (not to mention that anything in its vicinity would be dead of radiation poisoning).

Turns out I'm wrong about the half-life anyway... its stable isotopes seem to have half-lives ranging from about 13 months to just over two million years. Ah, well. There goes my Nobel Prize, I guess.

Where I want to go next...

Jim over at the stellar Down the Road blog has a fascination with photography, and in particular photographic technology, that always rejuvenates my wonder at the science behind the fun. He puts a spin on it that often emphasizes the history of the craft that's important to remember, and often intriguing, completely apart from the products that come out of such contraptions.

My own emphasis seems to be at the other end of the spectrum. :)

I consider myself a true early adopter of digital photography. I bought one of the first digital cameras available to the public, Kodak's DC25, for about $500 back in early 1997. It was awful, and I knew it. The pictures were way under a single megapixel (the word "megapixel" hadn't even entered the language yet), looked like they'd been shot through a Vaseline-smeared lens, and (the camera having no facility for expanding its memory) at best roughly a dozen "high quality" images could be stored at a time. The camera ate up expensive, non-rechargeable "N" batteries and had to be connected to the computer through the serial port to transfer images. I knew all that... but I loved it anyway. It was a digital camera! No more getting film developed, no more waiting around to see what worked and what didnt'! You took a shot and you could review it right away and if it was garbage, you could delete it... it was like getting back a frame of film, instantly. Aside from those bloody N batteries, once you'd paid for the system, taking pictures was essentially free, and the results were instantaneous. For me, that's when photography first became a viable hobby. And I knew the technology would get better over time.

And wow, did it. I honestly hadn't anticipated just how fast the technology would advance. I went through a few different models of Kodak point-and-shoots, none of them really quite a "real" camera in my mind, till we arrived at the 3-megapixel DC4800. To me, that was my first "real" digital camera. It was still a bit too bulky to carry around — still not a camera eligible for digital lomography (shooting from the hip; "don't think, just shoot"; "Kodak moment") — but as far as I could see, it could do anything a film P&S model could and give results every bit as good. I used that camera for years. I moved on to much more sophisiticated Canon models after that, which I still favour.

One of the things I most cherish about photography, though, is its ability to make the past real. In particular, I absolutely love looking at old photos of places familiar to me. I like to imagine what it would have been like to be there. Even better when I can recreate the shot today and compare and contrast them. The one thing I regret about all that is the limitations of the day. Photos taken before about 1965 are nearly always black and white. And the further back you go, the less detail the photos tend to depict. And in most cases, much before about 1890, photographically, you're out of luck. How I wish people back then had had something like the technology available to us now.

But even today I find the technology lacking in one respect: dimensionality. Even after all this time, we're still dealing with two-dimensional images that fail to adequately convey a sense of expanse, volume, placement in a physical space. I've had this idea of spending time just wandering around, shooting this and that around here, with the vague notion of cataloging it all and maybe one day handing it off to some repository where, someday, someone like me in the future will be able to look at what I saw and compare it with what he or she knows "today"... who knows. Digital photography is great for that, especially combined with geotagging, but it still falls flat where giving a sense of place in the world is concerned. For me, the last great hurdle is providing that third dimension... bringing it all together; colour, quality, and visceral depth.

And now it seems like we're at the threshold at last. Last year Fujifilm announced they'd be marketing a system to take and display (and even print) photographs in three dimensions, as well as to shoot 3D video, and to furnish photographers with a host of other interesting abilities that accrue from having two identical lenses in communication with each other in the same camera. And that camera is the FinePix Real 3D W1. Just as the Kodak DC25 was the camera I was waiting for to begin my hobby as a shutterbug, this camera is the one I've been waiting for to really start recording what it's like to be living in this time and place for people who could never see it otherwise.

Followers of this blog (both of you :) ) will know that I've been dabbling in makeshift 3D photography for two or three years now. One version of this attempt was a split lens for my Rebel XT, which gave good results in some aspects but had two drawbacks... one, the effective width of the shots was akin to shooting through an open door, and two, it relied on having the DSLR with me, which I had to plan for. The other version consisted of what P-Doug refers to as the "cha-cha" method; that is, taking one shot, shifting the camera, and taking another. This has been the method I've relied on most of the time and when it works, gives shots of fairly consistent quality. But the drawbacks here are legion: too large a paralax results in strange exaggerations of depth that must be akin to an acid flashback; some pairs, inexplicably, don't seem to "work" in a believable and satisfying way; and, most limiting of all, any movement whatsoever between the shots renders the pair essentially worthless. This has meant that the technique is effectively useless in any urban setting. There's no point trying to use this technique to show someone living in 2110 what the corner of Yonge and Dundas looked like in 2010. But now, with this camera, that's going to be possible. People walking, cars crossing intersections, even water leaping from fountains, will no longer represent impediments to recording a scene in three dimenions. If anything, they will only enhance the experience.

Some people have, not without reason, expressed reservations concerning the technology. The 3D formats are new, proprietary (which means they may not become universally or even widely usable), and technology-dependent (at least for the moment). These are valid objections, but they're not ones that concern me so long as the images and videos the 3D W1 takes can be exported as paired 2D files. It'll be nice having something in the new format (particularly for archival purposes), but so long as I can still combine two images the way I've been doing it for the past couple of years, that's all I'm worried about. I've gotten some pretty satisfying results from the cha-cha with the S80 and G9 (and even the infrared S70)... imagine how much better the results would be if the two images are simultaneously recorded, and exactly the right paralax.

Aside from shooting real 3D, the 3D W1 offers other intriging abilities: shooting colour and B&W at the same time, videoing and shooting still images of the same scene at the same time, and taking two simultaneous images to be stitched together into a single, extreme wide-angle shot. These are all things I've wanted to do in the past, and now they become possible.

The word is that this system (camera, viewer, and send-away printing) will be available in September for something in the neighbourhood of a thousand dollars US, which, at a guess, with the exchange and inevitable mark-up, will probably price it around $1200-1250 Canadian. This is something I'd really like to get my hands on. I haven't really wanted a particular system in this way since back in the days I was waiting for the first DSRL — a real real REAL digital camera — to make its debut. I want to put some money aside and get this thing and start really recording southern Ontario in all its spontaneity and full aspect. This is where I've wanted to go all along, and they've finally built me a road.

Canadian, Please

You don't see much of this kind of thing in this country, but I thought it was a hoot. I didn't know it was possible to boast in a self-deprecating way, but here it is. :) Yeah, another Canadian innovation: the un-boast. :D

The way back is the way forward

The saying goes that those who forget history are doomed to repeat it. To that I would add: or to forget how to. History can be a liberation.

I read a column today in The Globe and Mail... I forget who it was by, but the gist of it was a maudlin retreading of that tired old saw that it really didn’t matter how right we might be doing things in Canada, we’re joined at the hip by Fate to the United States and we’ll only be as well as it is sick.

Is that what we fought for as separate colonies in two continental wars? Is this why we finally came together to forge a new nation and common nationality a hundred and forty years ago? To imagine we have no future, no destiny, but that of the nation we’ve had to work so hard to remain distinct from?

A couple of weeks ago, I was in a used bookstore in rural Ontario. I came across a nice softcover book of Ontario’s history from 1610 to 1985. For the past week or so I’ve been reading it about half an hour in the mornings. And I came across some figures that were truly eye-opening.

In the middle of the 19th Century, before Confederation, the United Province of Canada (what had been Upper Canada and Lower Canada, and would become Ontario and Quebec respectively in Confederation) had a reciprocity agreement with the United States. Partly because they were sore at Britain for its conduct during the Civil War, and partly because they believed Canada’s separation from the US and adherence to the British Empire “unnatural” and only encouraged by reciprocity, the US unilaterally terminated the arrangement in 1866. And do you know what happened?

Canada promptly and obligingly curled up and died. Right?

Wrong.

Canada found other markets. And prospered.

In an age before the first prop-engine freighter ever took the skies, before refrigeration and air conditioning, when rail and sail were still the only ways to get it from here to there, this country (or what was to become this country) turned away from the easy, lazy continental trade we’ve decided is the centre of the universe, and actually hustled and found markets elsewhere.

In 1870, 51% of all Canadian exports were going to the US, and only 38% was going to the United Kingdom (the balance going pretty much to the rest of the Empire). But by 1916, 61% of our export trade was going to the UK and only 27% to the US. Even by 1937, the figures were about even: 41% to the US and 38% to the UK.

Now I’m not suggesting we can simply fall back on Mother England as our alternate to trade with the United States. But let’s remember... there’s a whole lot more to the world than just the United States, and if they’ve been rich and they’ve been close-by, that’s been convenient. But times change, and as they did before, so we must adapt. Our own history shows us what’s possible. If they could do it back then, with the incredible obstacles that time and distance represented for them, what right have we to fall back whining that the end of all good things is upon us? The EU is well-heeled, has nearly twice the number of consumers as the US, and looks upon us favourably (seal-clubbing notwithstanding; and we'll reserve comment here on fox hunting and bullfighting). China, India, and even much of South America are on the rise. These are places that will need our resources and can easily absorb the excess manufacturing output of a relatively smaller nation like ours. What I mean is, it really wouldn’t take that much of the world to pick up the slack the US is leaving behind for a country the size of Canada – if we’ll just get up off our asses and get in the game instead of moaning on the sidelines.

We did it before, and we can do it again. By all means, let’s wish the US well, but let’s not consign ourselves to the role of some Roman slave obliged to open his veins to share the fate of a humbled master. We have our own national life to lead, and our own stars to follow.

After all, wasn’t that the point in 1776, 1812, and 1867?

A study in contrasts

In the past week, P-Doug and I have been back twice to a nice place on the Humber we had kind of forgotten about since last summer. Even though only three days separated the two visits, the difference in conditions was astounding.

Saturday we arrived around noon. The river was shallower than it had been the previous time I'd visited (a couple of weekends earlier, by myself), and the riverbed was clear and visible. When we stepped in and wandered down the river to our bathing spot, it barely even wet the hems of my shorts. When we arrived, we undressed and sat under the overhanging shade tree. The day was hot and humid, the water was quite warm for this early in the summer, and the sun was blazing. Even in the shade, you could feel its might.

A couple of summers ago, we had gone nude hiking into the hills there. That side of the river is on a large isthmus that is very nearly an island, and will be soon, I think. P-Doug wasn't game for it this time, fearing the bugs, but I set off on my own and climbed the hill, made my way down the far side, and crossed the river. A climbed the far bank and sat for a while on a bleached white log left in the grass by some long-ago flood, and watched the river. After I bit I crossed back over to the isthmus side and settled back in the grass to lie in the sun. Eventually I made my way back up into the forest and down to where he was still enjoying the water. The bugs had never bothered me. We both got a bit of a burn that day, though; his worse than mine because I spent about an hour of it in the forest.

Wednesday was Canada Day so we decided to go back. It was overcast and only warm, rather than hot. When we got to the river, it was the colour of hot chocolate, and obviously far deeper, even to look at. It had rained quite a bit in the previous two days and we had to undress before even stepping in. The current was surprisingly fast, and it was deeper than we'd even guessed, not to mention somewhat cooler. I was still wearing my shirt and eventually even the bottom of that was soaked. By the time we got to our usual spot and I could take it off, we were at parts that were armpit deep. I've never seen the river as deep as that at that spot. It was anytime we turned to work against the current that we realized just how strong it was; it was hard even to take a step against it. I decided to be prudent with my backpack and put it on road side of the river rather than the isthmus side so I wouldn't have to carry it back across. We spotted a flat, muddy landing on the isthmus side and struggled to reach it, and ended up spending most of our time there, half in and half out of the river. There was really no place shallow enough to actually sit down in the river itself this time. We spent some time there before fighting our way back to the road side where our clothes and food were, and ate sandwiches and oranges on the grassy side of the bank. We sat briefly under the tarp I carry on hikes when it started raining, just enough to give the day another interesting detail.

Eventually we decided to drift off. I prevailed upon P-Doug not to attempt wading back to the initial landing against the current on this day, but suggested instead climbing the steep valley wall behind us back to the old road. He was eventually persuaded, and I spotted what looked like a deer trail and made my way towards it. He gathered his things and followed, and ended up doing a few minutes of nude hiking in spite of things. When we reached the top, we dressed, checked out the trail a bit, and headed back. It was the nicest way to spend Canada Day and really celebrate the great outdoors of this country that I could think of. :)

Conquering Richardson Road

This Saturday, P-Doug and I made our way to the other Nottawasaga River access we were interested in, Richardson Road. Actually, it was the one I spotted first and brought to his attention. He suggested McKinnon (where we went three weeks ago) as an alternate. But this weekend, we made our way to the river down the first road.

Seen from above, the road looks very open. Even with the trees crowding in, there's a definite space between them. And the road was, indeed, unmistakable nearly all the way down. But it wasn't really what I expected.

It was a bit after noon when we arrived. We parked at the end of the maintained road. We probably could have driven further, but first all, we came for the hike, and secondly, I really didn't want to bust an axel or something just to save ten minutes of walking. The road continued on down between two fields, till it came at last to a thick forest. It was overcast, so I wasn't all that concerned about the sun, but given that we were heading into wetlands, we got well set-up with bug repellent as we set out.


The forest trail was blocked off by a steel gate to keep out ATVs (thank you!!), but the way was also strewn with fallen trees every so often that would have made the trip impossible for them... some of them were troublesome even on foot. And they would have had to stay scrupulously on the trail. The nature of the road was unlike any I'd seen before. It was cut through a swamp reminiscent of things I've seen of the Everglades or the bayou in Louisiana. It had obviously been artificially raised above the swamp, with culverts cut into it that the swamp itself had seen fit to supersede with its own methods of transference over time. P-Doug was particularly impressed with what he called the high water marks on the trunks of the trees; they were at eye-height for us, even standing on the road.


As I said, there were a number of places where the swamp had taken it upon itself to balance the water on either side of the road. There were so many fords of water, streaming northeasterly, that I lost count of them. Six, maybe seven, and every one of them different in some aspect. Some were simply one foot in, one foot out; others were fifty feet wide. Some were deep with slippery clay bottoms; others were rafts of plants where I barely got my ankles wet. They were all a challenge, and one I would have delighted in wholly if it were not for the fact that I was carrying two of my cameras with me... and one of them had already been expensively repaired last fall after getting soaked in the Grand River. Otherwise I wouldn't have cared much at all about falling in. But as it was, I was concerned about the cameras, so I put them in the backpack for what little protection that would offer; at least they wouldn't be out, swinging around to potentially put me off-balance.


The road surface changed enormously as we went. It started off as dry gravel, became soft grass, and then in the forest, cool clay and earth. There were places where it was running wet. Mosquitoes were around, but they didn't seem really pronounced until we came to the strangest part of the road of all – completely overgrown with grasses, and ones that grew taller and thicker the further we went. In these places, great swarms of mosquitoes emerged to challenge us for our blood. Most were dissuaded by the bug spray, and those that weren't were often martyred to a quick slap. Even though they largely left us alone, the whining in the ears was highly disconcerting.

The grass on the road was so thick and full that I started wondering if we'd even know the river when we saw it, or would just fall in! Finally I could sunlit trees beyond the gloomy ones, and I knew we'd reached the river. But nature wasn't done with making it tricky yet. We encountered our big nemesis of the past couple of summers there as we approached the water's edge – stinging nettles. These saw-edged, stinging plants that are sheer torture. The slightest contact with them is like having a sharp blade run against your skin, combined with an itch. They really seem to concentrate near the edge of rivers, so for us, the last minute or two of getting to the Nottawasga was an ordeal that the mosquitoes couldn't hold a tiny candle to. They were raking my feet, my shins, my hands when I'd try to brush them aside. And just as we reached the river, we realized we were at the edge of a steep bank... with a very nice broad bank about fifty feet away to our right... through more of the forest. What could we do? We fought on through the nettles and finally reached the bank... where we stood on the clay, panting and cursing and waiting for the pain to subside.

This part of the river was strewn with old fallen trees and logs. There were plenty of places to sit down, so we did. We could finally look around. For all the trouble it took to get to it, it was glorious, and I got to see all the things I really love to see on these hikes. Everything natural. We had the river, places to sit, the bank to wander, the trees all around, and a sky that was first sheltering and then opened up the sun to us when we were ready to receive it.


We decided to try out the river, even though we knew it was too cool yet to really get far. Upper thigh depth seemed to be the prudent place to stop. P-Doug did find a fallen tree that was just exactly positioned to allow him to sit but not get too immersed in the cool water; I reclined on the bank. The bank itself was clay that would support us in some places, but swallow us to the knees in others. I developed a habit of crawling, which seemed to work far better than having to step, sink, haul myself out, and repeat over and over. We covered the place in footprints before we settled back to just enjoy the place.


After a while, we got hungry and wandered back to where we'd left all our stuff and took on the tuna and cracker snack packs he'd brought with him, and the navel oranges. P-Doug had seen evidence of a previous visitor, probably a local fisherman, and he told the sort of tale Tonto might have told the Lone Ranger as he interpreted the missteps, falls, and foibles he read in the clay. After we'd been there an hour and a half or so, we washed in the river, suited up, and prepared ourselves to run the gauntlet of stinging nettles, smothering grasses, tripping hazards, mosquito clouds, and camera-eating fords again. He picked a course that was mercifully sparse of stinging nettles, and off we went.


The trip back seemed considerably shorter to me than the trip down. I think I enjoyed it more. I measured it all out this morning and it was about two-and-a-quarter miles, about half of it the most challenging course I think we've undertaken. But it's exactly what I miss whenever the weather gets cold. So here's to summer.