Good Food * Good Listening * Good Company
in Northern Bruce Peninsula
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In which we tell you about ...
Our Labyrinth of Trails
When we moved to Bruce Peninsula ten years ago, we knew we had found a place well suited to both indoor and outdoor experiences. By a lucky stroke we found an indoor experience ideally suited to us and the place, in our Country Supper Storytelling Concerts (return to home page for more information if you don't already have it). Outdoors has proved more difficult for us (not for Bruce Peninsula, which boasts an impressive array), perhaps because sitting and listening to stories during the daytime is not really appropriate to the place. Our experiments were called Lemonade Matinees, then Tea Is For Telling, then Walk and Talk, but none of them proved very attractive.
And yet, people often tell us, and we know, we have a beautiful place, full of diversity and interest. If we were gardeners we could have a Rural Garden, which is something we know people like. But, although Leslie tends some small plots, we enjoy more of a natural than a cultivated place.
Ideally, in our view, one's use of land should evolve from its nature, not from the imposition of preconceived notions. We have now been living here for ten years, and our ideas about how to experience the place have evolved with growing familiarity.
The lot is a classical Ontario 100-acre (40 hectare) lot, 400m by 1000m, oriented roughly east-west. The house is 50 yards from the road on the west side, about half-way between the north and south boundaries. The lot is diversely, often thickly wooded, with terrain ranging from large-tree swamps to relatively open alvars. Some parts of it are quite rough, and in all but the swampy parts grykkes (those long narrow fissures characteristic of alvars) are frequent, inviting the sprained ankle or even broken leg. You always have to watch the ground while walking.
At the ideological (not the physical) centre, close to the house, Leslie has placed what she calls Snake Labyrinth, both as a meditative experience in its own right, and to symbolize the kind of walking that we think most appropriate. This is a place for sauntering, in Thoreau's sense, not for hard slogging and pressing for time. Snake Labyrinth is in classical Cretan form, with minor adjustments to get around the trees. The path is gravel or cedar chips, lined with stones, most of which Leslie carried out of the woods one by one.
Enchanted by this idea, Paul took it one step further, and in 2011 laid out the Alvar Labyrinth, a long trail winding in classical labyrinthine form through the woods in the front quarter of the lot, and taking an hour or so to walk one way. This walk is now fully accessible, but not all properly cleared.
The rear three-quarters, however, does not lend itself to labyrinthine form, being severely longitudinal on the east-west axis and without natural north-south lines compatible with the creation of circular routes. What has evolved, therefore, is a set of nine trails running the length of the lot, with short links and crossings between them wherever openings occur. The nine trails connect at the west end with the circles of the Alvar Labyrinth. Since, from the house, each of the line-trails is somewhere between 1200 and 1500m, and with probably another 2000m in links and crossings, the total length of the trail system must be close to 15 km (10 miles), of which (in 2011) approximately half is clear. Some of the uncleared parts are very rough, especially in areas of thick juniper. Clearing it all is going to take some time.
When the trails are cleared and properly marked it is going to be possible for our guests to walk without a guide, although having one opens up possiblities for conversation that should not be lightly tossed aside. We are getting to know this plot of land quite well, and we would be delighted to show you things that you might not spot for yourself on your first walk.
If this all sounds interesting, and you happen to be on Bruce Peninsula when the weather is favourable, please feel free to drop in any day when we do not have a performance, and we'll show you around.
We look forward to seeing you.