Snippy-snipey

Just a couple of observations on my return from an afternoon foray to the City of Toronto Archives...

Something I've noticed about Toronto, and this seems to be fairly consistent, is that no matter what way you choose to get somewhere in this city, on any particular day, it's the wrong fucking way. Whatever it is. Whatever makes sense will be rife with construction. Whatever looks brilliant on the map will be unaccountably packed with traffic. Whatever ought to be smooth sailing will be headed by an idiot who's afraid to press his/her foot to the scary pedal on the right of the brake. And people wonder why anyone would choose to live in Mississauga, Markham, or Vaughan.

And why is it, please, that the fucking idiot in the Hummer six inches behind you who's apparently dying to drive 140 km/h in a 60 zone instantly wants to drive 35 the moment he actually gets in front of you? And why do so many of these shitheads drive Hummers in the first place? If your idea of a stylish ride dead-ends at driving a fucking paddy wagon, why not save yourself some money and wait till the Keystone Kops are done with theirs and pick it up cheap?

Yeah, it was a fun afternoon... thanks for asking. :)

Yakety Yak! (21st Century redux)

Just cast your vote in this machine
And it'll count it quick and clean
If things go wrong election night
This here machine'll make it right.
Yakety yak! Dimpled chad.

Saddam himself flew all the planes
That brought the towers down in flames
Then parachuted out of sight
FOXNews announced the other night.
Yakety yak! Don't learn jack.

Your job is goin' overseas
To strengthen our economy
If you go bankrupt 'cause of that
It's 'cause you're lazy and you're fat.
Yakety yak! Don't smoke crack.

Go join the Army or Marines
And visit folks in other scenes
And when you get into their town
Well you can kill them if they're brown.
Yakety yak! Let's attack.

The President has got a plan
To save world peace he'll bomb Iran
We'll make them a democracy
Just like Iraq or Afghanis.
Yakety yak! S'wrong with that?

Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak
Yakety yak, yakety yak

The New "Old Europe"

These days there's a lot of talk about "New Europe" and "Old Europe" in the right-wing press. "New Europe" is anyplace that cooperates whole-heartedly with Washington (mostly formerly Communist countries already adept at taking orders from a hegemon). "Old Europe" is anyplace that demonstrates any hint of a heart, conscience, mind, or backbone, and thus does not necessarily cooperate.

Like Germany. These days, Germany is very "Old Europe".

In an opinion piece by Jeffery Simpson in this morning's Globe and Mail, it is reported that Germany is being leaned upon to expand the nature of its role in Afghanistan. Currently, its troops are there in non-combat roles, mainly to train Afghan police...

Yesterday, the U.S. ambassador to Germany said: "I would very respectfully ask Germans... to reflect on whether the very narrow and very rigid restrictions put on the German troops make sense for NATO."

Judging from recent long conversations with Germans visiting Canada, the answer will be no. Germany will contribute and serve — as long as no active military operations are required.

Good for Germany and the German people. If it makes sense for NATO? Excuse me, folks, but we established NATO to keep the Soviets from overthrowing democratic regimes in Western Europe. Even if you read the North Atlantic Treaty at its most expansive, it remains at heart the constitution of a defensive organization (if you do, take special interest in the wording of Article 1...). What does invading a country, like Afghanistan, have to do with defense? Either NATO stands for something, or it stands for nothing... and if it no longer stands for a principle of defense, then it's just a fantastic dog and pony show for a program of world domination on behalf of Western plutocrats. The Germans seem to remember that, even if so many of the rest of us have forgotten.

Stick to your guns, Germany... to coin a phrase.

How do you say "suck and blow" in French?

The Globe and Mail is reporting this morning that Gilles Duceppe is waving the sovereignty banner again, predicting Quebec will be a separate country by 2015. Fine, right, whatever. But then, on the heels of that, get this:

"Other Bloc initiatives include... demanding that the provincial capital obtain its share of federal funding to develop science and technology research centres. "Quebec is capable of great things. It has the means and it is capable of doing it," Mr. Duceppe said..."

...Yeah, and as the first sentence highlights, the "means" is called Canada. Is this nonsense ever going to end?

Meanwhile, Michael "Meech" Ignatieff has just gotten the Quebec wing of the Liberal Party to endorse his idea of officially recognizing Quebec's "nationhood". While I'm not opposed to something like this in principal, my fear — and I think the fear of most people — is what sort of blackmail this opens us up to. It seems to imply expectations on Quebec's behalf that no single nation, like Canada, could possibly accommodate, which would pretty much inevitably lead to the break-up of the country. It's one of those instances where if you keep tinkering with something fragile but workable in order to "perfect it", you fuck it up for good. I'd rather have a watch that lost five minutes a day than one that didn't work at all. But, ultimately, there's votes in them thar hills... them'uns in Chibougamau gotta be catered to, I plumb reckon! Right, Brian — I mean, Mike?

God help Canada... a country where almost nothing's wrong (relatively speaking), and nobody, but nobody, can just step back and say, "man, did we ever get a sweet break landing here".

Ignatieff gets up with fleas

Columnist Lawrence Martin reports (in a column with the unwittingly (?) humourous heading "The man who would be PM hammers Bush") in this morning's Globe and Mail that Liberal-leadership (and thus potential prime minister) Michael Ignatieff recently said the following on Afghanistan:

The former Harvard professor made it clear he will not be hitching his wagon to any unilateralist empire-building. "I've supported the Afghan mission precisely because I don't want to live in an American imperial world... If we don't, as Canadians, want to live under American domination... then we have to have the courage to take on a difficult mission with our NATO partners and get it done. If we don't want a world run by the Americans, Canada has to lead."

That's some lofty load, alright. Let me rephrase it in clearer terms. "I had to go along with the bank heist, Your Honour, because I didn't want Lefty to have all the money. And if I didn't shoot the innocent bank tellers, he'd have probably shot me."

On Iraq, Ignatieff said the following:

...he said he takes "full responsibility for not having anticipated how incompetent the Americans would be. I don't have remaining confidence in the Americans... The Bush operation betrayed any hopes I had of Iraq transitioning to a stable political elite, and now all those hopes rest with my friends, the Iraqi political elite."

Political elite? What, is that Harvardese for "democracy" now? So in other words, Michael Ignatieff is perfectly fine with sponsoring state terrorism that kills tens of thousands of innocent civilians, provided A) they're foreigners, B) it's done slickly and isn't "incompetent", and C) replaces a dictatorship we don't get along with with a dictatorship that asks "how high?" when we tell it to jump. No questioning the morality of invading another nation to effect regime change to suit one's own self-interests (oh, and it'll help out the poor little Iraqis as a side bonus); no, that would be boring and get in the way the imperialism of which he claims to distain. Actually, he's tacitly admitting that, had he been prime minister at the time, he would have committed troops to this glorious enterprise, and they'd now be dying by the score alongside the other harbingers of Anglo-American imperialism.

Is this the man the Liberal Party wants to lead it, and potentially running Canada? Jesus, I hope not.

Go back to Harvard, Michael, where they pay you to spout your garbage harmlessly. Don't try foisting it on the apparatus of the Canadian state.

Ach, aye, I've got an arrow in my bum...

This morning on the radio I was treated to something unique in my experience. It had to do with the ongoing stand-off in Caledonia between the residents there and the people of the neighbouring Six Nations Reserve who claim the land as part of their reservation, saying that it was stolen from them at some point in the past 200 years. There was a woman who was complaining that Ontario's Premier McGuinty was falling down on the job, not backing up the non-Native residents and cracking the whip on the Natives, who have been blocking roads and protesting. The thing that was utterly flabbergasting was that this woman was uttering all this in a Scots burr so broad she was just this side of understandable to Canadian ears. A British immigrant complaining about Native encroachment...! It might as well have been 1790.

Look, I know we're all equal, and once you've immigrated legally and become a citizen you're a citizen and that's that. At least in the eyes of the law, there's no distinction. But I have to tell you, even as a non-Native, I found myself rather affronted that this person from abroad was here demanding her own rights be respected and moreover asserted over those of the descendents of the original inhabitants of this country. Just for one brief moment there, I think I caught a glimpse of how all the rest of us must look to the Natives of the American hemisphere, Australia, Africa, and elsewhere. The arrogance, self-centredness, and hubris of this white-makes-right attitude were noxious.

It's official: technology has gone insane

I've just seen the commerical. There is now a toothbrush with an onboard computer "to help you brush better".

I am not shitting you.

Adventures on the golden edge of nowhere

I should have been born a squirrel, I suppose.

But then, it would be hard for me to drink booze and watch Battlestar Galactica and eat pizza and even to blog with much proficiency. Plus, dying of old age before my fifth birthday would kind of suck too. So, I guess I'll make the best of things. :)

Cruel, cruel autumn...

Not really, but I was pretty alone this weekend. It was Thanksgiving weekend in Canada (we have the Monday off; it's the same day as Columbus Day in the US). I was entirely abandoned. Not that that especially bothers me; I'm not the kind of person who needs or even wants people around all the time. I grew up fairly self-contained and entertained, and that's just who I am. That said, it was kind of a downer just how bereft of options I was. One likes to have options, even it one elects not to exercise them...

One friend was out of town with his wife visiting his elderly mother.

Another friend is going through a very rough patch in her marriage and was in no frame of mind to pal around.

Another was hoping to trail around with me, watch movies, bend elbows and the like, but another friend showed up drunk and vaguely suicidal at his door at the start of the weekend and it was babysitting time... after that, he too had to get out of town to do the family get-together thing... talk about your long, long, long weekend.

And finally, yet another friend called me up right out of the blue to wish me a happy Thanksgiving and to tell me he too was heading out of town. Nice sentiment but that one struck me a bit gratuitous... God chuckling at me. Well, no bother. Like I said, I find myself reasonably good company most of the time.

Saturday I just decided to go for a long walk in my own neighbourhood, first to rent some movies, then to buy one of those turkey rolls in a box things. Cripes, it was twenty bucks. That's about six bucks a pound. Okay, it tastes good, but Jesus, you'd think they fed the turkey platinum or something. It was a good two hour walk, and the temperature was fantastic for October (it was the whole weekend through, in fact). It was good to get out. That was pretty much the extent of Saturday, though.

Oot and aboot

Sunday was when I really started enjoying the weather, though. I decided to drive out to the vicinity of Georgetown to see if I could find a place on the back roads I hiked around this time last year (I blogged about it here). I did indeed find it. It was a place I was first interested in because on the map, it forms part of the Niagara Escarpment, and it looked like it had a stream flowing over the side. At the time, I was mad for trying to take a long-exposure photograph of a waterfall with my (then) new Canon Rebel XT. Well, I never did find a waterfall, but I did find ample evidence that there must be some in the springtime.

It's a strange place. In spite of all the exposed, water-worn rock and the swamp at the base, the hillside is monumentally dry. A lot of the trees are dead and desiccated. I like to hike barefoot, and I can tell you I've been to friendlier places for indulging the tactile senses. Most of this place is sharp and angular and dry. It's a good challenge, and it makes you feel alive, but it's not sensually pleasant for the most part. Visually, it's stunning. I took a lot of interesting shots of dry waterfall rock and the strange things it does to the trees. I was there for a little over an hour before moving on.

On my way back east I decided to check out an intriguing gap in a road on the map in northwest York Region. In my experience, such gaps often herald rewarding explorations... like old bridges that have been closed to traffic, or washed out roads, or just deep valleys that farming communities simply couldn't afford to span. They're usually lush, and often have abandoned properties with evocative laneways and sometimes even the haunting ruins of buildings. I decided to go and have a look.

On aerial photos of the area, it looked to me like a creek cut the road off at its northern terminus. What I took for a creek, though, turns out to be a driveway with an unusually wide clearance. I didn't realize that until just about the time I was leaving on the second trip. I kept looking for a creek and a missing bridge. Since there isn't one, I'm not really sure just why the closed the road in the first place.

Regardless, it's a beautiful walk, engaging nearly all the senses... if you're willing to open them up. I should say that there are some pretty abrupt hills on the trek, and even approaching it. I drove to both ends - the southern one on Sunday and the northern one and Monday - and both of them feature drop-offs so steep and so sudden that they had me putting the brakes on, and then creeping down slowly. Well, much the same is true of the closed section. In fact, one drop was tremendous... it must have been a plunge of nearly 100 feet at something like 60 degrees. It was even tricky just walking down it. I encountered it just a few minutes north of where I parked on the first day. There was a gentle rise, and then a crest, and a long, eroded drop. I have no idea when they closed that part of 7th Concession, but I suspect it was some time ago... the erosion and the way the forest has tightened around the clearance are impressive. Since the gap exists on a map I have dating from 1990, it's probably 20 years at least.


Down a slope... to a hill? Nice start...


Set a spell... take your shoes off... y'all come back now, y'hear?


Looks like a long drop? Yeah, and this is half-way down...

I didn't go too far along the road on the first day... I got to about the bottom, where I lingered and let a couple and their dog pass me. I thought about heading back up but something about the look of the forest on the east side beckoned, and I headed off the trail into the forest. It's just about pristine... I didn't see any evidence of footpaths, no garbage, no prints, nothing. Just forest, and birdsong so loud and thick up the hillside that I couldn't be sure it wasn't some kind of squeaky machinery. Given that it ceased as I made my way up the hillside, I have to assume it was birds after all, who decided to tone it down on my approach. The hillside was overgrown with trees, bushes, ferns, and littered with moss-covered fallen trees. I found a place to settle back and commune with nature, just listening and watching, drawing in the scents of the place and feeling the cool earth and leaf litter beneath me for a quiet half an hour. After that, I made my way back to the old road, following a pair of 20-something hikers (a young woman and a lean, shirtless guy) back up the steep hill. They utterly disappeared part way up the hillside, gone without a trace by the time I crested. Ghosts.


"Wow... you're weird..."


The magnificent hillside


Heading back up... pant... puff... the first drop


Peddle-pushers, the things that push peddles, and the glorious fallen leaves

—————

Update: Nov. 24, 2007. Adding the video I made of wandering the leaves barefoot.




I just had to come back the following day and do the road from the north end. Monday proved to be even more interesting. Heading for the north end of the road, I happened to pass through a tiny hamlet called Kettleby, which hugs a twisting road down to a handsome one-lane bridge that, surprisingly, seems only to have been built in the last few years (no doubt replacing an older one). Obviously Kettleby has a made a very conscious decision to keep its cozy small-town feeling and limit the traffic shooting through the place. I found the Italian Bakery glimpsed on passing through a charming nod to the modern nature of western York Region... largely populated, it seems to me, by people with WASPish given names and bold Italian surnames. The main street was festooned with Canadian flags; private residences abounded with both Canadian and Italian ones, usually paired.

Crossing over the 400, I was soon at 7th Concession, and I headed south. After passing through a circa 1960 neighbourhood that still looks like it's on the edge of time, the road runs out of pavement and breaks into dusty gravel. As I indicated earlier, I came to a sudden drop that was momentarily daunting. I eased the car down the slope and traveled along the broad flat area of what must have once been a floodplain till the road ended at a berm with several heavy stakes driven into it. I can only guess they were put there to keep ATVs out and preserve the trail for hikers and nature. I don't doubt ATVs are a blast, but there's a time and place for everything, and charging around a sensitive natural area in the Oak Ridges Moraine is neither where these noisy turf-terrors are concerned.

When I arrived, a couple of women were loading a pair of wet dogs into an SUV. This confirmed my suspicion that there must be creek immediately south of us, since that's where the road ends and the big carved area (that turns out to be a driveway) appears in aerial shots. So, I clicked on my Rebel XT and set off, padding down the leafy trail that once was a road.


Initial view heading south from the north end


Tunnel vision


Isn't there supposed to be a stream somewhere...?

I didn't see any creek.

There was a rise, and I thought, it must be after that. But before I reached it, off to my left was what looked like someone's driveway. I had to walk that trail. It actually turned out to be the highlight of the trip, I think. Little hints of what might have been, but nothing definitive. What was this open area? Where did the tire ruts lead? What did the disconnected power lines once serve? A home? A business? Both?


On the left, the gate of the driveway; on the right, 7th Concession Road heading south


Heading along the driveway...









I never did find any real evidence of a structure, and I didn't follow the road to wherever it ultimately leads. That's for another hike. What I did find was someone's shirt, draped on a branch overhanging the drive. Grey, with a silvered transfer that read "Angel". That was about as far as I went. At that point, I went off the trail and climbed into the hillside, where I found a quiet spot under a soaring tree. There in the forest alone, I climbed out of my clothes and sat back against the tree for a while, watching and listening on what was probably one of the last temperate days of the year while all around me the leaves fell like huge, colourful snowflakes, whispering as they laid their bodies down on the forest floor all around me. I really did feel like the last person on Earth for a while, and I lost track of time. The gap in the photo record, though, lets me know it was about half an hour. The wind, the air temperature, the sensation of the leaves and the ground, the silence of the world but for the rustle of leaves... the lack of pesky insects... :) ...it was about as perfect a moment as an amateur naturalist (and naturist) could ask for.


Well, yeah, okay... nice place to go topless, I suppose...


Alright, I see the shirt... where's the angel? :)


In a state of nature









On my way back I decided to take another trail I'd noticed forking off in one of the clearings. This turned out to be another driveway. It led through a rather swampy area, and the ruts in the road were surprisingly deep; well over my ankles. I had to haul my cuffs up to avoid getting them soaked. I also found the trail led the telephone poles into the area. One of them looked remarkably recent... to look at it, you would swear it hadn't been there more than five, maybe ten years. But if my map's to be believed, the road's been closed at least since 1990, so anyone who lived or worked there must have abandoned the place earlier than that, out of sheer practicality.




In the manner of a self-portrait... kind of. :)





Right after that came one of the steepest hills I've ever seen purporting to carry a road. I could not believe my eyes. The photos do not do the drop justice. It must be just about 45 degrees. I can't imagine anyone driving either up, or down, this thing. Whoever did must have had balls of brass and nerves of steel. I sure as hell would never attempt it; it took me more than a minute just to climb the damn thing, and even with the surefootedness that comes from climbing in bare feet, I nearly dropped to my knees a couple of times. I can't, I really cannot, imagine driving it. I wouldn't have believed there could be a road under such conditions if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes.


Holy crap, I have to climb this?


Pant pant, puff puff... yes... but at least I didn't have to drive it!

At the top of the rise, I found a brace of roofing shingles, still fastened together. Something must have been around there someplace... but that's as much as I ever saw. Crossing the flats at the top of the rise, I came back to the road. There on a telephone pole was an address number... whatever this property once was, it was at 14830 7th Concession Road. Interestingly, there was another sign nailed to the pole. Whatever it said was long worn off; perhaps it once warned away trespassers. It appeared to have been used as target practice... it looked to have taken a blast of buckshot dead on, sometime in the past.


"Imperious Caesar, turned to clay, might stop up a hole to keep the wind away..." ...Or words to that effect...




Left, looking north up 7th Concession Road; middle, driveway of 14830 7th Concession Road; right, looking south down 7th Concession Road.

I carried on southward and came to another massive rise. Glancing around, I had a sudden sense of deja vu, and realized, almost to a certainty, that was at the place I'd gotten to from the south end the day before. It was the same rise I'd come down the previous afternoon. But I wanted to be sure... after all, I still hadn't found the creek! I climbed the rise, and sure enough, there below me was the other end of the open part of 7th Concession, where I'd parked Sunday afternoon. I felt no need to trek there, and so, I headed back... back down the steep hill I'd first eased down the day before.


Another steep bloody hill...


Time to stop and smell the roses! ...Or whatever the hell these are; I don't care...


Encounter awaits, just around the bend...

Embarrassment and being different

As I've made abundantly clear, I like to hike barefoot. I've been doing it for about three years now, both in company and alone. I usually do encounter other hikers sooner or later, but so far, nobody has ever commented one way or the other, or expressed any interest... which suits me just fine. I'm not interested in justifying or explaining myself, nor even in proselytizing particularly. If I set an example that leads others to give it a try, that's all I could hope for. While it's not uncommon in central Europe, I realize it's a bit eccentric here in North America... but no more so, I should hope, than earrings or tattoos, and less so than Mohawk hairdos or kilts. I like to think that most people don't think I'm nuts, but recognize I've made an out-of-the-ordinary choice for aesthetic and sensuous reasons.

That said, yesterday I sort of got what I guess amounts to my first comment on it, in a roundabout and fairly neutral way.

Not long after I reached the bottom of the hill, I spotted three men coming towards me. They were the first other human beings I'd seen since the women with the dogs at the start of the hike. Leading the troop was an older guy, somewhere in his late 40s or early 50s, I'd guess. Behind him, a lanky figure in a white t-shirt, and last of all a heavy-set guy somewhere in his 20s, dressed in a green shirt that might have served him well among Robin Hood's men in Sherwood Forest. I approached them, a husky guy in his late 30s in a ball cap, hooded pullover, cargo pants, bare feet, and a heavy black SLR camera around my neck. One of them tree-huggers. The older guy met my gaze and we greeted each other as we passed.

The guy behind him in the white t-shirt got this look of amazement. He came straight at me. He was in his mid-to-late teens... at a guess, I'd say 16... and something in his manner tipped me off straight away that he was mentally handicapped. He came right up to me, just like a dog would (and please, don't think I'm denigrating him in any way... I'm simply relating the analogy that sprang to my mind at that very moment), as though I were some kind of animal he'd never seen before and simply had to investigate. And he put his hands on my sides and started to lean right down, I suppose to see if what he thought he'd seen was really true: some guy was walking around the forest barefoot. I wasn't frightened or alarmed or even particularly embarrassed, it was just... different. The older fellow barked out the young man's name and he immediately moved off from me. I didn't want to make anything out of it — it was what it was, just a moment of unrestrained curiosity — so I simply carried on down the path and didn't look back. I never took a photo of any of them, coming or going... I kind of wish now I had. It was such a singular moment.

Anyway, it passed.

I reflected on it later, and I'm still surprised I didn't really feel embarrassed at all. In truth, I felt more embarrassed for the young man and his companions. But I know that no one really had anything to be embarrassed about. I simply wasn't wearing my sandals; it's hardly scandalous. The teenager has a brain that, in some way, works at odds from those of most of the people around him. It's not his fault; it isn't a fault at all. It's simply how it is. That it allowed him to behave in a manner outside what we'd consider typical conduct in meeting an unusual stranger (that is, me) was only conspicuous in that it persisted in him to such a late age; certainly it wouldn't have seemed unusual in someone much younger, after all. So, in the end, it was neither good nor bad... just a moment of sheer honesty. I was different. I was worthy of notice. I was, in a word, remarkable.

Actually, I think that's a rather unfortunate reflection on North American attitudes.

Anyway, I passed by the numbered phone pole I'd seen before, and came to another hill... this one, descending. It was a hill I'd seen from below, but hadn't climbed due to the fact that I'd taken that deke off the road down the ancient driveway. So this was a part of the road I hadn't covered. The bite of erosion into that part of the road was pronounced. I don't know if that was by design or not, but the sides of the road wall were impressive. It's hard to imagine two-lane traffic on it, but I've seen the like before on roads I knew from personal experience had once handled it before they were closed and nature begin its recovery work...


Yes, ladies and gentlemen... another hill!


I was impressed with how steep the eroded sides were

From there, the trek was a fairly direct walk back to the car. I decided to have a little fun and I set the S80 up on the tripod, riding shotgun, seatbelted in, and I filmed the trip back and forth through the beautiful little village of Kettleby I mentioned earlier. Well... it was a pretty successful weekend, speaking in terms of photography and nature hiking, all things considered.


The end

Vi-et-nam (n.)

The front page of The Globe and Mail this morning shows Canadian soldiers carrying a flag-draped coffin up the ramp of an air transport. Underneath that is the headline:

‘We won’t win’ unless aid money flows

…the story goes on present the case that unless we can get aid into remote parts of Afghanistan, “we won’t win militarily”.

Jesus Christ, folks, it’s 2006! Is this “hearts and minds” thalidomide still on the shelves? Are people still buying this poison? Hasn’t anybody at least heard of Vietnam? Why do the people of Western democracies persist in the chauvinistic assumption that they can do anything they want to anyone else anywhere on Earth, provided the beads and trinkets that follow are shiny and copious enough? People really seem to believe that the more melanin you have in your skin and the more unlike English your language is, the more willing you’ll be to overlook the fact that arrogant white people are hijacking your country, overturning your government and society, destroying the infrastructure upon which you depend, and killing your neighbours and your family — so long as people with Red Cross armbands show up with toothpaste and toilet paper and pretty books with Barney the Dinosaur™ on the cover. Goddamn it… read some fucking history, people. Or at least try to remember! Most of you were alive the last time this shit didn’t work.

Meanwhile, Canada, having been told previously that we need to keep hurling our young people into a meat grinder, is now being advised that we need to start shoveling money down this black hole we’re digging for ourselves. And why? Because if we don’t, “we won’t win militarily”. Wow, people might find out the dick we’ve been raping Afghanistan with isn’t actually 15” long and 4” wide, gee.

Hegemony or the Rye

It was rainy yesterday at lunchtime so I thought I’d go and pick up a couple of books I’ve been meaning to read for a while. One was Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky. This is the book that Hugo Chavez recently recommended to the General Assembly of the United Nations during his address to them. I’m only on the second chapter but it’s already apparent that Chomsky’s distilled down to a concentrate what’s been laid bare since at least the time of Dean Atchison: that for decades it has been the policy of the United States to acquire and maintain a position of unassailable dominance in the world… supposedly for the world’s own good, but unquestionably for the self-interests of the United States — which is equated with “the world’s own good”. But I’m jumping ahead of the story, since, of course, I have yet to read the entire book.

The other was Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. I’m probably one of the few people in the English-speaking world who’s managed to get through high school and university without having read the book, and I’ve always wondered about a piece of writing so persuasive it was instrumental in the murder of John Lennon and the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan. Not that I’m reading it for that reason; just wondering what’s in it that’s that powerful. Given the theme of the book, I probably ought to have read it when I became aware of it as a boy; but given its history, perhaps it’s better I approach it now on the cusp of middle age. :) Incidentally, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that J.D. Salinger is still alive (at least at the time I write this). Born in 1919, he’d be well into his 80s at the moment. I’m always inclined to consider that an accomplishment till I remember that, if they live long enough, everyone makes it to their 80s sooner or later. Still, it’s nice to know.

Thoughts on nationalism and loyalties

From the email of a correspondent this morning.  The quote is from a speech made by Teddy Roosevelt.  The remainder, my correspondent’s response to it.

**********

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”

I dunno...

Roosevelt sounded good up until the linguistic chauvinism and issues of loyalty.

But then I come from a country with two official languages.  It is possible to be a good Canadian without knowing one or the other of them, not a word. For that matter, I don't think anyone takes issue with your bone fides if you speak neither of them.  You could be an Inuit for instance.  A lot of older people who immigrated to Canada from Italy or elsewhere have never managed to master English.  Conceivably a younger person from abroad might never be comfortable outside of Cantonese or Portuguese, though he would clearly be at a disadvantage outside his neighborhood.  I think in our country we make few demands on you until the second generation -- your children should certainly fit in.

Loyalty.  What is loyalty anyway?  If I moved to the U.S. would I have to pretend to dispise hockey and love basketball?  (Even if the later sport was invented by a Canadian?)  Where do you go to have an uncritical love of the Stars and Stripes pharmaceutically installed if you weren't born with the instinct.  To me, the Canadian flag is a piece of cloth I have no especial love for.  The values it is supposed to stand for are my values, but I have those values to love and don't need the cloth.  How could an American flag mean any more to me if I stepped over a dotted line on a map and began hanging up my hat there?  Loyalty to freedom, democracy, equalitarian principles?  Unquestionably... whether I find them in America, Canada, France, India, or South Korea.  Loyalty to a man in a public office?  That's monarchy.  Loyalty to a crown or a flag?  Fetishism.

Loyalty to a "way of life", that is the minutae and detail of our day to day life?  I certainly have a fondness the particular theme music of our news stations, that Fox or CNN doesn't evoke.  I like streets of the city I live in, the brands of candy bars in our 7-11's, the observance of "Victoria Day", the tragedy of Dieppe and victory at Vimy Ridge, the Canadian National Exhibition every fall, the huge Caribbean festival in the summer, pictures of the old British lady on our pennies instead of the guant bearded man, etc, etc, etc.  These are not momentous things, just the tiny details of my life that I am more fond of than the strange manners and customs of a place I never lived.  Had I lived some of my life in Turkey or the United States, I would have a place in my heart for them, because they would be a part of me.  In fact, I have spent enough time in the U.S. to be fond of it in my way.

I suppose, though, what Teddy Roosevelt meant was to put your way of life, your institutions, your nation ahead of all others.  You cannot be a good German or Mexican and be a good American at the same time.  Your country may need you to go and kick German ass someday, and won't tolerate your ambivalence. You are with us or against us.  A very American attitude.  Here in Canada, we prefer not to think about it...  Maybe we won't need you to kick anybody's ass, or at least not the ass of your folks back in the old country.  When push came to shove, as it has on ocassion, Canadians have not generally held back.  They went to Germany and kicked ass.  And French Canadians, who you might expect to suffer from split loyalties, were in fact reluctant to rush off to Europe to save France.  When the chips were down, it seemed Canadians did put Canada first in important matters.  So we let them celebrate their Hindu holidays and wear their turbans and speak Somali at home and don't question their loyalties.  Better we should not try to tear people's hearts in two.

But I suppose Teddy Roosevelt was from another time and another place.  If some of his words smack to me of simple Jingoism, its because I prefer not to think in blacks and whites, and recognize we live in a more flawed world, with difficult issues and complicated cases, than the one priveleged men in the late 19th. century believed they inhabited.

Jaw-dropping chutzpah

From The Globe and Mail this morning:
Dearth of doctors threatens to close emergency rooms
At least 21 hospitals in Ontario are struggling with a severe shortage of doctors, leaving many of them bracing for a temporary shutdown of their emergency departments…
…Elizabeth Witmer, a Progressive Conservative MPP for Kitchener-Waterloo who served as health minister under the previous Tory government, accused the Liberals of mismanaging the health-care system. "There is a crisis situation," she said during Question Period yesterday.

For Elizabeth Witmer, of all people, to stand up barefaced in front of this province and lecture anyone about the state of its health care system is stunning effrontery.  Something must be done, she tells us.  Well, yeah, Liz, we agree; that’s why we dumped your government in 2003, after all.  Maybe you’ll recall it was your own Tory administration that fired all those nurses and closed all those hospitals and got rid of all those beds in the name of the “Common Sense Revolution”, so-called?

This is like being told by the cop who batons your tail light “you really ought to fix that”.

What's that smell?

You mean it isn't familiar yet?

There's a new spin in town south of the border, and its name is bullshit. Check it out.

Seems that in 1998, when Clinton bombed Osama's camps, the Republicans charged that he was doing it to distract Americans from the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Now, in 2006, when real questions are being raised about how 9/11 happened and with Americans getting more and more tired of Afghanistan and Iraq, these same Republicans are — get this, this is really, really good — telling us that Clinton used the Monica Lewinsky scandal to distract the American people from the issue of Osama (remember, he was by then wanted for the attack on the USS Cole).

Isn't that incredible? Bill Clinton got an intern to blow him, made sure the prudes in the Republican Party got wind of it and then saw to it they began years of pointless, expensive, idiotic impeachment proceedings, all so that the country wouldn't notice he hadn't caught a terrorist (does it bear mentioning here that George Bush hasn't caught him either, after five years of trying?).

What a fucking genius Bill Clinton must be! I stand in awe of a man who can deftly orchestrate what the Republican are suggesting here! Dance, puppets, dance! What fools Americans are for not recognizing this and appointing President-for-Life this man who apparently can think into the fourth dimension, whose planning and perception are evidently on the next order of magnitude relative to the rest of us. Because clearly, anyone that stratospherically intelligent would never have waved off a report about how this same Osama was planning to attack and instead pissed the day away hunting armadillos on his ranch with Barney.

The word for the day, folks, is hogwash.

All the King's horses and all the King's men

I've always had an ear she could bend. That above all else.

This evening was a different kind of evening in my experience. A friend of mine — a very long-term friend; we've known one another since high school — is going through a very rough spot in her marriage. The reasons are myriad, complex, and delicate; there's nothing TV-cliche or simple about what's going on. They are on the verge of separating, and what's astonishing is that the ball is essentially in her husband's court as to what will happen. As she chillingly outlined the realitives of the situation, I was struck by how much it was like a moment in a game of chess when you know you've made a mistake that will end the game, unless your opponent chooses — knowingly chooses — a move that prolongs things. There is nothing my friend can do but wait and see what the move will be.

She asked me out to dinner this evening, I think because our history has always featured me as someone she can talk to. We had a brief, inexpensive meal, and then sat in the car in a parking lot across from her home in the pouring rain. Her composure was admirable; the sky did her crying for her. There are hopeful signs, and there are discouraging signs. It's impossible to guess what will happen. The next weeks will be long, tense ones for her.

Even though I'm only on the sidelines, I found that song took on new meaning for me. Stepping into the men's room at the restaurant, I heard the speakers playing If You Leave Me Now by Peter Cetera. When I was a teenager, the song was pretty-sounding mush. This evening it really gelled. The lyrics came into sharp focus, and every one of them suddenly made sense. I was hoping she wasn't listening in the women's room. Luckily she'd made her way to the front door by then.

On my way home, the Depeche Mode song Personal Jesus. I first heard the song driving to another friend's house in summer 2000. I always liked it because it sounded cool and powerful. But this evening, again, suddenly the lyrics just dropped on me and made sudden, personal sense. Coming back from such an evening, I finally got what the song's about in a way I never really did.

I don't know how things will work out for them. I only know she's scared, feeling powerless, but hopeful. She wants things to work out. I think she's tried hard, and I hope she gets her wish.

Cuffs

London's brain is falling down, falling down, falling down...

Primate New Service

LONDON — In chorus with the State of Michigan, the City of London, Ontario, announced today that it doesn't want Toronto to put its garbage in a big hole in the ground near London.

"Who the hell is Toronto to use my hole in the ground?" whined London. "It's not my fault 2.5 million people make garbage and have 'no place to put it'. Why don't they store it in the garage, or in the back yard? Frankly, I wish Toronto would just go away someplace. Disappear. It's nothing but a big pushy nuisance, and everyone would be better off without it if it just vanished off the face of the Earth."

Even as London warmed to the idea of the elimination of Toronto, it suggested Toronto should "keep sending the money, though."

SPACE: 2006

Incidentally, today marks the 7th anniversary of the moon being blasted out of orbit, in keeping with the now-alternate "history" of the 1970s TV series SPACE: 1999. Just thought you'd like to know that. :)

Evil deeds and good intentions

I had the following exchange with an email correspondent. I sent out some results I saw from The Globe and Mail that surprised me, got the response below in blue, and then replied to this morning. I post it here because it's the clearest I've ever stated my impressions on the matter.
------------------------
------------------------

While of course these results aren't scientific, given that they're indicative of the views of readers of The Globe and Mail — what I'd consider to be a moderately conservative bunch — I have to say they're not what I expected to see when I clicked on the results link...

Monday, Stephen Harper stressed the link between Canada's military presence in Afghanistan and the 9/11 attacks. Do you think those events five years ago continue to justify the NATO mission in the war-torn country?

No: (71%) 11618 votes
Yes: (29%) 4833 votes
Total votes: 16451

------------------------

The question is too limiting. If the question asked whether there is still value to the mission, I'm sure the answer would be different. There IS still value in freeing people from the oppression of the Taliban. School teachers able to teach (willing) young female students for the first time in decades. There is some real value to THAT.

To balk as the going is a bit tough now is ever so Liberal/NDP, isn't it?

------------------------

Well, if the question's limiting, it's also honest. Our troops didn't invade Afghanistan to overthrow its government. The reason, in October of 2001, was to capture Osama bin Laden and those responsible for the 9/11 attacks, without the burden of presenting the extradition evidence demanded by both the Afghan government and international law. We also didn't believe them when they said they didn't know where Osama was... I guess after five years of not being able to find the guy ourselves, that might sound a little more plausible to Western ears. Too bad it's taken the deaths of hundreds of soldiers and thousands of civilians to get right back where we started. To play the shell-game with the question of our intentions now is ever so neo-con; a fine new tradition here and elsewhere.

As to balking, it's certainly not a characteristic of the Grits. One prime minister sent in the troops; another kept them there. As for the NDP, I don't recall myself what position they took in 2001, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 when emotions were running high and the US had a million people in the streets in Tehran demonstrating in support of them. Speaking only for myself, it's not balking if you never agreed with the idea in the first place.

As a Westerner, I naturally laud the idea of equality, political liberty, education... all the things we value in our own society. But it's wrong to imagine they can imposed from without. Wherever they've been successful, they've had to grow from native soil. They had to be what the people wanted. Where they didn't exist, it was because the urgency to acquire them didn't exist either. It was no easy road here... the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the British voting riots, the Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, the Rebellions of 1837... These are all examples of moments when various peoples rose up and instituted the new values that really, finally reflected where those societies were at. The point is, they were never imposed from without; they blossomed from within. The moment had come; the people wanted it. It seems manifestly obvious to me that Afghanistan is not yet such a nation. Perhaps it never will be. It's not required to be, either.

We do ourselves and our values no favour in associating them, in the minds of Afghanis, with invasion, destruction, incivility, and foreign occupation. Like planting a palm tree in Timmins, the transplant will endure only so long as it's artificially tended. The moment the troops leave, Afghanistan will, naturally, revert to whatever its societal norms designate it to be. If the people want to be rid of the Taliban — and to be honest with you, I don't see much evidence of that — then they'll be rid of them, sooner or later, just as we were with the Family Compact and the French were with the Bourbon monarchy. But we can't do it for them. We can't change minds with guns, only by setting examples. If the change doesn't come from within their own society, it will never stick. The lives of our soldiers are being lost to apply band-aids to afflictions that are psychological, not physical. And worse, we're eroding our reputation as peace-keepers — neutrals who insinuate themselves between two warring factions who want an excuse to step back and work something out — for a reputation as neo-imperialists, riders on American coat-tails, as we once were of British ones. Wading ashore with guns a-blazin' shouting "we'll teach these wogs to live like white people — or else!" is not where we ought to be at this point in history. Wrongs, particularly ones committed to make one's own life easier, are never excused by the defence of "good intentions": getting your grandma to the hospital is a laudable goal — but it you wipe out a family of six people (a.k.a., "collateral damages") running a red to do it, you're still going to jail.

I think it's time we learned to use persuasion instead of force, and what's more, to finally accept that we can't have everything we want, the world isn't obliged to always be just what we want it to be, there are times people are going to say "no" to us (as it their right), and there are some times we just aren't going to win. Ignoring all that just makes everyone else madder and madder at us.

A rainy day on a forgotten road

Bassmentbeats (once again) offered a mission: a closed road with a bridge over the Humber River in northwest York Region. This time I flew solo...


At the "end" of Kirby Road, facing east, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I arrived at the blocked end of Kirby Road at almost ten on the dot, and parked right at the end. This view looks back in the direction from which I'd come, eastward towards Hwy 27. The road ends at a residential driveway just off to the right, but is, coincidentally, almost exactly half way between Hwy 27 at Huntington Road, where the other blocked end is to be found, and which was my destination.

East end of Kirby Road closure, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is the westward view from about the same spot. The berm of earth closes the road. The sign has a lot of municipal warnings about dumping, but nothing of interest about when or why the road was closed. Beyond the sign, the land is Toronto Conservation Authority land. To enter it, I took the little path there at centre-left, which scoots around the berm and takes you to the old road course.

I don't know when they closed this stretch of the road, but judging from the overgrowth, it must have been at least a decade ago. I have a map from 1990 that suggests it was still open all the way to Huntington Road at that time (but who knows?).

What's the story here?, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Not too far in, off the left (south) side of the road course, I happened to notice what looked like sports car parts strewn down the hillside. I can't help wondering if someone just dumped them here, or if someone had a serious crack-up here in the past and no one bothered to haul the wreck away.

Camera focused on the leaves in the foreground. I didn't notice till I got home. I was kind of pissed off when I saw that, but the more time goes by, the more I like it. Seems a little more poignant and understated this way.

The track of Kirby Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I suspect this was paved once, and deliberately desurfaced to allow nature to reclaim it. I can't really prove it and wouldn't swear to it, but that's my suspicion. You can see that some kind of vehicle still makes use of the clearance, but it's already been largely eaten up by foliage. This was a two-lane road when it was a going concern.

It was drizzling that morning; it didn't stop till about the point where I got to the bottom of the valley and the forest opened up into the flood plain. So, for a variety of reasons — my sandals were wet, they were slippery, and just because I like to — I took off my sandals more or less at this point and hiked the rest of the way down and back barefoot. Hey, it's September... how many more chances will I get this year? :)

Old road, new road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

After about ten minutes I came to what looked like a fork in the road. But the way was so much clearer on the right that I decided it must have been the road course (turns out I was wrong; it's the clearing on the left). I was puzzled by the fact that it seemed to cross an old fence line, but as I say, the track was so clear it just seemed obvious to me it was the road course. In fact, it's the new trail blazed by the Humber Valley Heritage Trail folks, I think. On my way back, I followed the old road course along the left through the brush and back to this spot.

Slip 'n slide, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This would make a great slide in some water park. It's hard to tell from a two-dimensional view, I know, but this road slopes down somewhere between 30 and 40 degrees. On top of that, in the rain, the clay of the road was soaking and was like walking on butter. I nearly talked myself out of continuing down at about this point, but then I decided, hell, I drove an hour to get here, and for what? To walk fifteen minutes into the woods and turn back at the first sign of a hill? Okay, so I might fall in the mud. So my pants might get dirty. So I might have to put the blanket in the trunk on the driver's seat on the way home. Big deal. I wanted to see the rest. So I kept going.

Looking back, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is a look back up to the turn at the top of the valley.

The off-trail trail, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

There was this really tortuous curve in the route on the way down that promised a twenty-yard skid down on my ass, so I abandoned the road and cut through the woods to the other side of the curve. Much safer. It was around this point that I started wondering if I'd actually lost the road altogether. The route seemed needlessly twisty for getting up and down a fairly straightforward and uncomplicated hillside, and the trees that hugged it on either side were mature enough that they couldn't have hugged any two-lane road still open to traffic within the past generation or more. But... it was a path; it had to lead somewhere, so I kept on. At this point, I could see light off to the right behind the white tree that suggested I was coming to open ground.

Another look back, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

That's the curve I didn't risk following; you can see it glistening with slickness. Off to the left is the shortcut I made.

Down in the valley... etc., etc., originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Here's the bottom of the trail. In the distance you can see the open ground beyond the last of the trees. Incidentally, what looks like t-junction in the middle of the picture is just that. I didn't realize it till later, but that's where the new path I followed down meets up again with the actual course of Kirby Road.

Back on track, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is the course of Kirby Road again, heading westward across the flood plain. The river at this point is a few dozen yards off to the right, through the trees. On the left is a very broad, fairly deep clearance that may once have been someone's farm or at least a homestead of some kind. That's a guess, of course; but somebody cleared it for something. This shot was taken just after emerging from the forest.

Flood plain field, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

A panoramic look at the open field on the south side of Kirby Road. On the left are the trees I've just emerged from. On the right, the as-yet-unknown...

Outta luck truck, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

The road parallels the field for about 300 yards, and then begins to pull away to cross the river at a perpendicular angle. As I came around the gentle curve, I could spot something coming out from behind the trees. I thought, what the hell is that? My first inclination was this sinking feeling that someone was down in the valley doing some kind of work. Well... yeah. A couple of decades ago. This truck's been here for a while...

Phone 851-1036 and talk to who?, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I tried and tried, but there was no making out the name or business on either door of the truck. But phone number's still clear as day. The truck's recent enough it doesn't have any of those weird two-letter prefixes, but it's ancient enough that it doesn't feature the area code, either. Back when this truck was made, and probably when it was dumped here, the whole of south-central Ontario was 416. Now, only the City of Toronto is 416... but it's also 647. Where this truck sits is now area code 905... and it's also 289. When the truck was in service, no such distinctions were necessary.

I could make out enough on the side of the truck to read that the business was in Nashville, which is a small village about two miles due south of this spot.

...I'm so tempted to try 905-851-1036 and see if anybody answers. :)

"Hello?"

"Hi, I found your truck..." :)

He was probably on a cell phone..., originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Peeking through the passenger side window, I noticed the truck was standard (there's the clutch) and there was no hint of seatbelts, not even the lap belts I remember as a kid in the early 70s.

I just had a look on Wikipedia to see if I could find out when seatbelts became standard equipment in North American-built cars (this truck is a Ford). No luck... but the article does point out that of the 50 US states, all of them now require the use of seatbelts except New Hampshire. Maybe they should change the state motto to "Live free and die." :) Although "Live free and go through the windshield" has a certain ring to it.

This is me being artsy, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

As i prepared to push on, unsure of how far ahead the bridge might be, I paused to take a few shots of the front of the truck. I thought it might be affecting to have this shot with the truck off to the side, and the view of the last few yards it ever traveled there behind it. I dunno... might have been reaching. But I think it works. Maybe. Kind of.

Oh... there it is, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

As it turns out, the bridge was about 40 yards beyond the truck. It was only just out of sight through the spreading bush.

I had no idea what kind of bridge it would be. This is a bowstring arch bridge, of the same type as another favourite abandoned bridge of mine, the Middle Road bridge on (renamed) Sherway Drive over Etobicoke Creek. Closed to traffic in the 1970s, but still used daily by scores of bicyclists and pedestrians, it's been much better maintained than this one.

North side guardrail, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This view overlooks the Humber River, looking north, upstream.

Another look upstream, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Another look northward upstream, this one from the middle of the bridge.

State of disrepair, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Time is stripping the concrete cladding from the steel rebar of the bridge.

Man of steel, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

For some reason, the bridge's road bed has been rather irregularly covered with several steel plates. The documentation I found online suggests to me that the bridge used to have a gravel road surface. Both are puzzling, because when I later pushed on towards the other end at Huntington Road, I did find evidence along the way of a thick asphalt road surface.

I was carrying two cameras with me at the time. When I started out, I was shooting with the Rebel XT (which you see in my left hand), but I got kind of skittish and tucked it into my jean jacket away from the drizzle and started counting on my S80, which I used for the vast majority of the shots in this set... including, obviously, this one.

Southwest corner of the bridge, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

You can step off Kirby Road and down into a field which leads to a very pleasant landing under the bridge, with a lovely view of the Humber. This would probably be a great place to fish, if you were so inclined.

Under the span, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

A slightly closer, panorama view of the approach to the landing under the bridge on the west side of the Humber.

Complete underbridge view, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Standing just a few feet from the bridge, essentially beneath it. This is a fairly ambitious panorama made up of ten shots; two rows of five each. I really didn't expect this attempt to succeed, but AutoStitch took it on and did the magic. I think it's a beautiful spot. You can see, though, just how degraded the bridge is getting; concrete is falling away from the sides and underbelly of the span.

"I'll be back... (...maybe)", originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Someone started a farily elaborate, if somewhat pedestrian, attempt at tagging under the bridge on the western abutment... and ran out of dayglow orange.

Reflections and clarities, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I thought the combination of reflections, shadows, and colours here was beautiful, and I'm glad the camera captured it so ably.

Humber River under Kirby Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

A panoramic view of the underside of the bridge and the Humber River as it flows under it, taken from the western bank.

Just after I took the shots that make up this view, I decided to test the water. On Labour Day when P-Doug and I were at Duffy's Lane again, we waded in the Humber but found it too cool for swimming. Oddly enough, when I stepped in Saturday, it was noticably warmer and far more encouraging. So, I figured, what the hell...

Wading in, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I decided to wade out to the middle of the river, or waist-deep, whichever came first, and take some shots from mid-stream. This is me, still partially clad, stepping out into the Humber.

In the water, of the water, from the water, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

"Waist-deep" came pretty quickly. I don't think I made it to the half-way point. If I'd stripped completely, I'd probably have gone deeper. But I really only wanted to get a few shots and emerge again, not spend all day. I had no idea what the weather had up its sleeve and I still had slippery climb back up ahead of me. Knowing what I know now, I probably would have lingered longer. Even so... though it looks sunny at this point, it was overcast again only minutes later.

This view looks northward, upstream.

Finding the medium, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

There was a weird dynamic going on. I was trying to inch out as far into the river as quasi-nakedness would allow, while trying not to get my shirt and my jacket wet. Honestly, I don't know what I was thinking.

Think "lagoon"..., originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Doesn't this look almost tropical? Well, this is about as far as I made it, and even then, I was leaning over and holding the camera out at arm's length. Odds are, the river is probably chest-deep at its deepest... and I wasn't (un)dressed for it. :) So this is as good as it gets. But look at that view... it was worth the trip and the whole effort, I think.

View from three feet deep in the Humber, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is another panorama of the Humber passing under the bridge, this one taken from within the river. Like the others, it faces eastward, back in the direction I came from. This view looks through a little over 180 degrees; in fact, at the extreme right, you can see the edge of the bank behind me, which should give you some idea of how far out from the bank I actually got.

Heading ashore, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I was in the water for about five minutes. It was just fine; cool but not cold or uncomfortable. I could easily have spend a half hour relaxing in the water there. Maybe next summer.

Primate track :), originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

In the sand under the bridge. Something for the next visitor to ponder.

Kirby Road, closed at Huntington Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

When I left the bridge, again, I wasn't sure how far I had to go to reach the other end. And, once again, I found it was just around the bend. The bridge is about equidistant between the wreck of the truck and this, the other end of the Kirby Road closure.

That's another stretch of Kirby Road beyond the fence, which marks the point where Kirby Road is met by Huntington Road, which itself ends not too far north of here, just across a still-open Humber River bridge. This view looks west, and marks the furthest point of my travels that day. From here on, it's all heading back.

On the bridge, facing west, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Returning to the bridge, and crossing back over it, I took this panorama of it. Oddly enough, this view again faces the same way as the previous views — west, towards Huntington around the bend in the distance. I include this shot because of the extremes of the perspective near the edges. I'm surprised this came out as well as it did. North and upstream are on the right, and I'm standing over the abutment that's visible in most of the cross-Humber shots from under the bridge.

Primate at the bridge, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Another weird panorama shot that really shouldn't have worked out, because I was leaning over the side and pointing back at the bridge without being able to line up the shots. But there was enough common ground for AutoStitch to make this rather warped single image. This is the north side of the bridge, with the camera facing west, taken almost precisely half an hour after I was standing down there in the water next to that tree, shooting the "lagoon" view upstream.

Circa 1971?, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

One more crack at the abandoned Ford truck. This sticker on the engine announces, among other things, that the truck is in compliance with emission standards for 1971-model vehicles. That at least ballparks when the truck was built, but doesn't really tell us how long it's been here, or hint at when the road was closed.

This was Kirby Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Arriving back at the point where I emerged from that long, slippery trail down through the forest, I took a closer look at what looked like an alternate trail, and all at once, it seemed clear to me that this, and not the trail I'd come down, was the course of Kirby Road (and checking the map and aerial shots later confirmed it). This is view up the road, rising from the valley floor. I decided to ascend this way instead of the mudslide!

This'd wake you up on the way down, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Part way up there's this gouge so deep in the road that even I, on foot, took it easy so as not to slip. I doubt this was a feature of the road when it was open to traffic, but it only served to confirm to me how much the road's been allowed to deteriorate.

Onward and upward, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

You can see it was a fairly wide road; it probably easily accommodated two cars passing each other. My feeling is that the hillside on the left has eroded somewhat since then and smothered some of the original road clearance.

You can see light from a clearing at the top. At the time I was making my way up, I was thinking, well, jeez, that was easy... why that stupid, slippery, twisty path through the forest?

Down the hillside, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This view looks back down the track of the road towards the valley floor.

Old course of Kirby Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Panoramic view of the approach to the clearing.

Another look back, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

It was a little slippery on the way up, but nothing like what I would have faced following the trail I took down into the valley. I though this was a much better route and I couldn't imagine why it had been abandoned.

Then I reached the "clearing" at the "top" of the hill...

The likely reason Kirby Road is closed, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

"Ohhhh yeaaaah...."

It's not easy to tell, but what you're looking at here is a landslide, running for about 50 feet clear across the road course of Kirby Road. Well, not so much across as out from under. See that little notch of sky at the upper left? That's Kirby Road. So is all that nothing, empty air between that spot and where I'm standing.

Well, this view answered a whole lot of questions, at least potentially. Like "what's that big white spot on the aerial photos?" and "why did they close Kirby Road between Huntington Road and the residences above the valley?" and "what's with that stupid alternate path through the forest anyway?" I really don't know if this landslide occurred before or after they closed the road, but it would sure explain the closure if it happend before, or re-enforce it if it happened after.

This left me with a hard choice. It was slippery and wet, and the trail linking the two discontinuous parts of Kirby Road looked iffy at the best of times. You can't really tell, but that's a hell of a drop I'm standing over. So, it was either trot back down to the valley floor and all the way up mudslide alley again, or... head up into the woods out of frame to the left. The footholds looked good and there were plenty of trees to hold onto, so I opted for the latter.

Looking back to Kirby Road from the hillside, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I paused part way up the hillside to shoot back at Kirby Road (it's the grey stuff between the trees at the centre of the shot). Even in two dimensions, I think this view nicely demonstrates how steep a climb this was. In fact, I took this with the XT because it was around my neck, while the S80 was tucked into my pocket out of harm's way.

Evergreen row, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

The climb up the hillside brought me out near the end of this stand of precisely-planted evergreens, with the new trail running up the middle. I had to come this heading down to the valley, but the shots on the return are superior. Now that I come to think of it, unless this road was cut through the trees, it might provide some rough idea of when the path was forged (based on the age of the trees, I'd guess a decade or two), which hints at when Kirby Road was closed. Merest speculation on my part, of course.

Part of the new trail, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Heading back towards the east-end closure. This is not far from where the new trail splits off from the track of Kirby Road, just ahead around the bend. At the time I took this shot, I was about tne minutes away from where I parked.

Standard equipment, easy clean-up :), originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Last time P-Doug and I were wading in the Humber, we encountered the same problem we always did: you're "clean" till that last step, when you take a pound of Humber River silt and mud out with your last step, without the river water washing it away. He said we ought to bring an old water bottle and fill it with Humber water to wash our feet off. I said, hey, I've got that beat, I keep a spray bottle and a cloth in my car. Well, this is me putting it into effect before taking off. You don't make a hobby of hiking barefoot without picking up a few practical ideas along the way. :)

So, there you go, P-Doug et al. Two hours and at least as many miles trekking barefoot through the forests, rivers, and valleys, and none the worse for wear; clean-up is a breeze. Those Hobbits might be shrimps but they've got the right idea. :)

Nashville, Tenne–err, Ontario, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

About a week after the previous shots I went back again. This sign is at the corner of Nashville Road and Huntington Road. It announces, as you might guess, the hamlet of Nashville. It's not quite as big as its more famous southern namesake, but... y'know... maybe someday. :)

Abandoned Kirby Road from Huntington Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This time I parked at the Huntington Road end of Kirby. This view is from just inside the traffic barrier, looking east towards the bridge.

"Yeah, whatta YOU want?", originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I crossed the bridge and went back to the abandoned Ford truck I found to play a joke. I noticed a lot of hornets had moved into the steelwork I hadn't noticed the week before. This one actually seemed interested in me, but in a way that didn't seem threatening or hostile. Just curious. But it does kind of look like a homeowner opening the door to a salesman. Too bad I didn't have my Fuller Brushes with me.

For sale, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

My bad. :)

I thought this would be funny, so I drove back out and put a "For Sale" sign on the wrecked truck on abandoned Kirby Road. Call me crazy; I think it's a smile.

Came back 90 minutes later and it was gone. I noticed another car parked by mine while I was exploring. Can you believe this? The first guy who comes along and sees the joke ruins it for everyone else. Sign could have sat their for years, slowly fading, getting funnier and funnier for passers-by, but no... some fuckheaded douchebag has to go and ruin it before a single meal passes. Fuck, that makes me mad. >:(

Kinda wistful, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is McEwen Bridge on Kirby Road in soft focus behind... okay, this crappy stalk was the best I could do. :)

Reflections, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Another look at the reflections in the water under the bridge.

Hands... well, limbs... across the water, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Standing on the west bank of the Humber River, holding the very end of a limb of that tree on the east bank, clear across. In a few more springs, that tree's going to drop right into the river, I think.

HDR IR Kirby Road, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I came back again for a third time the next day, this time with P-Doug. I wanted to show him the bridge. We parked at the Huntington Road end of Kirby Road and this is an infrared HDR shot of the road heading towards the bridge.

HDR IR McEwen Bridge, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Heading under McEwen Bridge to the Humber, this time in infrared. While I was under the bridge, I ended up speaking with a passer-by who was of either Russian or Ukranian origin. He told me that four or five years before, he'd been driving on this very road, and found a stray kitten there that he'd taken home and still had. His family had named the cat "Kirby" after the road, but the name had since been Russified into something I don't quite remember now. He told me that the washout at the top of the hill had happened subsequently, so if his memory is correct, the road has only been out of commission for well under a decade.

HDR IR Under the bridge, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

This is a panorama under the bridge made of two HDR shots, each composed of three infrared AEB spreads.

Denim assprint, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

Someone had been sitting under the bridge recently. There are a few beer bottles under the bridge; at least one new one that hadn't been there the day before. Saturday night, musta been a party. :)

Because it's there, originally uploaded by Lone Primate.

I figured, what the hell. :)

We were wondering how deep the river was here. And I'm always looking for any excuse. :) So, in I went. It took me about two minutes to make it to the far abutment, but I made it. At one point about a yard further out, the water was even deeper, but at the far side, about four feet, I'd say. This shot was actually taken by P-Doug using his Kodak DC4800, a camera that was previously mine. He's graciously agreed to let me post the shot here.

And yes, when I reached the other side, we both (again) invoked the George Armstrong Custer line, "This is how deep it is, General." :)