Of course New Year’s Day is today….and I hope to spend a few hours walking around (mainly to get some fresh air….and escape this computer for a while….or endless marathons of TV shows or college football bowls). I would love to venture out into the woods and fields of my youth (what are left of them any way….there has been a fair bit of development….especially the building of subdivisions….new homes for the lucky few who can afford an escape to the country….even one within an hour of a major city). My home town hasn’t changed that much….yet it is very different from what it was when my family first moved up here over 40 years ago. The tobogganing hill is gone….most of the fields are gone….many being bulldozed to create building lots for houses that literally seem to be stacked side by side.
Even the access to the woods that I roamed as a kid is restricted….there are signs posted indicating ‘No Trespassing’ or ‘No Admittance’ or ‘Private Property’. Maybe there was a similar situation when I wandered through the same bushlot as a youngster….it was ‘private property’ after all….but never posted. Then again it was ‘private property’….the private refuge for myself and a few other neighbourhood kids….our personal ‘private’ place….a place where dreams could be made….where we could be explorers or fur traders braving the harsh winter of a vast land….where we could search out the wildlife….looking for tracks in the snow….or other animal signs….especially those easily seen in the winter such as bird nests on the bare limbs of trees.
The winter months were very much the time of being in the bush. There was no problem with pesty mosquitoes. We could hike across the snowy fields….even snowshoe or ski (especially on old wood skis with a bearpaw binding….that attached our rubber boots to the ski) at times. The swampy areas were frozen over….and venturing through that part of the woods was a real adventure. There were a few trees that had fallen over in the swamp….lying a cross the frozen ground with exposed roots. Some such trees became hollowed out logs with time….but even the dirt covered masses of roots, twice the height of any child….some with intricate ‘caves’….any of these creating what we were sure were perfect dens for all sorts of creatures (even bears or wolves in our earlier childhood imaginations….as we became older….and ‘wiser’ we realized they might house the odd raccoon family). There was the bramble patches that housed small animals such as rabbits….which we caught glimpses of now and then….but more often saw the distinct tracks of a rabbit in the snow:
From http://www.old-weston-past-and-present.com/animal-tracks.html.
Sometimes these tracks told a story in themselves:
A photo from http://alistairpott.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/rabbit-owl.jpg, that as it describes: “….shows the tracks of a rabbit moving across some snow when BAM an owl nails it. You can see the wings of the attacking bird imprinted in the snow – and no more rabbit tracks…’”.
There were a number of birds seen….flocks of crows….woodpeckers tapping on dead trees, looking for a morsel of food (their location given up by the drumming of their beaks on the tree)….common winter birds such as chickadees, blue jays or even grosbeaks….even the odd ring-necked pheasant or ruffed grouse flushed out….and of course an owl or a hawk now and then seen perched in a tree or on a fence post bordering one of the many fields, just waiting for a small rodent to scurry out. One winter we even had a visitor from the Far North….a snowy owl perched on the hydro pole in our backyard….and later I found out that snowy owls came south in years when their usual food source, the lemming, had a crash in numbers.
There was also the tracks of small animals such as mice or red squirrels….even larger ones such as a fox or a deer….or what we were sure was a larger canine such as a wolf….but was more likely a neighbourhood dog….or even possibly a coyote (since they frequent the area around here….and I can hear them howl sometimes at night).
I remember seeing several animals….not just their tracks….raccoons sunning themselves in the winter daylight, high up in a tree….digging under the snow and finding the nest of dead grass that housed mice (that would live warm and snug buried under the snow)….and of course red squirrels scolding from a pine tree.
But because I was limited in time….just out for a short walk before dinner….and any way to that woodlot and fields was blocked by the restrictive signage….and chain link fences….I didn’t head out onto once familiar trails or paths. Maybe that was a good thing….because my memories of those places might not live up to what I could find. If nothing more though, just thinking of what was once ‘our place’, I remembered how fortunate I was growing up where I did. How fortunate were others who had their secret places….a local creek….a ravine….an old orchard….a pond….or woodlot. And why maybe some of today’s kids don’t have it as ‘good’ as we did at the same age.
I have often quoted Sigurd Olson here…..I find much in his thoughts and reflections that just ‘fit’ with my own. Here is Sigurd’s observations of New Year’s,http://www4.uwm.edu/letsci/research/sigurd_olson/articles/columns/new_years_and_the_river–jan02.htm:
New Year’s and the River
It was ten below on New Year’s Day and I had gone to the country of my boyhood to get acquainted and to renew old associations. One of the things I knew I must see at once was the river, and though I knew it was frozen throughout most of its course, I also knew that where it ran beneath the old iron bridge, it was free. More than anything else, I wanted to see its n, the bottom with its familiar stones, to listen to the gurgle as it rippled its way over them. Even though it would be sheathed in ice and the open water shrouded with mist, though there were no birds, no humming hatch of flies, no chance of sky reflections, I still wanted to see it, for the little river meant many things to me.
I hurried along the winter road and the road was beautiful with new snow and the pines along the borders of the fields were laden with it. Even the jack pines looked strange that morning beneath their heavy load, more like spruce trees than pines, but the grandest of all were the white pines with their branches drooping close to the snow, near to breaking with the weight of it.
In a few minutes I was at the bridge, and to my joy for a hundred yards the river was open, though crowded by ice above and below. Underneath me, the water was clear and transparent, more crystalline it seemed than ever. Bronze golden nuggets of gravel moved slowly in the sunlight and in between them danced tiny irridescent bits of shell, whirling in the swift undertow, settling for a moment, only to dance again. To one side was a large unbroken clam shell, the polished mother-of-pearl flashing as it also weaved in the current. The larger rocks held their position though the sands eddied impatiently around them. I could hear the soft rippling clearly now, but as an undertone was the constant swish of ice and slush drifting continually from the solid mass above to that below trying, it seemed, to close completely what open water remained.
How alive the river was in this last open space beneath the bridge. Elsewhere it was dead, but here it was as alive as an open wound, alive and full of sound and movement, and I thought as I stood there and watched it that someday I would fulfill my dream and build a house where I could always be near it, close enough so that I could make that perennial aliveness a part of myself, so that when my mind was weary with thinking and my body of work, I could come down to the rapids and watch it and absorb some of its virility and joy.
As I walked away from the river and the swishing of the ice blended at last with the sound of the drifting snow beside the road, I was glad I came, for it did me good to know that it was free beneath the bridge. Somehow, it made me feel that the year was getting off to a good start, that there was much to look forward to, that simple things which had given happiness in the past were unchangeable and true. I went back to the farm house, back to the snow laden pines and the windswept fields I had left.
Just a few thoughts for New Year’s Day….
