Pork, peanuts, plunges, and pique

I'd thought about going up to Kettleby and photographing the place on the weekend and sent an email to P-Doug on Thursday to that effect, but P-Doug fired a suggestion off to me at exactly the same moment... it was creepy-weird; his email was waiting for me when I hit the Send button. His suggestion entailed going out to the annual ribfest in Victoria Park in Kitchener, stopping at Piccard's Peanuts, and maybe visiting Otterwa if there was time on the way back. The ribfest is a once-a-year event, and presumably Kettleby will be there for a while, so it was pretty clear to me his suggestion trumped.

He picked me up around 10 and we headed west on the 401. The traffic was moving, but it was busy all the way. I guess there's hardly ever a time now when the 401 isn't busy.

We stopped in Cambridge and looked around a retail outlet that used to be some kind of factory; it was nicely refurbished sometime in the 90s, I guess, and now houses the kind of stores that yuppies are drawn to. In our particular case it was a clothing store that sells brand name items at reduced prices. While I was there, I heard a song on the radio I really wanted to find, but promptly forgot everything about (melody, lyrics, any hint of the name of the band) and was left only with an itch I can't scratch now, unless I happen to stumble across that song again. That's extremely frustrating. It's like one of those zits that's nowhere near the surface and you can't do a thing about it... I seem to get more and more of those as I get older.

Anyway, we got to Kitchener about 12:30 or so. P-Doug had brought folding chairs so we wouldn't have to sit in awkward ways under the trees this year. We also brought several cameras and decided to casually record the event for posterity. Nothing major or important, just one of those "how life was in the 2010s" kind of things. By and large, these consisted of candid shots of People Who Look Faintly Ridiculous. That's said in the full knowledge that we may end up in such a collection ourselves for all the same reasons.

From Dr. Seuss's unreleased manuscript, Pimp a Wimp.

A number of Ontario's microbreweries had set up shop there and for $20 I got a small souvenir glass for the beer samples and eight tokens, which I split with P-Doug. In the course of the afternoon we tried a few things, but about half our tokens went to Nickel Brook's Green Apple Pilsner (in my estimation, probably second only to Innis and Gunn, imported from Scotland as the best beer I've ever had). It's one of the most delightful beers I know of. Naturally, the LCBO has discontinued it, which means driving to Burlington if we ever want to pick any up from now on.

P-Doug picked up a 1/3 rack of ribs from the Boss Hog's exhibition. These guys were up from somewhere waaay down south. They were wearing shirts with "01" on the back (which those of us over 35 will recognize as a reference to the General Lee from The Dukes of Hazzard), and would occasionally draw attention by sounding a fanfare horn that played the first dozen notes of "Dixie". We had three ribs each and yeah, their sauce was pretty good.

But me, I came for the pulled pork sandwich. When I was my turn, I went to a crew from New York called Fire Island. Now, with a name like that, I would have expected their sauce to have a real kick to it (either that or be gay). It was actually a honey garlic sauce. I also got us their baked beans and mashed potatoes; the former were possibly the best I've ever had, and the latter had chunks of potato skin in it, a real first for me. The sandwiches were satisfying but, unfortunately, not really spicy. Ah, well.

I guess it was about quarter after four when we left. P-Doug wanted to get to Piccard's Peanuts to pick up some stuff for his missus before it closed, guessing that would be about five-ish. On the way back to the car, I paused to get a shot of a pioneer's house, fretting out loud about whether we could spare the time. The shot took, of course, slightly over two seconds to set up and take, after which we laughed all the way to the car about how disgusted James Salmon would be with how all the art and nuance had been drained from photography by modern technology; two seconds on a whim to do something that probably would have required most of a minute for him to set up and frame, and serious deliberation as to whether the shot was worth the film.

We got to Piccard's Peanuts in plenty of time and for once in my life I didn't spend a cent there. On our way in, some family was gathered on the porch and consoling some little girl while one them, in a surprisingly adult voice, was taunting (a la Eddie Murphy) "you don't have no ice cream..." I whispered to P-Doug on the way in "The Asshole Family's road trip vacation". By the time we left, the girl had been mollified... probably by ice cream.

We took the backroads across to Bolton where Otterwa is. The last two times we were there we were sharing the place with anglers. The first time was at the end of the summer in 2008; we completely ignored the place in 2009 as we explored other places. A few weeks ago we decided to go back. We made our way through the brush, down the hills, through the mucky swamp at the bottom, crossed the river to the sandy landing, only to spot a fresh cigarette on the shore.  And literally within one minute of our arrival, two guys with fishing rods came out of the field. We milled around for a bit and realized the day was theirs, so we headed back and just hung out on the hilltop over the road for a while before heading off for the consolation prize of beer and burgers.

This time we were arriving very late in the day. I had some misgivings about the hour and our ability to find our way back out as the sunlight faded (Otterwa is not an easy place to get to... unless you have a fishing rod, apparently), and I wondered if Glasgow might not be a more likely choice, given its proximity to the road, but I kept them to myself. Really, Glasgow's a poor excuse for the pocket Eden of Otterwa.

It was about seven or so when we parked the car. Since May last year, I've started occasionally challenging myself on these hikes by leaving my sandals behind in the car and leaving myself no recourse to them at all, and for the first time at Otterwa I decided to do that and go barefoot the whole way in and out. Asphalt and gravel aren't the obstacles they once were; I'm kind of proud of that. We headed down the road and into the trees, and made our way for the umpteenth time to Otterwa. At the swampy base of the hill, P-Doug sank his right leg in almost to the hip. The only way to extricate himself without ruining his clothes was with my help. Immediately afterward, I stepped over a fallen log by the river and sunk in past my knee myself.

I stepped into the river and it was like tea that had been left out to cool for half an hour. There was still a lingering warmth to it; it was very comfortable. Far warmer than Lake Ontario when we were down at Cherry Beach a few weeks ago. We crossed over to the landing and found, yet again, evidence of a recent visitor; deep boot prints in the sand that had to have been made that day. But, it was pretty clear by then that the guy wasn't around, and even if he was, I wasn't overly bothered. We stripped off and got in the water and channeled good old Walt Whitman. :)

Last year P-Doug happened across a couple of watertight camera bags and he picked them up for me. I put one to the test with the G9, and for the first time, I videoed underwater there in the river. It worked spectacularly. The bare, rusty-coloured rocks on the Humber bed reminded me of nothing so much as photos of Mars. I could see minnows darting around, avoiding our feet; the silt bloom out when I stepped or brushed it from the fallen tree trunks. I've been dying since last year to do that. I want to try it again in other places.

My first ever underwater video.

I was also worried the mosquitoes would be a problem but I didn't hear the whine of the first one till we were approaching the swampy lip of the river, and even then it wasn't so bad. And at first, while we were in the water, they left us alone. I was sitting near the bank and they began to pester me so I moved out to the centre. But as the sun sank lower, they got bolder, until at last most of our time in the water was taken up with keeping our shoulders submerged and warning each other off about impending landings. That, and a few other factors (concern with the failing light, hunger after six hours) prodded me to suggest we consider it a short, successful, Apollo 11-style landing and make our way to either Wendy's or The Toby Jug.

With the mosquitoes being what they were, the possibility of lingering on the bank to dry really wasn't one. We carried our clothes out, up the hills, across the little clearings, over the pine needles, keeping ahead of the mosquitoes till we were within sight of the road, when we dressed. We've hiked out naked from Otterwa before – the first time in a rainstorm – this time due to a different set of necessities.

There was nearly no traffic coming or going; the pavement under my feet was still pleasantly warm even after the sun had set. We got to within ten yards of the car when P-Doug cried out like the damned: his keys were in his belt pack, and his belt pack was back on the landing by the river.

I can't, I honestly can't, remember an instant where I felt so hopelessly resigned to a disheartening inevitability. P-Doug asked me if I wanted to sit it out by the car. I had to mull it over for two or three seconds. The only reason for accompanying him was, well, to accompany him. Solidarity. That was it, really. But there were myriad reasons not to go. First of all, he was instantly (and understandably) in, shall we say, not the most social of moods, and anyone travelling with him would have been wise to do so in unprovocative silence. Well, sitting by the car, I wasn't likely to say anything to irritate him. Secondly, offering my blood to the mosquitoes again wasn't going to accomplish anything except feeding the mosquitoes. Finally, my sandals were locked in the car. One of the challenges I like about barefoot hiking is choosing my footfalls, but that's enough of a challenge in daylight. I really didn't want to test my skill (luck) in increasing darkness; besides, I would have slowed him down. I estimated a 40-minute round trip. So, feeling cowardly and slightly guilty, I politely begged off.

I settled in the grass beside the car and tried to pass the time reviewing the underwater video I'd shot. Naturally, the battery gave up the ghost after about ten minutes. I settled back, trying to keep out of sight of the passing cars so as not to have to explain my situation to anyone seeking to offer aid (no one did... hmmm...), and watched the telephone pole fade to a silhouette against a darkening pink and azure backdrop. The mosquitoes found me, but I'd liberally coated myself with repellant and it seemed to work. They'd come close, hover around uncertainly, and drift off. But if I didn't provide an appetizing entrée for the mosquitoes, what I did provide was bait for the dragonflies. They were soon on the scene; a dozen or more. The big mammal locked outside the car was a godsend for them. I drew the mosquitoes in; the dragonflies took them out. I felt like an aircraft carrier in the Battle of the Coral Sea or something. Zeroes swarming around me, Mustangs zooming in to pick them off before they could inflict their damage on me. At one point, I watched a mosquito easing its way in toward me, about a foot from my left temple. I reached up slowly, ready to shoot my arm out and try to grab it, when I was suddenly outgunned and outclassed by a dragonfly who flashed through like a Spitfire and did the mosquito in. Not a word of a lie; I actually heard the "gluck" sound of the dragonfly taking the mosquito. I don't care how many thousands or millions of times bigger I was than either of them; it sent a primordial shiver up my spine.

There was no call of my name or sound of footsteps; just a key in the lock of the hatchback. I climbed up; it had been half an hour. P-Doug had shaved about ten minutes off my self-estimated ETA, and I was quietly delighted for him (and in truth, there's little doubt in my mind that my accompanying him perforce barefooted would have tacked at least that extra ten minutes on, if not more, as darkness fell).

Stopping to eat was off the itinerary; he simply wanted to get home. I honestly couldn't blame him; what he'd just gone through was no fun. As he started the car, I noticed a stack of coins by the gear shift. Fearing that the sudden start, fired by frustration, that we were likely about to experience would scatter them under the seats, I gathered them up and handed them to him. He gazed at them like a handful of shirt buttons and promptly hurled them out onto the road... along with them, any legitimate claim to pride in a Scottish heritage, which will always ringing slightly hollow now. I've been mad, I've been frustrated, but I'm hard-pressed to think of a time I've been willing to throw three bucks in change out into the street. It's just not in me to do that.  :) Man, I'm not joking: it fleetingly crossed my mind to get out and claim the salvage rights! Of course, I'd still be standing there, hitching a ride, if I'd done that. :)

His pique didn't last long; he wasn't sore at me, just the situation. By the time we were on Hwy 50 and leaving Bolton behind he was already waxing eloquent on the merits of over-the-counter histamines. Hey, were else am I going to hear these things?

But it all ended in comedy anyway. Typically on our hikes we tend to leave our wallets in the glove compartment. Nothing to buy in the woods and no need for a driver's license; why risk losing them? So as I stepped out of the car at my building, having gathered my things, I gave myself a quick once-over to make sure I'd gotten everything. Felt the hollow place on my thigh where my wallet should be and shouted out just as he began to pull away. He stopped, I pointed to the glove compartment, and he hauled out my wallet with a grin. At least we got a laugh out of it.

Sunday I pretty much just sat around, picking out the photos I wanted for the collection and preparing and tagging them. That and buying $50 in groceries and some of the last sixes of Nickel Brook Green Apple Pilsner  the Liquor Control Board of Ontario is ever going to offer the people of this province for sale. Yup, their radar for figuring out what I like and then getting rid of it is stellar stealth-proof...

Humber summer numbers

I actually did a fair amount of exploring on the Humber the latter half of the summer, but I never bothered to blog about it. I suppose now that the summer's over and it can all be more or less consolidated, it might make sense to do so.

The first place was a gap I noticed in the road grid where it seemed to me a road might once have crossed by no longer does. Such places are endlessly fascinating to me; the idea that people could once travel somewhere we no longer can always makes me a little wistful. I like to go to places like that and look for hints of bridges — or much better yet, bridges that still exist but are now closed to vehicle traffic — and try to picture it as it once was. The gap in question was where one of concession lines meets the West Humber River.

I went out there on a rainy morning towards the end of July. The closed part of the concession there is not very long... it only takes about five minutes to reach the river, if that, at least on the north bank. Where the road meets the river, there was no hint of its south leg on the opposite shore. The was certainly no hint of a bridge, though with such lightly-travelled roads, it's always possible that modest wooden structure was utterly erased by the floodwaters of Hurricane Hazel in October, 1954, and simply never replaced. I decided to take a little time and wander the river itself, so I stepped into the water and headed a little east. I found this beautiful little spot, a kind of a pool created by forest debris, possibly accumulated on an old beaver dam, and I found a fallen tree to settle down on. I guess I spent about a half an hour there before I started wondering about the road at the other side, and I headed back to the car to make my way over. Funny how it goes... the far side I wanted to explore was probably not 150 feet from where I first came down, but I probably had to drive two or three miles to get back to the heights on the other side.

 

The roadway down on the south side was a lot more substantial. It made a long, sweeping curve down to the river, and took about ten minutes to follow down. Despite the fact that on either side, the road came clear down to the river bank, there was no hint anywhere that there'd ever been a way to cross in a car. The two parts didn't seem to meet up.  There must have been a gap of something like 50 to 100 feet between them... not impossible to bridge, but possibly more than people wanted to be bothered with. Still... if you weren't going to cross the river... why build roads right down to it in the first place? I can't make up my mind if there were ever a bridge there or not. Anyway, the principal discovery of the trip was that tranquil pool further east. I came back to it with P-Doug the following weekend and we explored. In the middle of the water a bit further east we found something that was like a natural pagoda, a sort of little sitting area made up of towering old trees, open at the top. The warm sunlight streaming down made it a wonderful place to sit and soak; the water was three to four feet deep but traveled through it so slowly it was nearly becalmed. It was a perfect place in nature and I'll never forget it.

 

The next spot was quite a bit closer to town; a conservation area up in the northwest end. The valley walls there are short, but steep, and that made it a real challenge for us to get to the river. Once P-Doug and I were at the river, the only way to get around, at least initially, was via the river itself. But, as before, it was several feet deep, so we stripped below the waist and followed the river along till we could trek across the forest floor, taking shortcuts from one bend in the river to the next. After a while we came to a fantastic sandy landing opposite a steep bank. We spent an hour or more in the sunny water before retiring to the shady bank. Again, it was a sweet slice of nature. The only note detracting from it was the faint but ever-present sound of the nearby highway traffic, not quite a mile off.

 

 

 

The final spot was back to a place on the river we've been a dozen times before, except we travelled beyond it to a new location through the woods. We went nude hiking into the hills there a few years ago and decided to do it again, this time making our way through the woods to the river on the far side of the bend. The hills in question are on a peninsula that's practically rendered an island as the river bends back upon itself. We carried our clothes across the river and stowed them on the peninsular side, then started the climb. I'd actually done this by myself a few weeks earlier when we'd been there but he had elected to stay and soak in the river on the near side. Retracing my route, we reached the place we got to the first time, at the heights, and travelled beyond it. On our way down on the far side, we came across this strange landing in the woods make up of trash and abandoned furniture. It looked for all the world like a long-abandoned spot for teenage make-out parties. We looked around it for a few minutes in curiosity before moving on to make our way down to the river. I showed him the bleached fallen log on the opposite bank that I'd forded to and sat upon in the sun. This time, it was his turn to cross over and to wander the river there; for myself, I reclined in the sun amid the long grass. He satisfied his curiosity for the river and joined me in the sunbathing spot after about half an hour or so, and we just whiled away the early afternoon there. Eventually we wandered back into the forest and up the hill, down the other side to find our stowed clothes (funny how different landmarks look from the forest instead of the river...), and headed into the nearby town to liberate a few beers from imprisonment in cold, dark kegs. It more or less represented the end of the summer, but a summer spent enjoying nature while in a matching  state is one well-spent in my opinion. :)

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.