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The long canoe journey comes to an end:[Final
Edition] |
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Article
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Column |
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Column
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Paddling Heritage Coast |
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Section: |
News |
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Publication
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Sudbury
Star. Sudbury, Ont.: Oct 2, 2002. pg. A.2 |
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Source
Type: |
Newspaper |
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ISSN/ISBN: |
08392544 |
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ProQuest
document ID: |
310467311 |
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Text
Word Count |
759 |
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Article
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Abstract (Article Summary) |
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I watched the
eager, entranced faces of the elementary-age students as Killbear Provincial
Park's head naturalist explained how these snakes swim up to five km from the
mainland to hibernate on distant islands. Never on our
journey had the human pressures and conflicts on the coast been more apparent
than in this last week of our journey from Pointe au Baril to Port Severn. It
was brought home to us how essential Ontario Living Legacy's Great Lakes
Heritage Coast's program is, especially given that its No. 1 guiding
principal is to preserve the ecology of the Great Lakes coast. Monarch
butterflies fluttered into the southwest headwinds on their Mexico-bound
migrations with more speed than we could muster despite three months worth of
paddling muscles! In Severn Sound, a pair of whistling swans glided regally
through the shoals and wetlands like a couple of tiny ships. |
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Full Text (759 words) |
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(Copyright The Sudbury Star 2002) 3,000 km of
Great Lakes with the McGuffins Sila walked
quietly up to Kenton Otterbein's side, her attention glued to the 1.5-metre
long fox snake coiling around his arm like a ribbon of gold and black
diamonds. She held out
her hands gently taking the constrictor that now hung down toward her like a
rope. I watched the
eager, entranced faces of the elementary-age students as Killbear Provincial
Park's head naturalist explained how these snakes swim up to five km from the
mainland to hibernate on distant islands. He held up a
small hutch. Behind the
glass panel, the students could see a small, reclusive creature, Ontario's
only poisonous snake, the Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake. Slowly but
surely, his Georgian Bay Reptile Awareness program is helping to preserve
these provincially threatened reptiles long persecuted by humans through
ignorant fear and habitat destruction. After making a
short presentation about our voyage, taking photographs for our Web site,
www.greatlakesheritagecoast.com, and answering a barrage of questions, we got
back into the canoe heading south toward Massasauga and Blackstone Harbour
provincial parks. Each day in
this stretch of our journey, we marveled at the geology of the islands where
ever more fantastic shapes of black and white rock lay moulded and twisted,
heaped up and folded, frozen in their bubbling and erupting state millions
upon millions of years ago. COASTAL
CONFLICTS Never on our
journey had the human pressures and conflicts on the coast been more apparent
than in this last week of our journey from Pointe au Baril to Port Severn. It
was brought home to us how essential Ontario Living Legacy's Great Lakes
Heritage Coast's program is, especially given that its No. 1 guiding
principal is to preserve the ecology of the Great Lakes coast. Without it, we
lose all the other values so cherished. Amidst these
heavily used and privately owned lands, even the smallest Muskoka Heritage
areas and Conservation Reserves represent important wilderness habitat
protection. In a landscape
with a long history of logging, the 100-year old white pine on Franklin and
Shawanaga Islands are a unique sight indeed. The contrast
between the wilderness of the First Nations lands around Moose Point and the
cottage development amidst the Georgian Bay Islands National Park is stark. Enormous
summer homes have sprouted up flaunting, rather than disguising, their
presence. Some even have
night-lit tennis courts which spoils the sight of the Milky Way's gossamer
glow. We questioned
why permission had been granted to allow buildings on some small rock
islands, considering the visual impact and the potential affects on water
quality. On a lovely
September Saturday north of Honey Harbour, we found ourselves on the 401 of
waterways, dodging half-throttle boat wakes, wondering at a landscape so
completely transformed in the 20 years since we last paddled this way. Perhaps one
day a designated "water trail" will thread its way through these
islands, encouraging more people to take a different perspective on
"their backyard" by stepping into a canoe or kayak. Each day, we
found new signs of how far south our route had taken us. In Killbear,
Sila collected beech nuts along with acorns. THE SONG OF
CROWS Crows, not
ravens, awoke us one morning at a campsite on McCrae Lake near Beausoleil
Island. And the fall
season stirs in all of nature now. Sila pointed
out all the loons wearing their grey and white winter plumage. Mirages
turning islands "upside-down" in the distance "told" us
that despite the continued warm weather, Georgian Bay was cooling down. Monarch
butterflies fluttered into the southwest headwinds on their Mexico-bound
migrations with more speed than we could muster despite three months worth of
paddling muscles! In Severn Sound, a pair of whistling swans glided regally
through the shoals and wetlands like a couple of tiny ships. Marsh grasses
swayed gently. After the exhausting buzz of human activity, we felt comforted
by the peaceful scene at our journeys end. Sila reached
out to touch each green and red buoy up the last stretch of the Waubaushene
Channel as if she were completing a dot- to-dot puzzle. We passed
under two great bridges arching over the Severn river mouth, one being the
busy Highway 69 linking southern Ontario with "cottage country" and
points North. At Lock 45
(one end of Parks Canada's Trent-Severn Waterway), we locked through, waving
goodbye to Georgian Bay. When the
attendants opened the upper gates, we took our last few paddle strokes before
stepping ashore -- completing our three-month voyage. - Look back at
the McGuffins' adventures on the Internet at www.greatlakesheritagecoast.com. |