A Roving Correspondent Roves
In recent times, whenever I have crossed the border to visit our friendly neighbor to the north, I have found myself doing so with a sense of relief, as though I have been carrying around a backpack filled with bricks and can finally put it down. All too often of late, our society seems characterized by anger and hatred, festering resentments over imagined privileges somehow denied, a place where arguments and opposing ideologies clash and fume like the mythological battles between archangels and archdemons at the dawn of time, a reality made evident by incidents of road rage and an ever more apparent dearth of common courtesies.
So, this second visit to Canada during this tumultuous year of 2024, was a journey into contentment. Over the years, I have found our Canadian friends to be more courteous, considerate and cheerful than many of their counterparts on this side of the border. At the same time, they present a somehow more robust countenance to the world, as though they put a shoulder to the freezing Arctic winds and shove back, then simply go on about their business.
The purpose of this second drive northward was to experience the 114 mile train ride from the lakeside town of Sault Ste. Marie to Ogawa Canyon. It was well worth the trip, the long drive from south to north across Michigan and over the towering bridges of the Mackinac Straits.
Agawa Canyon lies in the Algoma District of northeastern Ontario, far from the shores of Lake Superior. The canyon was formed approximately 1.2 billion years go as the Agawa River carved out a passage through a fault line along the Canadian Shield. The overhanging cliffs reach a height of 575 feet, and the canyon floor plunges to a depth of 1037 feet. The surrounding landscape is covered with boreal forest. Agawa comes from the Ojibway word for shelter. The Agawa Canyon Wilderness Park was established in 1952 by the Canadian government. There are only two ways to reach the canyon, by way of the Algoma central Rail Road, as we were doing, or by roughing it and hiking in over the wilderness trail. Winter travel might be unadvisable, even impossible, given that the canyon receives up to 180 inches of snow annually.
My wife LaVon, with characteristic foresight, had reserved seats on the last train car. So, we observed the wilderness while riding backwards, a full view of the forest through a huge window that took up the entire wall. It was pure Canada, with perhaps no more than a dozen dwellings along the entire route. The forest encroached against the narrow tracks on both sides all the way. The only exception being when we passed by pristine northern lakes. We were informed that one of the lakes dropped to a depth of 180 feet and that a fisherman once caught a 30 pound lake trout from it.
At one point, we were informed that thousands of acres of forest had once been clear cut, the wood converted to charcoal to feed the steel industry. The land was then sold off to farmers. The corporation made out both ways. Brian Gecko strikes again. Unfortunately, the only crop the land was capable of producing was rocks. Given that it was unfit for farming, all the settlers eventually gave up and departed. “The best laid schemes o’ mice and men.”
Meanwhile, the wilderness, as it always does, watched and waited. The land once depleted of is now indistinguishable from the rest of the vast surrounding woodlands.
I once nurtured and watered several of those whirling maple leaf seeds that had come soaring across the street and taken root in our backyard in Ohio. Within a few years, I had trees standing higher than the house. Should civilization ever collapse, as all civilizations of the past have done, nature would reclaim the land in the blink of an eye. So it was with the ill fated farms of Algoma.
As for wildlife, Bears, deer and moose tend to avoid the area around Agawa Canyon because they dislike the sheer rock walls. During the early years of the railroad, however, employees had difficulty keeping moose off the tracks because they are said to be attracted to train whistles. One wonders what in nature resembles a train whistle to a moose. No one seems to know.
The surrounding forests are havens for squirrels, chipmunks and other fuzzy creatures, and the rivers and streams teem with trout. As for bears, they only appear to me unbidden, never when I go forth in hopes of meeting one.
Given that our Canadian sojourn took place in October, the deciduous trees were in full color, and the hillsides were painted with an explosion of gold, yellow, brown and bright red. All the autumn foliage was interspersed with eternally green conifers. The weather was sparkling clear, with nary a cloud visible. Daytime highs never exceeded 55, just right for me, what I refer to as sweater weather, and my WWII type leather bomber jacket felt just right. Robust weather for a robust people.
The trip took four hours, after which we were set free to explore the trails at the terminus. LaVon and I found a bench alongside a stream where we enjoyed a picnic lunch. We were entertained by the antics of a pair skittering, precocious chipmunks who called to mind the characters who drove Donald Duck into a frenzy in a favorite old Walt Disney cartoon.
Back aboard, we began the long return journey back to Sault Ste. Marie. While we remained alert, entranced by the passing colors, nearly everyone else seemed to fall into an exhausted slumber. Given that we had boarded the train in the predawn murk, their fatigue was understandable.
When we disembarked in Saut Ste. Marie, it was with some reluctance. The lure of the bush has always been irresistible to me. I experienced the same reluctance when we began our drive back across the border into Michigan. Culture shock hit me a day or so later when we sat down for dinner at a restaurant overlooking Lake Michigan. The other patrons were shrieking and shouting like calliopes over the antics of some athletic contest being blasted into the establishment from an overhead television. Canadians seem to be more courteous and subdued, although I have been told that they are avid about hockey, their national sport.
Driving down the west coast of Michigan, we arrived at Great Sleeping Bear Dunes National Park, a place of spiritual significance for me during the lengthy trail through my life’s journey. The great sleeping Bear gazes out over Lake Michigan toward North Manitou and South Manitou Islands, believed by the Ojibway and other northern peoples to be her lost cubs. Thirty one years ago, I scaled the shifting sands of the Great Bear. Now, at 82, better judgment prevailed. Still, I felt a twinge of nostalgia as I reflected upon my six lengthy backpacking adventures out on North Manitou, a federal wilderness area with no facilities. My times there were Thoreau-vian, reducing life to the bare essentials so as to better experience the Great Manitou, the Ojibwa creator god.
Back home in Ohio, risking the purgatory of TV ennui, I found it difficult to endure the evening news, the airwaves contaminated by political attack ads hyping up lies, name calling and character assassination, all provided at great expense for the gratification of those who can only feed from such troughs, of which there seem to be all too many.
All in all, a happy sojourn, a welcome respite.
My enthusiasms include fly fishing, natural history and wilderness backpacking. In 1996, I published privately a memoir, Trails of Laughter/ Trails of Tears, featuring my wilderness adventures and misadventures.I serve when needed as a Licensed Eucharistic Minister in the Episcopal Church.
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