Hide and Peek

Whew folks! The last time I saw this column was August 14th but today I found it again. Thanks for reading my lost and found post.

Oh the joys. Oh the agonies. Oh the ups and downs. Wouldn’t it be great if day-to-day was as easy as playing hide and seek?

I remember playing that child’s game. Someone, usually the youngest, usually me, would have to be IT. You’d lean against the rough bark of the hide and seek tree, the designated “home”, and count to 100 (by ones, if you didn’t cheat). Then everyone laughed and took off to hide or maybe tag “home” while IT was off on the search. We’d play until dark or until parents called us in. I think that this simple game was a great preparatory for life. For aren’t we always dealing with some version of lost and found?

A great place to find things and then decide to keep them or… maybe not… is the shore of Lake Superior. The other day we paddled to one of our favourite beaches. The water was calm and we took our time looking at the landscape, the waterscape, always on the watch for some hidden “treasure” - be it a beautiful boulder under the water or perhaps a mother duck skimming along to find fish with her small charges in tow. We pulled up to the pebbly beach and took in the solitude and the beauty of a Superior morning. After a sit with a cup of tea on a huge white pine log, we wandered around. Such fun picking up this and that. A large bright orange fishing buoy. An odd piece of plywood with a perfect square cut out of it. A dotted conglomerate rock. Small blue and yellow plastic beach shovels and a bright yellow smiley turtle for sand castling. The sojourn started me thinking about the dozens and dozens of “things” that folks find at this time of year.

Then, when I heard about an elaborate plan to conduct a special underwater search in Superior’s sister, Lake Ontario, I realized that this lost and found game has real effects on people in real time. Whether the consequences last a lifetime or a single morning, the intensity, the adrenalin charge of recovering a lost item or finding a new one is quite profound.

The Lake Ontario search is of a particular social/historical significance. In the 1950s, Canada’s CF 105 delta winged supersonic Avro Arrows were eons ahead of their time. But, for secret reasons, the then Prime Minister John Diefenbaker ordered the destruction of all 5 prototypes and their blueprint plans. However, humanity being the curious race that it is, could not let the mystery of the amazing plane stay down in the drink, especially when model-sized Avro Arrows are sitting on the bottom of Lake Ontario. “Raise The Arrow” is the attempt to find one or more of these small prototypes using the “Thunder Fish”, a sonar equipped, remote underwater vehicle that will map the bottom of Lake Ontario. Imagine the Facebook hoopla if Thunder Fish finds one of the models!

But thrills also belong to smaller finds. Check out this cool story.

In July of this year some folks were spending the night at the Twilight Resort. While landing a rental canoe after a quick paddle, one of them lost his ring in the lake. Since the traveller had to leave right away, he offered “a G note” to anyone who could find his precious ring. Well that spurred on one particular searcher! Cut out the bottom of a plastic pail. Inset Plexiglas. Take said impromptu underwater viewer and earn 1000 bucks! Voila. The half pound, solid gold, 1” square, diamond and ruby encrusted and inscribed ring glistened amongst the underwater pebbles and a guy became $1000 richer.

But not all 2017 Montreal River lost and found stories are so marvellous. Last month a seasonal resident found what most of us dread to encounter while walking in the bush - the remains of a human body. Although OPP have not released any identification or cause of death, the person who died on that cliff at the far end of a beautiful beach can now rest in peace. And I would think that the OPP beach fire that helped warm officers who had to maintain 24 hour protection of the scene, also helped send that poor person’s soul on to the otherworld.

Sharing stories about lost and found experiences has got to be a vital part of our human condition, a crucial link to a common existence. Whether it be a 20 dollar bill waving on the sand rippled bottom of Lake Superior by Bathtub Island, a family ring that slipped off the finger of an unwary swimmer, a rusted old rifle jammed under a boulder near the mouth of the Montreal River or even a child’s pink running shoe buried in the Agawa sand and dug up a year later by someone else, the retrieval of a lost item, pet or person has got to be one of the greatest joys of all.

So good luck to Thunder Fish and all the other searchers. We all can use a hand up once in a while.

Wave As

Waves are everywhere. These cheery hellos or silent goodbyes are loaded with meaning. Especially when our arms are waving around to swat the hordes of flies that want to be our close and personal  friends on these wet, buggy, first few days of summer.

No waving hello from this friend..

At the beginning of June, before the blackflies were chasing me indoors, I watched a storm blow in over the lake. The sun cast a brilliant white shine onto the still, shimmering water but there was a crazy wind to herald the incoming rain. Treetops along the shore were waving heads of ragtop greenery, bouncing around the sky like exuberant young people listening to tunes and nodding their heads in time to the music. Normally a wind like that would have had the lake in an uproar but instead, the blast of surging air turned the flat lake into a wrinkled silver sheet with a lacy foam fringe. The freezing cold, extra heavy water was just too much of a horizontal mountain to move.

However, that colder, bug-free life as we knew it - is over! The water mountain has lost weight and the lighter, warmer water now must succumb to the whims of the wind. Last week, as we watched the heavy fog rolling around, a wind pushing its cotton batten wisps over the rocky points, I figured the approaching system would only ruffle the lake just as it had the day before. Ooohh was I mistaken! Within an hour, November waves were lashing our June shoreline. Raging water was smoothing and clearing out the beaches. The air, the wet and the roar carried all the marks of a fall storm. It was a classic Lake Superior move - calm one moment - two metre waves the next!

But waves do much more than upset the surface of the water. Waves carry shocks and thoughts and sound and light. And what would our C150 Canada Day celebrations be without the waving of our national flag? Indeed waves almost made it onto our nation’s red and white banner!

The debate over Canada’s flag design did create waves of discontent. Everyone, of course, wanted a say. In fact, England’s King George V even got into it. In 1921 he designated red and white as the official colours for our flag. But it was Lester B. Pearson’s WW1 experience that probably was the biggest influence. In 1914, when he was serving overseas, he noticed that almost every Canadian battalion had the red maple leaf as part of its insignia. Pearson vowed that if he returned home he would somehow try to get the red maple leaf on the Canadian flag.

So, on June 15, 1964, Lester B Pearson presented his idea for a new flag. Nicknamed the Pearson Pennant, the design featured three red maple leaves on a white background with vertical blue sections on the sides. The waves represented Canada’s motto, “from sea to sea.” But those blue squiggly lines could have been the result of a suggestion from the famous Group of Seven/WW1 artist A.Y.Jackson. In 1914, before Jackson enlisted, this famous Group of Seven/WW1 artist made a trip to Algonquin Park with Tom Thomson. There, he painted his classic work “The Red Maple.” Almost 50 years later, the memories of that camping trip inspired Jackson to design a new Canadian flag. On a piece of cardboard (which he almost threw out - he used the back of it for phone numbers!) he painted three maple leaves between horizontal wavy blue lines on the top and the bottom. The lines represented the rivers that unite Canada. Although our present flag pattern lacks the waves and bears only one leaf, there is little doubt that Jackson’s flag submission to Pearson in a letter dated June 10, 1964, encouraged the Algoma MP and Prime Minister to complete his personal

campaign promise to give Canada a new flag.

A.Y.Jackson's flag design

During the 1760s, a Sioux leader known as Wabasha or Chief Red Leaf carried a red maple leaf as his symbol. In 1782, according to National Archive documents, he was made a brigadier general of provincial militia in the British army. At the time, other British officers had flags so Wabasha had one made up too. For his banner he chose a red maple leaf on a white background. Could Wabasha’s flag be the beginning of the idea? 

A look into the past is known to ruffle up other waters with waves of nostalgia. But those ones can give us energy, stir us into action and encourage us to search the old haunts. Summer is a good time for that. Seek campsites, find renewal in beaches and sit by an open fire to stare at the stars. That’s wonderful fuel for winter dreams.

With that in mind, I think I’ll take a summer time cue from the light waves. Their vibrations are giving sky and water so many vibrant hues; indeed, they are their own flag. And even if the fog wisps eat up the colour, that’s OK. Better that than a heat wave.

Sunset March

The first clue was that +10 degree day. I saw a guy in the Sault wearing shorts on the seventh of March. Ol’ Petey, the Polar Vortex, must have been snickering up his sleeve.
Then he continued the joke and turned Lake Superior on its side. Remember those bone chilling winds? Well the lake sure does. Table sized ice chunks from somewhere ended up as ice mountains here at Montreal River Harbour on Superior’s eastern shore. And, thanks to the Modis satellite imagery on the GLERL (Great Lakes Environmental Research Lab) website, that somewhere was most likely  Whitefish Bay, about  65 km south of here! On March 4th, the Bay was almost full, with just its mouth showing a big crack of a smile. By March 16th half the ice was gone. Gone alright! The infamous March winds blew that flat, 2 foot thick ice field straight onto our shore.

Yoikes! Cracking, crushing! The ice pans hit shore and tumbled end over end onto each other. With nowhere else to go, they went up! I felt like I was in the movie Inception or Dr.Strange where the landscape tilts on its side. After a full 24 hours of ice meets shore, the wind eased just a bit. What was left? Ice cliffs so high that in many places one can’t see the lake!

But there is some consolation (besides great photo ops). This March ice break up is the lead up to spring. Forget about snow and ice.

                                    Turn instead to thoughts of the sweet maple syrup of early spring. 



To get a feel for how some syrup production was going I called Doug Thompson at his place on St Joe’s Island. Thompson has over 16,000 taps on his 155 acres on the island, averaging 20,000 gallons of sap a day. I tried to be quick with the questions. After all he was on his cell phone at his sugar bush. I can’t imagine how much work it must take to run his operation!
But Thompson does have some unique help. He uses some very cool computer technology to make his collection system more efficient. Like most syrup producers, Thompson uses lines and a pumping system to extract sap from the trees.  But the lines have a tendency to leak when squirrels make holes in them to get at the sap.
“Squirrels are the worst problem,” says Thompson. “All of a sudden they’re all over the country and they sure like to chew the lines.”
A few years ago, when Thompson was in Vermont, he ended up chatting about the problem of finding the leaks in the lines. Someone suggested that it would be good if there was a computer program that could help.
Thompson brought that thought back home and acted on it. “One day, out of the blue, I decided to find someone who could build the technology,” he said. “I was driving into the Sault and I had a choice. Turn right or left. So I drove left to Algoma Business Computers and found Trevor Bryant.”
Bryant, a sales person as well as programmer at Algoma Business Computers, tapped into the project and designed a way to map the route of the sap through the sugar bush.
“Doug Thompson just walked in and approached me with the idea,” said Bryant. “So I figured out how to monitor the vacuum levels across the property.”
That was six years ago and results have been great.
 “Producers have increased their bottom line since they are now able to collect more sap,” said Bryant. “The program took off.”
Bryant explained that about 20 maple syrup producers in Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate New York have purchased the program.  As well there is one in Wisconsin and also in Quebec. Of course Thompson uses his on St Joe’s, with great success.
“Now we know where to look; otherwise, you just flip a coin to find the leak,” said Thompson. “We can find and fix a leak so fast. I look at the computer in the sugar house and see a map of the lines. There’s a sensor reading at the end of them with colour coded results. Red is low, yellow is intermittent and green is a go!”
Thompson and Bryant must be pretty pleased with their efforts and their system. It’s a great addition to sap gathering technology.




I thought about all this maple syrup talk as I was wandering through our own maple bush. As I circled the trees, I noticed that each of the larger ones was showing bare ground at its base. The trees are alive, have warmth and have so much to give. I look forward to the coming days when that bare ground is everywhere and the trout lilies are brightening up the forest floor. I realized too that all barriers to growth, be it an unexpected wall of ice or an invasion of chewy squirrels, will melt, move on or be out manoeuvred. So let’s celebrate the coming season. For who knows what clues a fresh spring will be dropping our way?

the old fashioned way

fog bergs

A Long Climb to the Light

The candle holders and tree lights are back in their boxes. The darkness is receding and we’ve once again celebrated the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.

There’s no doubt that sunshine lifts up our spirits. Trips south, either real or dreamt, are tangible proof that, like plants, we cherish the feeling of sunlight on our faces.

But our collective need for light is much more than a blanket and a book at the beach. 

We need light for guidance and what better example than a lighthouse. For all around the world, from the ancient Egyptian island of Pharos, to the inland sea of Lake Superior, lighthouses have banished the obscurities of darkness. At one time they were an essential part of our journeys on water. How else to avoid rock and navigate from here to there?

Before highways altered our relationship with Superior, ship traffic was crucial. In 1901, the Algoma Central Steamship Line, which transported Helen Mine iron ore from Michipicoten Harbour to the steel mill in Sault Ste Marie, erected a navigation light atop a bluff at the northwest end of Coppermine Point, which is about 75 kilometres north of the Sault. The light rested on a four metre tower 15 m above the lake. On a clear night mariners could see the shine from a distance of 20 km.

In 1904 the Canadian Government took on responsibility for the light and hired John Joseph Roussain as the keeper. Roussain kept the lantern lit until he died in 1909.Then his son, Frank Edmund Roussain, took up the job. Frank was light keeper until 1923 when the government changed the light to an unmanned acetylene unit that could turn itself off and on. Ahhh automation!

On September 15, 1908, the Roussains got to see an enclosed lighthouse replace the original open-sided tower. The new permanent structure, 11m from base to top, cost $1200  and was quite the fancy affair. The square white wooden building with sloping sides supported a red iron lantern which housed a new French lens. And this Coppermine Point Lighthouse, standing 20 m above Lake Superior, was destined for greatness. A.Y.Jackson immortalized the structure when a calm day allowed him to sit offshore in a boat and create a painting of the wistful building.

One of the most remote light stations on Lake Superior is right in the middle of the lake. Caribou Island is magic and mystery in real time. It’s a small island, the flat top of an underwater mountain, with squeaky golden sand on the east side and layers of red sandstone on the rest of the shoreline. The navigation light for this mid lake jewel sits on a five acre islet offshore from Caribou itself. I visited this elusive place in mid-September 1984 when Bert Hopkins and his wife, Pearl, were the lightkeepers. I hiked around Caribou and even made that long climb up a circular metal staircase in the 25 m light tower. ‘Twas a beauty day topped off by a beauty meal. Sunshine, light breezes and Pearl even cooked a turkey dinner.

Caribou Island’s first light keeper was Charles Pim (of Pim Street fame). He served from 1887 to 1898. Then it was Wibord Demers’turn.He lit the lamps from 1899 to 1906 and not without incident. In December, 1904, the tug that was supposed to take Demers and his helper Fred Pelletier back to the mainland for the winter couldn’t land due to rough seas. There was panic until a rescue tug, at a cost of over $6000  plucked them away from the ice laden light station.

The romance of lighthouses will never fade. Their stories connect our collective need for drama, survival and light. Today one can see a remnant of those times past, not by braving ice-cold seas but by driving about 78 km north on Highway 17 North. On the lake side, tucked on a rocky ledge is that 1908 Coppermine Point Lighthouse. 

When the government tendered its destruction in 1968, a resourceful Ernie Demers dismantled the structure and brought it from Coppermine Point to highlight his Lighthouse Restaurant. The restaurant is gone as is the freshness of the lighthouse paint but the memories still shine through the air.

Yes Light stations do feed our imaginations. Even though they no longer house people that climb long stairs to light lamps, let’s hope that some semblance of that romance kindles our desire to embrace the light. For really, isn’t that what we all want to see at the end of the day?

Power Gifts

early morning rainbow

Power comes in all forms. In the air, through a cord or around the corner. Good thing too. During the holiday season one needs an extra fuse or two to help finish all that needs finishing.

From hanging outdoor lights to sharing soup and biscuits with a friend to chatting it up with strangers while waiting in line at the Post Office, one has to make sure that the batteries stay charged.

We know that a lack of electricity really impacts our lives. That was most obvious last week when we had two days of scheduled electrical outages. Since Algoma Power had to upgrade some of the lines leading from the hydro dams on the Montreal River, we were without the juice from 9am till 5pm. Prepared we were, but you know how early it gets dark. One late afternoon we ended up playing a game of crib by candle and kerosene light. (I almost got skunked).

I suppose that might be how some folks are feeling these days about their power bills. But what are the alternatives? Here’s an interesting phenomenon Google asked me to consider.

Agawa lagoon

We all have a built in energy source. Our own bodies generate electricity. It flows and moves through our bodies as potassium ions rush through cell walls to meet the sodium ions. Those two opposites attract and boy oh girl, when they meet is there ever a spark!  Such impulses domino and before you know it the charges are zapping our systems. Now science wants to upgrade the harvesting of all that energy.

We’ve gone beyond wrist watches that charge their batteries when you shake your arm. (ps – that is called piezoelectricity – electricity from movement). Today’s game is much more complex. We now are in the age of personal energy harvesting devices and the internet of things. Experimenters have strapped the devices to people’s knees, sent them on a walk and pow! The inventions captured enough energy to power five cell phones. Or, how about this? Put energy harvesting materials (usually crystals or ceramics) into the floor and voila! Just imagine what a crystallized dance floor, hockey rink, basketball court, football pitch or theatre stage could produce. 

This insight into harvesting energy has cleared up some of the mystery around the magic of walking. When we take a step, the rising and falling of our foot creates an electrical charge. At the same time we absorb some of the enormous electrical energy inherent in the Earth.  

fire tea

Last week, before the cold and snow of winter moved in, we walked with some friends to the mouth of the Agawa River. That day the sun was playing hide and seek with the clouds. The light would show itself enough to shed warmth and then go back into a cloud to create a Lauren Harris painting. We walked down the cobbled shore, came to a familiar spot by a driftwood log and made a small comfort fire. We needed it. The north wind was being a tease, threatening to force us off the shore at any minute. Lake Superior had chosen to be calm, sending soft rolling waves onto the shore. Blue grey snow clouds lined the horizon but the perfection of the moment remained intact. Sitting on the ground with a log for a back rest, sipping a cup of hot mint green tea, was so relaxing. The walk to the river mouth was more than an opportunity for fine vistas and fresh air. It refilled the gas tank. Or to be more in tune with the current economic and environmental times, the day supercharged our batteries.

watchful

This week is a different story. Our old friend Polar Vortex is threatening to plunk onto our doorstep and steal our energy. Not to be undone by such insistence, I am going to turn the table and grab some power from the cold. I’ll gather it on sunny snowshoe trails beside deep blue Superior, under the glow of a full moon on fresh snow or in the unexpected wonders - like that early dark morning when I saw two shooting stars chase each other down the handle of the Big Dipper.

The next time there is a power outage I doubt there will be an energy harvesting device at my fingertips or kneecaps. For now candles and kerosene are fine to lighten a darkened room. And until kitchen floors come equipped with piezoelectric charging materials I think I'll get my energy from tromping around on snow crystals. I know one can always depend on them to add brightness to the season.

that beautiful blue

Happy Holidays everyone and may your energies increase with each step into the New Year.

What's a Whiskey Jack!

November 14, 2016 :

Lake Superior waves at Montreal River  November 10, 2016

We’ve all got at least one friend. Be it your best, a book or even a bird, each one gladdens the heart. Good thing too. This has been a tricky week. But then November is the trickster’s month.

This November is a far goose cry from that of just two years ago. In November of that year, 2014, we already had LOTS of snow. And it didn’t leave till late May! But for me that was ok. I am a fan of the white stuff. Fresh soft snow, reflecting its shine back up to the stars, is a peaceful thing indeed.

The same can be said for the past few weeks of golden goodness. Hikes along soft needled forest trails have such special magic. Chickadees chirp and Canada Geese share their high lonesome calls. The last of the yellowed moose maple leaves dangle from thin black branches and seem to float in the clear light air. The smell of the damp earth, the aging leaves and orange tips of cedar energize each step. Wind plays through the trees, catching and tossing light into cracks that remain hidden other times of the year. All the while Lake Superior is rumbling and rolling along the shore. No doubt it still will be a while before or IF the lake assumes a winter coat.

Early morning November gold on Montreal Island

A change to a winter coat isn’t just the work of lakes and rabbits and weasels. Some birds adopt winter plumage too. The other day we spotted a distant line of white and grey heads bobbing in north blown waves. I wondered why seagulls would want to sit facing that cold blast of wind. But then I saw them all dive beneath the water. Ahha—not gulls! Winter plumage loons!

To honour our friendship with birds, the Royal Canadian Geographical Society has been asking Canadians for their choice of a national bird. After hundreds of submissions they are down to five candidates - Canada Goose, Snowy Owl (Quebec’s bird), Common Loon (Ontario’s bird), Chickadee (New Brunswick’s bird) and the Grey (the website, for some odd reason uses Gray, the American spelling) Jay. The result will be announced at a RCGS gala dinner in Ottawa on November 16.

You can just imagine the arguing, the to and froing , as to which bird shall be chosen as The One. The chatter has been incredible. David Bird (no kidding), Emeritus Professor of Wildlife Biology at McGill University, speaks for (one of my favs) the Grey Jay AKA the Whiskey Jack (from the Cree Wiskedjak).

A Whiskey Jack looking for a handout at Montreal River On, Nov 14, 2014.

On the website nationalbird.canadiangeographic.ca, Bird lists many reasons for choosing this 70g, 33cm long, feathered pal with a wingspan of up to 45 cm. Plus,  they stay in Canada all year-round, cannot be confused with any other species and are extremely smart and friendly. I’m with Bird. Who couldn’t like this cute, friendly bird that resembles an oversized, fluffy chickadee? Plus, they’re really intelligent and creative. They are the Roberta Bondars of the bird world.

Grey Jays are AKA as “camp robbers”, flying away with bits of your food if given the chance. But people don’t mind; they love this resilient, faithful survivor. 

Check out this story from Joel Coutu in Montreal Quebec.

During the 1930s Depression his grandfather used to spend nine months of the year away from family, working in the lumber camps in Northeastern Quebec, in the Lac Saint Jean area. One day his grandfather cut down a tree that had a Whiskey Jack nest. One of the young birds survived the fall and his grandfather brought it back to the camp, fed it, took care of it and the two became BFF.The bird followed the grandfather everywhere and even played fetch! For the next three years, every fall when the grandfather returned to the camp, the jay would be there and fly onto his shoulder. The jay wouldn’t do this for any other worker in the camp!

Other folks have experienced how Whiskey Jacks like to hang out at the same locale year after year. Former Montreal River resident George Bartley likes to tell the story of snowmobiling to an area about 8 km south of the former “village” at Mile 92 on the ACR to Pike Creek, which stays open all winter. Bartley explained that he always took along extra cheese sandwiches for the large group of Whiskey Jacks who reside there.

Raven cruising over Alpha Tor

Indeed we do have a kinship with birds. They were the first singers. They have given us dreams, wonder, imagination and hope. And yes we do have them as friends. But best of all, we get to reminisce about their benefits.

Update November 17, 2016

 Last night, November 16, 2016, the Canadian Geographic Society awarded the prize to the Whiskey Jack. It became Canada's National Bird. Congrats friend! Thanks for being there.

Now we are ready for winter.