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| Loons enjoy a summer float |
Such a place! How did
we get so lucky? Perhaps the gods decided to rest here after all.
The joy of our summertime
is so compelling. The sun has diminished the woolly weights of winter. The
gatherings, outdoor music and picnicking at the beach or the park make us
believe we are on another planet.
A great aspect to this
summer life is the growing abundance of fresh food. Vegetable gardens are
spilling over with local lettuces and sweet green peas. The untamed fruits are
promising to be bountiful as well. The wild strawbs were as big as thumbnails.
Blueberries are crowding out their bushes. The rasps, atop those stingy, tall,
scratchy branches are starting to fatten up. The mountain ash will be heady orange
bunches this fall. Saskatoons or Service or Sugar Plums (whichever name suits
you), are a purpling tempting treat for humans as well as birds. And with the
wild berries come the wild flowers.
Waving daisy fields and bright yellow
roadsides calm and brighten the traveller’s soul. The deep white of winter
seems a millennium away.
Time does like to trick
us. Combine that with high speed travel and it’s a feat to keep your feet and
senses on the ground. This was especially true after recent space photos
captured the first close ups of our farthest planet, Pluto - a surrealistic
reminder that the earth is not alone.
The universe is LOADED
with suns, planets and other galaxies, fodder for a never ending stream of
movies and subsequent internet chatter. Conceptualizing how there can be such
vast or huge or innumerable (or whatever word humans use) an amount of “stuff”
out there often requires some kind of analogy.
The other day as I was
walking down a cobble beach, enjoying the gentleness of a calm, sunny, soft Lake
Superior summer afternoon I stopped to admire the colours and textures in the
rocks. I picked up and examined one after another and couldn’t help but notice
something. Some of the rock patterns resembled some of the photos of Pluto. Some
of the big round balls of granite even had that heart shape we saw on that far
lonely planet. It occurred to me that the countless heaps of beach boulders
could be as plentiful as the plethora of galaxies that whirl around our skies.
That made it easier to imagine the multitude of universes out there.
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| A Bud on the beach |
Universes don’t have to
be far away. Still riding the analogy train, we could say that the area north
of the Sault, the land that once held the former ACR passenger line, is another
universe too. Four universes actually. In spring, freshly opened lakes and
streams are the visible lifeblood for fishes, frogs and other aquatic life
forms. In summer, lush tree growth and long lingering days are perfect for the
outdoorsperson. In fall, colour feasts overflow with delicious eye candy. In
winter, crystal clear starry skies are a silent wonder world against the
beautiful white. But those places are becoming almost as hard to access as
Pluto! The passenger service has ended. If the writer for the Lonely Planet
declared that downtown Sault resembled a ghost town then the old ACR might be
the ghost line.
I wonder if anyone has
asked CN why it is not in the passenger train business. Freight and passenger trains
shared the ACR tracks for 100 years. Surely there must be a compromise/solution
somewhere. Can a passenger car be added to the freight train? Google gave me
some answers.
There is one mixed train ( carries freight and passenger together ) in Canada. In Northern Manitoba, the Keewatin Railway Company, in conjunction with Via Rail, operates a 400 km passenger service twice a week between The Pas and Pukatawagan.
So, how about this?
In the spring, offer a
couple of camp opening special runs. In the summer, pick a day once a week when
supplies and folks can get in and out of camp. In the fall, work with the Tour
Train. In the winter, run the Polar Express and the Searchmount Ski Train.
Why do it? Because enjoying
our natural gifts is a part of life here on earth. And we learn that after the
barbeque is over, it’s been all about sharing the feast.
This is our Only Planet
but it doesn’t have to be a Lonely One.
