BLUEBERRY MOUNTAIN WALK, OCTOBER 4

 

Our September KAPPS walk is a Special Event, only partly because its not in September! We will bump the September walk a week forward to October 4 so we can join an important walking and environmental day in this region, the Annual Fall Walk to Blueberry Mountain on Sunday, October 4th, at 9:30 a.m. (rain or shine)

Each year the Mississippi Madawaska Land Trust (MMLT) offers its annual Fall Colours Nature Walk at cliffLAND. Registration for the Nature Walk begins at 9:30 a.m. and a guided, interpretive tour will set out at 10:00 a.m. sharp. A donation of $10 per person (children under 12 are free) will go towards maintaining the Land Trust's protected properties. As usual, refreshments will be served following the hike.

For more on the MMLT and cliffLAND, including a map, go to http://mmlt.ca/event/fall-colours-nature-walk-on-blueberry-mountain/
For info, call Ray at 433-9405.

DISCOVERING THE CITY SECRETS

In the last few months I've been reading about the modern history of walking in city environments. This walking practice has to do with discovering aspects and subcultures within the city that are either invisible to vehicular traffic or at risk of being erased by urban development. It might seem a stretch to be considering this kind of walking in a small rural town, however that has proven not to be the case.

Over these last few weeks, partly in combination with my Blue-Box Walking,I've discovered two or three secret places in our small town. It's easy to see how people could ignore these places. They're not very well developed, but they clearly provide a getaway for certain citizens of our town. You can call them secret patios,since what they seem to provide is outdoor social space where people will meet. I have no idea who these people might be, they could be youth or homeless or secret drinkers. There doesn't seem to be the usual kind of evidence that one sees with a secret drinking place - no beer cans, wine bottles or the like. My guess would be this is a secret meeting place for young people who probably have no similar place to meet. These are the kind of people also see hanging out in schoolyards or on Main Street. Further, since our municipal government has removed all public seating in the main public spaces,young people or people limited to very small or shared housing have few options but to create personal social space where they can. What I believe that I see are such spaces.

These are not random places either, clearly they have arranged seating and cleared away brush to make room for sustained visits and conversation. And in some of them there are even small fire pits where I would guess a small inconspicuous fire has been set, partly for warmth and partly for social ambiance.

Yours , on the journey,

Ray

Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet

Thich Nhat Hahn

CELEBRATING THE HILLS

Sunday, September 13, 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.
150 Donald B. Munro Drive, Carp
A donation of $5 per person, $10 per family is requested.

Join the Friends of Huntley Highlands in “Celebrating the Hills”, a public event on a 50-acre private property in the Carp Hills near the village of Carp.  Surrounded by an old forest with rocky outcrops of rugged Canadian Shield, participants can enjoy many activities, explore nature trails, and climb to an exceptional view overlooking the Carp River valley. An art show and sale, guided and self-guided nature walks, music, refreshments, and children’s activities are planned.  The West Carleton War Memorial sculpture by artist Ron Cowle will be on display.

Celebrate the Hills has two purposes:  to raise awareness about this scenic and ecologically important wilderness area and to raise funds for the Friends of Huntley Highlands.  First and foremost is to show people how special the Carp Hills are.  These hills comprise the only expression in the city of Ottawa of the billion-year-old Canadian Shield, the oldest rock on earth and a Canadian icon worldwide that inspired the famous landscapes of the Group of Seven. The Carp Hills are also acknowledged by the City as one of its most important natural features and by the province of Ontario as an Area of Natural and Scientific Interest hosting provincially significant wetlands.

Dr. Owen Clarkin will lead nature walks along paths in the forest and up onto the Carp Hills ridge. Dr. Clarkin is the conservation committee chair of the Ottawa Field-Naturalists, and is well known for his expert knowledge of trees. We are excited to welcome him back to explain the special ecology of the Carp Hills. The old red oak tree that was the winner of our recent Biggest Tree contest will be just one of the highlights of the nature walks.

A call-out has been sent to artists in the region to display their work at this event.  The art on display will be inspired by nature and depict the landscape of the Carp Hills:  hardwood and coniferous forests, wetland and rocky outcrop vegetation, spectacular igneous and sedimentary (including glacial) geology, and wildlife, including species at risk. A marketplace table will be selling small or donated items such as pins, cards, books, small trees, etc, and refreshments from local establishments will be available.

This will also be the final day to bid on Autumn Splendour, a oil painting by by the late, renowned Canadian artist, John Mlacak, donated by his widow, Beth.

Bring your family, enjoy the scenery, and discover the Carp Hills.  For more details, go to www.huntleyhighlands.com

Yours , on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn

RENFREW HISTORY WALK

At our In nature, With Nature retreat yesterday, I lead a walk through some little know parts of Renfrew, relating the impact of industrialization on the natural environment. As we walked I added comments about the ways that our growth as an industrial and railway town had changed the landscape. I also noted how, with the economic shift of the past 30 years, the character and landscape has changed again, leaving scars of a huge scale. We paused at the old industrial zone with empty and collapsing foundries and grain mills.  We passed through a factory site, unnamed by any of our group, which showed rusting machine mounts and concrete slabs. The whole site was nearly entirely overgrown with trees and shrubs and now anonymous.

 
We walked past the main town recycling site and noted how much land in our town needs to be reserved for waste management. Later we strolled through Mateway Park. I explained the emergence of the modern “park” as a civilizing space in modern urban landscapes. It was interesting to appreciate how much we value these as “natural” spaces and forget how much of the space of an urban park is carefully premeditated and preserved to appear in a form that planners consider to be nature-like. We observed the scattering of sports facilities and zones around the park and how these structured recreation spaces belong to the same concept of the modern park. Organized sports arose at the same historical period as the modern park and provide the place for those who use structured space for structured activities. The ideas of solitary strolling, interaction with the environment and of a wild space are all absent.

Yours , on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn               

WALKING AND DOGS

Several times a day I and one or more of my dogs will take a walk down the street to one of several parks that we have at our disposal. This is not a demanding routine but familiar nonetheless. People walking and dogs walking are two very different worlds. We humans will set off from the front door at a brisk pace, purposeful and directed. We have a route and a destination in mind. As we travel the route towards the destination we enjoy the sights and sounds, perhaps a few social opportunities, and the walk is more or less uneventful. For a dog, from the moment we set foot on the path away from the front door, the experience is first and foremost at ground level. What may be going on up above us or down the street is relatively unimportant. Of utmost importance are smells. As soon as we leave the front porch there are smells on the lawn, smells on the laneway, smells around the trees, smells at the edge of the road, smells on the tires of the cars. Theirs is a world of smells.

Where our walking is shaped by a destination and a route, a dog’s walk is shaped by territory, by history, and by the critical task of establishing one’s importance in the environment. There is no distinction between a tire, a blade of grass or the most archetypal of spaces, a fire hydrant. What matters is the identifying scent left behind.What matters is being the freshest and strongest of scents. The top dog.

As we walk these issues do not alter any importance. Designating territory right off the porch is every bit as important [or so it seems] as any bush or clump of grass anywhere along the route. It seems that my dogs can take a break from this territorial obsession for brief periods of time, apparently enjoying running around or circling around my feet as we walk. Nevertheless, such distractions are short-lived. Over and over again, they come back to that smell that calls them like a siren song, ever enticing, ever challenging, with no possibility of not responding.

We each have our needs as we walk around streets and parks of our neighbourhood. We each seek out the corners and vistas that satisfy our needs each time we walk. The challenge Is always to respect the needs and priorities of each other and find a pace and rhythm, so that the return to the front porch brings satisfaction, at least for the moment.

Yours, on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn                       
       
                   
   

           

NEW BLOG NAME

Sometimes, when a path grows with use and new side-trails open up, they earn the right to have a name of their own. We started this blog a couple of years ago as the blog associated with the Padakun initiative. Now its necessary to distinguish the blog, as a weekly commentary on walking topics, from the main Padakun website, which is more of a hub for what has grown into a few different Padakun-centred projects, like KAPPS.
As of this post we announce the new name for this blog as Footprints. In this space we will continue to post weekly reflections and information related to walking. The emphasis will remain on some of the more contemplative aspects of walking and related most specifically on my walking experience here on the trails and pathways of Renfrew County.
Padakun has spun off its first major projects in the form of Ray’s Walk Like A Mountain (WLM) book and the Kick and Push Pedestrian Society (KAPPS), and each of these have prospered in their own way. They will each continue to have their own blog-trails, and we encourage all our followers to check them out too.
Starting this Fall, 2015, we will expand into 2 more projects. The first will take the form of a more scholarly exploration of what we introduced in WLM as “contemplative walking”. We would like to reach across disciplines and determine what we can learn from relatively new sub-discipline known as eco-psychology or eco-therapy. Over the coming year we will examine the main works in this field and try to articulate a larger description for contemplative walking, as well as inviting shared study with others in this micro-field of study.
The second project is just taking shape and is much more practically-oriented. It has occurred to us that most walkers enjoy their walking in a sometimes messy and trash-spoiled environment. We would like to introduce Blue Box Walks as a project that combines our favourite activity, walking, with a little more responsible engagement with the places we walk. Over the next few months we will unfold this project and how you can participate and even introduce it to your neighbourhood.

Yours , on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn

WALKERS AND OTHERS

I went out on the K and P trail this week with my boy, Josh, and more or less had the trail to myself. There were two occasions where I came across fellow travellers and it brought home to me the difference between walkers and other travellers. This is hardly a scientific analysis, but interesting nonetheless, to see the distinction so clearly.
The first to come along was a couple on what is known around here as “a side-by side”, meaning an ATV where the driver and the main passenger sit beside each other, as opposed to one in front of the other, as they might on a motorcycle. They crept up on me, a very respectful and reasonable pace, and passed me in the way that I appreciate, not inconveniencing Josh or I as we each went off in our separate directions. As I usually notice with riders, they chug along making considerable noise, breezing the copious amounts of gasoline fumes, and restricting their interaction with the trail and its periphery to what one can see through the hole in the helmet, cruising at 25 mph. There is scarcely any physical effort required for their trip, and I’ve been told by riders that such riding can have a negative effect on one’s body.
Shortly after that, the next traveller was a young man on a bicycle. He did not have any helmet, shame on him, and had is personal music device plugged into both ears. Unlike the ATV riders, he barely noticed me, and whisked by with barely an acknowledgement. I can only hope that the landscape made more of an impression on him then did my presence. I paused to speculate on what he might remember from his trip once he arrived home.
As others have written, walking is the most immediate means of crossing the landscape, be that urban or rural. The Walker can only have an immediate, intimate and fully physical relationship with what surrounds him/her. These different kinds of riders seem to reduce the landscape to background noise or incidental scenery, rather than the immediate setting of one’s travel.

Yours , on the journey,                           
Ray
Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet
Thich Nhat Hahn