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Promises to Keep
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Category Archives: Education
Promises to Keep – the story
I did another little canoe solo this week and returned to my favourite campsite to keep a promise. My wife was busy at work, my youngest son was off to high school, and I was free to take the path of the paddle again. This week, the lake was quiet with only the occasional fisherman trolling by slowly. The week before I had to deal with the regular end-of-summer folk buzzing the lake with skiboats and wakeboarders and the insidious "personal water craft" that have allowed a motorcycle gang mentality to take over summer waterways. Add alcohol to the mix and you have stupid people on powerful machines just waiting for an accident to happen or a campsite to trash.
On the other hand that week, I met a wonderful family from Oakville – Ed and Sheila and their children and dog – who had motor boated in to the campsite opposite mine and were having a hearty week of family camping. I paddled over to their site to say hello and ask them about the condition of their campground. They were delighted that I was cleaning up the other site, they had tried to do the same with theirs, and we ended up talking about everything under the sun – responsible camping, values and ethics, climate change, school, and even dog training. We had established a camping community of like minds, they in their motorboat and me in my canoe. All good.
Then on the way out, I stopped at my favourite truck stop near Waubaushene, topped off my Prius, and sat down for a coffee. The woman serving me had noticed my canoe and was suitably impressed (Chester IS special). When I told her where I had been camping and cleaning up, she gave me a big smile and said, "I got married there. In February. We walked across the ice to the rock shelf above the second pool." Now that is truly a small world. My wife and I were also married in the great outdoors.
It turned out that Wendy had been born in Atlanta, moved to Missouri, and vacationed every summer on our northern Ontario lake, eventually moving up to live here permanently. Although the man she married had lived all his life on that lake, they didn't meet until she was in her thirties as fate would have it. We chatted on for several minutes, another like mind who loved canoes, cottages, and clean campsites. I promised Wendy I was coming back to finish the job and to post a notice to future campers. It was a promise I was keeping both to all those who lived in and loved our northern lakes and sacred spaces, and to my father.
From my youth until his passing, we went fishing and camping often during the summer. From Georgian Bay to Rice Lake to Temagami, we fished and camped our way to an unbreakable father and son bond. Whenever we left a campsite, he would make a final walkabout, ensuring that the fire was dead out and that a little pile of sheltered kindling was tucked away discreetly for the next camper. Then he would turn to me and say, "Son, always leave your campsite cleaner than you found it."
I put that saying up in a small sign on "my campsite" yesterday. Then I canoed down the channel and cleaned up three more. An endless quest along the path of the paddle. Thanks, Dad, for giving my retirement a purpose. I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
*****
Skid Crease, Caledon
The Sacred and The Profane
I took a solo voyage of rediscovery this past week. No one else in the family was able to go canoeing, so I loaded my beloved "Chester" on the car, packed my gear, and was on the road. I bought my cedar-strip canoe in 1979 from Omer Stringer, legendary Algonquin Park guide, the same year that the Chestnut factory in Fredericton closed its doors. Omer found three of their canoes stored in a barn in Peterborough and called me: "I have found the perfect hull design for you – this is a beautiful canoe." And it was true. Omer is paddling cosmic rivers now, but Chester lives on, newly restored by Marc Russell, a former canoe student of mine running the Gull Lake Boat Works in Toronto.
I love canoe tripping, and I especially love canoe tripping solo. This little journey was going to be balm for my soul, and I had the perfect destination – a scenic campsite off the Gibson River canoe route. My students and I had camped there every year through their junior high to secondary school graduation. My trip across the lake was idyllic – brilliant sunshine, enough of a wind to make life interesting, and a loon who surfaced off my bow and gave me the wing flap salute in what I am sure was a welcome back gesture.
The campsite was as beautful as ever from a distance – still sacred in my memory. It was on pine swept point that opened up on to a channel of the lake on one side and a series of pools with water cascading down from the big chute far upstream. But as I inspected the site to set up camp I was horrified at the desecration that had taken place over the thirty years since I had last been there. The entire ground area, once walkable in bare feet, was covered in broken glass, plastic water bottle tops and bread bag closures, and bits and pieces of broken gear.
The campfire circle that we always kept small had expanded into a Viking funeral pyre and the entire area was littered with glass, can lids, partly burned food and half burned logs big enough to build a cabin. Someone had put an old rectangular metal stove beside the firepit alongside the remants of less durable stoves, BBQs and cooking grates – a kind of graveyard to bad wilderness cooking. The old stove itself was filled with empty beer and liquor bottles.
The most disturbing discovery was the amount of cigarette butts covering every inch of the campsites and trail systems, along with toilet paper clumps every few feet along the trails behind the tenting area. That, and the fact that every tree had been stripped of its branches as far as the arm could reach.
Ironically, high in a tree partly covered by vegetation, was a sign posted by the Ministry of Natural Resources for the Government of Ontario proudly stating: "This Area is a Conservation Reserve – low impact, no-trace camping only". Not only could you barely see the sign, but the detailed print was so small it would have been missed by the most ethical of campers, let alone the ignorant humans who had nearly destroyed the site.
I spent the rest of that day and the next morning cleaning up – when I left in the afternoon, it was as clean as I could get it – I loaded three full, large heavy duty garbage bags into Chester and we paddled back home. I let the ranger at the Provincial Park entrance know about the situation and she promised a year-end sweep of the area. I'm going back in the fall to check it out and post a new sign, something from a teaching my father left me: "Son, always leave your campsite cleaner than you found it."
Amen.
*****
Skid Crease, Caledon
The Holyday is Over for Hudak
The recent by-election results in Ontario could be very bad news for the righties in Toronto. Toronto Council will be losing the reasonably competent Doug Holyday and Rob Ford will be losing a key ally. Provincially, Holyday's voice will unfortunately be neutered as an Opposition MPP, and locally a Ford-unfriendly Council could bypass an election and appoint a burr under the cheeks of Doug and Rob.
For Tim Hudak the news is even worse. Holyday's bragging rights were short lived – when the dust settled, the Liberals had taken 2 out of 3 close races. In his own riding of Etobicoke, fully supported by Ford Nation and the endorsement of Mike Harris, Holyday only led by 4%. In Scarborough the Liberals won by 5% and even in gas plant McGuinty's old riding the Liberals managed to hold on to a 3% lead. In London, the NDP swept away the Conservatives with 10% and thoroughly punished the Liberals in Windsor with an astonishing 40% margin of victory.
Ontario will see a minority government run by Kathleen Wynne and Andrea Horwath, and Tim Hudak will see the back of the door at the next Conservative leadership convention. They won't need riot police this time because no one cares. Until Ontario conservatives find another leader of the caliber of a progressive Bill Davis, the taste of Ipperwash, Walkerton, the destruction of the best education system in the world, downloading, amalgamations, and partisan fascism will remain bitter in our mouths.
Enjoy it while you can Tim, but I fear that Holyday was your goodbye present.
*****
Skid Crease, Caledon
SERVE AND PROTECT or PUNISH AND ENSLAVE
I remember once believing in that motto: To Serve and Protect. For years, I taught children to always seek out a police officer if they were in trouble. They were right up there with ambulance drivers and paramedics and firepersons – people you could trust and who would come to your rescue. I remember when they wore friendly light blue shirts and red striped pants and drove bright yellow squad cars so you could find them easily.
That all changed in Ontario under Mike Harris and his right-wing police state. Under Mike's watch the uniforms changed to the dark side of the force, and the blue shirts were hidden under black flak jackets. The squad cars got a patriotic law and order make-over, some even into stealth mode with stealth markings. I remember a Conservative political convention that Boss Harris held in Toronto near the end of his reign of terror. The people had begun to protest, so he had the Convention Centre surrounded by police in full Darth Vader riot gear. It was like a scene out of a totalitarian nightmare – the SS keeping the elected elite safe from the people.
Something has gone very wrong when the people who are hired by us and paid for by us no longer Serve and Protect but, like that ominous Decepticon, seem to Punish and Enslave. It doesn't matter now who the political leaders are – the new norm is order by intimidation. There is a good reason for Julian Fantino's meteoric rise to Conservative federal Cabinet Minister, and it has nothing to do with serving and protecting.
Somewhere between corrupt Toronto drug squads, the killing of Robert Dziekanski, the ineptitude and brutality of the G20 riot response, police who lie under oath, and the overkill of Sammy Yatim, I have lost faith. If this is the new normal, like the radar traps out for the end of the month quota rush, I do not like it. I do not endorse it. Bring back Sergeant Frank Preston and Yukon King and Rex. I want a police force that makes me feel safe and secure. What you are doing now makes our children cry at night.
Skid Crease, Caledon