The Rouge River Valley: An Urban Wilderness

The

Rouge River

Valley An Urban Wilderness

This page intentionally left blank

The

Rouge River

Valley An Urban Wilderness James E. Garratt

NATURAL

H E R I T A G E B O O KS

Copyright © 2000 James E. Garratt All rights reserved. No portion of this book, with the exception of brief extracts for the purpose of literary or scholarly review, may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publisher. Published by Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. P.O. Box 95 Station O, Toronto, Ontario M4A 2M8

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Garratt, James, 1954 The Rouge River Valley : an urban wilderness Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-896219-61-6

1. Rouge Park (Toronto, Ont.). 2. Parks—Ontario—Rouge River Valley. 3. Natural areas—Ontario—Rouge River Valley. 4. Nature conservation—Ontario—Rouge River Valley—Citizen participation. 5. Environmental policy—Ontario—Rouge River Valley—Citizen participation. I. Title.

QH77.C3G37 1999

333.78'3'09713541

C99-931717-2

Cover and text design by Derek Chung Tiam Fook Edited by Jane Gibson Printed and bound in Canada by Hignell Printing Limited, Winnipeg, Manitoba.

LE CONSEIL DES ARTS

THE CANADA COUNCIL

DU CANADA

FOR THE ARTS

DEPUIS 1957

SINCE 1957

Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc. acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Canada Council Block Grant Program. Also acknowledged is the assistance of the Association for the Export of Canadian Books, Ottawa. Natural Heritage acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council for its publishing program.

C on t en t s

Map I

6

Preface

7

Introduction

11

Spring

15

Summer

59

Autumn

93

Winter

119

Afterword

137

Endnotes

140

Index

146

Selected Bibliography

152

About the Author

159

Map II

160

MAPI LOWER ROUGE VALLEY Main access points & trail heads 1. Public parking in central section of the valley. From here, trails leading north or south along the Hogback and Rouge bottomland can be accessed. Be careful crossing Twyn Rivers Drive, as visibility is limited. 2. Glen Eagles Campground and public parking. Besides the possibility of family camping, this access point is a good place to begin a hike north along the Rouge bottomland. 3. Old Glen Eagles Hotel site (hotel itself now demolished). Good views can be had from here into the valley. TTC bus stop nearby on Sheppard Avenue. Trails begin on north side of Twyn Rivers Drive (again use caution when crossing this road). 4. Public parking, Finch Meander area. Note: some trail closures are in effect here due to soil erosion.

6

5. Rouge Beach. Parking and access to the beach and river mouth. A pedestrian bridge leads to the east side of the river.

6. Woodlands. An old campground (no longer operating) provides easy walking trails beside the Little Rouge River. 7. Island Road. A trail leads south from here toward the Rouge Marsh. Parking is restricted in residential neighbourhood. 8. Pearse House. Located east of Meadowvale Road, off Toronto Zoo entrance road. Several trails begin here. Information about the Rouge and upcoming events should be available in the house. 9. Beare Road Landfill Site. Access along the road from Pearse House. Great view from top of hill. Respect closures and restricted areas. NOTE: In all areas please heed trail signage. Watch for poison ivy since trails may change with time and circumstance. Obtain updated information from Rouge Park Office (see Appendix)

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

"YES, IT'S POSSIBLE TO BE 'GROUNDED' HERE IN THE CITY," SAID VERN HARPER, A well-respected Cree elder and Urban Traditionalist. "It is more difficult. But you can find your place on Mother Earth even here." He was speaking to people gathered in Toronto for a recent Earth Day celebration. The subject of this book is one place within the city where many people have proven the truth of Harper's words. The main focus of the book is the eleven thousand acres of Rouge River Valley that lie within what was once the City of Scarborough (now absorbed into Toronto), extending from the valley's west edge, east into the town of Pickering, north to Steeles Avenue and south to Lake Ontario. This area is known as the Lower Rouge Valley. Of course, any consideration of this portion of the Rouge must deal at least implicitly with influences arising from the watershed's upper reaches and, indeed, several sections of the book are set in areas of the valley outside of Toronto. My own involvement with the Rouge began in the early 1980s. Prior to that time, I was preoccupied with the apparently common Canadian desire to 'escape to the Territories,' and there dwell in some Edenic wilderness, remote from the turmoil of Industrial society. The Rouge Valley, however, gradually presented itself as an alternative kind of wilderness, accessible within the city. And it proved itself to be almost as unexplored as the more northerly hinterlands; few studies had been done of the valley and, whatever information did exist, was widely scattered. I began my investigation of this area using the time-honoured naturalist's method of keeping a field journal. Soon a bewildering variety of observations,

Preface

7

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

8

facts and questions relating to the valley began to fill my notebooks. These were recorded on the spot, in every kind of weather and all seasons. After five years of this habitual journalizing, patterns, trends and recurring Rouge characteristics began to become discernable. The journal continued to grow, however, (as it does even now) until, after an accumulation of more than twelve years of observations (1984-96), I felt confident enough to begin assembling what amounts to a partial portrait of a single year in the Rouge Valley. This 'year' most closely typifies one in the late 1980s, but all observations therein have been substantiated by the twelve years of field notes. The book's form, then, comes directly from my field journal, and consists of a series of 'set-pieces' which are linked either directly and/or by the flow of seasonal changes in the Rouge. My note taking and observing were motivated partly by a compelling need to document what seemed to be the very fragile and transient natural phenomena of the Rouge. Given the overwhelming urban context of the valley, one could never be sure that a given bird, animal, fish, flower or view would endure to the next day. Development was rapidly encroaching. It seemed almost assured that urban sprawl would obliterate much of the Rouge, and its natural treasures would be lost forever, without ever having been recognized. So, unlike a mythical northern retreat, the Rouge did not provide escape from the problems of civilization. Instead, it became a centre of conflict. And as pro- and anti-development battles were waged, the valley seemed to draw sympathetic people to itself who then marshalled a major, and perhaps unprecedented campaign, towards 'saving the Rouge.' Thus, a previously isolated grassroots community of Rouge admirers found that by sharing and communicating their experiences among themselves and their political representatives, they could wield tremendous power. This was demonstrated in the autumn of 1987, for instance, when hundreds of citizens packed the then Scarborough Council Chambers to successfully support the preservation of the lower Rouge Valley; and in March 1990, when the Provincial Government, acting in response to grassroots democratic pressure, declared its intent to create Canada's largest urban park within the Rouge. Now, as a new millennium dawns, the Rouge Park is an official reality. Park or not, the Rouge will never be completely secure or static. For better or worse, the official park plan can be altered, and the life of the valley will ebb and flow in response to external forces. Through these ongoing uncertainties, I hope that this book will help to keep attention focused on the natural attributes

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

of the valley—its real value—as opposed to the purely human-political aspects. After all, we want to know what it is we're striving to protect. Today, with the 'Information Highway' exploding upon us, it might seem as if all available information about the Rouge and nature in general should be readily accessible. But such is not the case. The blizzard of advertising and computerized flashy graphics which clamour for our attention, encourage an inward-drawn restlessness and make it easy to neglect the original, primary sources of information. Instead of asking "where did?" the pro-offered information come from, we become 'hooked' on the latest style propagated on the Net or promised by some new electronic gadget. Young people in particular are susceptible. They are often manipulated, through the electronic media (TV, games, videos, the Net), by commercial interests seeking to divest them of discretionary income. The more fashions or toys they can be convinced they need, the more money will be made—the faster the better. Coupled with this attention-deficit situation, is a disturbing drift toward an unwillingness to distinguish between reality and that which is virtual or contrived—a situation which again plays into the hands of those who seek to gain economic or political powers. Countless different versions of 'reality' are just waiting to be sold to an compliant populace. In this context, it is challenging for people to try to cultivate the skills of prolonged observation and attention that are required to gain familiarity with the natural world. It is hoped that this book will encourage you, the reader, to continue developing a personal relationship with the Earth. Perhaps, too, you may become actively engaged with contemporary environmental advocacy. As pointed out, a degree of patience, attentiveness and inner quietness is required, without expectation of instant gratification. In any event, the following pages attempt to reveal some of the rewards which will eventually accrue to the diligent student of nature; these include an endless adventure involving all the physical senses as well as the mind and spirit. As additional incentives, two maps are included. One delineates trails and access points, while the other locates Rouge features described in the main text. A bibliography with a list of other sources of information is also included. Of course, one of the special features of the Rouge Valley is its location within a major city. This feature initially led some environmentalists to suggest that areas like the Rouge should actually be developed. The idea was to contain urban growth as much as possible by sacrificing such urban green spaces for the sake of more remote, pristine tracts. The flaw in this argument, however, is that

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

9

urban expansion is accelerating. Eventually, the farthest wilderness may be brought within the sphere of urban influence. We have to learn to live with the Earth right here, wherever we may be. If, to a degree, this book affirms the place of wild nature in the city, then it will have met expectations. Certainly, terms such as "urban wilderness" and "passive recreation" are heard frequently in the continuing Rouge debate. The concepts behind these terms indicate a readiness to grapple with the seemingly inherent contradictions between city and nature. And this book may help to answer positively, as did Vern Harper, the question of whether it's possible to be a true naturalist "grounded" in a modern city. The words of Ian L. McHarg—an urban planner who sought to "design with nature"—hold true: "We need nature as much in the city as in the country." 1

10

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

THE WATERS OF THE ROUGE RlVER HAVE THEIR SOURCES IN A LANDFORM KNOWN

as the Oak Ridges Moraine. This moraine is located about seventeen miles north of the present Lake Ontario shore, and was formed about twelve thousand years ago during the last Ice Age. At that time the ice sheet, which covered the entire province of Ontario, gradually began to thin and split, leaving an accumulation of sand, rocks and gravel between the north-and-southward-receding lobes of ice. In the Oak Ridges' area, this glacial debris was piled in steep, knobby hills which created a convoluted, spongy landscape perfect for feeding a river system such as the Rouge. From the springs and wetlands of the Oak Ridges Moraine, innumerable creeks and feeder streams radiate southward. Within the Rouge watershed, five main creeks can be readily identified. They are, from west to east, the Beaver, Rouge, Berczy, Bruce and Little Rouge creeks. Not yet deeply incised into the land, they meander gently through and around farmland and the towns of Unionville and Markham, where they flow often unrecognized as being parts of the larger Rouge River system. But as the creeks flow southward, they gather water and velocity; they also converge, until by Steeles Avenue on Scarborough's north border, only three large branches remain: the Rouge and 2 Little Rouge rivers; and the now almost obliterated Morningside Tributary. Below Steeles Avenue the rivers run swiftly through the historic farmlands and woodlots of northeast Toronto. Here they cut their identities into the land, down through the sandy soil to hard clay and boulders beneath. This natural erosive action is especially apparent two miles farther south, at the Finch Meander. At this location, the Rouge loops eastward before passing

Introduction

11

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

below Finch Avenue and into the grounds of the Toronto Zoo. One hundred and twenty-foot high cliffs of sand, silt and clay rise around the Finch Meander. The view from the edge of these cliffs provides little evidence of Homo sapiens sapiens presence. Instead, an impression is had of a relatively undisturbed land/river system. Natural forces continue to shape this land; and the lifeforms that those forces brought into the valley, such as white-tailed deer and redtailed hawks, are still at home. South of the Finch Meander and the Zoo grounds, the Rouge and Little Rouge converge quickly. At Twyn Rivers Drive they are separated by an elongated plateau called an "interfluvial ridge" or "tableland" by geologists, although it is known locally as the Hogback. The mature forest on this landform is part of the Little Rouge Forest which, at four hundred acres in area, is the largest forest in Toronto. Northern trees such as hemlock, birch and pine grow here in close proximity to southern species such as black walnut, sycamore, white oak and witch hazel. Red and flying squirrels, fox, deer, ruffed grouse, barred owls, and blue-grey gnatcatchers are among the wildlife species that inhabit this area of the Forest. And yet it is here in the heart of the Lower Rouge Valley that the city is closest. Pickering to the east, Toronto and Markham to the north and west almost surround the valley. And many evenings as the sun sets over the Rouge, more lights of newly-constructed apartment buildings, houses and roadways appear above the valley; while below in the gathering darkness, patterns of life that have been evolving since the last Ice Age, continue to unfold. City and valley meet in a kind of estranged remoteness. The individual urban naturalist, however, can experience how quickly that remoteness may be bridged, and know the responsibility of insuring that such experience is always viable and available to be shared. The sound of traffic is perhaps the most insistent reminder of the city's presence. One mile south of Twyn Rivers Drive at the end of the Little Rouge Forest, highways 2 and 401 span the valley.3 The huge bridges that support these highways render barren the surrounding valley lands. Few plant or animal species can survive the droughty, poorly-lit and polluted conditions. But it is here beneath the bridges that the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers finally flow together to form the Rouge River proper. Here, the character of the waterway changes abruptly. It becomes a broad, placid, slow-flowing mature river. The Rouge slips slowly around the concrete fenders below the highways and onto to its final approach to Lake Ontario. In the mile and a quarter before Lake Ontario, the Rouge flows through a 12

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

clay plain deposited by glacial Lake Iroquois. This clay soil contributes to the river's murkiness, already increased by the sediments carried from all the upper areas of the watershed. The river's unhurried pace allows some of this material to settle, creating a fertile base for vegetation. Lush groves of Manitoba maples, willows and ostrich ferns line the banks. And in the quiet waters, regionally rare turtles make their homes. A half mile farther south, the river suddenly emerges into an extensive wetland. Tall cattails and purple loosestrife replace the trees along the river's edge. This is the Provincially significant Lower Rouge Marsh—the best remaining wetland along the Toronto shore. Covering over one hundred acres, the marsh provides nesting habitat for birds such as the black tern, American bittern and Canada goose, while the turbid waters throng with catfish, perch, sunfish... Past the marsh, the waters of the Rouge gather in an estuary behind the Rouge beach—a sandbar created by the wave action of Lake Ontario. The water rests in this estuary before finding its way through a narrow channel in the sandbar and finally flowing out into the lake. The river's journey seems to end at the lake. But the Rouge flows on in time through the natural cycles of the seasons, which begin again in spring.

13

THE

ROUGE

RIVER

V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

The Rouge River, northwest from the highest cliff above the Finch Meander. Farmlands of northeast Toronto are visible in the distance. Notice also the streamside forests and meadows, features which are now rare along rivers in Toronto.

14

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

COLD WATERS OF THE ROUGE RlVER SWIRLED AGAINST JAGGED FLOES OF ICE WHICH

clogged the river. The water tried to work its way through the obstructing ice, but gradually the quantity being held back increased. The ice could not proceed. In fact, it was becoming more tightly jammed, as minute by minute, more ice arrived from upstream. Each new chunk of ice added to the pressure in the ice jam. Pieces jostled together or abruptly disappeared below, caught in a strong undertow; others tilted up on edge as the pressure built. Many of the ice floes were rimmed with transparent fragile ice crystals, a result of grinding together. These crystals made a delicate tinkling sound, in contrast to the ponderous heaving of the ice floes. Above the sounds of the ice-bound river came the soft sound of rain, a cold March rain drenching the trees in the valley. The shower had begun as a heavy mist. Now it accumulated in silvery droplets on the tree branches and dripped down to further swell the river's volume. I stayed a respectful distance from the river's edge and shivered in the dampness, but did not regret hiking down into the valley south of Twyn Rivers Drive. Earlier, it had been tempting to remain indoors within the city's confines, and allow what might have been a personal lethargy to blend with the city's winter-weariness. Pavement, warm shelters, appliances... made it convenient to accept the city's dedication to changeless security. Especially since here in the valley, 'breakup' was underway. Continuing south along the east side of the Rouge, my boots crunched through rotting ice that coated the ground. This ice was losing its grip on the old weeds and grasses; it gleamed with translucent greyness, reflecting the sky that

S p r i n g

15

THE

ROUGE RIVER VALLEY

An

Urban

Wilderness

opened over the valley. And the valley itself opened wide to the east, revealing a broad bottomland. Here it was apparent that the Rouge had found a way to relieve some pressure in the upstream ice jam. Water, forced by the unrelenting pressure, was welling up from beneath the ice and spilling over onto the land. As a result, new streams were flowing all across the usually dry bottomland. These slushy rivulets threaded through bedraggled tangles of last year's goldenrod, timothy, milkweed... Cautiously, I made my way among them, and experienced a disconcerting sense of being in the middle of the Rouge River rather than on its bank. The overall direction of the river seemed lost in the confusion of meltwater. The rain strengthened and, turning to hike back, I wondered if March would live up to its reputation for uncertainty. Would colder weather return with ice and snow, making other breakups necessary before spring gained the upper hand? Or would the present ice-out proceed apace? I looked again down the valley, but the rain shrouded the distant prospect.

16

Several days later, in mid-March, I stood above the valley at Twyn Rivers Drive and listened to a flock of fifty common grackles calling from a maple beside the road. The mingling voices of these large, dark birds produced a chorus of shrieks. Their excitement was contagious, proclaiming some new discovery, inviting me to walk down into the valley to investigate. A north breeze was funnelling through the valley, carrying the raw scent of thawing earth. It was a savour of the new season which came as a revelation after the city's deadened air. The trees too had a new-found springiness—their frosty stiffness was gone. And below the sound of the breeze coursing through the trees, came the river's liquid voice, steady, sustained, no longer choked by ice. With scant evidence of the recent breakup to be seen, it was easy to forget the passing months of cold for a while. But upon searching along the edge of the river, winter was found lingering below the willow and dogwood shrubs. Large blocks of grey, bubble-filled ice cast up and abandoned among the bushes by the freshets were sullen reminders. These icy remnants carried a gritty load of sand, silt and gravel. Slowly they were melting, becoming rounded and smooth and soon would vanish altogether, save for their transported loads of soil materials. Around me were other telltale signs of recent winter. The riverside bushes had been crushed and the trunks of adjacent trees were skinned bare by previous episodes of ice. Perhaps it was this close proximity of winter that accounted for the

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

tentative, wistful quality of a chickadee's song issuing from the bushes along the river. It was not the chickadee's normal namesake song, but the shorter phee be version, which Canadian ornithologist Percy Taverner once translated as meaning 'Spring's Here.'4 Still, this so-called spring song sounded unsure and, indeed, the chickadee might be heard singing 'Spring's Here' in winter while snow fell. The river, however, left little doubt about spring's arrival. Swollen with the season's strength, it seemed to breathe deeply as its brownish water, flecked with rapids, acquired oxygen with every burbling leap and splash. I observed it from the ice-scoured bank. Just then, it was sufficient to watch the water rushing past and trust the river to accomplish whatever 'work' was required. The river invited my complete confidence; it had no doubts about the future. Spring's arrival was further confirmed when a pair of common mergansers (also called sheldrakes) swam into view around a bend in the Rouge, expertly riding the strong currents, 'ferrying' across rapids and playing the eddies. I felt envious of their abilities as I peered through my binoculars. The male merganser's contrasting dark head and white body were unmistakable. It was amazing that these big, fish-eating ducks always seemed to know the approximate date of iceout on the Rouge. Each year mergansers appeared almost simultaneously with the open water. Apparently this was true of other times and places, as Henry David Thoreau noted in his journal of 1856: "Ask the sheldrakes whether the rivers are completely sealed up."5 The 'mergs' could be called opportunists, constantly probing northward and progressing with the season. In several days time they might be gone, enroute to their more northerly nesting grounds. How many setbacks, how many delays and frustrations had the mergansers experienced as they dwelt on the edge of the seasons? How many times had their expectations—of clean open water and good fishing—been thwarted by chance or design? Yet here they were again. They and their kind never give up, no matter what the obstacle. Cold wind swept across the Rouge tablelands in this northeast Toronto setting. The wind had a wintry chilliness, but as I walked up the lane to Russ Reesor's historic farmhouse, I could see black soil appearing through the shrinking cover of snow and ice on the fields.6 Furthermore, another sign of spring was at hand: for the season usually brings an upsurge of people problems and activity in the Rouge. There was no answer to my knock at Reesor's door, so I continued along the lane toward the farm woodlot visible in the distance. For more than a hundred and thirty years the Reesor family had lived and worked on this farm and

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

17

Russ Reesor and Glen DeBaeremaeker in Reesor's woodlot. A large bitternut hickory stands behind them.

18

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

maintained the bush. For years this hundred-acre woodlot had yielded firewood, building stock and, more recently, material for the unique walking canes which Russ Reesor fashioned by hand. Now this bush, determinedly cherished by the Reesors since the inception of northeast Toronto's rural heritage, was being threatened by a proposal to widen an Ontario Hydro transmission corridor which ran diagonally across the farm's southwest side. Soon the stand of trees stood starkly before me. Beyond it loomed the hydro towers with their wires strung against the grey sky. I skirted the woodlot's edge, admiring the fine hardwood bush containing trees of all ages and sizes: seedlings protruding from the sunken snow; saplings; pole-sized and large mature trees. Bitternut hickory was unusually common and, near the top of one of the tallest hickories, was a bulky nest, probably that of a great horned owl. At the woodlot's southern edge I could see that this present bush had, until relatively recently, been part of a much larger forest. Stumps and logs, strewn below the hydro towers, were all that told of the woodlot's former extent. Now, most of this last fragment of Reesor's trees were slated to suffer the same fate. Russ Reesor himself soon found me. Now in his eighties, he was resolutely capable of climbing A great-horned owl's nest in a tree adjacent to fences and walking for hours over this land. I the corridor. knew that he had resisted all offers by developers to buy him out. A million dollars couldn't change his desire to keep this lifestyle and land, which for so long had been part of the Rouge environment. Upon hearing of Ontario Hydro's intention to proceed with widening the corridor, he'd contacted the local environmental group Save the Rouge Valley System (SRVS), a last attempt to save the woodlot from destruction. Yet, it seemed more appropriate for SRVS to shake his hand and ask him how to go about that task—how to persist and endure. He was a true survivor. A short time later, the SRVS initiated dialogue with Ontario Hydro about the Reesor woodlot. Hydro's first response was that they had "done all they could." A new line must be added to the corridor to accommodate increasing demand for electricity. "Progress cannot be stopped," they said.7 But that would depend upon how "progress" was actually defined by 19 people, and how many people would come forward to express alternative views.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

The Hydro corridor along the woodlot's south side.

20

View west along the corridor's north side.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

Meanwhile, the Rouge and its inhabitants offered a different notion of "progress/' and how it might occur. Not more than a mile southeast of Russ Reesor's farm, is the Finch Meander. In mid-March, I left my car on the shoulder of Sewells Road and hiked to the tableland forest above the east side of the meander. The weather had continued cold, but a west breeze brought clearing skies. To westward, little sign of Toronto was visible, only the forest sweeping round the river's edge to touch the toe of the eroding cliff on which I stood. A pair of crows flew over. These birds had probably recently arrived from wintering in the south. Their dark feathers shone in the sunlight as fresh air washed through their wings. They turned and glided down into the valley. Crows had long been persecuted by humanity, yet with no effect on their numbers. They too were real survivors. To a degree they actually benefited from humanity's presence, while retaining their wild independence and resourcefulness. The crows' strong caw caw caw signalled that indeed the year had progressed sufficiently for them. Another movement close at hand attracted my attention. A small bird was pecking at a birch sapling. Hurriedly, I adjusted my binoculars to confirm that the bird had a solid black back, grey mottled sides and a distinctive yellow patch on its forehead, signifying a male black-backed woodpecker! Another, less noticeable feature of this woodpecker was that it had only three toes on each foot (most other woodpeckers have four). This bird was an emissary from the coniferous forests of northern Ontario, only occasionally seen as far south as the Rouge. What message or portend might it have brought from the North? Certainly its presence confirmed a depth of wildness in the Rouge; here for now, at least, this native of the northern wilderness could find a home. In any case, the woodpecker had arrived almost simultaneously with the mergansers and the crows—though from the opposite direction—in time for spring on the Rouge. A couple of days later it seemed probable that the black-backed woodpecker had been the foreshadower of a storm, one which most likely had driven the bird down from the north. As I walked a trail north from Twyn Rivers Drive above the east side of the Rouge River, the storm hit. It arrived on northern air blowing through the forest, and with rain driving down among the trees, turning the day

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

21

Looking east into the Finch Meander.

22

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

into darkness there among the rain-wet trees. The trail led to the interfluvial tableland. Here, the forest abruptly ended at the southern edge of another Ontario Hydro corridor, the largest to traverse the Rouge. It cut a fifty acre swath, west to east, across the tableland and, fortunately, as a result of neglect, had partly reverted to a natural meadow, the grasses and weeds remaining uncut, the shrubs not sprayed with herbicide. Although the hydro towers and the kilowatts of power they carried— hinted at by the buzzing of wires in the damp air—were impressive, the power of the approaching storm was of more immediate interest. The air became suddenly colder and, before I was halfway across the meadow, big flakes of snow began drifting down from the north. They fell across the meadow's expanse, fluffy and individually distinct from close by, but blending into a white veil in the distance. The storm blew itself out overnight, leaving the Rouge covered with whiteness again. Early next morning, I revisited the meadow area and explored down along the Rouge River east of Meadowvale Road. The new snow made excellent tracking. Among the animals that had registered their prints in the thin covering, were cottontail rabbits and white-tailed deer. The double loping prints of a large member of the weasel family were especially intriguing. Judging by their size, they were probably those of a river otter. Rather then repressing the Rouge's wildlife, the resurgence of winter had merely revealed its presence. And in the Rouge forest adjacent to the hydro corridor, I found other unmistakable evidence of the valley's quickening life. Here and there tree trunks were wet with sap, now starting to flow and find its way through any openings in the bark. Spring seemed to gain a step as, within two days, the newly-fallen snow vanished completely. It sank into the wet earth, leaving only cold pools of meltwater to mark its passing. As March drew to a close, I returned to the tableland meadow to hear sounds of birdlife issuing from across the field—sounds as well-remembered and yet as fresh and inviting as the strengthening sunlight. A robin called; a male redwinged blackbird sang. From beyond, the high clear notes of an eastern meadowlark caught my attention, the bird perched low in a dogwood bush. As I watched through binoculars, it flew up for a moment, revealing its bright white tail feathers and sunny yellow and black breast colours. The day ebbed and the sun's rays lengthened. From the east edge of the Rouge meadow, I looked down into the Little Rouge valley. Low sunlight lit the bare poplars beside the river, clothing the valley's contours with a warm, mellow

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

23

24

aura, despite lingering coolness from the grey leafless trees and the cool green of pines lifting to the sky. I looked up at the sky above the valley expecting to see flocks of waterfowl migrating swiftly southward following the valley, but instead sighted high delicate cirrus in the chalky blue sky and, beyond the clouds, an ivory crescent moon. The moon grew brighter as the April twilight settled over the meadow. Shadows welled silently up from the valley to softly fringe the open land. Suddenly, the evening hush was broken. From here and there around the meadow's edge, and from beneath scattered bushes, came the piercing call of woodcocks, with three of the birds starting at once. Cautiously, I made my way toward one, pausing every so often so as not to alarm the invisible bird, and was soon standing near it. Several minutes of silence passed before the woodcock resumed its monosyllabic song, a loud peent repeated every other minute. From that close proximity, the call had a more than auditory quality, it was pervasive, and resonant with the April earth. After a half-dozen repetitions of the single note, there was a quiet whistling of wings and the woodcock flew up. Momentarily, it was visible against the evening sky, its oddly-shaped blunt body hurtling upward on fluttering wings. Higher and higher it flew, passing from sight in the sky, though still audible, until the whistling of its wings changed and the bird began to produce staccato, highpitched chirps. Abruptly it spiraled earthward, chirping all the while, until about sixty feet above ground at which point it plummeted silently to its previous place. Once more the hidden bird began its steady peent, preparatory to another performance of its territorial 'sky dance/ The last traces of natural twilight faded before the woodcocks ceased their calling, having made the fullest use of every twilit moment. The earlier evening view of the valley was lost in darkness. Only the distant murmur of the Little Rouge helped define the course of the river below. But, across the valley to eastward other lights had become apparent. Ghostly flames were flaring on a particularly large rounded hill on the valley's far edge, like giant candles on a misshapen birthday cake. I realized then that the lives of the woodcocks and other meadow dwellers were unnaturally precarious. From 1967 to 1983, industrial wastes had been dumped there at the valley's east edge. And now the area formed the provincially-authorized Beare Road Landfill site. Besides burying several hundred acres of Rouge meadow and tableland, the landfill released methane gas, a by-product of the decay of the waste material which fed those pale flames. Although the site is now closed to

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

further dumping, its poisonous legacy continues. And to the west, countless lights of Toronto burned, much of their electrical energy wasted as the illumination spilled futilely up into the night sky. They were an extravagant promise of more waste from the city, and of recurring pressures to reopen the Beare Road site.8 When I left the meadow and walked south into the Rouge forest, darkness closed around me. The city lights were lost amongst the forest's darkness, full with whispers of awakening life. Early next morning, I revisited the Rouge to look for more active life, and was not disappointed. A slight rustle from among old leaves beside the trail caught my attention, and one leaf appeared to waft up, a mourning cloak butterfly. In the sunlit air, the upper side of the butterfly's wings had a rich purplish-brown hue, outlined with creamy yellow. I watched it alight on a leaf close by and, as it slowly opened and closed its wings, soaking up remnants of the day's fragile warmth, I glimpsed also the dusky blue spots on each wing. I had seen four other mourning cloaks that morning while hiking south from TWyn Rivers Drive through the Little Rouge Forest. Their winter hibernation as adults had ended. I followed the butterfly's example, and paused to rest on a pine stump near the west edge of the tableland. A cool April breeze trickled up from the valley, but the sun had a insistent warmth. It filtered down through the bare trees to the forest floor. There, glossy wintergreen leaves were revealed: green leaves held close to the sun-warmed soil and last year's papery brown oak leaves. All winter they had layen, green and lustrous beneath the snow, and now came fragrant with a distilled coolness, though I refrained from crushing even a leaf to savour it and was content instead with memories. Several spiders hunted among the old fallen leaves; they too appeared to hug the warmed surfaces. A single honeybee, attracted to the wintergreen, buzzed low above the leaves, no doubt catching their scent. Would wintergreen provide the year's first nectar for the bee to carry back to its hive? Perhaps the honeybee would find the beaked hazelnut flowers which had just opened further south along the trail. I almost missed them among the tough shrubs, their tiny red styles protruding from buds on the winter-polished grey twigs, so delicately did they open before the leaves, as if unsure of the season. The shrubs grew thick along the trail, but thinned out where the path led to a spur of land projecting southwest into the valley. Glistening green pines and sun-silvered sprays of bare oak branches framed

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

25

26

a view of the valley spreading to the north. The valley's sunlit depths, where the Rouge ran ice-free, were open and inviting to life, as indeed the valley had been each spring for at least eleven thousand years, and perhaps many more prior to the last Ice Age. It was as if the valley posed a perennial question, which life by itself answered in affirmation, a "yes" that conditions were acceptable for life in the Rouge. I started down a steep trail from the lookout and soon emerged onto the tawny grasses of the bottomland. The Rouge River flowed nearby, hidden among the leafless Manitoba maples and groves of eastern white cedar. The call of a belted kingfisher came from beyond the trees, indicating the river's closeness. The call was a dry, harsh sound, described by Malcolm MacDonald in his book The Birds of Brewery Creek, as similar to "a conversation between a company of rattles."9 I made my way into the cedars. The bottomland grasses gave way to bare ground, freshly covered with grey silt. This soil material had an incredibly fine texture to my fingers, none of the coarseness of gravel or pebbles, or the grittiness of sand. It was powdery. The silt had been deposited by the river during the recent winter breakup from all the freshets. Upon coming to the riverbank, I noticed that the water's colour had changed. Gone was the brownish tone of early March; instead the river had a peculiar translucent greenish hue—floury green, such that rocks were visible on the bottom. Each spring the Rouge turned this unique colour for awhile, a phenomenon that prompted me to inquire about its cause. Peter Attfield, who worked as a water expert at the Kortright Centre for Conservation, suggested that as the fine materials, like silt, were carried into the river by the spring runoff, they were deposited or settled out. This, in turn, caused the water's increasing transparency to be reflected in subtle changes in hue—from brown to grey, to green, leading finally toward the ideal clarity of summer flows. Or was the river's greening really a response to the accelerating tide of life all around and within it? The kingfisher called again, and shadows played on the water beneath the overhanging cedars, almost obscuring motions deeper below the water's surface. Fish were holding in the current. Dozens, perhaps hundreds of the fish quickly became apparent as they schooled side by side close to the river bottom. All faced upstream. Occasionally, their combined motions rippled the breadth of the river's surface. Their bodies were adorned with black and white stripes, and I knew these were the spawning colours of the white sucker. Actually their common name seemed inappropriate, 'zebra fish' was more in keeping with their breeding colouration and energy.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

While humans might have despised the white sucker as a 'game' fish, the kingfisher which continued calling along the river, seemed excited by their sheer numbers. Now, only this species of fish brought such a seasonal abundance to the river. But the suckers had not always been alone in their return from the lake to the Rouge. The Atlantic salmon was one other naturally-occurring species that had likewise used the river, and with "which the Rivers and Creeks on this shore [Lake Ontario's] abound," according to Elizabeth Simcoe writing in 1793.10 By the end of the 1800s, the construction of dams had helped to extripate the salmon. Forty-five dams are known to have dotted the the Rouge watershed alone, their structures denying the salmon access to their ancestral spawning beds.11 All of the early dams disappeared long ago. And still life came again in spring—though changed and with gaps—while the river flowed on with sparkling greenish water, here entering the shade of the cedar grove and becoming cold and dark below the lacy cedar leaves. The cedars, (the tree is also called arbor vitae or 'tree of life') with their grey/brown trunks curving up into fragrant green crowns, were shadowy but luminous with light of the present. One cedar on the bank nearby was especially noticeable. It had a large main stem and two secondary 'trunks' reaching out to either side, as if greeting the river's flowing water and inviting life to partake in its evergreenness.12 For the salmon dependent on cold water temperatures maintained by such trees shading the river, the cedar had been truly a tree of life. That, perhaps, was one reason why the people, those who preceded the European settlers and lived with the valley's trees and wildlife for thousands of years, held the cedars to be sacred. I climbed out of my car on the shoulder of Sewells Road for an early morning excursion. Around me lay farmlands and woodlots of northeast Toronto. Covering about one thousand acres, this tableland between the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers was largely government-owned, having been acquired by the Province in the 1970s. The idea then was to provide a 'green door' buffer zone for the proposed, but never realized, Pickering Airport to the north. Consequently, this land had continued green and rural while almost all other extensive tracks of open space in Toronto were developed. Actually, it had undergone relatively minor changes since Toronto was first colonized. And scattered in places in the northeast was evidence of much earlier human occupation, predating the first Europeans. April was a good time to walk the area, searching for signs of the distant human past; vegetation did not yet hide the ground nor the artifacts which might

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

27

28

be exposed there by the spring rains. Although it was both illegal and unethical to disturb any such artifacts, I was nonetheless drawn to see and discover for myself. After crossing the road, I wandered along a tiny stream. It meandered through the farm fields, eventually finding its way into the Little Rouge. Not more than four feet wide and averaging two, it sometimes seemed to dry up. This small creek had probably been vitally important to the Aboriginal people, as it trickled through an area of the Rouge which supported a "dense concentration of Ontario Iroquois sites," according to Konrad and Ross in their 1974 study of the region's archaeology.13 Native people had taken their water from this stream about seven hundred years ago. It still ran clear amid the farm fields, and today was bordered with vegetation becoming green with spring. I scanned the miniature stream banks and pebbly bottom for any possible artifacts. Maintaining my search, I gradually made my way northwestward, following the stream's course. Time passed. The hunt became frustrating. Despite the known history of Native usage, there seemed to be nothing to substantiate their presence. As my walk continued along, the character of the flow began to change. The water became stagnant. Discarded automobile tires appeared in the creek bed and along its banks. I reached Sewells Road again, crossed it and followed above the stream as it entered into a culvert. Here the water struggled to re-emerge on the other side of the road, where it was almost choked with tires and obviously polluted with oil and other garbage. The bank rose onto a height of land and I climbed it. Above the stream, to the south and west, lay the rich farmlands of dark earth, moist and fertile with spring. Immediately to the south stood a woodlot, its maples enlivened with songs of robins and red-winged blackbirds. The land there appeared as rich as during the Natives' tenure, and had the same qualities which made this area desirable seven hundred years ago: good soil for crops, easy access to water, and a fine view in all directions—the better to see the approach of strangers. But not far to the north, the landscape's smooth contours were interrupted and disturbed. A large automobile 'grave yard' sprawled along the east side the stream. Stacks of wrecked and flattened cars were visible. A barrier surrounding the yard had broken down along the creek. I walked back down to the stream and followed it as far as possible along the junk yard. The soil was saturated with oil from the cars, and the mounds of junk seemed about to topple into the water, poised to complete the damage already inflicted.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

I retraced my footsteps along the stream to Sewells Road, back toward my own car. Near the woodlot were fresh tracks of white-tailed deer; their cloven prints were finely wrought in the moist soil. The deer had ventured several yards into the open field, from the edge of the trees. The whitetails of the Rouge have gained a reputation of almost mythical proportions for their elusiveness and ability to survive within urban boundaries. The deer had come, for many people, to embody the qualities of life and vitality which made the Rouge worthy of preservation. On the other hand, some people, mainly developers and politicians, were unwilling to acknowledge the deers' presence, and went so far as to deny their existence in the Rouge. In one legendary incident a developer, frustrated because his plans to build luxury homes in the Rouge were thwarted partly by the whitetails' prior tenancy, vowed to erect a sign saying: "You would be home now if not for the deer!" In a similar vein, a local politician who advocated development of the Rouge was quoted as exclaiming: "Those damn deer...I've been in the valley and have never seen a damn one! There're none there!" As I knelt to examine the deer tracks, a small object in the earth attracted my attention. It might have been a pebble or bit of wood, but upon touching it I realized the object was of human origin. Carefully brushing away the clinging soil, I saw that it was a fragment of pottery—a piece of straw-coloured clay that had been shaped and tempered by human hands some seven centuries ago. Using my pocket magnifier to look more closely, I was startled to see fingerprints in the clay! Although the clay was weathered and pitted, the fingerprint whorls were distinct. The piece as a whole appeared oddly shaped, as if the maker had been experimenting or was inexperienced in the modelling of clay. I conjectured that this piece of pottery, belonging to the Rouge, had been created and discarded here by a young girl (since all pottery was done by women) who was learning the craft. She would have been a prehistoric ancestor of the Iroquoian people. In cool morning stillness I sat on the bank of the Little Rouge River south of Twyn Rivers Drive. Overnight, mist had gathered in the valley and collected in low places above the river. Now the mist began to lift along the river, quietly rising while the water flowed smoothly past. The vapours rose, leaving pebbles dew-wet along the water's edge until, in midstream, an islet became visible with the clear water dividing and flowing past it on either side. The tiny fragment of an island itself appeared grey and slicked smooth with silt, fresh and unmarked. But then, as the mist lifted further, tracks could be seen there, clean-cut impressions of deer,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

29

30

newly made this morning. Apparently feeling secure in the mist, the deer had left the shoreline bushes and waded out to the islet. The tracks led straight across it, but the farthest set appeared to have sunk more into the silt. Had the deer paused to drink deeply there? or had it been startled? Capable of covering twenty feet in one leap, the deer could have easily reached the opposite bank. Perhaps it had leapt away at my own approach. Tracks or scats were usually all that told of the presence of a whitetail. Only occasionally, seemingly at whim, might the deer allow themselves to be seen while they browsed, or only as they vanished into the forest with tails flashing. Paul Harpley, a biologist who studied the Rouge deer, found that the main herd consisted of about ten individuals. He suspected that other 'family groups' formed smaller herds in other parts of the valley. Granted, deer were not often found this far south in the Rouge (they seemed reluctant to cross roads such as TWyn Rivers). Most of their year is spent in the central and northern (within Toronto) sections of the valley, particularly in densely wooded areas within and adjacent to the Toronto Zoo. According to Toby Styles, a spokesman for the Zoo, the wild Rouge whitetails sometimes jumped the fences to get into the Canadian Animal Domain to sample the gourmet-quality feed given to the captive deer; their curiosity and taste-buds satisfied, the wild deer then jumped out again—a feat their weakened, captive relatives were no longer capable of doing. And now as spring strengthened, the wild deer were restless and eager for fresh and different forage. On a trail leading from the river up through the Little Rouge Forest to the Hogback, I found plenty to freshen a deer's diet. Already the green clasping leaves of bloodroot lifted delicate flowers to the sun, while hepaticas were unfurling silvery-haired new leaves. Mosses were bright green again and as fresh as the mottled trout lily and violet leaves, trembling in air currents close to ground. They too would be a welcome change from the deers' winter diet of cedar and buds. The trail led up into a stand of hemlocks; these conifers had never lost their verdure during the winter. And still they retained the morning's calmness, though stirred by a flock of golden-crowned kinglets. These tiny birds were flitting among the feathery boughs, and the delicate tinkle tinkle of their voices complemented the hemlocks' stillness. Beyond the hemlocks the trail came out onto the interfluvial tableland. Red maples stood slim and tall along the path. High overhead their branches were dusted with lightest green and the redness of flower buds. A male ruffed grouse watched me walk past. Perhaps he'd breakfasted on the swelling maple buds.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

A left fork in the trail took me to the western edge of the tableland. Looking into the distance, I could see that although most of the morning vapours had dissipated, a slight mist of green enveloped the valley—not in the air, but on the willows and clumps of Manitoba maples by the river. Their softness contrasted with the darker greens of pines and cedar. Above the valley to the west stood the Glen Eagles Hotel, where my car was parked.14 The city stretched beyond, grey and metallic, and appearing much farther away than it actually was. As I turned to hike back, a gleam of colour nearby stopped me. At the base of a pine beside the trail lay a patch of tiny, pinkish-white flowers. They had slender leaves, and their fleshy stems were intertwined with the earth itself. Their common name, "spring beauties," seemed appropriate. According to botanists Britton and Brown, an alternative name for these wildflowers was "good morning spring." As April turned into May, the variety and stages of plantlife in the Rouge seemed to suddenly increase. When I returned to the Hogback on a rainy day in early May, the leaves of sweet cicely, blue cohosh and trilliums dotted the forest floor with green and bordered the trail which led off into the rain-washed reaches of the forest, drawing me southward along the main trail. After about one-third mile, a pair of white oaks standing side by side dominated the edge of the path. Their flat-barked greyish trunks grew straight from the rain-darkened earth. These trees appeared to be identical twins. Both measured thirty inches in diameter at four and one half feet from ground; their heavy, rugged branches spread into large open crowns about seventy feet overhead. These white oaks were among the finest of their type in the Rouge. Their species was more commonly found in southwestern Ontario and into the States, hence the white oak's designation as a "Carolinian" species. The twin-like qualities of the oaks was further revealed in that both seemed slow to respond to the spring. Looking up, I could see that leaves had not sprouted on either one. Their gnarled limbs remained naked against the grey sky, providing little shelter from the rain. The oaks would bide their time, waiting, letting spring's life force build irresistibly within themselves. Ranged around the base of each oak were trilliums, trilliums not just in leaf, but with open flowers. Their white petals, beaded with rain, almost encircled the trees. Their appearance heralded May as 'Trillium Month' in the Rouge. Other flowering trilliums were scattered throughout the forest, but many more would blossom in a couple of days. Unlike the oaks, the trilliums had to take full advantage of this time before the trees leafed. Now, they must gather much of

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

31

Twin white oaks on the west side of the Hogback trail.

32

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

their energy from the sun to set their seeds and store enough to last till next year. Other wildflowers were accompanying the trilliums, though their schedules were not as tight. I found mayapples unfolding their miniature umbrella-shaped leaves beside the trail and searched in anticipation of the mayapples' large white flowers hidden beneath their leaves, but it was still too early. Sprinkled below these larger plants were violets, with diminutive heart-shaped leaves. Now they flecked the forest floor with yellow, purple, and white flowers—as they would for another month. The sunny 'window of opportunity' for the spring wildflowers such as the trillium, would soon close; for many trees were ahead of the oaks in leafing. The red maples had finished flowering—their spent flowers littered the trail—and their leaves were steadily enlargening. White birches too were adorned with tiny new leaves. In not many days the forest floor be mostly shaded until the autumn. Still the hardwood forest remained open and, through the forest's depths, I could see rain falling into the distance. It fell straight among the rough columns of trees; lines of water were disappearing, soaking into and being absorbed by the receptive earth. I followed the trail to the south end of the Hogback and down to the west bank of the Little Rouge River. Here the river was flowing full, with greater clarity than even a few days previous. And along the bank, ferns were rising. These were ostrich ferns, many already a foot high—less than a quarter of their full height— while others were still in the 'fiddlehead' stage. The ferns were at their brightest green as they emerged from the grey silt, so recently deposited by the ice. Their coiled forms seemed tense and urgent with desire to reclaim their place in the Rouge. Manitoba maples were also turning green and soon their low, longreaching branches would shade the ferns and help cool the waters of the river. The ferns and maples were interrupted at the confluence of the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers. Here the two rivers flowed smoothly together on their way to Lake Ontario which lay about five kilometres south. On the opposite bank of the Rouge, below the Highway 2 bridge, a solitary fisherman cast a line into the passing water. But not far upstream an unfamiliar sight presented itself. Where only a week ago a vegetated bank had sloped down to the river, now the mouth of a storm-sewer gaped.151 walked down to the river's edge for a closer look. The pipe was about four feet in diameter and discharging directly into the river. Oily polluted water, runoff from roads above the valley, trickled from it. The dank smell of death permeated the air. It became obvious that this new sewer must service the luxury housing development that recently had been completed

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

33

near the corner of Sheppard Avenue and Kingston Road; evidently, the sewer's purpose was to carry stormwater, and other runoff from the streets of that development, directly into the river. Seemingly it had been hurriedly and quietly constructed, probably to avoid unwanted criticism and the time or expense of considering other options for stormwater management. I headed back north along the bottomland. Cool moist air had settled in the valley. It was fragrant with wet earth and perfumed with the breath of new plants. This sweetness of air was in contrast to the Rouge's neighbouring valley to the west—Highland Creek Valley—where a trunk sewer line which ran that valley's length made its air often unbreatheable. From every 'manhole' cover along Highland Creek, came the noxious odours and sounds of sewage rushing toward a Lake Ontario treatment centre. Virtually all other major river valleys in the Toronto region had been treated in the same way: their importance had been appreciated in terms of the quantity of sewage they could carry. What could prevent the Rouge Valley from suffering a similar fate?

34

A few days later, having just led a group of people on a hike through the Rouge, Jim Robb, Bob Marshall and myself were arriving back at the Glen Eagles Hotel parking lot, when a woman suddenly drove up and called out: "They're draining Centennial Swamp!" 16 Quickly she drove away. We decided to investigate. Centennial Swamp was a fifty-acre wetland situated on the west Rouge tableland immediately north of Highway 2. It consisted of an open pond, cattail marsh and a red maple swamp. Gradually, this wetland had been surrounded by subdivisions until now it formed an island of green, almost severed from the sustaining wilderness of the Rouge. But, in springtime, the Swamp still supported regionally significant populations of wood frogs and grey tree frogs, as well as breeding waterfowl such as wood ducks. Centennial Swamp had, in the terminology of scientists, earned the dubious distinction of becoming a true 'relic' of the vanishing landscape. When plans were announced to bulldoze and develop even this 'relic/ some local conservationists, notably Lois James, went into action. Led by Ms James, they attempted to raise enough funds to buy the wetland from the developer for educational and scientific purposes. Apparently after almost succeeding in doing so, their efforts had fallen short.17 We responded and, upon arrival at Centennial Swamp, immediately noticed a large excavator parked beside the open pond. No workmen were in sight. But the woman had spoken truthfully; only hours before, a deep trench had

THE

ROUGE

R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

been dug into the pond. The trench was connected to a pipe which fed into the same development sewer as the one recently discovered draining directly into the Rouge River! Even as we watched, the swamp's lifeblood was draining away. As the water level dropped lower, the resident wildlife began to react. Nesting red-winged blackbirds became nervous and noisy; the males sang their territorial challenges from the cattails. Tree swallows, with broods hidden in tree cavities around the pond, flew to and fro, quite aware of this sudden change in their environment. Two muskrats swam by the receding shoreline, while out near the middle of the pond we saw a pair of blue-winged teale, and the heads of several turtles protruding from the water. On impulse we decided to practise some 'active' environmentalism. We found several logs nearby and, throwing them down into the trench, tried to create a dam across it. Our actions were somewhat frantic and undertaken perhaps with a dash of humour. But the escaping water was slowed only slightly. Our humour turned bitter. We could see the futility of our actions in the face of machine power; a face we recognized as a likeness of our society at large. Within a couple of days the pond was completely drained. Bulldozers began filling it in, paving the way for more housing. The red maple trees were left standing, but their future was dim, as the entire hydrology of Centennial was altered by the drain, which continued to work even after the bulldozers covered it from sight. Soon afterward, while driving on Meadowvale Road just west of what had been Centennial Swamp, I saw two large painted turtles on the road, undoubtedly refugees from the swamp. They had been crushed by cars. Spring did not stumble or waste time in the valley. Within days the mantle of green had grown throughout the Rouge forest. Saplings and shrubs such as elderberry were leafing in the forest's lower levels, filling the spaces between slim white birches and the darker boles of maple and oak with wreathes of green. This increasing density, in turn, beckoned more life. I visited the Finch Meander and walked a trail counter-clockwise around the inside. Between the river and the meander's western terrace, lay a small pool of water. Almost hidden by the new leaves, it would vanish altogether later in the year. But, now, a motion on its surface revealed a pair of wood ducks, a species of duck considered, by many ornithologists, to be the world's most beautiful. The metallic blue, red and greens of the male were reflected momentarily in the cold sheen of spring water. Then the ducks swam from view.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

35

36

At the turn of the century, wood ducks were considered to be a threatened species.18 Their numbers had declined drastically, mainly because of over-hunting. It was places such as this temporary pool in the Rouge which allowed the wood duck population to rebound, once hunting was brought under proper control. Possibly those ducks were resting while on migration and would soon move on. Or perhaps they would nest in the immediate area. I wanted to stay and watch them, so gratifying was their presence here after the loss of habitat at Centennial Swamp. Instead I quietly withdrew so as not to further disturb them. The trail led to a clearing along the river. The leafing trees parted overhead, and I glimpsed a bird soaring far up in the sky. It was a red-tailed hawk, probably one of a pair that nested in the meander area. They liked the high cliffs of the meander and kept watch from there, over the valley and surrounding fields. The hawks surveyed not only for prey such as rabbits and mice, but also for signs of encroachment upon their domain. Similar to the wood ducks, the red-tails were delicately situated here within Toronto's border. A seemingly minor disturbance could tilt the balance against them. Their presence each spring could not be taken for granted. The hawk, gliding from sight, represented one of the last species of large predatory birds to nest within the Rouge, or anywhere else within city limits. Once, the red-tail had shared the valley with other broad-winged birds of prey and, until very recently, with red-shouldered hawks, although it is possible that this latter species may still nest in the Rouge. Of all such birds, it is the red-tailed hawk that has proven to be more tolerant of close human proximity and activities, such as the fragmentation of forests. Another bird-of-prey, conspicuous by its absence, was the eagle. It seemed beyond a doubt that bald, and probably golden eagles, inhabited the Rouge up until the turn of the century. Elizabeth Simcoe "saw a fine eagle" in Toronto in the spring of 1794 and, in fact, she regularly saw bald eagles during her excursions up the Don River.19 Ernest Thompson Seton in his autobiography, Trail of an ArtistNaturalist, said that "Eagles of two species were quite numerous about Toronto in those early days" (referring to the late 1800s).20 He went on to relate a story of a man, Bill Loane, who hunted eagles on the Toronto beach not too far from the Rouge River mouth. According to Seton, this man on one day "collected six whiteheads (bald) and one golden eagle/'21 Such 'collecting' undoubtedly hastened the eagles' decline to their present endangered species status in Ontario. More recently, Paul Harpley reported sighting both species of eagle in the Rouge—both in the Finch Meander area.22 In 1981, he watched a probable

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Further east around the meander. The cliff in the distance is a favourite haunt of red-tailed hawks. Eagles have been reported here also.

37

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

golden eagle perching and then soaring north over the meander; and in 1982, he and other naturalists saw a bald eagle near the same area. Were these recent sightings merely of chance visitations by individual wandering eagles? Or had their kind retained ancestral memories of the Rouge and vicinity, one which might guide them back at a future time?

38

The fragrant air of mid-May brought an easy warmth to the valley, dispelling the damp chilliness of early spring. The air moved gently along the river, creating a new sound to accompany the river's whispering waters. The now fully-leafed bottomland willows rustled with the slightest hint of a breeze. I looked up into the sweeping branches of the willows and, there within the emerald shadows, saw a gleam of tropical colour, the orange and black of a northern oriole. Then came the oriole's deliberate, clear song which has been aptly described by that expert birdsong phoneticizer, J. Murray Speirs, as too-heetew-tew-tew. Another glimpse of the oriole was a gift as it flew among the highest branches of the willow. Truly, this bird did bring a glint of the tropics from its winter range in the rainforest of South America. And I walked the bottomland trail anticipating other birdlife which might have arrived from similar latitudes. But as the bottomland opened before me, green with new grasses still unbraiding from the sere stems of last year, my experience told me that such expectations were not wise. To do so would be to risk disappointment. Some of the hazards those birds faced, both in their winter home and here in their northern haunts, were not only similar but were constantly increasing. Every day, every year, the tropical forests where many of the Rouge birds wintered, were being cut and burned; while here in the birds' summer range, forests were being reduced and broken into small woodlots incapable of sustaining breeding populations. In the Toronto region, the only remaining forests were in scattered parks, with the Rouge forest being the largest. The double-ended dangers of diminishing and altered habitats existed in addition to the usual gamut of risks the birds encountered, while flying each way on their migrations. No wonder ornithologists were beginning to gather statistical evidence of long-term declines in some species of songbirds. These were population trends that Rachel Carson had warned of in her book Silent Spring (1962), and that others, such as Canadian writer Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, had noted beginning in the 1940s.23 A branch of the trail led southward along the riverbank. Poison ivy lined

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

the edges of this narrow path as it led into dense tangles of willow, dogwood and poplar. Soon I was hemmed in and secluded among these bushes. Yet, hidden here from the view of most human passersby, much busy activity had occurred; poplar cuttings and chiseled stumps indicated the presence of beavers. No birds sang, though...until, from the near distance came the unmistakable sweet-sweetsweet shredded wheat of a yellow warbler. By moving closer to the river's edge and looking downstream, I could see many warblers in the streamside thickets, bits of yellow darting among the willow leaves, noticeable one moment against the green foliage, then gone from sight within flecks of sunlight. The warblers were constantly in motion, searching for and claiming territories which they defended with more sweet singing. Although the yellow warbler is one of the most hardy and widespread of warblers, they had good cause to be excited about their successful arrival in the Rouge after the flight from South America. Close by and almost at eye level, another, much less common bird appeared. Actually there were two birds, a pair of blue-grey gnatcatchers. These 'restless sprites' were busy inspecting each other and a potential nest site in a Manitoba maple. This was a pioneering pair of gnatcatchers, as the Rouge area was the northern limit of the range for this species. Leaving them to their activities, I started back along the main bottomland trail. Green meadows stretched around me. Although few gnats were visible yet in the air above the grasses, soon the gnatcatchers would find plenty of those and other tiny flying insects over the open land and along the river. These natural bottomlands and associated vegetation were among the Rouge's most valuable and biologically productive features. Most other urban rivers had lost such assets to flooding (aggravated by upstream development), or when their bottomlands were manicured into picnic grounds. The next morning dawned misty and calm after a night of rain. Now, as the sun rose, the valley cleared and currents of air wafted mists up into the sky. Upon entering the valley from the Glen Eagles' parking lot, I seemed to glimpse a fragment of blue sky flitting among the lower shadows of the forest; this sky became a male indigo bunting. Other tiny birds, darting among the bushes along the side of the trail, revealed themselves to be chestnut-sided warblers. Almost as inquisitive as chickadees, they watched and sang from beside the path until, as suddenly as they appeared, they vanished among the leaves. A more reserved bird made its

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

39

40

appearance—reserved in character, not in plumage, since it was a blackburnian warbler with contrasting orange and black feathers. These birds, along with the yellow warblers, signalled the start of the annual 'warbler wave' in the Rouge. Now and for several days in mid-May, these diminutive colourful birds had been arriving in groups, having made their flights successfully from the tropics. It was not possible to stand still for long observing the warblers. Another life form, this one possibly unique to the Rouge within Toronto, had also arrived. These were biting blackflies. Hurriedly, I pulled on my insect-proof hat and continued down the trail. The trail looped southward and ended at Twyn Rivers Drive down in the valley. By following the road eastward, crossing the old mesh bridge over the Rouge River and climbing the Hogback, one enters the heart of the Little Rouge Forest. An ovenbird called from among the trees,teacher-teacher-teacher-TEACHERTEACHER-TEACHER!—an emphatic call for such an apparently demur and secretive bird.24 While the ovenbird sounded far off, it was possible that one of these common birds could be close by, hidden near its camouflaged ground-level nest within the forest's deepest shadows, keeping a shy watch on the woodland trail. Certainly it would be easy for the ovenbird to hide. It was incredible how the forest had changed in the week since my last visit! Now it was shadow-filled, and almost all the trees and shrubs had leafed. The tender new leaves were luminous with soft sunlight reaching among them, imbuing them with the green light of life. The leaves moved easily in the sun-warmed breeze, fragrant with balsam poplar from along the river. Even the big white oaks were responding to spring's maturity. Tiny reddish leaves and pendulant flowers hung now from the twigs. On the ground covering the roots, some of the trilliums, though still showy, were already tinted pink with age. Other flowers were just entering their prime. Walking southward, I almost missed one of the Rouge's rarities, a patch of yellow ladyslipper orchids near the trail. Their yellow globular flowers were nodding with burdens of moisture from the night's rain; they appeared swollen with water and, perhaps, nectar. Their honey scent perfumed the air. Before urbanization, these orchids were much more widespread. Their sensitivity to soil conditions made it very difficult for them to recolonize areas from which they'd been picked or otherwise removed. Thus, with the development of Toronto, the orchids were quickly reduced to isolated patches such as these; as S.T. Wood noted in 1916 in his book Rambles of a Canadian Naturalist "The Yellow Lady's Slipper is still found, but so rarely as to appeal, too

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

often in vain, for mercy/'25 Another plant, even more sensitive to soil conditions than the orchids, was flowering farther along the trail. This was the fringed polygala, a species dependent upon certain soil micro-organisms for help in nutrient uptake. These micro-organisms lived symbiotically with the polygala and were, perhaps, unique to each site. Indeed, the polygalas' purplish-red flowers reclined close to earth and scarcely stirred in the breeze coursing up from the valley, so native were they to this soil. The bright green waxy leaves of polygala resembled those of wintergreen, but were suggestive of summer weather instead, for the polgala's flowering season was just beginning. Already the sun had a more noticeable warmth, filtering down among the trees. But it was a fragile warmth, waxing and waning with light and shade. And, when leaving the main trail and following a faint secondary path into a hemlock grove, I found the air and earth were still cool with spring. In fact, a spring-fed brook moistened the earth below the hemlocks. The water was so clear that it trickled almost undetectably through a narrow channel it had cut into the black forest loam. The brook drained part of the tableland, then diffused into a large patch of scouring rushes, about halfway down the western slope. As the earth was saturated on either side of the brook, a fallen log became my bridge. On the other side, a small cluster of maidenhair ferns grew. These few plants, and a couple of other clusters elsewhere in the Rouge, were the only known representatives of this species in Toronto. I was surprised to see their thin, delicate stems already rising twelve to sixteen inches from the soil. They upheld their new curving fronds, each arrayed with finely-cut pinnules, above the quietly trickling waters of the brook. On the earth below them, the crushed and crisp remnants of last year's ferns were still visible. Suddenly, a hawk screamed nearby. Startled, I glanced up to see it sailing away from the hemlocks and down into the valley. The hawk's cry set-off a chorus of bird calls; first, a pair of blue jays answered the hawk's challenge, imitating its piercing note. Then, from much farther away, came the harsh wheep, so wheep of a great-crested flycatcher. The sun-splashed main trail felt warm again after the cool shadows by the brook. Ahead along the path, something fluttered down through a ray of sunlight. Walking closer, I saw that it was a spring azure butterfly. The upper surfaces of its wings were as misty blue as the sky itself. The sky's soft blueness spread overhead and the forest's shadows receded with my emergence into a clearing near the north end of the Hogback. Pausing here,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

41

Nodding ladies' tresses (a species of orchid) and variegated scouring rushes alongside the Little Rouge River.

42

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

and looking eastward across the valley of the Little Rouge to the far crest, I could see the evergreen plumes of white pines mingling now with the billowing crowns of maple, oak and birch. It was a familiar skyline with its serried but unbroken line of trees meeting the sky. Yet now a subtle change made me take a second look...was that a gleam of glass or the roof of a new building among the pines? Several days later in May I was able to visit the skyline forest, immediately south of IWyn Rivers Drive on the border of Pickering and Toronto. This most easterly section of the Little Rouge Forest, locally called Woodview Forest after the close by and long-established Woodview Road, was, until recently, considered to be among the best places to view wildflowers in the Rouge. It was particularly valued by local residents for the swaths of trilliums that bloomed within a grove of white birches along Twyn Rivers. Incrementally, though, this forest was being destroyed. A large subdivision cut into its eastern flank from Pickering; and now the local conservation authority had, against the objections of of neighbours and environmentalists, sold part of the forest to a private developer. And that developer had almost completed its work. I found that the developer had hollowed out the birch/trillium forest. Small, 'token' plots of the original woodland had been preserved, within decorative wrought iron fences for the edification of estate houses being built among them. Making my way through the construction debris, I found a trail and followed it into the fringe of forest which remained along the edge of the valley. Large oaks and white pines screened the new houses behind me. These trees at least were safe, squeezed as they were onto the steep slopes and confined outside of the socalled 'stable top-of-bank' (defined by a line ten metres from the valley's edge). Here, the forest still lived-up to its reputation for wildflowers. Already wild geraniums were replacing the fading trilliums; and these two species now shared a common colour, as the trilliums' final blush of pink had deepened enough to match the geraniums' purplish hue. Although the trilliums' bright whiteness was passing from the forest along with the openness of spring, in compensation Solomon's seal and starflowers were beginning to sprinkle the forest floor with new shades of white. The trail hugged the very brink of the valley and, northward, gradually led down toward a large terrace above the Little Rouge River. Along the way an oddlooking flower could be spotted beside the trail. Here was lousewort, also known as wood betony—a rarity in the region. Nearby, a much more well-known flower grew, though one now restricted to the city's few remaining wild areas. This was

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

43

44

columbine, with red and yellow tubular flowers nodding in the shadows. Columbine once had the distinction of being selected as Scarborough's "official flower/' due to its prominence within the Rouge. Farther along the trail, down on the terrace, was the entrance to a grove of white pines. The air was scented of pine and, underfoot, pine needles cushioned every step. The dark trunks lifted skyward where their green boughs caught the sun. Similar to columbine, the white pine was distinguished by an official citation. In 1984 it had been designated as Ontario's "Provincial Tree"—an honour which came late, or was perhaps meant to recognize extraordinary sacrifice in the Provincial good. These Rouge pines were survivours of the big-timber era, which, in Ontario, ended at the turn of the century. The oldest pines among them were about one hundred and twenty years, but they were offspring of trees probably cut in their third or fourth century of existence. It was a familiar story: one of how the supply of original white pine had seemed inexhaustible to the early logger barons; and, of how quickly, within fifty years, it had proven all too finite and almost all the big pines were felled. In the Rouge the big timbers were hauled down to Lake Ontario on the so-called "Mast Road," which extended down the Rouge bottomland to the west of the Hogback. Once at the lake, the pine timbers were transported away by the British and used to build ships, mainly for the war against the French. A few of the Rouge's largest remaining pines grew in a narrow, vee-shaped secondary gully which cut into the valley from northeastward, through Woodview Forest. This small ravine formed the north edge of the terrace. Carefully, I stepped down into it. Although TWyn Rivers Drive and sounds of traffic straining to gain the valley's crest were close, within the gully a sense of timeless peace reigned. Pine boughs, along with the conical crowns of cedars, helped muffle the traffic noise. It was cooler in the shade of these conifers, with a cold water creek running down the steep-sided cut, lined with delicate lady ferns. Not only large pines but also some of the Rouge's greatest white cedars lived in this gully. One particularly large cedar had recently fallen across the creek. Here, the cedar would lie for many years while its decay-resistant wood slowly yielded to the forest, returning what it had borrowed from the soil, water, air and light. The cedar's dissolution, if undisturbed, would occupy a time span similar to that of its life, perhaps three hundred years. I followed the gully down toward the Little Rouge River. Sunlight broke through the trees and sparkled on the water ahead. Then came sounds of water— not just the river's lapse, but the splashing of falling water. At the mouth of the

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

gully, the creek had formed a miniature waterfall, cascading down a ten-foot bank to the river. The falling water had eroded into the bank, and revealed that the earth here was not of usual formation. The bank consisted not of soil, as would be expected in most other sites in the Rouge, but instead was a kind of rock. Arranged in thin horizontal layers, the rock, because of weathering and the impact of the falling water, was gradually crumbling into flat pieces. This fragile rock constituted an outcropping of the local shale bedrock, called the Whitby Formation. This location, and several other such outcroppings in the Rouge, were the only known exposures of this bedrock in the region, a fact that earned them Provincial sigificance. Shale is often fossiliferous. Many of the flat bluish-grey fragments at my feet contained rusty-coloured impressions of ancient fish, plants and crustaceans: a record of life in the seas which covered the Rouge area almost half a billion years ago. So rich was this bedrock in fossils, that several fossil organisms had received part of their Latin name from the locality; for example, a fossil trilobite found here was named triarthus rougensis. I noticed how deeply the waterfall had carved into the face of the outcropping and that the rock to either side was dissolving—as if the rate of erosion had recently accelerated. The new housing development which cut into Woodview Forest on the tableland above was diverting more than the usual amount of water into the gully. More water was flowing as runoff from the impermeable asphalt and rooftops. And the water was flowing at greater velocities, unimpeded now by roots or leaves while it gnawed into and marred this record of Earth's history. After climbing back up to the edge of the valley and into Woodview Forest, I leaned against a tall white pine and paused to catch my breath. Up above, a great-horned owl was perched close to the trunk far up among the boughs. The owl peered intently down at me, its yellow eyes visible in my binoculars. Beside her, for I assumed she was the mother, sat a baby owlet. The young owl was swaddled in white fluffy down, its wings somewhat darker, and was sound asleep up there among the soft needles. Had the season advanced so much that nestlings were now becoming fledglings and vacating their nests, as had these owls? But, of course, the greathorned owl was an extremely early nester, often incubating its eggs during the coldest days of February. They consequently had a headstart on most other birds, many of which were still waiting for eggs to hatch. Even so, for these owls the time of nest-leaving had arrived and, for the owlet, the beginning of a difficult life as a hunter.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

45

46

The mother owl continued to glare at me. But the owlet's sleep was undisturbed. Whatever challenges it might eventually face as a hunter, it had evidently found this present moment of peace, as it slept up there in the pine. Pe-oo-wee, the long-drawn notes of an eastern wood-pewee drifted through the forest. Seeming to come from far away and high among the treetops, it sounded languorous in the warm air of late May. I glanced up briefly, hoping to see the elusive bird in the mottled greenery of the forest canopy, then continued down the trail toward the Rouge River from Glen Eagles Hotel. Halfway down into the valley, a convenient ledge provided a good lookout over the Rouge, where more indicators of the season's age were apparent. A few mosquitoes buzzed around me; they had replaced the more troublesome blackflies. The river too had changed. It was flowing low and clear. Drifts of smooth pebbles, sun-dried and whitened, were exposed along the river's edges. Above them, poplar leaves shimmered in the sunlight. Starting again down the trail, I was about to descend the final steep section, when the sight of a bird's nest in the top of a beech sapling down the slope, caught my attention. Due to my uphill position on the trail, the nest, occupied by a rosebreasted grosbeak, was situated at eye level. The part of the bird's colouration visible above the nest's rim, identified that it was the male. Both parents of this species shared in the task of incubating. As I walked carefully past, the bird did not leave. This ability to tolerate human presence was one reason why the rose-breasted grosbeak had, according to ornithologists, recently increased in numbers in Ontario—this at a time when the species' winter home in the tropical forests was being logged and burned. How long before that unseen loss of winter habitat affected these Rouge grosbeaks? Perhaps their present population increase was similar to the final lavish fruiting of a tree, which, for instance, while under great stress desperately seeks to propagate its genetic identity. At the bottom of the slope the forest abruptly ended. A meadow began at the forest's edge and stretched into the open sunlight. A warm breeze played over the meadow, combing the green grasses and the new stems of goldenrod rising among the old grey stalks. Accompanying the breeze's rustling was the chirping of crickets, a sound of summer to be sure, but one now hesitant and low, as if the crickets were merely tuning-up and saving their energy for the coming summer conceits. The cricket songs sounded louder as I crossed the meadow. The day's warmth was more intense in the open. The willow-shaded bank of the Rouge River offered respite from the unaccustomed heat. There, a robin alighted on a

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

rock in midstream, directly in front of me. In what seemed the perfect answer to the day's heat, the bird proceeded to take a bath. It stepped unhesitantly into a clear, shallow riffle and splashed water over itself by immersing its head and flapping its wings in the water. It was possible to imagine the water's shocking coldness as the robin deliberately worked it into and beneath its feathers, drenching its skin. After several dunkings, the robin flew up to a willow branch to preen and arrange its feathers. Another bird stirred in the riverside bushes; and as I sat motionless, it ventured close, a mourning warbler, so-called because of the dark colouration of its head and chest. But the bright yellow colour of its belly did not suit its name. Soon the warbler flew away among the thickets, leaving the river flowing peacefully and lazily through the green shade of the willows. Slowly a new sound became audible above the river's flow—not the nearby staccato chirping of crickets, but the distant mellow singing of American toads. Theirs was a soft, continuous trilling, one toad beginning as another fell silent, as if they might never run out of breath. Their song told of waters warm and abundant enough now for their liking and suggested the lateness of the season. Rousing myself from the riverbank, I started back across the meadow toward the forest. Suddenly, from the forest's edge came a loud whistled song. I stopped and searched the trees for what initially sounded like some new bird. To my astonishment, the singer was not an exotic bird but a woodchuck! It was sitting motionless, hidden in shadows at the forest margin. The 'chuck repeated its song, a phrase of which consisted of a high-pitched piercing whistle modulating into softer trilling notes with great purity of tone. This was, I realized, the woodchuck's rarely heard 'song' one of which many authorities and biologists seemed unaware. For instance, a subsequent search found no reference to it in Banfield's The Mammals of Canada or in Burt and Grossenheider's A Field Guide to the Mammals. In addition, after sending a description of the song to the Toronto Field Naturalists' newsletter, asking if anyone had heard a woodchuck singing, there were no serious replies. However, Olaus Murie in A Field Guide to Animal Tracks did report a very similar experience, one had by Francis Allen in 1885.26 I attempted to steal closer to the woodchuck, but lost sight of it, so perfectly did its brownish-grey fur blend with the forest's soft light. Then it sang again, this time closer. It was positioned at the forest's edge, gazing into the distance across the meadow and down the valley. 47

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

48

June brought more surprises to the valley, as its variety and abundance of life sought further expression. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the lower Rouge Marsh where, near the river's mouth, many influences of the season and the valley came together. I followed a trail south from Island Road toward the marsh, through a hardwood forest, past several large white oaks, and down into the lush bottomland. Just ahead, beyond the willows and Manitoba maples, spread the marsh. Although not yet visible, the presence of the marsh was pervasive. From the bushes came the witicha whiticha whiticha witch of a water-loving yellowthroat warbler. Farther off, red-winged blackbirds were exclaiming among the cattails. Ahead was open water, not the marsh itself, but a small temporary pool, a kind of prelude to the main body of water. Here, in this stagnant spot of water, I found swarming, quivering masses of black tadpoles, concentrated around the edges of the pool, eager to climb from their watery element. Soon they would emerge as tiny toadlets, and disperse in search of suitable places to grow, and spread their summery abundance throughout the wetland. But they would have to brave dangers, such as the garter snake I saw hunting along the water's edge, its tongue flickering and body glistening from the water. Another abundance of life was displayed on the pool's surface, in the countless poplar seeds which floated there, almost covering the pool with fluffy whiteness. A south breeze carried the seeds from a last fringe of trees hiding the marsh; they sailed lightly onto and over the surface of the water. This same air brought also the warm, almost tropical scent of the marsh. Almost hidden at my feet, a leopard frog jumped away as I broke through the trees and arrived at the edge of the wetland. Immediately, the airy fluttering of the trees was lost in the vast sighing of breeze among the cattails, which stretched south as far as I could see. New cattails were rising among the old winter-beaten stalks, their brilliant green leaves lengthening toward the sun. Already, many had attained half of their eventual ten feet of height. A mute swan floated on the open water, silently and seemingly effortlessly, yet of its own accord against the spring wind. For all its grace, the swan was alert and watchful, no doubt aware of how noticeable its white plumage was against the greyish-green ranks of cattails. Close by, a splashing in the water startled me. A carp was rolling in the shallows. Its dorsal fin protruded for a moment from the surface, then, apparently not liking the feel of open air, the big fish scuttled away to deeper water.

THE

ROUGE

RIVER

V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

The mouth of the Rouge.

49

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

50

Perhaps the carp was swimming toward a large avenue of open water, the edges of which I soon reached. The sides of this 'canal' were defined by cattails, but appeared too straight and geometrical to be natural. Indeed, this channel was probably man-made, as the Rouge Marsh had almost fallen victim to the old, mistaken belief that wetlands were useless wastelands. Unlike Centennial Swamp, however, the lower Rouge Marsh had been spared to a degree. It was in the 1920s that a man named Cecile White dreamed of constructing a "Venice of the North" at the mouth on the Rouge. The most distinctive feature of this proposed residential development, was a system of open waterways, reminiscent of its Italian namesake. Elaborate plans and advertisements were concocted for this new "Venice;" and White went so far as to begin dredging canals through the marsh. Nature asserted herself, however, and put an end to all such schemes when, in 1954, Hurricane Hazel flooded the valley and the marsh. Not only did the hurricane end White's dream, but it also carried away all the cottages which once lined the river's east bank in the marsh vicinity. Only a few ruins and these dredged canals remained to tell of those more audacious times. As I skirted the edge of the marsh and rounded a clump of cattails, a muskrat lying in the middle of the path surprised me. It was curled up, sleeping. Perhaps it had been overcome by the gentle warmth and swishing of the breeze. It did not awaken as I stepped past. Certainly the muskrat was sleeping soundly enough not to be bothered even by the GO trains, rushing by the south end. Every fifteen minutes or so as they roared along a track parallel to the Rouge beach, then rattled over a trestle which spanned the river. The trains became less audible as I followed the path, away from the open marsh and into the bottomland forest. Chest-high ostrich ferns and draperies of Manitoba maple leaves helped quell the sounds. The river's bright surface was visible in the east, beyond the cool greenery. As I watched, its surface was disturbed by a flotilla of modern 'war' canoes which hove into sight, each canoe driven by a half-dozen straining bodies. Soon they disappeared upriver, but were followed within minutes by a motor boat puttering along.27 Although of seemingly minor importance by themselves, these boaters were part of an increasing human pressure on the marsh and entire mouth of the river. Despite being safe now from grandiose plans such as Cecile White's, other more insiduous threats were brewing. Noise, traffic, pollution... all of these were thought to be responsible for recent declines in several species of rare breeding birds of the marsh. Black terns, for instance, appeared to have ceased nesting in the Rouge wetland.28 Back at the marsh edge again, I came to a small cove, an indentation in the

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

natural shoreline where the breeze was blocked. The still waters reflected the tall sheltering cattails. A blue-winged teal took flight from the water. And on the water's surface close by, white flowers of fragrant water lilies had emerged from the depths and floated now on the calm water. Farther out on the marsh, yellow water lilies held their tightly clenched flower buds above the water. Kneeling down, I tried to touch one of the fragrant blooms, but it remained undisturbed and motionless on the water's surface, just beyond reach. Hundreds of bank swallows flitted in the air above the Rouge River at the Finch Meander. Recently, they had arrived from their winter quarters in South America, and had already re-excavated their homes in the sheer face of the highest cliff. In their multitudes, the swallows were reminiscent of the marsh's swarming tadpoles. Both were part, too, of the later spring's abundance. A trail led eastward from the cliff edge, down toward the meander forest. Halfway down, I was about level with the swallow colony and, by looking back along the cliff face, I could see how the swallows flew full-speed toward the cliff and unerringly entered their own burrows, only to re-emerge seconds later and dive into the vertigo-inspiring gulf of air. In addition to the swallows' streamlined bodies, the air was lively with their twittering calls and the tiny flying gnats and midges they were hunting. From this vantage point, countless holes, scarcely larger than the birds themselves, were visible in the cliff. Possibly this colony was the largest of its kind in the Toronto region. And I wondered how long the swallows and their ancestors had used this site. For how many hundreds or thousands of springs had they returned here to perpetuate their kind? And, over that time, had these Rouge swallows formed a unique tribe which might stay together even in their South American winter home? At what specific place in South America, analogous to the Finch Meander, did they congregate? As I worked my way down the steep path, clutching tree roots for support, an indication of this site's age became visible. The ground was covered with a fine, white silty material. It coated the leaves and tree trunks and adhered also to my boots. This material had been deposited during the winter by winds which blew along the valley and eddied up the cliff. It had been carried by the winds from a thick silty layer now exposed about halfway up the cliff face, where many of the swallows had dug their holes. Originally, this silty material had been laid down by water in an era preceding the last Ice Age and, subsequently, was revealed by the relentless erosive action of the river. Thus, not long after the glaciers had

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

51

Bank swallow colony in the meander cliff.

52

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

withdrawn from this land, and their meltwaters had swollen the ancestral Rouge River, this site would probably have been suitable for bank swallows to colonize. Continuing eastward and descending gradually, now I was, in a sense, travelling forward in geological time. Each step brought me closer to the river's present location, closer to its clear burbling water and the fresh scents of the June morning which flowed above it. Yet the path was not a steady descent, but was arranged in a series of large steps. For over the thousands of years during which the Rouge River had traversed this area, eroding eastward and eventually forming the present meander, its eastward progress had not been smooth; rather, the river had paused and re-started several times, each time leaving one of these 'steps' or terraces to mark each ancient river bank location. Although the glaciers, and then the river, had scoured this land down to its basic soil materials, life had swiftly recovered and prospered. Now, eastward and south to the river's present edge, stood a fine forest. On the level ground between the ancient river terraces, red oak, white ash, bitternut hickory and black maple grew. The slopes were dense with cedar, hemlock and yew. In moist shaded sections of the forest, the ground was graced with wood ferns, their finely-cut leaves curling over the earth's rugged contours. From among their green shadows came the descending flute-like notes of a veery, a bird which preferred these cool, fern-haunted valleylands. No sooner had the veery fallen silent, when a much more raucous bird announced its presence. I glimpsed it first flying to a nearby tree, a crow-sized bird. And when it gave its loud kyuk kyuk kyuk kyuk kyuk kyuk call, its identity was revealed, a pileated woodpecker.29 Suddenly, a second pileated flew over to join the first. They chased each other around a dead tree, their sharp toenails dislodging pieces of bark as they scrambled around the trunk. I was privileged, then, to hear some of their private communication, a sort of quiet rasping sound. Probably this pair had a nest in a cavity in one of the forest's standing dead trees. If so, then the entire meander forest would constitute their exclusive territory, as such relatively large mature forests for shelter, food and privacy were required by these birds. This need for large forests had resulted in declines in the pileated woodpecker during the early and mid-decades of this century, when forests were being rapidly cleared to make way for cities and towns. Percy Taverner writing in 1937 noted that: "... on account of the wanton destruction, this once much more widely distributed bird is to be found only in the quiet of the northern woods."30 A more recent threat to the pileated, and to all woodpeckers, has been the removal of standing dead trees and fallen timber from woodlots and urban

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

53

parklands, ostensibly for public safety in the latter case, and for economic and 'sanitary' reasons in the former. This dead timber harboured, of course, the woodpeckers' homes and insect food such as carpenter ants. Despite the population decline and the continuing threats, the pileated woodpecker had in recent years returned to some of the woodlots and regenerating forests of southern Ontario. Once more, these big black and scarlet-crested birds were being seen regularly; and the tell tale evidence of their presence—large rectangular holes chiseled into rotting trees—was becoming familiar. Perhaps these Rouge pileated woodpeckers were part of that returning vanguard. More likely they were the most recent in an uninterrupted series of generations of their kind which, thanks to the Rouge Valley, had persisted even here within the Province's largest city.

54

Later, I would come immediately from the corridors of a suburban shopping mall, into the Rouge Valley as a June evening descended. After the busy, harshly-lit stores, the valley was already calm and peaceful in anticipation of nightfall. The most noticeable sounds were of crickets chirping. It was surprising how quickly the evening's touch had extended throughout the valley. Yellow hawkweed had closed for the night on the bottomland meadow, while the recently opened flowers of Canada anemone appeared pale and creamy-hued in the fading light. It seemed as if the night came more swiftly and deeply to the valley, compared to the tablelands—especially since the western sky above the valley's edge still glowed with a soft pinkish light. As darkness deepened in the valley and the cool, clean scents of the June forest arose on the still air, other life forms began to stir. After coming from what R.D. Lawrence called "the teeming egotism of city dwelling,"31 here were creatures which dared to challenge the notion of humanity's self-proclaimed importance and inviolability. Mosquitoes, for instance, hummed about my hat. Leaving the bottomland meadow, I climbed north toward the interfluvial ridge, pausing to rest in a dark fringe of hemlocks near the top on the ridge's east side. The individual trees were scarcely discernible now in the darkness, but the forest pressed close and seemed to breathe gently in the night, in subtle currents of air, drawn up from the valley and filtered through the leafy branches. Then, a quick motion among the boughs silhouetted against the sky's fading colours..., a tiny owl flying over, apparently to investigate me. By its lack of ear tufts (which would have signified a screech owl), it was recognizable as a sawwhet owl. After alighting on a bough closeby and staring intently at me, the night

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

bird uttered three whistled notes and snapped its beak in agitation. Had I interrupted its hunting, or ventured close to its nest? Perhaps the owl was nesting in a nearby dead tree, in an old pileated woodpecker hole. In any event, the little creature did not concentrate on me for long. It kept glancing away, as if able to sense movements and sounds beyond the range of human senses. Silently, it took flight and winnowed away down toward the Little Rouge. I continued up the ridge, feeling my way in the darkness, and soon came to a side trail which descended east toward the river, in the direction the owl had flown. The path cut diagonally southward down the slope. Halfway down, it entered a dense grove of coniferous trees which, through touch and smell, were identifiable as balsam firs. Even in the darkness, the blisters of liquid resin on their trunks could be felt and their balsamic scent was easily discernable. This species of tree seemed more characteristic of the northern Boreal Forest, where they were very common. Yet so dense were these young firs in the Rouge, that they blanketed out almost all the remaining light. I groped onward with my hands extended to protect my face from unseen branches, occasionally stumbling over over hidden stones or roots. As the path levelled out in the valley, I left the 'tunnel' of balsam firs and emerged onto the stony bank of the river. A place to rest for a moment and be 'washed' by the coolness of the night air, freshly scented by the river water. At this location the Little Rouge had a distinctly raw or youthful appearance, as if the glaciers had only recently withdrawn and the river was still a meltwater stream. All along the river, rounded stones were revealed, gleaming faintly in the starlight. The riverbanks themselves were raw piles of glacial gravel, hardly clothed yet with soil. Only lichen and dwarf birches clung to the gravely hummocks along the edge. A spark of light could be seen among the riverside shadows; another flashed close by, and soon these tiny lights were waxing and waning from bushes and tops of weeds all along the Little Rouge. These were the year's first fireflies, emerging to signal their presence in the humid stillness of the June night. Suddenly, as if on cue, almost all the lantern bugs' ceased flickering. Darkness settled over the river once more, until, seemingly at the signal of a single instigator, the fireflies resumed their flashing and these greenish sparks of life glittered again along the river. Daylight came gradually to the Rouge; the morning dawned softly grey. The level of humidity in the air had continued to rise, until the lush vegetation was able to imbibe moisture not only from the dark soil and the river, but from the very air.

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

55

56

A little before noon it began to rain, steadily but lightly, promising duration rather than drama. Upon entering the Rouge forest from Twyn Rivers Drive, I noticed a difference in the air. Along with the rain and mosquitoes was a certain aroma. This was a more direct and definite perfume, compared to the general fresh fragrances of early spring. Its strength suggested a whole new regime of flowers opening within the forest. Along the Hogback trail, the yellow tubular flowers of bush honeysuckle, almost prostrate on the earth were the first to be noticed. Stopping to examine the plants, I realized that this flower's namesake evoked the essence of the perfumed air; a light, lemon-honey scent. Southward, the trail became narrower as round-leafed dogwood shrubs crowded close to either side, making it difficult to avoid being partially drenched by their rain-wet overhanging leaves. Here, the white circular clusters of dogwood blossoms had recently opened and, seemingly, were the strongest source of the air's perfume. The narrow path led up and down the 'spine' of the Hogback, eventually coming to a small opening among the dogwoods. Usually a view could be had here, westward across the river to the opposite crest of the valley and the city beyond. Now the valley was mist-filled and I could see only the wet vapours drifting among the rain-darkened trees. The mists had absorbed the essences of honesuckle, dogwood... and now were bathing the whole valley. Another source of the perfume grew close by at the edge of the trail. This was a blossom less noticeable than the dogwood, but with a sweeter scent— northern bedstraw. I did not approach the bedstraw flowers too closely, as the glistening leaves of poison ivy were unfolding all around them. Although never having contracted the itchy rash caused by poison ivy and, seemingly to have, like most people, a natural immunity to the plant, I also knew that this tolerance to the plant's toxins could change or vanish without notice. It was wise to be alert and careful wherever the three-leafed vines of poison ivy were found. Another flower farther along the trail invited closer acquaintance. All its defences were 'down/ It was smooth wild rose, a species lacking thorns on its stems, its pink petals contrasting with the predominate white colour of most June flowers in the forest. And yet the roses' perfume, more delicate and flowery, was held closer to the blooms themselves. Did the rose hoard its perfume especially for the pollinating insects, such as butterflies, which could venture closest to the essence of the flower?

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Clear days—spring's last days—followed the rain. On the final official last day of spring I was able to revisit the Rouge forest. All the mists were gone. In the clear sunlight the valley lay revealed in great clarity. Deep sylvan shadows extended onto the bottomland, while to eastward the skyline forest was irradiated by sunlight caught in the countless leaves. Tomorrow would be the first calendar day of summer. Yet tomorrow might be more spring-like than today; conversely, this day could more summery than tomorrow. Summer seemed closest when I climbed to a clearing on the north end of the Hogback near Twyn Rivers. Monarch butterflies were fluttering about the clearing. Perhaps these butterflies were among the first of their species to arrive from their place of birth in the southern States, after an epic flight partway up the continent. Now, they were hungrily inspecting each weed patch for nectarproducing flowers. The monarchs were particularly interested in the milkweeds scattered throughout the clearing. Although the milkweeds were not yet in flower, the monarchs kept alighting on them, probing and inspecting as if impatient with the their tardiness. Soon, the flowers would open and provide the butterflies with abundant nectar and foliage for their caterpillars. For now, the monarchs had to content themselves with red clover and vetch which had blossomed around the clearing. The big black and orange monarchs were accompanied around the clover flowers by smaller orange-brown butterflies called pearl crescents. Unlike their larger relatives, the pearl crescents had emerged recently here in the Rouge, from larvae which overwintered. They were more numerous than the monarchs, though less noticeable, as they danced about the clover, all across the clearing and down into the valley. I left the clearing and entered the forest with my senses still attuned to finding small movements close the ground. Soon another species of butterfly became noticeable—one well-suited to the somber hues of the forest shadows, a wood nymph, with small brown wings faintly marked by yellowish and black 'eyespots/ These butterflies were plentiful throughout the lower levels of the forest. But they weren't scattered haphazardly among the trees; rather the wood nymphs were defending definite territories, each individual maintaining exclusive rights to a small patch of ground. By limiting their population in this way, the nymphs stayed within the forest's normal 'carrying capacity,' and thus assured their future generations of a place to live in the Rouge. 57

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

An eastward view of the Little Rouge valley from the Hydro corridor tableland meadow, with Beare Road Landfill site visible in the distance.

58

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

A SINGLE STRAND OF SPIDER SILK, ALMOST INVISIBLE AS IT FLOATED IN THE STTLL-

ness of the summer morning, broke on my face. I knew then that no one had proceeded me along the Hogback trail that morning. Only the spider and possibly other non-human life forms had passed this way in the pre-dawn darkness. Traffic was unusually light on the highways to the south and, in the relative silence, the green-bordered trail seemed to lead onward, farther and farther away from the city and its influences. A red-eyed vireo sang its endless phrases from high in the crowns of the white oaks beside the trail. This bird, one of the forest's most common songsters, is not often seen due to its drab colouration and preference for the treetops. Nonetheless, I scanned the oak branches for a glimpse of the singer. The oaks were now in full leaf, their rugged limbs festooned with green; but, while looking up, something seemed wrong with the leaves. Instead of appearing fresh, the leaves were skeletonized; they still retained their general round-lobed outlines, but all their inner area, except for veins, had been eaten. On the trunks of the oaks was evidence of the cause of this defoliation: empty pupa cases and shrivelled, recently-shed skins of gypsy moth caterpillars.32 I shuddered at the realization that this insect had arrived so suddenly and apparently flourished in the Rouge, especially as over the previous year there had been no sign of it at all. The gypsy moth, then, had taken about one hundred and thirty years, from the time it had been brought to North America from Europe by a man experimenting with silk production, to reach the Rouge Valley. Some of the moths had escaped from his laboratory in the Boston area, and from there, the

S u m m e r

59

THE

ROUGE

RIVER

V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

60

species was spreading inexorably across the continent. As I walked farther into the forest, the full extent of the infestation became apparent. The hairy larvae were everywhere, and their droppings sounded like rain falling. Many other trees had been defoliated, for the oaks, Manitoba maples, willows, birches and cherry trees of the Rouge were among the moth's favourite foods. Most of the denuded trees would put forth a new set of leaves before the summer ended, but at great expenditure of energy reserves. How many years could the trees survive repeated defoliations by the gypsy moth? Three, four, five years? No-one knew exactly, only that the moth was an added stress which the forest could ill afford. I wished the red-eyed vireo well. It and many other species of forest birds would eat the caterpillars and gradually help check the outbreak. Although insecticides, such as B.t. (Bacillus thuringlensis), which destroy all species of butterfly and moth larvae, were available to combat the gypsy moth, it seemed best to allow the natural cycles to run their courses, without further meddling by humans. It is hoped that the moth's new-found natural predators such as the birds, mice and spiders, along with adverse climatic factors, would lessen the severity of periodic outbreaks. Further south along the Hogback's western edge, the trail entered a dense forest; shadows deepened, and the forest floor was covered by large-leaf aster and the succulent leaves of young jewelweed. Here, gypsy moth caterpillars were less noticeable, as if they were overwhelmed by the forest's abundant foliage. But then, this section of the Rouge forest was a stronghold of the valley's remaining white pines, trees not yet affected by the caterpillars, as they were one of the gypsy moth's less favoured foods. Even in this 'stronghold,' the mature pines were sparse along the trail. Their crowns rose above the tops of the hardwood trees, wind-sculpted and adapted to present profiles of least resistance to the prevailing westerlies. This area, also a kind of white pine nursery, presented me with a dense grove of young pines. It was actually only a cluster of about fifty sapling pines—the only such cluster I'd ever found in the Rouge—covering an area of about four hundred square feet. The young pines stood before me, motionless now in sunlight and shadow on the brink of the valley. Their dynamic growth and yearning for light was written in their straight stems and out-reaching boughs. Most averaged eight feet in height, with a few approaching twenty, and each needled limb that had found sufficient space and light had sprouted tender new needles. By counting the spaces between each whorl of branches, I arrived at an average age of seventeen

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

years for the pines. On the tip or 'leader' of each sapling, six-inch green 'candles' of new growth had appeared, a legacy of the most recent spring. The new needles, backlit against the sky, embodied a crystalline greenness as they lengthened into the light. Insects such the gypsy moth or white pine weevil, or perhaps a browsing deer, could end the needles' existence prematurely, or possibly mechanical damage from a lightning strike or falling tree would seal their fate. Nonetheless, the pines grew and were poised to continue this summer in the Rouge. I had an impulse to hold my hands close to the pine boughs, close to this act of regeneration, as if their vitality was free to be absorbed. Regeneration... what a word that was! A word given meaning by all the growing hopefulness of these pines and the forest's countless other young lifeforms. Such regeneration was, of course, not limited to the Rouge. I recalled Edwin Way Teale's comment in his book North with the Spring, that, "Each year the (spring) advances towards us out of the south, sweeps around us, goes flooding away to the north."33 Indeed, this particular cluster of young pines had significance beyond their possible uniqueness in the Rouge. They provided another link with the North. During the recent and much publized debates about the future of the Temagami district of northern Ontario, these Rouge pines were studied by forest ecologist, Dr. Peter Quinby, as part of his investigation into the processes of white pine growth and regeneration.34 His attention had been focused mainly on how 'old growth' pine forests of Temagami had become established, and on how they could be maintained. Quinby had examined these Rouge pines because this type of 'clustering' occurred also in Temagami. Perhaps there was a common answer to the basic question of "what caused this clustering?" Why had these young pines grown so well yet within such a restricted area, as was the case in Temagami also? The reason, as Dr. Quinby's research was confirming, lay in the need for white pine seeds to contact bare mineral soil before they could germinate. In most situations the forest floor was covered with leaves and other material, making it difficult for the sprouting pine seeds to reach bare earth itself. In extensive natural forests such as Temagami, enough bare soil was usually available by chance, due to lightning-caused fires and the uprooting of large trees by the wind, thus exposing mineral soil. Such opportunities were now rare in the Rouge, however, and the pines had to face additional limiting factors such as air pollution. Carefully, I searched the soil beneath the young pines, and then examined the base of an old pine stump close by. Sure enough I found charcoal, evidence that a fire had occurred on this site in the not too distant past. Thus, most likely

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

61

Dr. Peter Quinby and Paul Giroux examining white pine regeneration in the Little Rouge forest.

62

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

through the agency of fire, the Rouge had provided this place for intense white pine regeneration to occur. And, while single seedling and sapling pines were randomly located throughout the valley, each alone had only a slim chance of reaching maturity. But the very density of these clustered pines greatly increased the odds that at least one would attain old age and disperse seed. The generations of Rouge white pine could then continue. While resting on the needle-littered ground beside the old pine stump with the young pines whispering overhead, I wondered if homo sapiens had taken so much of this species from the Rouge that it could never approach its former abundance and security through natural regeneration alone. Maybe humanity's past greed had altered the forest to such an extent—the almost total cutting of several generations of white pine, along with the introduction of alien species such as the gypsy moth—that the white pine was doomed to dwindle to a mere remnant, and become another relic of the past. Or would people directly intervene again in the white pine's future—differently this time, however, and work to assure that white pine regeneration continued in perpetuity? If such proved to be the case, then humanity's relationship with the Rouge pines would have, in sense, arrived back at the beginning. For the pines apparently have had a very long history of association with people. A study carried out by archaeologist Irene Bowman in 1974, revealed a link between the locations of prehistoric Native village sites in the Rouge and the subsequent pre-settlement (before European) pine forests which the area's first European surveyors, notably Augustus Jones, found here. At the time of his pioneering survey of the Rouge area, a law stipulated that all suitable stands of pine were to be reserved for the exclusive use of the British navy. The tall straight trees made perfect masts for the navy's sailing ships. Thus, when Jones' survey results were published in 1797, the document was entitled: Report of Hastings and Other Timber Fit for the Use of The Royal Navy. In this report Jones indicated areas of white pine concentration and sizes of individual trees. Bowman plotted these areas on a map along with the known locations of prehistoric villages. There was a definite correlation between the locations of the pine forests and the villages. This correlation stemmed, according to Bowman, from the fact that the prehistoric people practised a small-scale slash and burn method of clearing parts of the forest and establishing rough fields for growing crops, principally corn. After the fields were abandoned, they became ideal sites for white pine regeneration, as the mineral soil was presumably exposed. Thus, while the Native people had used the valley and modified it to

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

63

some degree, they had finally bequeathed it as a living land and helped to create this second, longer-term 'crop' in the Rouge. As June drew to a close, an unprecedented amount—in modern times at least— of human attention was focused on the Rouge Valley. A series of planning initiatives by the then City of Scarborough and the Provincial Government, had made it apparent that a crucial time had arrived in the history of human relations with the valley. Scarborough Council could choose to permit either a massive housing and transportation development throughout the valley, or it could seize the opportunity to take a large step toward saving the area as a reserve or park. Public interest in the area peaked at this critical time, largely due to the grassroots volunteer work of the Save the Rouge River Valley System Inc. (SRVS) and sympathic Scarborough councillors Joyce Trimmer and Edith Montgomery, along with media people such as broadcaster Art Drysdale. It was an evening in late June when Scarborough Council held a public meeting to debate and arrive at a decision concerning the Rouge.35 The Council Chambers quickly filled with people and soon the lobby outside was also full. Altogether more than twelve hundred people packed the chambers, setting an attendance record. Most of these people had come to support the Rouge, many to speak in its favour. As the evening wore on, it became clear that protection of the Rouge might be achievable to a degree hardly dreamed of only a few years previous. Several councillors were dismayed by the crowd and the direction the meeting was taking; one remarked that "... it looks like the Sixities are happening all over again"36 (referring presumably to the youthful idealism of some of the speakers). But he was wrong, for the Rouge supporters constituted a complete demographic, economic and cultural cross-section of the community. It did seem, however, that the people had taken some of the advice of Henry David Thoreau, written in the 1860s: "If the inhabitants of a town were wise they would seek to preserve these things (ie. natural features) though at a considerable expense. For such things educate far more than any hired teachers or preachers, or any at present recognized system of school education. "37

64

Some of the evening's most eloquent testimony was heard from the Native people. Native leaders Eddie Benton Banai and Vern Harper had participated in rallies and spoken at other occasions for the Rouge. And on this June evening a letter from Ian Johnston, representing the United Indian Councils of the

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Mississauga and Chippewa Nations, was read into the public record. It said in part: "... As many speakers have indicated tonight, it is our obligation to preserve the natural environment for the well-being of future generations. For us it is equally important that the Native heritage of the valley be preserved for the well-being of future generations. "38 The letter went on to say: "While we must concern ourselves with future generations, it is also important that we look to the well-being of past generations. The burial sites within the Rouge Valley area are sacred and the natural environment which serves as the resting place for our ancestors is sacred as well. "39 Yes, it seemed as if history was coming 'round then, and that even there in the poured-concrete municipal chambers, amid the lights and amplified voices, Council could not avoid ruling in favour of saving the Rouge. But they dithered and delayed until the midnight deadline for debate came and went. Finally, Council did reach a decision; they would defer the whole matter and wait for another time. Soon after the Council meeting, when June turned into July, I hiked to the Little Rouge River near the south end of the Hogback and found that summer had not been deferred. The river, while flowing clear and cool in the shade, was at its lowest summer level, scarcely six feet across. Revealed in the wet silty soil along the river, were delicate tracks of a spotted sandpiper. The sandpiper itself was just barely visible against the wet earth, until it took flight on quivering wings and flew away downstream. Among the sandpiper tracks were the miniature hand-shaped prints of a raccoon. Evidently this 'masked bandit' had hunted along the river during a recent night, probably even as the fate of the entire valley, and consequently its own, was being debated. With a feeling of being watched by another presence nearby, I looked up from the river, but the only movement was the river's flow below the overarching trees, accompanied by the quiet sounds of water bubbling over pebbles. The calm air above the river was scented lightly with the bitter-sweet fragrance of elderberry. Turning from the water's edge, I walked up to the top of the riverbank where the earth had been scoured by ice and meltwater during early spring (had it been only four months ago?). Now layers of greenery completely covered the

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

65

66

surface. Light green low-lying leaves of coltsfoot and the finely-divided stems of horsetail hid the soil and created a kind of indefinite focus for the eye. Together, they presented not a solid green appearance, but rather imparted a soft verdant glow. Sprinkled in this glow, seeming to float within it, were tiny bright blue and yellow flowers of scorpion grass. After looking more closely into this green aura, I was tempted to reach within, but the subtle shades and forms of leaves blended and merged, creating a mystical effect and I withdrew. Up on the bottomland itself, adjacent to the bank, a half-dozen cow parsnips loomed up hugely from the tangled undergrowth. Their bamboo-like stems had attained eight feet in height with the beginning of summer, and their umbels of white flowers were aggressively displayed. 'Cow parsnip' did not seem a glamorous enough name for this plant, however, its scientific genus name herackum—referring to the Greek hero Hercules—did acknowledge the power of this plant's life force. I followed the bottomland trail northward, first near the base of the Hogback, then swinging west across open meadow toward the Rouge River, and emerged into the cedar grove on the river's edge. The Rouge ran higher and with greater volume than did the Little Rouge; yet the Rouge too was afflicted with low summer levels, and its water ran flat over the stony bottom. My boots were suctioned by mud along the margin of the river. Upon looking down, I realized that my mud-weighted boots had to be placed with care. The sodden ground was alive with tiny toadlets! They were about one-quarter inch in length and coloured to match the dark hue of the wet soil. These were probably offspring of the toads I'd heard calling earlier in the year; perhaps some had travelled from as far away as the Lower Rouge Marsh. It became evident that I was not the first to disturb these particular toadlets, for the soil beneath them was imprinted with the large tracks of a great blue heron. Each heron track, with a long toe pointing backward and three forward, was larger than my outstretched hand. How long since the heron had visited here and presumably dined on the toadlets? The tracks were fresh in the mud—perhaps only moments before. Again, a sense of being watched returned—I looked up and was startled to find myself actually under observation. A female mallard with ten ducklings in tow, had swum downstream and into sight. Now, she nervously watched me from the opposite side of the river. I remained motionless for awhile, then slowly stepped up from the river and back onto the trail. The mallard family continued downstream without undue alarm. As the trail took me north up the valley, the traffic noise from Twyn Rivers

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Drive became more audible. Another 'rush hour' was approaching. Commuters were trying to avoid greater congestion on the big highways by following alternative routes such as this one. Upon arrival at the edge of the road, I continued west along its shoulder to the open-mesh bridge which spanned the Rouge River. It was prudent to wait for a break in the traffic before daring to cross. Finally an opening came. Halfway over the bridge, I noticed what initially appeared to be an unusual rock in the river below. With a quick second glance, ever mindful of cars approaching, I realized the 'rock' was a large snapping turtle. The turtle, about fourteen inches long, was submerged in mid-river close to the bottom. Had it come up from the Rouge marsh to hunt the young toadlets along the river? Or was it a female seeking a place to lay her eggs? From the end of the bridge I looked back once more to see the turtle slowly making its way upstream. Later one evening I returned to the valley in an attempt to find the snapping turtle again. Rush hour had ended. The valley was quiet, the air motionless and hot as the sun-warmed earth gave back the day's heat. Finding no sign of the reptile along the river, I wandered south through the bottomland meadow, then left the path and climbed up through the Hogback forest, until I found myself in a grove of mature white pines and hemlocks on the east side. There I rested on the ground at the base of one of the pines. Shadows descended from the darkening crowns of the conifers, foreshadowing the coming night. The trees themselves remained motionless, but seemed to lean closer, with every breath of pine-scented air. In the stillness I recalled some words of American naturalist Ann Zwinger: "Wandering is a solitary practice, yet those of us who are wanderers can never walk alone. We walk with those who have gone before. "40 The cool peacefulness of the pine and hemlock grove made resting easy, accompanied now by a sense of security—one provided partially by all those people who had recently demonstrated their support for the Rouge Valley. Although Scarborough Council had deferred any decisions about the Rouge's fate, ultimately all political power resided within such an alert and informed public. But, would their thoughts and good wishes continue on, and grow as time passed? A summer breeze gusted along the bottomland. It carried before it a formation of rough-winged swallows who quickly veered away toward the Rouge River, where their burrows lined the banks, leaving the breeze to continue on alone through the bottomland, through the summer tangles of purple bugloss, tick-trefoil and daisy fleabane. I paused to listen to the play of air in the vegetation,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

67

68

and became aware of another sound, the high-pitched hissing of long-horned grasshoppers hidden within the plant life. They provided a softer, more continuous background drone for the intermittent chirping of the field crickets. The sighing breeze and grasshopper choir were abruptly joined by a cicada—the first of the year for me—which rattled into 'song' on a nearby Manitoba maple. The cicada's harsh buzz testified to the heat of the July day; I started south again along the bottomland path, heading for the cool shadows of the Rouge forest by the edge of the river, visible in the near distance. More melodious than the cicada, was a house wren who bubbled over with music while perched on a fallen tree beside the path. The wren was one of several species of birds that, with unusual boldness, were making their presence known. A pair of indigo buntings reacted with agitation at my passage—their head feathers were ruffled and their wings fluttered nervously. They need not have worried, for their nest was situated within a thicket of poison ivy. A kingbird, always ready to challenge any intruder, displayed similar concern by flying low overhead. Soon a robin and a pair of goldfinches flew over, apparently summoned by the alarm calls of the other birds. The Rouge bottomland had become a virtual bird nursery; the parent birds, busy raising recently hatched offspring, were extra wary of human visitors. Summer had brought new generations of life to the forest. Upon entering the hemlock shadows at the south base of the Hogback, my attention was taken by three grey squirrels foraging together. Two were very young, awkward and frolicsome as the parent squirrel attempted to introduce them to the task of foodfinding. And the long warm July days were ripening the hard green fruits which now hung on the trailside dogwood bushes, replacing the white flowers of June. Other plants were just entering their prime. Tiny purple flowers of herb-Robert had recently opened on the forest floor and, in places, the trail was bordered with the yellow petals of fringed loosestrife. The summer air made its way through the forest, stirring the vast canopy of leaves—leaves still fresh and pliant with life at every level and every direction, Actually, many were new leaves which the trees were growing to replace those eaten earlier by the gypsy moth larvae. Soon the leafy shadows were left behind as the trail led out into the sunlit clearing on the north end of the Hogback. Here, another difference was immediately noticeable. The scent of pine was unusually strong on the air. The shattered trunk of a large white pine, one of the Rouge's solitary sentinel pines, was lying on the ground before me. Above stood the remainder of the stem from

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

which it had broken off, about halfway up. Judging by the greenness of the needles and freshness of the sap, the pine could not have fallen more than a couple of days previously. A deep crack spiralled down the length of the standing part of the trunk and disappeared into the ground; it appeared that the prostate upper part had been ripped apart, the result of a lightning strike. The bolt of electrical energy had caused the water within the pine to instantly boil, and thus explode the trunk. I placed my hand on the pine trunk, it was warm, sun-warm. Then, running my fingers through masses of needles and twigs on the broken crown, I found them flexible and soft and still retaining the graceful, streamlined shapes which had served them well through decades of being held aloft above the valley. Something else attracted my attention, something which had escaped notice before. Adjacent to the shattered pine, blending with the background vegetation, was a small cluster of sapling white pines. How long had they stood there, overshadowed by their parent? They were fewer in number but larger than the pines in the cluster located farther south on the Hogback. They were, however, about the same age—fifteen to twenty years; several had grown past twenty-five feet at the rate of almost twenty inches each year. Four of these sapling pines had actually developed new cones, green and tightly closed. These were difficult to see high among the green boughs, suspended and waiting there in the sun and pine-scented air. What would the urban naturalist do without these times and places—these 'stolen' moments in which to leave the city's hot asphalt and hard lines behind, and walk down into the valley, to be enveloped within this realm of sun-filled air and fluttering leaves along the river? Surely now as July aged, the full spectrum of natural life—flowers, insects, birds—would have been witnessed; but no, the Rouge bottomland meadows were adorned with new colours. Spreading out from the path, throughout the bottomland near Twyn Rivers, was wild bergamot. Its tousled flowerheads were hosts to numerous bumblebees, while the entire plant emitted a delicous spicy aroma as it steeped in the hot sun. A black swallowtail butterfly alighted on one of the flowers. The butterfly's yellow-spotted black wings slowly opened and closed, as it sipped nectar while carefully balancing on the pale purple petals. Taller than the bergamot, and even busier with bees, was white sweet clover. It also scented the air, though very lightly, with honey. New plants lined the riverbanks too. I avoided the sweet-smelling greenish

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

69

garlands of stinging nettles hidden along the edge, but was glad of their presence, as they were a safeguard against the kind of people who had carelessly discarded a pile of empty bottles beside the path. Those were the type of people who, if they couldn't find a full-scale garbage dump in the Rouge, would at least create these miniature replicas. Fortunately, the lavender-coloured flowers of soapwort were open among the nettles, extending the cleansing potential of their leaves. After cleaning up the debris, I was tempted to use them to wash my hands. Carefully, I walked through the riverside vegetation and stepped down onto the slick silt at the water's edge. Here was a quiet bend in the river, with the smooth-flowing water emerging from cedar shadows and acquiring the sweetness of the nettles. Reflections rippled on the sheet of water and, close above the water, I saw the airy flickering of black-winged damselflies, undoubtedly one of the river's most beautiful insects. The males were distinguished by slender metallic green bodies and black gauzy wings. The females were smaller, less metallic and with a white spot on the upper edges of their wings. Together they flitted daintily above the water; so delicately did they fly, that it seemed they were hardly able to keep themselves aloft, yet always they managed to alight in time on a handy fern or other leaf near the water. Usually when the damselflies landed, they folded their wings above their back; but sometimes they would slowly open and then quickly close their wings—possibly a form of communication between mates. The fluttering of the damselflies above the rippling water produced a hypnotic effect, and caused a momentary loss of perspective; the watery background became unfocused, and my eye lost the scale by which it unconsciously judged the size of the insects. Was I looking down upon them from a great height? Were they actually large, but rendered small by distance? Perhaps I was imagining an historical dimension to the damsels, harkening to the very distant past when their ancient ancestors—the giant dragonflies with three-foot wingspans—inhabited Earth's wetlands during the Coal Age two hundred and forty million years ago. A slight movement—I thought another damselfly—caught my eye. Glancing up towards the bank, I saw a hummingbird hovering before a soapwort flower, a ruby-throated hummingbird, but a female, lacking the male's red throat. She probed the flower with her tongue, searching for nectar, then, in the blink of an eye, the tiny bird was gone.

70

July seemed to pass as quickly as the hummingbird. The month's hot, clear days were drawing to a close when I next visited the Rouge.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

As the season advanced, a subtle new complexion had come to the Rouge forest; the general greenery was accented now with warmer tones. Wild sunflowers were open among the dogwood bushes beside the trail. These smaller woodland sunflowers were versions of the giant domestic types; but nonetheless their petals shone with a more intense yellow among the forest's deep shadows. Their leaves were tough and sandpapery. The entire plant had a wiry, athletic appearance as the yellow flowerheads endeavoured to track whatever fleck of sunlight happened their way. How long had the sunflowers grown inconspicuously in the shade, waiting until now to claim attention? Along moist sections of the trail, jewelweed joined the sunflowers in contributing to the forest's warmer tone. Unlike the latter, though, the orange or yellow jewelweed flowers hung from dewy, fleshy stems as soft as the dark wet soil. While concentrating on the flowers, I was startled by a bird. A woodcock burst into the air almost at my feet, its wings whistling as it dodged away among the trees. My first thought was that this woodcock could be a late-season nester, but a quick ground search revealed only pockmarks in the wet soil, made by the bird's long flexible bill as it probed for earthworms, its favourite food. Soon the trail emerged from the forest and onto the Rouge bottomland. Here the path branched in several directions. I stood indecisively, listening to a cicada chorus and noticed the subtle warm tones of the forest spreading out onto the bottomland. Yes, already a thin wash of yellow from the year's first goldenrods lay across the valley. For now it was a subdued tint, but the presence of multitudes of unopened goldenrod flower-buds promised further change. And among the goldenrod, white silken masses of thistle seeds rested, waiting for breezes to bear them away. More signs of the season's progress appeared in the Rouge as July led into August. These were overlapping multidimensional signs of life growing, producing offspring, dying, arriving, departing... Near the beginning of August I spent a morning in the Finch Meander area. From the edge of the high cliff the valley opened below me; the forest lay motionless in the steady sunlight, while the river curved from sight among the trees. For a moment it struck me that the river was an unusual brown colour, contrasting with the dark green of the forest. Normally in summertime, except after storms when the resulting runoff filled the water with sediment, the river ran clear. But my attention was distracted by something else, an absence. The air was all but empty of the bank swallows who nested in the cliff. One or two still patrolled above the river, but most, I presumed, had

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

71

72

departed for their winter homes, having entrusted their Rouge 'apartments' to the elements for another year. Since a couple of stragglers still remained, it seemed likely that the swallows had begun their migration very recently, probably in the past day or two. With the feel of the warm sun overhead, one could wonder what caused their hurry. Surely much more of the natural year lay ahead, waiting to be lived and savoured; yet that was exactly what the swallows would be doing, always and wherever they flew. Perhaps it was the swallows' absence, but the meander seemed profoundly quiet. It was a kind of heavy stillness, as if the meander and its inhabitants were withdrawing, trying to avoid attention. A cool breath of air stirred the leaves slightly. Looking upward, I quickly realized that this stillness was literally the 'calm before the storm.' Although the sky above was clear, to southward a huge cumulo-nimbus cloud was rearing over the treetops. The towering cloud was sharply defined against the blue sky; great billows boiled silently up from the cloud's flat base. The breeze freshened. Quickly, I started down the trail toward the bottomland which would afford some safety from the lightning sure to come. A grove of bitternut hickories near the river on the meander's inside edge provided shelter. The great anvil-shaped thundercloud darkened the sky overhead and, immediately, a rush of rain swept into the valley. Thunder crashed, lightning flashed as the wind and rain grew stronger; they reached a peak then gradually subsided as the thundercloud continued northward. With the passing of the storm, a song sparrow close by burst into song, as if unable to contain itself any longer; a blue jay answered harshly in the distance. Shafts of sunlight slanted through the forest, catching tiny droplets of water which fell from the trees and sparkled through the sunlit swaths before finally disappearing among ferns on the forest floor. Below the ferns, a strange plant had sprouted and was being nourished by the rainwater. This was a coral fungus, with multitudes of orangey-red branchlets extending up from the wet loam. While examining the fungus and wondering whether it had actually grown so much during the one-hour period of the storm, I was interrupted by a small brownish wood frog jumping past, no doubt finding the wet conditions suitable for foraging. On impulse, I turned over a rock lying within reach and found a red-backed salamander—another moisture-loving creature—beneath it. The salamander was even more dependent upon clean water than the fungus or wood frog; it had no lungs, but breathed instead through its constantly moist skin. How had the ancient myth which claimed that salamanders could walk unharmed through fire, ever arisen? Well, the challenge

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

of existing on land as an air-breathing, lungless creature seemed as great as that of walking through flames. Despite its surprising reputation for overcoming adversity, the red-backed salamander is in trouble in the Rouge. A survey of the region compiled by Bob Johnson, a curator at the Toronto Zoo, revealed that this once common species of salamander was now rare in the Toronto region.41 Apparently the loss of wetlands and the lowering of water tables during urbanization, had reduced this salamander to the vanishing point. Carefully, I replaced the rock so as not to further disturb its fragile existence. During the walk back to the trail through the dripping vegetation, it seemed that the rain had enhanced the sweet fragrance of wild cucumber, the white flowers of which were draped along the river. And at the edge of the Rouge I noticed again how brown the water was; the colouration appeared out of proportion to the just concluded storm. Surely the storm waters with their loads of soil materials could not have reach the river so quickly! With a mild sense of alarm, I hiked back to my car where it was parked near the intersection of Finch and Sewells Road.42 Close by, where the river entered the meander, was a dischordant change in the landscape—how had I missed it earlier? Only a week ago continuous forest had lined the river to the shoulder of Sewells Road, now it looked as if a new passageway had been constructed into the bush along the river. I walked over and was stunned to see that such was the case; a rough gravel road was being built along the Rouge. The riverside forest had been hacked away and the river was scarred from earthmoving equipment. Bulldozer treadmarks led down to the bank and into the river itself. This intervention and removal of vegetation were largely responsible for the downstream brown colour of the water, having greatly increased its sediment load. This disturbance was in direct violation of the Federal Fisheries Act, which forbade interfering with fishproducing waters such as the Rouge. The soil materials now being carried into the river could destroy fish-spawning beds by smothering the fish eggs in sediment. Continuing west along the new roadway, I realized that the threat to the Rouge fishery was only one of many potential effects of this ecological disaster inthe-making. Large armour-stones were being stacked along the river, waiting to be placed in the banks; clearly, this section of the Rouge was slated to be straightened and 'channelized'—virtually a death sentence for any river's natural functions. Ahead, I could see a bulldozer and a large excavator parked beside the river, inactive now for the weekend, but both poised to continue their destruction soon. Little time remained, then, to investigate and take action before their work

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

73

July 1992, five years after its construction, this is how the riverside road appeared near Finch and Sewells Road.

74

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

Rubbish dumped beside the new road.

75

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

76

resumed—work which was all the more puzzling in light of the recently awakened public and political interest in protecting the Rouge Valley. Other alert members of SRVS had spotted the crisis developing in the Finch/Sewells area. After a quickly convened conference, members contacted the government ministries and agencies involved, and tried to ascertain the reasons behind the clumsy work presently ruining that part of the Rouge. As anticipated, the work was explained away as being a necessary 'remedial' measure to protect a new housing subdivision, being built along the valley's edge above the south side of the river. Beyond that, the environmentalists received dismissive shrugs; according to the government bureaucrats no 'significant' biological features were to be found at the site, and their engineers gave assurances that the work would have no lasting effects. Not satisfied with those responses, and to further strengthen the SRVS case, a group of activitists visited the site next evening. Work had proceeded in the meantime; the river had been partially damned and diverted at several points by crude piles of rock scraped from the river bottom. In addition, a new storm sewer out-fall was being installed to serve the housing development. In the process of installing this sewer, a pre-existing pond located adjacent to the river and which had been home to waterfowl, amphibians, pond lilies... had been filled-in, eliminating in hours what had taken many years to develop. A flock of mourning doves close by took flight on whistling wings and, along the edge of the river, several spotted sandpipers picked nimbly among the construction debris. Then, from the opposite bank of the river, a great blue heron lunged into the air. We wondered whether the heron was a 'regular' here, catching fish in pools along this stretch of the Rouge, and if it would ever be able to return. Trees screened the river from sight as we entered a forested section through which the new roadway cut. I stopped to examine the trees, and was surprised to find that many were young black walnuts—a nationally rare Carolinian species! Many of them had been carelessly flattened during the road construction. A short distance off the road stood several large black walnut trees, surrounded by more walnut saplings. Clearly this site constituted one of the better black walnut sites in the Rouge Valley. It had apparently no 'significance,' however, to the government bureaucrats who had sanctioned the construction. Since it was obvious that work was continuing with deleterious consequences for the Rouge, and without addressing the concerns of SRVS, a plan of direct action was established.43 Tomorrow morning a group of volunteers,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Storm-sewer outfall constructed near the end of the road. Untreated sewer water flows directly into the river.

77

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

accompanied by as much media as possible, would return to the site and force a work stoppage by standing in front of the heavy equipment. With much organizing to do, we started back toward our cars. As we were leaving, a red-tailed hawk screamed overhead. Early that weekday morning about twenty-four people, many of whom were mothers with young children, gathered near the site. Reporters and photographers from newspapers and TV arrived, and then, with Jim Robb leading the way, we marched down the new road. The morning calm was shattered by the roar of machinery in the near distance. As we emerged from the forested section, the excavator could be seen, positioned above the river, its bucket awkwardly reaching down into the water. As we advanced, the operator, evidently pre-warned, shut the machine off. To make certain it was not re-activated, several of us climbed down and stood in front of the bucket, while the news photographers frantically scrambled for good shots, and the clicking of their cameras filled the newly silent air. The bemused equipment operators walked away to take a break. The demonstration acquired a slightly dark humourous quality as the photographers requested 'staged' repeats of people confronting the now inactive machinery. Gradually, people began to drift apart, forming smaller knots around reporters and camera crews. That evening and the next day television and newspapers gave excellent coverage to this local event. While the demonstration achieved its short-term goal of temporarily halting the construction (although it did not prevent the final completion of the project, which continued on through the summer), it also marked a turning point in other ways; the relevant government agencies began to take environmental concerns in the Rouge much more seriously, especially after several bureaucratic 'heads rolled' as a result of the demonstration. Furthermore, it gave ordinary people a sense of hope and power—power which had always lain within their grasp, once the deadening cloak of apathy was cast aside. The publicity also encouraged more people to become involved and join the rising tide of grassroots environmentalism. As Alfreda Stratos, one of the participants, later wrote: "We definitely need more people like those who were present that day to stand together and fight so that the meaning of the word 'construction' does not turn out to be destruction."^ 78

After the flurry of excitement accompanying the demonstration had died away, and all the arguments and counter-arguments were exchanged, the valley

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

and its inhabitants remained as the final sources and arbiters of value. Despite whatever designs humans might attempt to impose, the Rouge had an abundance of summer life requiring attention. August was taking hold in the valley and, when I hiked the Hogback trail south from Twyn Rivers, I found that the ripening influence of the month was spreading through the forest. Now, bright red chokecherries hung above the dense mats of poison ivy and bedstraw along the trail. Although attractive, the cherries were too bitter to eat. Much more acceptable were wild raspberries which had also ripened in thickets along the way. Less noticeable were hard green seeds forming on the bush honeysuckles, almost at ground level. And, spreading away from either side of the trail and across the forest floor, were the distinctive seedpods of sweet cicely which rose above the fern-like leaves of the parent plants. A red squirrel burst from the vegetation and streaked across the path. It stopped abruptly at the base of a nearby pine and let loose a verbal barrage of sputtering squeaks. Was the squirrel warning me and all other listeners that this was its territory or, conversely, was it articulating a deeply-felt desire for attention? Certainly, as I concentrated on the squirrel it became less vocal, as if satisfied, save for a final emphatic squeak as it raced away up the tree. A little farther along the trail, within a hemlock grove, another creature claimed my attention. It was a slim hawk perched about twenty feet above the ground. I was surprised that it did not take flight; instead, the hawk uttered a series of six or seven whistled notes—actually a song in contrast to the usual harsh screams of its larger cousin, the red-tailed hawk. I tried imitating the hawk's song. It left the hemlock and flew over toward me, alighting at eye level on a maple branch about thirty feet away. Its keen eyes, brown-streaked breast, long barred tail, and yellow legs and feet were clearly visible. Judging by its size (comparable to a crow) and the slightly rounded tip of its tail, I decided it was a Cooper's hawk, not commonly seen. The hawk and I observed each other for about five minutes, only to be interrupted by a second hawk flying in our direction. This 'interloper' chased the first hawk away, then circled back to investigate me. Meanwhile, the first one called from deeper within the forest. In addition to the multi-note song, the hawks occasionally uttered single high-pitched whistles. Eventually, both disappeared into the valley. The hawks probably constituted a family pair which had been together since early spring. Perhaps they were both young-of-the-year; their curiosity seemed indicative of youth, which had not yet acquired a deep fear or knowledge of humans—things which they would be unwise to lack for long. Not long ago—

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

79

and a belief still persistent among many people—most predatory birds and the Cooper's hawk in particular—were considered to be evil. Percy Taverner, writing in 1937, said that the Cooper's hawk was "certainly a menace/' and was "a more harmful species than the Sharp-shinned/' principally because their diet included songbirds and the occasional domestic fowl.45 But if the hawks were so bad, where did that leave humans? We were relegating all bird species to places of final refuge such as the Rouge, and we raised countless chickens, for instance, solely for slaughter. Such questions absorbed my attention until my arrival at the bank of the Little Rouge. There I paused, listening. From beyond the veil of leaves and JoePye weed now in flower on the bank, came the sound of wings fluttering. Quietly, I stepped forward and peered through the vegetation. Three young robins, their breasts still spotted with brown, were seated on the gravel bar at the water's edge. They appeared to be trying to get up their nerve to take a bath. Just upstream from the robins, two young yellow-shafted flickers sat a little farther back from the water, as if waiting for the robins to go first. I too waited to see which bird would make the first move. Then, from overhead came the heavy swishing sound of large wings; a shadow passed over. A great blue heron was flying away, staying within sight of the river.

80

As August reached its mid-point, the colour of goldenrod brightened across the Rouge bottomlands. Multitudes of goldenrod flowers began opening simultaneously, replacing the fading flowers of Queen Ann's lace and bergamot. One afternoon in particular the goldenrods were especially prominent in the Rouge, standing in contrast to the sky which was turning inky black above the valley to the east. Direct sunlight still flooded the valley from westward, highlighting the goldenrod, but swiftly the area of clear sky was diminishing as a summer storm approached. I wended my way along a narrow path through the goldenrod, heading for the sheltering forest. Soon the valley was evenly lit; the direct sunlight all but extinguished. As the storm gathered quickly overhead, the light acquired a specious grey, an almost mauve quality. Amid the stormy light the goldenrods still upheld their brightness, as if they retained an inner warmth accumulated during the long days of being open to the August sun. And from deep down below their crowded stalks came the confident, steady singing of countless crickets, apparently not distracted by the imminent storm. Rain began falling lightly as I gained the forest. The breeze strengthened

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

from the south, blowing cool air through the trees. It was air fresh from the open reaches of Lake Ontario. Its freshness brought memories of the cooler seasons— the feelings of which always lurked within the lake's cold waters. I continued walking through the forest as the storm broke. For all its threatening demeanour, the storm produced little thunder or lightning. But by the time of my arrival in the grove of pines and hemlocks on the east slope of the Hogback, the rain had strengthened enough to make me seek cover at the base of one of the tall pines. Here, I watched the storm work its way into and through the valley. The rough trunks of the conifers were streaked with water which, unable to reach the ground directly, was trickling down the furrowed bark. The water darkened the already somber hues of the tree trunks, causing them to blend all the more easily with the subdued tones of the forest floor. The rain continued, waxing and waning; it was difficult to tell when or if it was actually letting up. Every breeze produced secondary downpours from the water-laden trees. Then, an initially subtle, though definite, change took place; faint shadows stretched eastward from the trees—tentative, growing shadows which as unexpectedly as they had appeared, diffused again into the general flat light of the forest. Suddenly, the shades reappeared, this time condensing into definite sharp shadows as sunlight flooded the forest. The sunlight held steady. I brushed my hands through the low-reaching pine boughs, feeling their softness and the tingling beads of cold water. Tiny spheres of water glimmered on each needle; the water droplets adhered best to the microscopically-serrated edges along the sides of each needle. Apparently a certain blue jay enjoyed the water too. Flapping its wings, it was effectively taking a bath among the rain-wet leaves high up in an oak tree, at the edge of the coniferous grove. Every flap of the jay's wings sent down a shower of droplets. Perhaps feeling the water's coldness, the bird screamed loudly, then proceeded to preen its feathers. I stood up from the base of the pine and started back north along the Hogback trail, thinking that possibly another storm might be brewing. My pants were covered with many small quarter-moon shaped seedpods, the fruit of ticktrefoil, a plant which bordered the bottomland trails along with goldenrod. Unlike the latter, trefoil was now inconspicuous, but, as I had discovered, had extended its velcro-equipped seedpods for any passersby. Although most of the pods had been picked off, it was likely that some would accompany me back to the suburbs. What would become of them there? Perhaps some would germinate in a crack in the city's pavement. In this way nature always probed and tested limits, seeking

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

81

82

to reclaim her lost territory. I was glad to help in any way I could. I had almost reached my car when something struck me sharply on the chest, then fell to the ground before me. The something was a large cicada, also known as a 'tree toad/ Recovering from my surprise, I picked it up and took advantage of the opportunity to actually see this insect. All summer the cicadas filled the valley with their shrill buzz, while rarely affording a glimpse of themselves. Only now, as summer matured and the cicada population reached its maximum, did it become reasonable to expect to see one. I had an impulse to carry the insect back to 'civilization' and share with other people this source of summer's pervasive buzz. Instead, I tossed the cicada into the air. For a second it dropped earthward, then spread its wings and continued its interrupted flight. Back in my car on TWyn Rivers Drive, I joined the flow of traffic heading west into Toronto. As I drove across the narrow bridge over the Rouge River, I glanced down at the water. It was tinted a brownish colour. I tried to convince myself that the colour was temporary and caused naturally by the recent rainfall. It was late August, and evening was coming to the valley when I drove again across the Rouge bridge. From the vantage of the car the river appeared clear, though it was difficult to be certain in the soft evening light. Only after leaving my car and walking south along the Rouge, did an abnormal cloudiness become visible in places where the water pooled. The water, then, continued to be affected by the construction activity at Finch and Sewells—even this far downstream (about three miles). Yet most of that work had been completed several days previously; this lingering cloudiness was, I decided, a type of residual fallout. How soon would it be before the water became clear again? What would be the long-term consequences for the river's fish, aquatic insects and waterfowl? Perhaps gaps would occur in the next generations of freshwater life in the Rouge, with unpredictable results. Such worries, however, did not perturb the Rouge insect choir. Their music, produced largely by crickets and katydids, vibrated through the cool air—air rendered spicy by the fragrances of summer herbs—and formed a steady accompaniment to the river's varied melody. Undoubtedly they felt the evening's cool touch, for despite their steadiness they seemed tuned to a slightly lower, though more urgent pitch. A concerted effort was audible now in the insects' musical phrases, as they endeavoured to complete their performances within the allotted time. Other insects were bedding down for the night. Bumblebees, for instance, were curled in slumber on goldenrod flowers on the bottomland meadows. The

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

bumblebees found a rudimentary privacy as they slept, by clinging to the undersides of flowers, while still exposed to the vastness of the night. They could at least be certain of having breakfast at hand when morning came. Among the goldenrods and bordering the path into the forest, another species of flower was just coming into bloom—white snakeroot. As twilight settled in the valley, the dainty white panicled flowers of this plant became prominent, gleaming with a white lustre among the weedy shadows. And while looking down at the snakeroot flowers, I noticed that a representative of their namesake had slithered into view, a small dusky snake, hardly discernible against the shadowed earth. I stooped lower and easily caught the little reptile in my hands. The snake scarcely struggled, but seemed to enjoy the warmth of my hands, and its curiosity was evidenced by its rapidly flickering tongue (the snake's olfactory organ). This was a red-bellied snake out for an evening excursion, its clear orangey-red underside contrasting with its dull sides and back. After a few minutes, I released the snake on the trail. Immediately, its secret warm colour was hidden again and it became practically invisible as it crawled away among the weeds. I left the bottomland and headed back north along the Hogback trail as twilight verged toward night. Beyond the valley to westward, through openings among the trees, the sky was awash with an intense golden-orange light. Quickly the light faded as the sun set, leaving the lesser lights of the city to shine alone below the darkening sky. With the fading light a current of cool air rustled through the forest...another sound, at first unfamiliar, came from close by. Was a rainstorm beginning? No; the pattering sound was caused by ripe acorns falling from the oak trees in the darkness—an audible clue to the summer's maturity. One morning at the end of August, I again visited the construction site at Finch and Sewells.46 With some trepidation I walked the new roadway, not knowing quite what to expect. The work itself had apparently ceased, but in what condition had the site been left? I noticed first that the river appeared clearer, although it was still tinted a murky green colour. How far this murkiness extended downstream I could not tell. But the clearing trend did seem to be continuing. I then found two locations where the river was still partially dammed by piles of rock, placed apparently to facilitate the movement of heavy equipment across the river. The river was busy working its way through these obstacles; the water bubbled and murmured as it sought every weakness in these barriers, every possible way through. A heavy storm surge would probably be enough to wash them away.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

83

84

The place where the pond and riverside shrubbery had been prior to the construction, was raw and trampled flat from the now absent machinery. The monstrous prints of bulldozer treads were still fresh, though these were beginning to glisten with moisture, as groundwater, which had previously supplied the pond, inexorably worked its way back to the surface again. Something else upon the beaten earth caught my eye; deer tracks were imprinted among those of the bulldozer. These were recent tracks, perhaps made during the previous day. Had the deer visited the site to ascertain its potential for future browsing? Farther westward where the new road pierced the black walnut grove, I walked about one hundred yards off the road, and found what must have been one of the Rouge's largest individual black walnut trees. It measured twenty inches across at four and a half feet above the ground. On the ground beneath it lay fruit of the present year; hardball-sized fruits with their green leathery husks and wooden inner shells protecting the living seed. As September arrived in the Rouge, the tide of ripening continued. Now, the spiny husks of beechnuts littered the trails in the Rouge forest. Many of these still had their sweet triangular-shaped nuts inside, having been temporarily missed by the foraging squirrels, chipmunks and birds such as blue jays. Being more interested in the beech trees themselves, as I hiked the Hogback trail I glanced at each one along the way—paying particular attention to their smooth grey 'muscular' bark, much noted for its ability to retain markings such as scratches or deliberately carved initials. Often some 'tidbit' of local history was thus inscribed on their smooth trunks. Although I did not find any written words that day, when I paused to examine one large beech beside the trail it seemed to convey a message from the North. Perhaps it was also the chilly air, crisp with the first touch of autumn, but the tree and the falling beechnuts awoke memories of northern Ontario, where this species reached the northern limit of its range. In the north it was often easy to tell if a given beech tree was a nut-producer (a female tree). Invariably, the trunk of such a tree was permanently scarred by the claws of nut-loving black bears. Apparently remembering which trees were producers, the bears climbed them to feast upon the ripening nuts before they could fall and became available to a wider variety of creatures. Perhaps some of the oldest beech trees in the Rouge still displayed similar markings... fading insignia of an animal which once, within living memory, inhabited the valley.47 Northern life had arrived in another way in the beech and other trees along the trail; flocks of tiny birds, warblers, were passing among the branches. Their

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

The road cutting through the grove of young black walnuts.

whistled notes and chirps were audible before the birds themselves became visible; then they were everywhere in the forest, flitting and darting as they searched inquisitively for insects. This was the commencement of their autumn migration, the reversal of May's 'warbler wave/ Yet these warblers were nondescript, compared to those of springtime. Many were young of the year or devoid of their bright breeding plumages. They were coloured instead with shades of yellow-green, grey, brown... colours reminiscent of the northern coniferous forests. This made identification difficult, but I confirmed one to be a black-throated green warbler, probably fresh from those northern tracts. They were riding the breeze which drew coolly down from the north, following the valley as it provided a channel through the city for this northern vitality. If the warblers were now demurely coloured, other warmer tints had continued to appear in the Rouge forest. Red fruits of hawthorns were ranged

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

85

now in clearings along the western edge of the Hogback. These fruits resembled tiny apples and tasted similar, but were difficult to reach among the hawthorns' thorny limbs. Besides, their seeds were very large, making them better left to the birds and other animals. The woodland sunflowers bordering the trail, now beginning to nod earthward, were joined by wreath and zig-zag goldenrods. These forest-dwelling goldenrods were different from their tall-standing relatives in the meadows; they kept close to the forest floor, unnoticed until they opened their curving clusters of yellow flowers. These flowers appeared to be invisibly suspended above the soil, as the stems from which they bloomed, blended with the muted tones of the forest floor. Below the sprinkling of goldenrod, the shiny round berries of Jack-inthe-pulpit could be seen. These bright red fruits were now exposed, the encasing spathe having withered away. Farther south, deeper in the forest, I came to the place where the maidenhair ferns grew and saw that, here too, the present generation was giving way—the ferns were well passed their prime. Instead of appearing fresh green and quivering in the slightest current of air, the delicate fronds now reclined on the earth and had turned a crisp brown. Their dark stems still stood stiffly above the wet soil.

86

Throughout the year, evening was a familiar time in the valley. The city and its work-day schedule had not yet claimed these hours between day and night (if luck was with you). And as the rate of seasonal change accelerated in the Rouge, evening excursions became even more important in order to observe and keep abreast of the ebbing of summer. Evenings in the valley were also times of rest and peace, for despite the accumulating evidence of time's passage, the soft twilight and the day's lingering warmth, free now of the biting insects of earlier days, invited extended visits—perhaps, too, as a hedge against the times to come. One evening in mid-September, I came to the Rouge and found that the goldenrods on the meadows were accompanied, suddenly, by the miniature white flowers of heath asters and the occasional purple New England aster. The quiet air was subtly scented of these late-season herbs. Although they did not convey the definite sweetness of spring or summer flowers, their general fragrance was still evocative of honey, but with a sultry, musky quality. The goldenrods in particular had a herbal-honey scent. Around the edges of the meadows, a larger change had occurred. There, the long compound leaves of staghorn sumacs were splashed with crimson. The heat of summer seemed 'banked up' in the sumacs' fiery foliage, while the essence of healthy sunlight, vitamin C, was captured in the

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

bristly red fruits now maturing on the uppermost tips of the many branches. Curious as to whether other trees were turning, I walked north from the meadow up toward the interfluvial tableland. Near the top of the trail, I stopped and looked eastward as the long rays of evening light stretched across the valley of the Little Rouge, illuminating the treetops and revealing other first touches of autumn. The birches were tinted yellow and a few red leaves showed on the maples. But deep shadows hid the lower forest. Closer at hand, in a clearing at the forest's edge, a patch of pale whiteness was noticeable. Surely it could not be caused by any change in foliage... puzzled, I walked over and found two giant puffballs lying on the earth. Each of these 'mushrooms' was larger than a football. They were firm and slightly cool to the touch, and still anchored to the ground by an extensive subterranean network of rootlets. How long had the puffballs lain here? And how quickly had they grown? They seemed fresh, still pure white in the gathering darkness. I knew that in not many days, they would shrivel as their spores matured and were released. Leaving the forest I continued north on the tableland, crossing the Hydro corridor beneath its buzzing wires. At the north edge of the right-of-way, the forest closed in again and darkened enough to obscure any other signs of changing leaves. But on the trail itself were indications of the changing seasons; numerous deer tracks were visible in the earth. Evidently, the deer had come to feed on the lush grasses at the edge of the meadow, while remaining close to the security of a cedar grove just below the meadow's west edge. The bucks especially would be feasting now, putting on weight and growing antlers in preparation for the autumn mating season. Afterward, when all the leaves had fallen from the hardwoods and winter had arrived, the Rouge's cedar groves would provide shelter and food for the deer. A rustling in the bushes closeby startled me; I turned, expecting to see a deer leaping away, but instead a small bird hopped from the undergrowth and searched for food on the ground. A whitethroated sparrow, apparently a solitary bird, now so close and voiceless, was part of the vanguard of birds migrating down from northern breeding grounds (although the occasional whitethroat did breed in the Rouge). For a minute or an hour or more, the sparrow and its fellow migrants might remain in the Rouge, partaking of the food and rest which the valley so essentially offered. A mild west wind blew the length of the Rouge beach. The wind had free reign, for the beach was almost empty of people. Despite the wind's mildness, the water

THE

ROUGE

RIVER

V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

87

88

had become too cold for swimming, and the season for sunbathing was past. Presently, a distant rumbling, increasing by the second, became audible. A GO train was approaching on the track which ran parallel to and immediately north of the beach. The beach shook as the train pounded past. I glimpsed the faces of passengers as they sped by in the train; many were staring out at this natural interlude in their otherwise urban journey. After the train had faded into the east, the area seemed more profoundly deserted. The restless lake was left to comb the empty shore. And although the surf was low, it sounded deeply as each wave rolled onto the stony lower beach, then became light and airy, as the water rushed over the finer pebbles before finally spreading silently onto the upper sands. I walked eastward as close to the water's reach as possible. The footing was firmer in the wet sand and, more importantly, each interesting pebble or bit of flotsam was clearly revealed by the washing action of the surf. The sense of human desertion of the beach was not only contemporary, linked with the coming of autumn, but it also had historical roots. A thriving village had once flourished here at the mouth of the Rouge River. The first French explorers had noted it, and the village was marked on their rough maps in the mid-seventeenth century; it was called by its original Iroquoian name Ganatsewyagon, meaning "among the birches."48 The village was last mentioned in the diary of the French Governor de Denonville, who wrote that on July 5, 1687, he and his troops stopped at Ganatsweyagon and traded for some of "two hundred deer which they [the Indians] had killed/'49 After this visit the village mysteriously vanished. It was no longer indicated on maps, and the centre of commerce for the nascent town of Toronto shifted westward to the present location of Yonge Street and the mouth of the Humber River. Recently, archaeologists failed to find any trace of Ganatsweygaon at the mouth of the Rouge. Earlier I had spoken with Dana Poulton, an archaeologist studying the Rouge, and he speculated that the rising level of Lake Ontario had inundated the original village site; or that it had been located on a somewhat different, though nearby, site: perhaps farther east at Frenchman's Bay or, more probably, farther north upriver, near the Rouge and Little Rouge confluence. In any case, Ganatsweyagon had disappeared for now, and with it the possibility of examining a way of life, tied fully to this river, lake and land—not just through 'recreational' usage, but through the sustenance of every living moment. And again, despite such total dependency, the village's inhabitants had handed down these environs relatively intact to historic times. The beach along the water's edge

THE R O U G E

R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Rouge River emerging from the marsh near the river mouth. Seen through an autumn snowfall.

89

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

90

appeared very clean, each retreating wave left the sand newly flat and smooth... how quickly the signs of humans had been obliterated from the beach! My own attempt to find any remains of the lost village seemed futile. Looking back, I could see that most of my own footprints were already washing away. Signs of other life, however, did abound on the beach. Long flight feathers of gulls and geese were cast up in the beach wrack. And, ahead, a flock of young ring-billed gulls rested by the water's edge. They did not take flight but merely scurried aside as I walked by. Much shyer than the ring-bills, was a great blackbacked gull which was riding the waves far out on the open lake, typically avoiding contact with the land and humans. It was probably a recent arrival from the Atlantic Ocean, here to spend the winter amid Lake Ontario's more moderate climate and partake of the lake's abundant 'forage' fish (smelt and alewives). As I approached the east end of the beach, a solitary human fisherman could be seen, poised on the very edge of the sand where the river emptied into the lake, casting his line into the mingling waters of the river and lake. In all weathers and every season, at least one such fisherman was sure to be trying his or her luck there at the river mouth, a representative of the serious fishing fraternity. Farther out on the lake, though still close enough to shore that water issuing from the river roiled the surface, was the unmistakable silhouette of a double-crested cormorant. No other waterfowl had that distinctively serpentine head and neck. It too was fishing, diving and surfacing at half minute intervals. Perhaps it was the cormorant's serpent-like qualities which suggested its ancient lineage, being among the most primitive of bird species, with status as one of the original dwellers by the shore. A little over a mile upstream from the Rouge beach grew a possible indicator of human history, coterminous with the Ganatsweygon era, a species of wild sunflower, called Jerusalem artichoke. The plants stood six feet tall along the east bank of the Little Rouge River. Atop their bristly stems, their yellow flowers were still surprisingly bright and fresh, visible still beyond the cedars and dogwoods which clothed the narrow bottomland on this side of the Little Rouge below Woodview Forest. As I made my way clumsily through the underbrush toward the river's edge, a flock of warblers, chickadees and goldfinches (the latter in their drab autumn plumage) passed easily among the branches. These little birds were curious about my presence in this relatively inaccessible part of the valley; they flew within several feet before flitting away among the trees. Ultimately, I came to the riverbank where the tall sunflowers grew. Sunflower seeds were known to have been found in the middens (refuse

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

heaps) of archaeological sites in the Rouge. Such seeds, along with corn, had formed a main part of the diet of the Rouge's prehistoric Iroquoian people.50 From what exact species of sunflower had those prehistoric seeds come? Perhaps from an extinct variety, no one was sure, but Britton and Brown's Flora stated that the Jerusalem artichoke, when found concentrated in isolated areas, sometimes constituted "a relic of cultivation by the aborigines."51 Its tough, though edible, perennial rootstock did inspire confidence in its ability to persist into the present, through the half-millennium since Native people practised agriculture in the Rouge. Perhaps the residents of Ganatsewyagon had, in their regular travels on the river, stopped to plant and harvest the ancestors of these sunflowers. Certainly the Little Rouge and Rouge rivers and associated valleys, were major transportation routes of the "aborigines"—especially in the autumn, when the rivers ran high enough to make canoeing easy and plenty of ripe wild food waited to be gathered.

91

THE

ROUGE

R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Rouge Valley northward from Twyn Rivers Drive.

92

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

FROM THE WESTERN EDGE OF THE VALLEY NEAR THE GLEN EAGLES HOTEL, THE RIVER

was visible in the distance. It was flowing strongly, its waters bubbling and surging between the muddy banks. It had been awhile since the Rouge had flown so open and free—since springtime probably, when melting snow and ice had swollen the river to comparative size. Now it was the cooling, moistening influence of autumn which, with plentiful rainfall, fed the river. Rain had fallen steadily for the previous two days and only now, as I untied my canoe from the cartop racks, was the sky beginning to clear, while the soft sound of the river rushing lake ward continued in the distance. I worked quickly to ready the canoe, knowing how soon the river could revert to its normally low and unnavigable level.52 During most of the year the Rouge and Little Rouge, north of their confluence, were too obstructed by rocks and shoals to afford smooth passage to a canoe. Only for brief periods in spring, and sometimes in autumn, did the water rise enough to make canoeing feasible. This was a relatively recent situation. Prior to massive clearing of the watershed's forests for agricultural purposes, greater and more reliable volumes of water flowed in the river. A main effect of forest removal was the lowering of the region's water table, and the consequent drying-up of a percentage of the Rouge's source waters.53 Hefting the canoe onto my shoulders, I carefully crossed TWyn Rivers Drive and started north on the trail. The way led down into the valley through the forest. Within the forest, with the canoe limiting my vision to the path underfoot, I might have been on a portage in the far North rather than within Ontario's largest city. The trail was

A u t u m n

93

THE

ROUGE

R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

94

well-worn and molded wisely to the contours of the land. It took advantage of gentler inclines in the slope, never sacrificing safety nor ease of footing for pure speed. It had the logic of a true portage. This was not surprising. Many of the Rouge trails originated as portages developed by the Aboriginal people. The pioneering Europeans who came after the Native people, thus found an established trail network in the Rouge. The historic, so-called "Rouge Trail" was actually a regionally-significant trail system which ran from Lake Ontario, north toward the Holland River and Lake Simcoe. The exact whereabouts of the system's main branch seemed uncertain; most likely it consisted of a combination of several segments of shorter Rouge trails.54 Presently, the trail emerged from the forest and continued across the bottomland meadow to the river bank. I swung the canoe down beside the rushing water. Although not a 'raging torrent/ the Rouge presented a challenging demeanour. The turbid water was fast, and hid any obvious signs of rocks or shallows which could be a hazard. It was easy to underestimate the water's speed, as I discovered when I angled the canoe into the current and had to embark hastily when the river almost snatched it away. It took a moment for me to gain control of the canoe's orientation; that is, to prevent myself from floating backwards down the river; and, when I looked up, the river's first sharp bend was already at hand, a ninety degree turn southward just above the Twyn Rivers' bridge. Reaching out with the paddle to draw the bow around, I tried to keep more to the inside of the turn, but the blade hit a rock and the paddle snapped. Simultaneously, the canoe became 'hung-up' on another rock. Before it could swing broadside to the current, I jumped out and pulled it off and then as quickly hopped back in, grabbing the spare paddle as the canoe continued down the river, now passing below the bridge. I was better prepared for the next bend; a set of standing waves roiling at the base of the west bank indicated a sharp turn to the east. Again, I tried to stay inside of the turn, but just around the curve an obstacle appeared. A tree had fallen into the river and blocked all except a yard-wide passage. My instinct was to keep the canoe straight and hope that it would find its way through this 'sweeper.' I shot through and saw the worn, naked limbs of the fallen tree seeming to grasp futilely at the rushing water. If the prehistoric and historic canoeists on the Rouge were not as inconvenienced by low water levels as modern paddlers, they certainly faced hindrances similar to the sweeper. So chronic were such obstructions that, when William Berczy—an ambitious man involved in the settling of Toronto—hired men in 1795 to "make River Nen

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

[Rouge] navigable/'55 he did not fully realize the immensity of the task. Berczy initially imagined making the Rouge into a kind of canal, extending from the lake to the headwaters north of Markham. Villages would be established along this "Rouge Canal" and prosper from its bounty. By buying-up or simply appropriating from the Indians some of the land near the river, while it was still undeveloped and cheap, Berczy himself hoped to profit. But the Rouge, with the help of beavers—the dams of which apparently constituted many of the obstructions Berczy wanted to remove—resisted this earliest attempt to bring it within the purview of European civilization. The taming and clearing process proved too much for Berczy's manpower; besides, the economic climate began to favour quicker routes to riches. Not only did the Rouge thwart Berczy's efforts, but the progress of present-day Toronto was hampered by his obsession with the Rouge Canal. As historian John Andre noted: "Berczy's fatal waterway project [the Rouge Canal] indirectly retarded the settlement of Yonge Street, by the lack of money spent on the Rouge River instead of the road, or allegedly by the sickness of Berczy's labourers. The men may have strained themselves too much when clearing rotting logs from the cold waters of the Rouge. "56 Startled by the canoe, a great blue heron leapt into flight from the riverbank. The big bird, with long legs trailing, flew ahead of me for awhile, following the river as it curved southward. Then, the heron was gone as the river flowed through the wide bottomlands. Through gaps in the riverside trees, I could see meadows stretching eastward to the Hogback and above it, the crowns of white pines against the cirrus-streaked sky. It was a landscape at once familiar, and yet newly revealed from the low perspective of the canoe. It was not possible to look long at the passing scene; from downstream came a rising crescendo of tumbling water. Before I could react, the canoe was shooting over a small ledge; momentarily it was airborne on a bubbly cushion of white water, and I 'flew' over the broken, crumbling remains of an old footbridge which once spanned the river. After the ledge, the river grew calmer and began to curve eastward. In the near distance, the giant bridges, which carried highways 401 and 2 across the valley, were visible. As I floated closer to them, the sounds of the overhead traffic increased. The sounds had a strange hollow quality, composed of engines and exhaust and, in the intervals, the wavering dripping of a drainpipe dangling beneath the roadway. There was a distancing, or lack of resonance, in the sounds

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

95

96

which yet bespoke the city's strategy of bypassing and neglecting that which it could not immediately subjugate. Resting my paddle, I floated past the supporting pillars which lifted smoothly from the valley to the highways overhead; rigid steel maintaining and confirming that aural sense of separation. Beneath the bridges the Rouge and Little Rouge merged together, forming the main Rouge River. I drifted down this placid stretch; the river's broad murky length passing between groves of willows which overhung the banks. With the slower pace, it was easier to view the riverside vegetation. If the valley had so far escaped the most drastic changes portended by civilization, it had not eluded the continuing changes of the seasons. The willow leaves were tinted yellow now along the river and, within their whispering multitudes, the sounds of traffic soon faded. The bridges themselves were lost from sight as the river made a sharp turn westward. I let the three-mile per hour current carry me smoothly round the turn, the river all the while remaining calm and unruffled. Scarcely had I made the westward turn when the river doubled back eastward, thus forming a prominent point. This feature had once been called Indian Point. The RDHP Conservation Report stated that, until as recently as 1835, Ojibway Indians met annually here on this point. As I drifted on down the river, I wondered what the purpose of that Native tradition had been and if it might be rekindled. What memories and wisdom garnered from those years of Native life in and about the valley might still be living and available? Below Indian Point the valley changed; the east bank merged with the actual side of the valley and rose steeply from the river's edge. The slope was clothed with mature hardwoods such as red oak, white ash and sugar maple. A deepening wash of red and orange was spreading through the hardwood leaves, complementing the lighter yellow and gold hues of the willows and Manitoba maples which still lushly covered the western bottomland. A rounded shape, which broke the symmetry of coloured leaves reflected on the water, caught my eye. It was the high-doomed shell of a turtle. Through my binoculars I had a good enough view of the turtle before it submerged, to identify it almost certainly as a Blanding's turtle. In particular, the turtle's lightcoloured mouth area was convincing evidence that it was a Blanding's—a species so rare within the Toronto region that it was on the verge of extirpation. Actually, Bob Johnson at the Toronto Zoo attributed the few other sightings to imported captive turtles which had subsequently been released. He thought, however, that possibly the Blanding's turtles of the Rouge indicated the persistence of a remnant wild population, sustained by ideal conditions found in the Rouge marsh.57

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

As if on cue, I floated out onto the open marsh; the massed shadows of the forest receded and cattails bordered the river with reedy ranks. They were still green and lithe, though their brown flower heads had ripened long ago. Lower among the cattails were many stems of that invasive plant, purple loosestrife. The attractive loosestrife flowers were gone, leaving only the gaping seedpods and stems, which autumn had rendered dry and stiff among the limber rushes. As I paddled on, the cattails soon gave way to the open waters of the Rouge estuary. In the near distance stood the train trestle, with the tawny colour of the beach visible below it. A couple of people were fishing from the shore. Beyond them, near the mouth of the river, a flock of Canada geese were resting, probably settled in for the night. Cool dry weather replaced the rainy days as September led into October. When I returned to walk the trail I had used as a portage, I found that many changes were occuring. Autumn had strengthened its presence in the valley. And even though the warmth and signs of summer were fading, the forest was aglow from within. Not only were the trees near their peak of colouration, but new wildflowers were open along the trail. Fresh flowers of zig-zag and wreathe goldenrods had emerged almost unexpectedly from the thinning shadows of the forest. Less prominent than these sylvan goldenrods were pale blue wood asters, scattered close above the forest floor. The sun's energy would linger long here, caught in the coloured leaves and in the warmth and light held in the heart of the forest. Halfway down the trail I paused to look down at the Rouge River. Fallen leaves now floated thickly on its surface; hardly any had been visible while canoeing. I noticed, too, that the water was very clear. Most of the sediments carried by the rainwater had settled out. And whereas in summer the river's clarity brought a welcome suggestion of coolness, now for a second I shivered—more from the chilly air drawing down from the north, than from any inkling of ice. I continued down to the river's edge where the canoe had been launched, then turned south, crossing Twyn Rivers Drive and climbing up the Hogback trail. As I gained the crest and caught my breath among the airy hemlocks, a winter wren began singing close by. Its exuberant song spilled from the hemlock shadows. During my search for the bird, the brilliance of a nearby red maple startled me, its foliage sharply accentuated against the dark green conifers. A little farther south along the Hogback, I found another flower just beginning to open. This one was easily missed or not recognized as being a flower. These flowers were on a shrub with the familiar name of witch hazel—familiar

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

97

98

because witch hazel was the source of the similarly-named household liniment. Most of the shrubs were bare of leaves; they stood with their smooth, brittle branches and twigs revealed along the trail. By looking closely, on their twigs, I could see the small seed capsules adhering flush to the twig surfaces; and from these, thread-like yellow petals were protruding. The witch hazels would continue blooming for a few weeks, even after all the other trees had lost their leaves and were dormant for the rest of the year. Perhaps the witch hazel bloomed so late in the year because it 'remembered' that autumns were milder, and the growing season longer in the southerly latitudes where it was more commonly found. Similar to the Rouge's white oaks and black walnuts, the witch hazel was a Carolinian species, reaching the northern edge of its range in the Rouge. A slight movement and a 'tinkling' note among the shrubs revealed a "warbler wave" passing through. The little birds were nondescript in their autumnal plumages. Accompanying them, but staying near the ground and frequently scratching among the newly fallen leaves, was a pair of whitethroated sparrows. They seemed as fresh and energetic as the cool breeze which, perhaps, had recently borne them down from the north. They would forge southward, continuing the great continent-wide reverse migration. While looking down at the sparrows, I noticed a burr stuck to my coat. I picked it off and found that it too had a hitch-hiker: a small insect which, with a black and yellow abdomen, resembled a wasp, although it was really a harmless, nectar-eating syrphid fly. Normally, this species of fly was one of the insect world's best fliers. It was able to hover and perform maneouvers faster than the eye could follow. This one was obviously feeling the day's coolness and was too chilled to take flight. For a minute or so, I debated whether or not to 'intervene' in the destiny which awaited this fly. Unlike the migratory birds, the syrphid fly would remain to experience the passing of the seasons of warmth and the deepening coldness, as its own life force gradually ebbed. Holding my finger close, I became part of the fly's destiny. It sensed the warmth and slowly crawled onto my finger. As my warmth revived it, it began cleaning itself by stroking its wings and large eyes with its legs. Then the fly's wings began to quiver slightly. Suddenly, it took flight and was gone with some of its summery quickness. I walked a little farther south, and then stopped. A sound reminiscent of the beginning of a hail shower seemed to issue from the forest along the trail. A search among the fallen leaves, determined that the noise was caused by nuts falling from the bitternut hickory trees which grew here and there in the Rouge forest.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

The hickory nuts were still green and distinctive, with four ridges on their tough outer husks; and nearby on the trail where they had been dropped by foraging squirrels, were acorns. These had fallen from the red and white oaks which, along with the hickories, beeches and walnuts constituted the 'mast' or nut-producing component of the Rouge forest. Some of these nuts would be eaten by the squirrels and chipmunks; some would be 'planted' and possibly germinate and produce new trees. In either case, the life of the forest was never really lost or ended. By various ways and means it was passed ahead to the future, in tried and trustworthy hands. Certainly the forest in the Rouge area was found by the first European settlers to be in awesomely good condition. They left a few written records to tell of their impressions. Perhaps the first such account was written by a missionary, Francois de Salignac-Fenelon, in 1670. Commenting on the lands around Lake Ontario, he wrote that they "are covered with very beautiful and very large trees, but those which one finds the most of are pine and oak."58 Similarly, Elizabeth Simcoe, writing about her first visit to the future townsite of York (Toronto) in 1793, observed that, "we walked through a grove of fine Oaks where the town is intended to be built."59 In the same vein, a persistent local legend tells of a time when a squirrel, for example, could scamper all the way across Ontario without ever touching the ground, so large and dense were the trees. Now, unlike the mythical squirrel, I had to jump into my car and drive to the next watershed east of the Rouge to find another fragment of the primal forest. Or at least hope to... My destination that early October morning was the Altona Forest, located on the tablelands in Pickering about one mile from the east edge of the Rouge Valley. My purpose was specifically to investigate the presence or not of a giant oak tree, which was rumoured to grow somewhere in its midst. This particular oak had been reported by people in the past; recent attempts, however, by local naturalists to relocate it and provide any details had failed. Every naturalist, I was sure, knew such individual trees and had personal favourites. Called "grandparent trees" by the Natives, they were living examples of the forest's providence. Always eager to expand my circle of arboreal acquaintances, I planned to try my luck at finding this lost oak. Besides, the entire Altona Forest was of interest; covering about three hundred and thirty acres of area, it constituted one of the most important outliers of the Rouge Valley system. The new roads which almost encircled the forest made it difficult to find an

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

99

100

access point. Fortunately, I happened upon a wide Hydro corridor which defined the forest's northern border; this was the so-called Rouge-Duffins Corridor. Quite by chance—thanks to nature's opportunism—it provided the Altona Forest's last vital linkage westward to the life-giving expanse of the Rouge Valley and eastward to Duffins Creek. This was the same Hydro corridor which on the Rouge tableland provided meadow habitat for woodcocks in early spring. Now it alone prevented the Altona Forest from becoming an isolated 'island' forest, its biological diversity doomed to dwindle amid a sea of urbanity. Not far south of this corridor, on Rosebank Road, I parked my car in the middle of recent construction debris (a storm sewer was being installed beneath Rosebank), and entered the forest's east side. Immediately, the raw newness of the surrounding suburbs was hidden by a dense stand of eastern white cedars. The city's sounds, too, were muffled by the cedar boughs which, although still evergreen, had littered the thin stony soil on the forest floor with leaves. The fallen cedar leaves, now faded to golden brown, cushioned every footfall. In the silence, I was left alone to savour the incense of cedar rising lightly from the moist earth. Then, a ruffed grouse flew up nearby, startling with its suddenness. As if responding to the grouse's flight, a blue jay called loudly overhead. The path continued west into the cedars, towards the centre of the forest, where the elusive oak might be. Soon I came to a wide survey line recently cut, north-south, through the cedars. A count of the annual rings on several of the freshly-cut stumps, arrived at an age range of fifty to seventy years for the cedar stand. The cedars' continued security was unsure, though, as their shallow root systems made them very susceptible to windthrow. Even the survey line's relatively minor opening could lead to disastrous consequences for the entire stand. Leaving the survey line to continue on among the closely spaced trunks, I was increasingly impressed by the stand's extent and quality, and by the fact that it occurred on this tableland area. Cedar groves were occasionally found on the bottomlands of neighbouring river valleys—such as the Rouge—but rarely on the uplands where most had been felled long ago (primarily for fence posts). Losing this Altona cedar grove to development, as suggested by the survey line, would be to lose one of the best remaining examples of upland cedar forest in the region. A clearing became visible ahead and I emerged from the cedars into a small wetland. Tall cattails, now a fading green, stood before me. No open water was apparent, but closer inspection revealed dried duckweed on the wet soil; water did

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

accumulate here in spring and summer. The cedars hemming in the wetland, helped to retain water within the mucky topsoil and deeper down among the underlying sands and coarse tills, protecting it from the sun's drying rays. Thus, even in times of relative scarcity, enough water could arise here to contribute to the volume of Petticoat Creek as it flowed south toward Lake Ontario. A red squirrel suddenly screamed from the top of a cedar across the wetland. An upward look revealed the angulated gnarled branches of a large hardwood tree extending above the conical crowns of the cedars. Wondering whether it could be the sought-after oak, I skirted the edge of the wetland and came to the base of the big tree. This was indeed an oak, a red oak, measuring about four feet in diameter (at four and one half feet above ground), that appeared to be in excess of two hundred years old. It was situated on a slight rise of ground adjacent to the wetland, but still within the cedar forest. Due to its size and isolated uniqueness, I felt sure that this was the Altona oak. But while it had been lost to naturalists, it was known all along to others; the litter of glass shards, beer bottles, garbage and the trampled ground around the oak indicated a dubious kind of recognition as a local rendezvous. While this oak would have been a modest tree within, say, the western Canada temperate rainforest, it represented a pinnacle of growth obtainable by the eastern mixed forest. When Elizabeth Simcoe noted the "grove of fine Oaks"60 on the future site of Toronto in 1793, this oak was most likely a well-developed member of the up and coming generation. And although it stood alone now, the Altona oak was once part of that "beautiful" forest which stretched across Ontario. What had occurred in the intervening years to bring about the current situation, where only such individual trees and fragments of their habitat remained to give living testimony to the original forest? It was a litany of destruction, paralleled by that which befell the white pine species. However, more of the original hardwoods—maple, beech, oak, ash, hickory—were wasted and burned as rubbish because, compared to white pine, their wood was too hard to be worked by primitive hand tools. Introduced plagues such as chestnut blight and Dutch elm disease also took their toll. The net result was that within less than one generation, the original hardwood forest was reduced to tattered wisps of its former self. What mattered most now was to hold onto these remnants of the past's progeny; and if people could become aware, through them, of the land's true heritage, then options for future alternative lifestyles would be kept open. To this end, I was aware that a citizens' group called "Friends of Altona

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

101

Forest and Petticoat Creek" had been formed in 1990.61 Led by local activists such as Katherine Murray and famed ornithologists, the late Doris Speirs, and her husband Murray Speirs, it was dedicated to preserving the forest and the ecological role it played in the Petticoat and Rouge watersheds. Theirs was a 'David and Golith' task. The citizen base from which they could draw support was much smaller than that in Toronto, for instance. And they faced the giant developer Bramalea, which owned much of Altona Forest; as well, the local municipal council had a reputation of being pro-development (although Councilor Maurice Brenner was a consistent environmental advocate). SRVS and other groups, such as the Federation of Ontario Naturalists and the Sierra Club, had endorsed the "Friends" in an effort to assuage their loneliness. Certainly, the environmentalists had more than human company. Among the garbage below the big oak, I found large shallow-cupped acorns; mute evidence of the tree's intention to endure, in spite of every adversity, and carry forward its genetic material from the original forest.

102

Leaving my car on the shoulder of Steeles Avenue in northeast Toronto, I walked south into a woodlot which grew along the east side of the Little Rouge River. Although this woodlot, locally called the "Woodlands," covered only sixty-six acres, its future seemed more assured than that of the Altona Forest.62 Not only was it situated prohibitively close to the river for development, but here it was immersed within the Rouge's revitalizing flow of life. Birds, mammals, insects, plant seeds, all were abundant and free to come and go amid the surrounding farmlands and forested valleys. In addition, the Woodlands' biological features had continued relatively intact to the present, due to human neglect. Leaves were falling steadily now in the woodlot, as October neared its midpoint. The path was hidden by drifts of mauve, red, orange, yellow and brown leaves. They were soft, not yet crisp, underfoot and the bush was suffused with their reflected brightness. The dark forms of the tree trunks appeared better-defined against the bright fallen leaves. And a particular kind of tree was very noticeable near the beginning of the Woodlands. Averaging about ten inches in diameter, the trunks of these trees were very dark—actually black—and their bark had a 'corn flake' texture. Looking more closely, I could see small incisions—lenticels—in the black flakes of bark. These were black cherry trees. This small grove, although making up only a few acres of the total Woodlands, was probably the finest of its kind in the Rouge. It was also the only one of such stands in the Rouge watershed, since black cherry

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

trees did not usually occur so close together. What brought this association of cherry trees into existence? Any possible answer had to take into consideration the special type of seed produced by this species. The seeds were, of course, contained within edible 'cherries/ These fruits with their inedible pits were a favourite food of birds and squirrels. Perhaps, then, a large black cherry 'nursery tree' had once flourished here and produced fruits which fell or were dispersed by animals. Eventually, the big tree itself died and fell, thus creating space for its seedling offspring which had waited patiently, biding their time close to the forest floor, before being able to develop into the present grove. Another explanation was possible. Not only did wild animals enjoy black cherry fruits; humans did also. And, not far from this cluster of cherry trees, an Iroquoian village had thrived in the distant past. According to Conrad Heidenreich, an archaeologist who studied similar prehistoric sites throughout Ontario, small groves of black cherry trees were often found on such sites.63 They became established, he speculated, when cherry pits were originally discarded in refuse heaps near the villages. Many such questions and speculations posed themselves in the Woodlands. I had not walked more than a couple of hundred yards south from the black cherry stand, when I came face to face with a giant beech tree. It stood squatly beside the path. Its heavy trunk was battered and many branches were missing. Still, the big beech had sprouted leaves this year; they hung brown and drying now from the twigs, where many would remain attached to spin and quiver in the winter winds. The big beech stood near the Woodlands' eastern edge, on a line of demarcation beyond which the surrounding farmlands had not advanced. A kind of truce had developed here between the forest and farmlands, since the initial, devastating confrontations of long ago. Now, the signs of deer, raccoons and mice revealed that many creatures found this 'truce line' to be a zone of plenty. Here, food and shelter were found side by side. Although orderly rows of ripe corn ran almost to the base of the beech, beyond it to the south and west, the Woodlands opened into a stand of large sugar maples. The maples' widely-spaced trunks and thinning crowns let more direct light reach the forest floor, where it bled into the carpet of fallen leaves. No trail was discernible among the light-catching leaves; perhaps none had ever existed. Instead, I aimed for a couple of stumps which protruded jaggedly from the forest floor. These were white pines stumps, much larger than they had first appeared in the distance. Each was big enough to allow a person to sit inside its rotted centre.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

103

104

The 'guardian' beech in the Woodlands, east side. It measured about four feet across at face level

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

In their 'hey day,' these pines had stood tall and within falling distance of the Little Rouge River. Now, as I walked down to the river's edge, no pine needles covered the bleached white stones which lined the bank. However, other life forms, which found the sun-warmed rocks to be congenial, had taken up residence. A baby garter snake slithered away. It had been sunning itself, catching some last warm rays before the coming period of winter hibernation. I had not taken another step when two more miniature garter snakes darted from among the rocks. My response was to climb back up from the rocky bank, not wanting to further disturb this reptilian retreat. Upon reaching for a tree branch for support, I found myself looking straight at a large hornets' nest, hanging about ten feet directly overhead. My initial fright was alleviated with the realization that this wasp 'city' was largely finished for the year. The first frosts had come and gone, bringing death to most of the nest's inhabitants—save for the queen. She would be hidden away in the forest, there to sleep until next spring when she'd awaken and begin again the task of establishing, from scratch, a similar colony. I used my binoculars to closely examine the basketball-sized nest. It was roughly globular, predominantly grey but with subtle tints of brown, yellow and pink. Each colour represented a different source of wood from which the worker wasps had procured fibres; these were chewed and made into the original wood pulp from which the nest was fashioned. How long would the empty nest itself last into the winter? Its rough coarse-appearing texture suggested rugged but lightweight strength. Perhaps other curious creatures—particularly chickadees and woodpeckers—would dismantle the nest before winter began. It was rare to see such a large wasp nest in Toronto. The normal reaction of citizens was to seek to destroy any nest, long before it attained this season's-end size. The then Scarborough Works Department, apparently, was kept busy all summer answering distress calls from residents concerned about wasps building a nest on their property. Chemical eradication was the pro-offered solution. The Rouge community, however, did not discriminate based upon species affiliation, and, here, provided a refuge for these beneficial insects.64 The Woodlands was proving to have an 'inclusiveness' which belied its limited size. And when I came to the end of its northern two-thirds, where the Little Rouge formed its border by swinging sharply southeast, I searched for a away to cross the river and continue on into the woodlot's southern third. A tumble of boulders and logs provided a 'found' bridge. Above the opposite bank, a dense cedar stand began. A woodcock whistled into flight, then flew away easily among the seemingly impenetrable cedar

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

105

Large sugar maple on east edge of the Woodlands. 106

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

boughs. For me, a well-used deer trail provided the easiest way through the cedars, eventually leading me out into an open stand of hardwoods. This stand had more variety than the northern section. Large maples and beech, along with such rare or uncommon Carolinian species as black walnut, black maple, blue beech and bitternut hickory, covered this southern portion of the Woodlands. One beech was especially noticeable. It was almost as great in girth as the 'guardian' beech near the Woodlands' northeast corner, but this one was more intact; its hefty limbs still reached widely to command a quarter acre of space. This beech was unique too because it bore a human touch; the words "Glen Rouge" had been carefully inscribed in large letters in its smooth grey bark. Judging by comparison with dated inscriptions I'd seen previously on other beech trees, I estimated that these words had been carved at least fifty years ago. What did they signify—particularly considering the beech's remote location? It did not stand near a thoroughfare, where it might have served as a guidepost in the past. Yet neither did the words seem to be irrelevant jottings; the public, municipalowned campground, located on the west side of the Rouge River south of highway 2, was presently called the Glen Rouge Campground. Was there an historical connection? Was Glen Rouge a person's name, or did it have only geographical significance? Several hours later I returned to my car and, as I was driving east along Steeles Avenue, past the rows of yellow corn adjacent to the Woodlands, a sign on the front yard of the associated farmhouse caught my attention. It read: "Apples and Honey for sale." I braked and turned in at the farm lane way. A large butternut walnut tree stood beside the lane, giving the farm its present name, Butternut Farm. The house itself was imposing as I approached. A sprawling, white frame house, it had originally been built by the Reesor family in the mid-eighteen hundreds. I knew that soon it would be officially designated as an historic building. No one was in sight when I parked my car at the end of the lane, but bushels of apples awaited buyers on the wide porch. During my inspection of the apples, as I was trying to choose from among them, an elderly lady appeared through the doorway. Following my purchase of some produce, she talked a bit about the farm and surrounding area. She and her husband had lived here for a long time as tenants, leasing the house and land from the government landlord. They'd kept the farm much as it had been since the beginning... I noticed then, that as she talked she seemed to be holding back, breaking off her sentences as if in a desire to maintain her image as a peaceful country dweller, feeling constrained to leave unspoken some very

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

107

discordant thoughts. I asked if she knew about the "Glen Rouge" beech and if she recognized those words. She did not. However, she did relate several other stories of historical interest. Yes, the area had been frequented by Native people in the distant past; arrowheads and rounded grindstones were among the artifacts she'd heard had been found on the farm. One Native story was part of more recent history. She said that near the turn of the century, a group of Native people were travelling through the area—they probably were a family group—and they camped in the Woodlands. While there, one of them, a young woman, had accidentally died. The young woman was, according to the lady, subsequently buried after much ceremony, somewhere within the Woodlands. She became silent then, and her distant gaze seemed to find contemporary relevance in those distant events. Gently, she shook her head and spoke vaguely about "problems in the Rouge/' I mentioned SRVS, and immediately a smile crossed her face. The probable source of her suspected trouble was revealed. She said that she'd recently received notice that Steeles Avenue, which formed the farm's north border, was going to be widened—not just modestly improved, but broadened to four lanes, doubling its present width.65 The construction would take much of the farm's front yard and, more importantly, bring the increased traffic flow literally to her doorstep. Her concern extended also to the neighbouring Rouge environment, such as the Woodlands; she did not want to imagine its fate as Steeles was converted into a major highway. She felt, too, that it was useless for her to try to fight the planned widening; she had neither the time nor means to do so. And she had witnessed previously how, once industrial society's attention became focused on acquiring or accomplishing something, it was not often dissuaded. After all, the collective 'will' of this society was supposed to represent the combined intentions of all its multitudes of members. And this highway was, apparently, required to serve a 'projected' increase in car users. Faced with this prospect, she and her husband had decided to move. Already, they'd given their own notice and had terminated their lease. They were moving farther north, to a place as yet untouched by the city.

108

Silence lay over the Finch Meander as the first rays of sunlight lengthened into the valley, reaching far among the largely bare crowns of the willows on the bottomland across the river; they, in turn, seemed to dissolve into the light as their leafless branches created a gossamer of reflections. Soon these early rays stretched in long

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

The trunk of the "Glen Rouge" beech in the Woodlands. The words are discernable across the four foot diameter stem.

glowing tendrils down to the forest floor, covering the leaves with warm glow. The sunlight's silent progress was interrupted by a dripping sound; the silvery frost, which rimmed all the trees and bushes, was melting at the sun's first touch. Adding to the sounds of the dripping trees, was a flock of dark-eyed juncos which flitted busily at the edge of the forest. They were recent arrivals from their northern summer territories; probably they would spend the winter here in the Rouge. Judging from the chilliness of the morning air, it seemed they had arrived just in time... I shifted my position from a shaded part of the meander plateau to a patch of the new sunlight, thankful for its thin warmth. Yet, despite the morning air's foreboding crispness, the approaching winter seemed, in a way, welcome now. It would bring at least a temporary halt to any construction projects which might threaten the Rouge, and allow time for groups such as SRVS to plan strategies and responses to the proposed widening of Steeles Avenue. Besides the juncos, chickadees were active along the meander trail as I followed it eastward down from the plateau. These little birds were no doubt anticipating the winter also. Now, they eagerly gathered seeds and hid them in nooks and crannies throughout the forest; these reserves of food would be essential when all else was sealed beneath snow and ice. Farther east, deeper in the meander

THE

ROUGE

R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

109

Historic farm in northeast Toronto. Seen through a heavy snowfall on October 17, 1992.

110

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

forest, I heard the harsh laughing call of another winter bird resident, a hairy woodpecker. The forest's dead trees assured this woodpecker and its cousins, the downy and the pileated, of a good food supply through the winter season. At the east-most extension of the trail, deep within the valley where the morning light had not yet reached, save for preliminary sparkles on the river's surface, one particular tree, a large cedar, had recently died. Only a day or two ago, it had crashed down from its vantage point on the riverbank where for centuries it had grown. Now the cedar's great, broken roots protruded rawly from disturbed soil above the river, while its trunk rested on stony sand by the water's edge. And in the sand, fresh tracks told of how an opportunistic deer had visited to partake of the cedar's green boughs, now within easy reach. Through the cedar's prostrate trunk a trembling vibration could be felt, a measure of the river's liveliness, in which the cedar was partly immersed. As October drew to a close, the forces of seasonal change seemed to pause, as if to regroup and gather strength for the final turn to winter. Or perhaps the changes were already largely completed, finished for the year; maybe the land was already set for winter and all that remained was to await its arrival. Whatever the cause, summer—that season of "crimson and brown youth,"66 as Grey Owl called it— reappeared to fill this fleeting time of seasonal stasic. It was a warm and calm morning when I walked the Hogback trail on the first day of 'Indian Summer.' With almost all the leaves down, my boots swished through ankle-deep masses of leaves. And the malty scent of the fallen leaves pervaded the forest; theirs was a fragrance suggestive not of decay, but of invigorating heartiness. The tonic essence of the leaves was affirmed when I plunged my hands into their clean depths, and was surprised to find an almost equal proportion of seeds among the leaves. Maple 'helicopters,' beechnuts, acorns, hickory nuts, ash seeds... all contributed to the leafy litter. The leaves and seeds were steeping in the sunlight which streamed through the bare hardwoods and easily reached the forest floor. Taking advantage of this unseasonal warmth, and outlasting even the late-blooming witch hazel shrubs, to earn the distinction of being one of the Rouge's latest-appearing flowers, was herb-Robert (it also had one of the longest flowering periods, blossoming through the summer and autumn). The tiny pink flowers of this plant were sprinkled beside the path, among the old leaves. A few of the hardwood trees also seemed determined to retain some vestiges of the summer. The twin white oaks standing beside the trail, similar to

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

111

112

their beech tree relatives, still had a smattering of leaves which clung, brown and crisp, to their twigs. Every breath of air seemed to threaten the hold of those tenacious leaves; but while I watched, only sunlight spiraled down around the rough oak trunks, to fall upon and warm the beds of fallen leaves. Although Indian summer brought an interlude in the changing seasons, at least one denizen of the Rouge forest was still actively preparing for further changes. This was a woolly bear caterpillar, crawling among the leaves with an air of urgent purpose. According to folklore, the severity of the coming winter could be foretold by comparing the percentages of red and black colours on a woolly bear's furry body. More black indicated a colder winter (or was it vice-versa?). The colours on this particular caterpillar appeared well-balanced; red and black were about equal. Why then was it abroad this late in the year when, for the past several weeks, most others of its kind would be deep in hibernation and sleeping till next spring when, with luck, they would emerge as adult Isabella moths? Perhaps this woolly bear had some premonition in its sleep, not reflected in its colouration, which caused it to awake, dissatisfied with its first choice of shelter. Now it was searching again, unable to sleep, and restless until it felt prepared for whatever winter might offer. The woolly bear need not have hurried, for the warm weather lay indolently over the land. And as the mild spell continued into the first days of November, the motionless air over the city became polluted with car and industrial emissions, while the atmosphere in the Rouge remained fresh, replenished by air trickling down from the north and spiced with the valley's own organic exhalations. In the bottomland cedar grove beside the Rouge River, even the light acquired a timeless ambience as the season idled its time. A slight mistiness in the air enabled the light to diffuse softly into the stand of cedar, rendering even the darker shadows open and spacious, while here and there throughout the grove brighter flecks of sunlight touched the cedar trunks and moulded themselves as perfectly as always to the cedars' fibrous bark. The entire cedar cluster was surrounded by bright, though soft, light—particularly to the south where, in an open meadow beyond the cedars, goldenrods stood thickly. Long gone were their bright yellow flowers; instead, the pervasive light caught their now grey and hoary seedheads, where multitudes of tiny plumed parcels waited in the stillness of the November afternoon, for any wind or bird to carry them away. A decisive change in the weather occurred a couple of days later when a cold rain fell. The rain did not last long, but was sufficient to react with the sun-

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

warmed earth and cause dense fog to fill the valley. From the east side, above the Little Rouge in Woodview Forest, the valley appeared 'cloud bound/ A river of mist hid the bottomland and Little Rouge itself, while in the distance to the west and south, the Hogback, bristly with trees, reared through the vapours. White pines on the ridge were especially prominent, their dark green crowns rising above the white fog. I made my way down into the valley and through the dripping trees to the edge of the Little Rouge River. Only a small section of flowing water was visible at once, as it emerged from and then disappeared again into the mist. Close by, the vague grey shapes of Manitoba maples and willows overhung the water. I stayed close to the river's edge and followed a faint trail southward. The valley was rendered mysterious by the fog; I was startled once by a rushing sound overhead and looked up in time to see the grey shapes of Canada geese flying south, low over the valley. Then, the blanketing mist closed in again. I could not be sure the trail was completely passable through this section. In places where the river contacted the base of the valley's steep side, the trail was squeezed out of existence altogether, and wading became necessary to continue southward. Soon, though, the forested slope of the valley receded and, upon coming out into the open, I was surprised to find myself at the confluence of the Little Rouge and Rouge rivers. Nearby were the towering highway bridges with only the lower parts of their supporting pillars visible through the mist. The intermittent sounds of traffic above were muffled. Quickly, I walked beneath the bridges, following this channelized section of the Rouge until, just as suddenly as those signs of civilization had appeared, they were swallowed again by the fog. The bottomland forest grew wilder; this was not the open forest typical of the uplands, but was tangled with vines of wild grape, cucumber and Virginia creeper. Faded yellow and lime-green leaves still clung sparsely to these vines, their leafy adornment further augmented by fallen tree leaves. Many had been arrested in their earthward descents by the viny thickets, whereupon they now rested, temporarily re-suspended, with their subdued tints of red or orange smoldering in the mist. Basswood trees were common in this part of the forest and, near the riverbank, a huge old specimen stood. Long dead and crumbling, this basswood's normally very soft wood was gone from its interior, leaving only a giant shell of bark and making it impossible to count its growth rings. However, it seemed probable that it had been already well-established back in the eighteen-hundreds, when the Aboriginal people were reputed to have last gathered in this area. I

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

113

114

could see from the bank at the foot of the big basswood, how the river abruptly swung eastward, defining the "Indian Point" around which I'd canoed in October. The old basswood was not the sole representative of its generation on Indian Point. A great willow and large poplars, probably of comparative age, shared this site with the oldtimer. Undoubtedly, the rich moist soil contributed to the good growth of these trees; then, too, the Point's present day inaccessibility had allowed them to grow relatively undisturbed. The Natives, of course, would have visited here mainly by canoe, either paddling up from Lake Ontario or down from the Lake Simcoe watershed. A few probably portaged overland from neighbouring watersheds to the west and east. It remained a mystery as to what they actually came to do, and their reasons for converging here at apparently regular intervals. Tribes such as the Ojibway did traditionally gather at other sites throughout Ontario for seasonal activities, such as the making of maple syrup or wild rice harvesting. What unique feature drew them to this part of the Rouge? Furthermore, it seemed unlikely that usage of this site as a gathering place was limited to any one tribe. Certainly the Ojibwa came here, but they consistently inhabited this area along Lake Ontario's shore for only a relatively brief period before and during the establishment of York (Toronto). Before them, the Iroquoian tribes and, going back farther still, the prehistoric Aboriginal peoples lived in this area. Perhaps all these tribes had known Indian Point and handed down its traditions through time. This supposition was bolstered when I had a chance to speak with Cree elder, Vern Harper, about the Rouge.67 Harper said that his "grandfather" told him that a special place was located in the valley. This place was important not so much for its physical properties, as for a certain quality which was sought and found there. The quality was one of peace. According to Harper, this place in the Rouge was a place where people could gather together without fear of violence. Inter-tribal wars and other conflicts could be at least temporarily forgotten on this neutral ground of peace. Indeed, this "special place" somewhere in the Rouge seemed to embody the hopes for a truly united Indian confederacy, as sought in the past by such leaders as Sitting Bull, Red Jacket and Joseph Brant. Vern Harper's information dovetailed with a legend handed down through the Senecas (a group within the Iroquois Confederacy).68 This story was about a time when the Senecas and most other tribes around Lake Ontario were at war among themselves. A chief of the Senecas named Always Awake—the "Seneca peacemaker"—was saddened by this incessant warfare and prayed for a way of creating a lasting peace among all the tribes. One night he had a dream in which

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

he was told by the Great Spirit that, in order to achieve this peace, he would have to undertake a hazardous journey in search of a place where the chiefs of all the warring tribes could feel safe enough to meet together and resolve their conflicts. The legend went on to relate how Always Awake successfully completed his search for a "place of peace." Soon afterward, he died and was buried somewhere "on the shore of beautiful Lake Ontario." And here the legend fell silent; the exact locations of the chief's final resting place and the place of peace he'd found, were not revealed. However, the recent discovery by archaeologists of remains of a major Seneca village nearby in the Rouge (the so-called "Bead Hill" site, which may actually have also been the lost village of Gnatsewyagon) as well as Harper's testimony, made Indian Point a possible candidate for one or both locales.69 A movement, or slight sound, attracted my attention; I looked over at the river and saw that while it was still misty, a breath of cold air was stirring the vapours, causing them to move like graceful wraiths above the water. Slowly but surely, they were departing before the incoming current of cold air. But the silent passing of the mist did not disturb the peacefulness there by the river. It was a quality indigenous to the place. Rain fell again in the valley after the mist dissipated. The rain continued for several days and, when November reached its mid-point, the rain turned to sleet and then snow. Wintry coldness began settling in more profoundly, and thin skeins of snow accumulated in hollows throughout the Rouge forest. Flakes of snow sifted down even through the dense boughs of the hemlock grove at the south end of the Hogback. Gracefully, the snowflakes fell, cleanly and silently among the dark limbs. When a red squirrel scurried up one hemlock trunk, dislodging bits of bark along the way, I soon lost sight of it within the green, snow-speckled canopy, and had to turn my face away from the cold, tingling touch of the falling snow. Amid the downward drifting snowflakes, I noticed what seemed to be other, larger flakes rising up from the ground and floating among the trees. These were not, of course, errant snowflakes, but were actually fall cankerworm adults, a species of light-coloured moth. Each year they appeared in the Rouge forest in late autumn, sometimes in large numbers, having spent most of the summer in their familiar green looper or 'inch worm' larval stage, which were often seen dangling from trees by silken threads. Only the adult males could fly. I followed one of the fluttering moths until it led me to a tree trunk where a wingless female, almost invisible against the rough texture and dark hue of the bark, waited either

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

115

to mate or lay eggs in preparation for next year's brood. A breeze blew among the hemlocks; the snowflakes swirled down in greater numbers. And, although it became difficult to distinguish the moths among the snowflakes, they still continued their weak flights, searching among the trees; this might be their last opportunity to make contact before winter closed in. Out on the open bottomland, the snow fell with a gentle hissing sound. It added a fluffy whiteness to the grey goldenrod seedheads, and fell with cold softness among their crowded brown stems and withered leaves. And here in the open, other lifeforms, almost as fragile as the cankerworm moths, were active. First, the whistled calls of birds became audible across the snowy meadow and then, with surprising suddenness, flocks of chickadees and golden-crowned kinglets were in the goldenrods all around me. These little birds ranged throughout the weedy thickets, searching for the insects and seeds they required to maintain their obviously high energy levels. Two of the kinglets balanced together briefly on top of a goldenrod seedhead, whisking away the snow with flicks of their thin beaks to get at the tiny seeds. Occasionally, the birds' bright yellow head feathers flashed into view, and they seemed to reveal once more the slumbering life and colour of summer in those snowy weeds.

116

Any memories of summer, however, faded somewhat in late November when freezing drizzle fell. Out on the open bottomlands and meadows in the valley, the tall grasses and weeds were bent earthward—though not often broken—by thin burdens of ice. Yet, even among these bent stems, down in the rudimentary shelter now afforded by their down-curving stalks, a tint of green was still visible. Winter had not yet reached far enough into the valley to conceal or extinguish the tenacious greenness of the lower grasses and radicle leaves of weeds. The cedars, too, along the Rouge, were lightly laden with ice and snow; this evidence of winter's arrival was undisturbed even on the cedars' low-sweeping boughs along the bottomland trail. Apparently no other human had ventured this way to witness the new season's arrival, and indeed I'd seen no other cars parked along the shoulders of IWyn Rivers Drive or waiting in the Glen Eagles' parking lot. Whenever I paused on the trail, silence immediately closed in. Perhaps it was the muffling effect of the new snow on the trees, but the silence seemed more complete than usual—as if the valley were deserted of animate life. This 'sound of absence' brought a different sense of the year's motion, away from the valley's easy attractiveness in the warmer months, toward the time when the city

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

regained much of its power over people and drew them more completely to itself. Not until I climbed up to the Hogback forest did I notice any movement in the landscape. A chipmunk leapt across the trail—a warm streak of energy among the trees. Now, while most humans were ensconced in heated houses, brewing coffee and otherwise preparing breakfast, the chipmunk was trying to relocate a cache of seeds or nuts it had stashed away during the autumn. It must have been successful; the last I saw the chipmunk, it was perched on log, watching me as it shelled a hickory nut. I followed a secondary trail along the Hogback's west edge, where the coming of winter was not as noticeable; the prevailing westerly winds, passing easily among the naked hardwoods, had swept any snow away. But for a moment, one section of the steep slope below the Hogback's edge appeared to have been heavily touched by winter; about halfway down, a large swath of what seemed to be frost covered the slope. I quickly realized, though, that this frosty appearance was more a quality of the late November light, rather than of snow or ice. A multitude of short, stiff stalks covered the slope there. These were scouring rushes, a species of plant which resembled green drinking straws. And, while the lower sections of these miniature relatives of the ancient fern trees were still bright green, now, with the cold weather, many of their tops were frost-bitten and had become ashen-grey, giving a frosty grizzled texture to the slope. Then, among the stiff stalks a sinuous movement caught my eye. A bit of red flashed among the rushes; a red fox was hunting along the slope. Although the fox soon passed from sight, I could detect its progress as it disturbed the stems. Hoping for another glimpse, I continued quietly along the trail, glancing frequently down the steep incline. While considered to be a common species even within Toronto, red foxes were not often seen and, when one did make its presence known, it was usually viewed with suspicion. Certainly, the red fox's ability to carry rabies made caution advisable, but the suspicion seemed to stem more from peoples' underlying sense of mystery, not untinged with fear, at how this rather large predatory mammal could exist within the city. Why had it not retreated northward with its cousin the wolf, before the advance of civilization? I did not see the fox again, but found one reason why this particular individual would stay in the valley. On the slope beyond the patch of scouring rushes, a slight mound of excavated soil indicated the mouth of a small cave—a fox den. Fresh tracks were in the light soil around the den's entrance; they led inside where, I felt sure, the fox was at home.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

117

Closer view of the Finch Meander's 'hawk cliff/ The meander area's high-quality hardwood forest continues on the tableland above the cliff (east side of the Rouge River).

118

THE R O U G E

RIVER

V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

A DECEMBER SOUND—THE DRY WHISPERING OF OLD OAK AND BEECH LEAVES— accompanied cool moist air passing through the Rouge forest. It was a sound coming from high among the trees where those hardy leaves still clung, and yet sounded delicate and close by, attuned as it was to every nuance of the air's motion. In the distance another sound became audible, one not so consonant with the play of air through the forest. Quickly it grew louder as it approached; a dirt bike blasted past on the trail. Its driver was so enveloped in the noise, speed and smell of the city, that he did not notice me standing to one side of the path. Perhaps it was the day's surprising mildness which had brought the dirtbiker out and induced him to 'dare' to ride through the Rouge. For after winter's quick advance in November, the season of cold had eased off and the temperature had risen to just above freezing. Now, as the bike sputtered away into the distance, making a beeline, so it seemed, back toward the city's security of concrete and asphalt, abundant fresh air and lowering sunlight washed through the forest. I resumed my interrupted walk, following the trail south along the Hogback and then east, down to the pine and hemlock grove. The coniferous boughs formed a kind of trellis or archway over the trail, and framed a portal which opened deeper into the interior of the stand of trees. The path was slippery, the footing unsure; already the shadow of the Hogback had stretched into the grove and darkened its normally shady light. Here, too, the cooling vapours of evening were gathering and, when I paused in the stillness, the sound of water dripping from the evergreen boughs was audible—water soon to

W i n t e r

119

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

become ice. On the ground beneath the pines and hemlocks, I noticed debris from the year's seasons: deciduous leaves, needles, seeds, fresh soil... all arranged roughly in layers, as if ready to constitute and tell the story of the passing year—chapters detailing the ebb and flow of life within this valley, which itself lay within and yet apart from the surrounding urban metropolis. Theirs was a story waiting to be deciphered, if only time would allow. But already the light in the grove was fading further, as the long rays of December sunlight withdrew from the treetops. Wanting to view the sunset, I climbed back up to the ridge and was in time to see the western sky awash in clear white light. It was an intense white sunset, with the air becoming colder as it filled with pure light from the sun's silvery orb. And visible through the leafless trees along the valley's west edge, was the city; a new condominium, an office tower, roadways with street lamps and car headlights coming on in preparation for the night. Somewhere among those buildings and lights, the dirt biker had no doubt gone for the night. How did the city accommodate him? Did it provide some place, or hollow, for him to rest? Or did he accommodate himself to the sleepless city and never truly rest or dream, save for a deadening of the senses? If so, then I could not begin to imagine his loneliness. Pellets of snow suddenly falling onto crisp brown leaves; the curled leaves cupping the new snow as it rustled down onto their dried, wrinkled surfaces; the forest stood calm and quiet as the snow sifted down to the old leaves, or lay in white wisps upon bare soil. It was an unhurried snowfall, and soon its soft whiteness swept across the valley as the snow gained in strength. It winnowed down to the bottomland, where it met the greyness of the old goldenrods and the clenched flowers of Queen Ann's lace. The snowfall became more intimate within the Rouge forest, away from the valley's open expanses. The trees and snow hid any sign of the city except for the occasional distant slushy sound of tires on wet pavement. The close company of the trees standing quietly in the falling snow, with the white birches and the clean, grey boles of beech trees merging easily with the snowy light, brought a restful calmness to the forest interior, as the shapes and shadows of the trees relaxed into shades of falling snow.

120

With the influx of snow it seemed that winter had finally come into its own in the Rouge. A base of fresh snow uniformly clad the valley and whitened the slopes below the bare crowns of the hardwoods. Perhaps it would persist and provide a

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

stable base upon which winter could settle. To ascertain, however, the actual extent of the season's arrival, I travelled several miles north to Bruce's Mills Conservation Area,—a park operated by The Toronto and Region Conservation Authority. There, at the foot of the Oak Ridges Moraine where the Rouge River originated, it seemed that winter should be even more firmly entrenched. A rough boardwalk, slippery with clear ice, led into a wet forested section of the conservation area. It was obvious that not as much snow had fallen here, possibly because of the moistening influence of Lake Ontario farther south. Only thin drifts of snow graced the open spaces. But as I followed the narrow walkway farther into the well-soaked forest, a longer term picture of the seasons, in this northern section of the Rouge watershed, began to emerge. Although the day was overcast, the forest contained an internal brightness; golden yellow needles of tamaracks had recently fallen and were strewn now along the boardwalk. Tamaracks, of course, constitute the only genus of coniferous trees which actually shed its 'needles' each winter; furthermore, this species was typically a resident of more northerly latitudes, growing throughout the Boreal forest region across Canada. Another sign of the North—its chilling proximity—was apparent when I paused to examine the tamarack needles; they lay upon the cold wintry freshness of ice-rimmed sphagnum moss, the moss itself reminiscent of northern bogs and black spruce forests. As I continued on into the forest, additional characteristics of the north became apparent—traits not often found in the lower Rouge, a scant ten miles to the south. Evidently, the moderating effect of Lake Ontario did not extend this far north. Balsam fir trees grew densely from the mossy earth; their 'blistered' bark contained bubbles of fragrant, sticky sap. So clean was balsam sap—as clean as a northern winter—that the Ojibway people used it as an antiseptic to heal wounds. Scattered among the fir trees, on higher patches of ground, were yellow birch trees with strips of burnished yellow bark curling from their slender trunks. I thought I could detect their distinctive winter-green scent. The boardwalk led deeper into the woods and skirted a small clearing where, due to the wet ground, the trees were unable to gain a foothold. Here, I had a good view of one of several tiny streams which laced through the forest. Running alongside the path, its miniature banks were topped with thin ice which formed a translucent fragile shell across the two-foot width of the streamlet. This, then, was a feeder stream of Bruce Creek, one of the Rouge River's main, upper

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

121

watershed tributaries. Through the thin ice, flowing water was visible; clear, cold water moving over the clean sands and silt, eventually finding its way among the tangled trees and down to the Rouge. Here, the river and the season, both having marked this landscape through history, were beginning freshly again, minute by minute.

122

A pair of red-tailed hawks; wanderers, perhaps, moving down from the north before the advance of winter, circled over the Rouge bottomland south of Twyn Rivers. It was difficult to imagine how they might spot any prey on the white landscape below them, so glaring was the snow. They appeared to be patient, however, gradually soaring higher and veering southward with the wind as they hunted, until vanishing from sight toward the Rouge marsh. It was a cold wind which the hawks heeded. It swept through the Hogback forest, sighing thinly among the hardwoods and moving with a cold rush in the hemlocks. The wind affected the daylight also; masses of soft clouds drifted overhead, arriving and departing swiftly, causing the light to suddenly brighten and then fade. It seemed that at any moment snow would accompany the wind. I climbed down to the lee side of the Hogback, where the wind reached only the treetops above. There, in the relative stillness, I found the withered stems of zig-zag goldenrod protruding through the fresh snow. Errant gusts of wind had blown most of the goldenrod seeds away, leaving the bent stalks and straggling brown leaves to finally vanish beneath the snow. Nearby, on the slope, however, where the snow had not yet accumulated, a perennial greenness was evident, a kind of flashback to the warmer months. There, flattened on the soil, and framed by the snow, was a Christmas fern, still fresh and bright green. Each of the fern's leaflets had a sharp little spine at its base—a diagnostic characteristic of this species. It seemed as if the fern had generated its own internal heat and, thus, kept itself snow-free. Not for much longer, though, would the Christmas fern remain uncovered; soon it too would disappear beneath the winter's snows which would actually function as an insulating blanket, preserving the fern's freshness until next spring. Indeed, by the time I had climbed back up to the ridge, a fine snow was blowing on the wind. Despite the wind's increased strength, I stopped suddenly on the trail. There, about one hundred yards ahead, were four white-tailed deer. They stood motionless, their long ears and liquid eyes focused intently on me. Why did they not flee immediately? We watched each other for a couple of minutes, oblivious

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

to the wind-driven snow which, however, fell more heavily until the view was obscured by powdery curtains. When the view cleared for a moment, the deer were gone. They had uncannily merged with the silvery-grey and faded brown tones of the December forest. At the place where they had stood, the blowing snow already was filling in their tracks, hiding all sign of their presence. As December approached its end and winter officially reigned, it became difficult to recall the scenes of spring, summer and early autumn in the valley: particularly the vistas of green leaves; the fluttering motions of birds and insects over warm herb-scented meadows; and October's coloured leaves. Where had all that life gone?... How quick and completely it seemed to have vacated the valley! Out on the farm fields of northeast Toronto near Sewells Road, only the winter wind brought movement to the landscape. It blew unimpeded across the open spaces. And its insistent northwesterly direction had swept away all but the snow which lay in the ploughed furrows, leaving the fields roughly patterned with parallel dark and bright white lines. Turning from the wind, I walked toward the sheltering trees at the north edge of Sewells woodlot—one of several small forests, similar to Russ Reesor's, which dotted this agricultural area of the Rouge. While approaching the woodlot, I was able to see far into it, around and among its leafless trees and bushes, down to the snow-covered ground. Nothing seemed concealed within the bush or winter landscape; everything appeared ready to reveal itself at a glance. Perhaps, too, the cold inspired a perfunctory hastiness and drained some of the energy conducive to more thorough observation. Then, I remembered the character "Mole" in Kenneth Grahame's book, The Wind in the Willows', how Mole had ventured outdoors one winter day, and was so overwhelmed by how far and clearly he could see into previously hidden "copses and dells" of Nature, that he felt suddenly confident that nothing could surprise or threaten him while all seemed so clearly revealed.70 But as the story unfolded it became obvious, of course, that Mole's adventures were only just commencing. These small bush lots of the northeast Toronto area of the Rouge— numbering about a dozen and averaging approximately ten acres each in size— were always sources of potential adventures, containing as they did within their limited areas, relatively undisturbed fragments of the Rouge's natural and human history. Sure enough, at the edge of the woodlot, a male ring-necked pheasant burst from the meager cover. I only glimpsed the bird's brilliant bronze, red and green colours as it flew away across the field, and hoped that it would quickly find another place to hide.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

123

I stepped more alertly as I entered the woodlot, careful not to break any of the brittle bushes along the edge. Soon the wind was lessened by the tall maples and beech trees. My trek continued southwest, through the mature trees and entered an area within the woodlot where dogwood shrubs formed the dominate cover, indicating that the ground was wet here in the warmer months. Now, the frozen soil crunched underfoot. I was about to turn back toward the east, where the larger trees offered more shelter from the wind, when I noticed the single bare crown of a large hardwood tree, rising high above the low screen of dogwood and hawthorn shrubs to the west. When I arrived at the base of the big tree, my initial suspicion was confirmed. The trunk of this giant rock elm measured about four feet across and its heavy, shaggy branches seemed to lift more than a hundred feet into the air. The elm's rugged appearance suited its probable age, which appeared to be similar to that of the Altona Forest oak, several centuries at least. How had this particular tree survived so long here? Why had it grown so well on this wet site? I could only speculate that perhaps the rock elm's reputation for having one of the hardest of woods, making it nearly impossible to split by hand for firewood, had discouraged anyone from felling it. Given time, then, the elm had grown slowly to its present exceptional size. Slabs of bark lay on the ground below the elm, having been shed over the years. When I picked up a piece, a strange orange colour came to light on the ground beneath it. At first glance the colour appeared to belong to a type of fungus, but upon closer inspection, its true character was revealed; a mass of hibernating lady beetles, hundreds of them, were clustered together, sleeping winter away until now. For a moment their shiny orange and black-spotted bodies were inadvertently exposed to the cold December air.

124

No doubt the lady beetles soon found themselves very securely sealed beneath the snow; for, after a couple of mild days at the end of December during which wet snow fell in the valley, January arrived with a sudden cold spell. Overnight the wet snow acquired a frozen smooth crust. The entire bottom of the valley and the forest floor were encapsulated beneath this featureless white shell. The slick surface made for treacherous footing and, in an elementary exercise in ice climbing, I had to 'kick' each step into the frozen snow as I climbed the Hogback trail. Yet the extra effort was worthwhile, for the suddenly frozen surface provided a 'clean slate' upon which indications of the valley's active life might be detected, even as winter hardened its grip.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

The trail, or rather its general direction, led up through a grove of hemlocks; perhaps it was the downward view necessitated by the tricky footing, but I noticed small winged seeds scattered all over the icy surface. The seeds were similar in shape to rose thorns, though smaller and topped with gauzy 'wings/ These were hemlock seeds, which had fallen, perhaps that very day, from the hemlocks' countless small cones which had ripened in the cold weather. When I reached the crest of the Hogback, a flock of about twenty-four kinglets flew among the trees. The mature hemlock seeds would be a timely bounty for them. Upon reaching the top of the trail, I noticed numerous places where squirrels had dug down through the icy crust to reach their stores of cones and nuts hidden beneath. Four grey squirrels were together in a hemlock. They, too, were feeding on the hemlock seeds—one of their winter survival foods. Most likely the squirrels were den mates, sharing a nearby tree cavity for the winter. At least one other winter food was available to the squirrels—as I found upon leaving the hemlock grove and continuing into the hardwood section of the forest. Here, a type of seed different from those of the hemlock were broadcast over the crust. These were seeds of the ironwood tree, also called hop hornbeam. The reason for this tree's latter name lay in the superficial resemblance of its seed clusters to the hops of the hop plant, used in flavouring beer. The individual ironwood seeds were delicately encased in tiny papery sacs, and lay on the snow's frozen surface where they had fallen singly from the parent trees; they, as were the hemlock seeds, were free now to accomplish whatever fate had in store for them. Where would they end up? In the stomach of a squirrel, mouse or bird, or in the kettle of a mistaken beer maker? Or would they find niches in the snow in which to lodge and gradually settle earthward, sinking slowly down into the snow until contacting the soil beneath, and there to rest until spring when germination would be possible? A cold wind swept the seeds along the frozen crust and the slight sound of their passage was joined by the hiss of wind-driven snow. Through the bare trees the overcast sky was visible above the valley; it was darkening further as the wind rose from the southeast. More snow was in the offing. As the wind picked up and the snow blew briskly through the forest, bringing all the searching cold of January, I came to the Hogback's southern edge and paused there to consider the best way of getting down to the bottomland. Usually it was a straight forward walk down the trail, but now the ice made it impossible to get any grip. The trail was one long slide and I 'tobogganed' all the way down on my back, coming out onto the bottomland at the bank of the Little Rouge.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

125

There wasn't any danger of sliding into the river, since it was almost completely frozen over and had assumed its wintry aspect of smooth white snowcovered ice. And there in the sheltering valley, among the arching willows and Manitoba maples, the snow fell more slowly, taking its time as it descended onto the river and further whitened its surface. I walked a short way south along the bank to an eastward bend and was surprised to see an area of open water. This opening in the river's ice was located in midstream where, I presumed, a combination of shallow water and the constricting effect of the turn imparted enough velocity to keep the water from freezing. Perhaps it was merely the anomaly of seeing flowing water in the otherwise frozen landscape, but the opening in the river commanded attention. It appeared perfectly oval in shape, measuring about twenty feet long by four feet across at its midpoint. It opened cleanly through the snow-covered ice, its border slightly mounded with grey slush, which formed a thin line between the surrounding white ice and the dark flowing water within. The water itself was relatively smooth, with occasional choppy ripples and always dark as it emerged into the open air and then continued on again, hidden beneath the ice.

126

After a couple of sub-zero nights, even the open oval in the Little Rouge shrank to the vanishing point and the river, now well-suited in appearance for the winter, also acquired its winter voice. In the stillness beside the river, it was this quiet winter voice which revealed the river's presence more so than any visual clue, covered as it was beneath the seamless snow and ice. Gone, of course, were the foamy bubblings and splashings of open water; they were replaced by murmured gurgles where enough space occurred between the ice and water to trap air, and by a steady whisper where the water flowed in contact with the almost frictionless ice. I listened for awhile to the river—hearing also the distant unchanged rushing of traffic on the roadways—until the forest, too, told of the January cold, as the trees creaked and cracked in counterpoint to the river's muted sounds. My boots made a peculiar squeaking crunching sound in the snow as I walked south along the riverbank. The sunlit cold had allowed each new snow crystal to retain its original sharpness and clarity. And in the cold stillness the snow crystals sparkled along the trail. At the entrance to the Rouge forest, where it came down to the river's edge from the east side of the Hogback, the loose snow made for good tracking, and I was fortunate to find evidence of how one member of the Rouge wildlife community had, like the river, 'suited' itself to the winter.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

A set of four-toed tracks had been left in the snow along the river, where the pines and hemlocks grew close to the bank. By their size I guessed them to be ruffed grouse tracks; a closer look confirmed this identification. The tracks were so clearly defined in the crisp snow that a feathered effect was visible along the edges of each imprinted toe. These were tracks of a ruffed grouse's winter 'snowshoes/ The grouse, in a living embodiment of the Boy Scout motto "Be Prepared/' had grown tiny vestigial feathers or 'pectinations' along the edges of each of its toes at the beginning of winter, thus enabling it to walk more easily over the snow. Upon emerging from the pines and hemlocks, where the river squeezed past the south end of the Hogback, I noticed the sunken remnants of my own old footprints which I'd kicked into the now buried icy crust several days previous. Here, another creature demonstrated adaptability and a way of moving more easily through winter. Recently, a deer had followed approximately in those old footsteps, placing each of its hooves deliberately to take advantage of the broken trail. Cold temperatures prevailed through to the middle of January, and although no snowstorms occurred during this period, light snow showers were a daily or nightly event. This fine snow fell surreptitiously, delicately touching down, often unnoticed from the highest and cleanest reaches of the winter sky. Due to the unrelenting cold, little of this fine snow melted; slowly but surely, it added to the fluffy accumulation in the valley. The new snow's soft texture allowed it to function as an even more efficent insulator than normal. Undoubtedly, the valley's ruffed grouse population appreciated this, for they often bedded down each night by diving into a snowbank and remaining there until daylight. The light snow also acted as an atmospheric sponge. Each footstep, as I walked in the valley, released a breath of wintry freshness from the blanket of snow, as if the snow was super charged with oxygen. It gave a tonic edge to the cold air and belied its otherwise deadening chilliness. Perhaps, too, the day's freshness seemed more noticeable because I had just come from a meeting with local politicians and activists concerning a new initiative to preserve part of the Rouge Valley's heritage.71 Quietly in the background, while winter held the valley, public interest in the Rouge had continued to grow, and more people were coming forward to express their support for preservation of the valley.72 With them came a diversity of new ideas for furthering the task. One new idea—actually a dream cherished by long-time Rouge supporters such as Lois James—was gaining substance on the

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

127

128

strength of this fresh support, and developing parallel to the main task of safeguarding the Rouge's natural environment. The idea was to save from imminent demolition, a farmhouse which had stood abandoned for several decades on the east side of Meadowvale Road, near the centre of the valley. Known as the Pearse House, named after the family which had begun building it in 1863 and had inhabited it until the 1930s, the house had both architectural and cultural significance. Primarily, it provided evidence of a time when even the European immigrants had lived closely with the valley, drawing much of their livelihood from the valley's wood, soil and fauna. Thus, the survival of the Pearse House occupant's had been tied to that of the valley. Granted, the Pearse family had endeavoured to 'improve their condition' over the years by gradually expanding their home. But, according to Murray Johnston in A Rouge Valley Landmark, the Pearse family still "did not conceive of intensifying economic growth to the eventual detriment of the Rouge Valley."73 Now the house had become surplus to the needs of the Toronto Zoo (which owned it and the ground upon which it stood); however, the Zoo was willing to cooperate with a serious community effort directed at saving this historic building. Once its future was secured, the plan was to restore the Pearse House as far as possible to its original ambience, at which point it could provide space for an SRVS office, Rouge library, meeting rooms and public resource centre. The idea had, evidently, progressed past the initial stage of pure enthusiasm, and had garnered sufficient support among municipal politicians and Zoo management to warrant a meeting with community activists. At the meeting itself—held on-site at the house in question—official greetings were exchanged, pledges of cooperation were made and visions of a new future for this building were shared. Then, the people milled around outside and peered in through the house's grimy windows or examined its forlorn and crumbling exterior. With the political and Zoo backing, it seemed then as if the most difficult part of saving the house had been accomplished. But, of course, some of the toughest work remained—the onerous tasks of fundraising, designing, obtaining building permits, estimates, insurance... I knew this work would severely tax the dedication and energy of the people involved, and wondered where they would refresh themselves and find new energy.74 I recalled a book—Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth by James Lovelock— which popularized the ancient belief that the planet Earth functioned as a single living organism that, however great in size, could act in various ways to protect itself, principally by balancing the demands of its living systems (forests, oceans,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

A view southeastward into the Little Rouge valley, from Meadowvale Road area.

129

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

cities...) with the limited availability of resources. From the Gaiaian perspective, then, the planet's normal predator-prey interactions, as well as natural 'disasters' such as disease, famine, storms or volcanoes could be seen as attempts by the Earth to protect and cleanse itself in order to maintain its overall life-bearing capability. Processes such as erosion and flooding in the Rouge could be viewed as local manifestations of Earth's self-regulating capabilities. From an even larger perspective, it was becoming apparent that the Earth itself participated in an 'Ecology of the Universe.' Collisions with meteors and comets had, through geologic time, profoundly altered the Earth's structure. They had brought destruction but also renewal and, possibly, the first primitive life forms to Earth. Conversely, fragments of Earth's teeming crust, blasted away by such collisions, may have carried life to distant worlds. Even the basic physical elements of life were apparently forged by the unimaginably cataclysmic forces within exploding stars. Thus, the entire Universe was seeded with life's potential. Obviously, from the standpoint of living organisms, these natural disasters could be harsh; surely Mother Earth would, if possible, first use positive methods to shepherd her flock. Considering the Pearse House situation and other recent Rouge events, it seemed that this was actually occurring in the Rouge; here the Earth was offering alternatives to mutual loss and destruction. It was within the valley itself that the Pearse House and other Rouge activists would obtain energy to continue toward their goals, and find a place of refreshment, participitating as they were in the Earth's unwearied healing process.

130

As January passed its prime and entered its last quarter, subtle cycles of freeze and thaw became noticeable in the valley. Not for long could the winter hold the land and water in a changeless state of uniform whiteness; the sun was riding higher in the sky and its warmth was beginning to dilute the winter's Arctic blasts. Even the air and light had a slightly relaxed quality, hinting at a greater freedom of movement eventually to be restored to life. Suddenly, too, the oval opening in the ice of the Little Rouge River reappeared and was accompanied by other openings in the Rouge River. Once again the sounds of open flowing water were heard in the valley. While walking south along the Rouge from Twyn Rivers, I was surprised when three pairs of mallard ducks burst into flight from a patch of this open water. They flew straight up, straining to gain altitude and, then, quickly dwindled to dark specks against the sunlit clouds floating above the valley. Most likely they

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

were not early migrants, but had flown up from the lake, seeking to vary their winter diet with anything edible they could find in the open water of the river. Not only had holes appeared in the river ice, but also in the snow which so recently had lain deep along the riverbank. Gone now was the snow's pristine fluffiness. And in places along the river where the old grasses and herbs were newly revealed, the matted foliage was honeycombed with small tunnels. I stopped to survey this mouse 'village/ The exposed visible portion covered at least a nine hundred square foot section of bottomland. Perhaps emboldened by the day's congenial temperature, one of the village's inhabitants scurried past; it was visible long enough to allow a glimpse of its short tail and grey colouration, clinching its identity as a meadow vole. Although not often seen, I knew this species was probably the most common warm-blooded creature in the Rouge; studies indicated that meadow vole population densities in similar habitat could reach several hundred individuals per acre.75 Quickly, the vole vanished again into a tunnel, entering a labyrinth of passageways which most likely stretched beneath the snow across the entire Rouge bottomland. The Toronto Transit bus rumbled to a stop near the Glen Eagles Hotel. I emerged from it into a colder day; for the January thaw had only lasted to the month's end and, now, as the bus chugged away I started down into a valley in which winter had reappeared. A fresh sprinkling of snow highlighted the forest floor and, upon reaching the bank of the Rouge, I could see that skins of ice were forming once again over the river's scattered openings. At first glance this new ice appeared strangely clear and snow-free; a closer look explained, for it was being continually flooded by clear water seeping up from the river beneath. Reflections of the riverside trees were visible on this watery surface, wavering slightly as the thin sheets of water washed over the ice. The unsettled state of the river had not deterred an animal from fording it and leaving a wide-spaced set of tracks which dodged among the thinner sections of ice. Although bearing a superficial resemblance to the tracks of a common eastern cottontail rabbit, the tracks' great span (to ten feet) and large size of the hind footprints—nearly as long as the animal's entire body—revealed them to be tracks of a snowshoe hare, one of the Rouge Valley's rare mammals.76 Perhaps the valley was the hare's final abode within Toronto, since few other sightings had been reported. Even within the Rouge, the snowshoe hare was an inconsistent

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

131

resident, with none being reported some winters. This was no doubt partly a consequence of the species' tendency to undergo cyclic fluctuations in numbers. Perhaps, too, snowshoe hares migrated southward into the valley during times of overpopulation or severe weather farther north, temporarily swelling the local population. Whatever the reasons for this hare's presence, it was not alone in the valley. Further south along the river I found more tracks. They mingled together beneath the riverside cedars, making it impossible to tell how many individuals had gathered here—three or four? Some of the prints were evenly-spaced double tracks, indicating that one hare had walked, kangaroo style, on its hind feet for a short distance. Why had they congregated here? Obviously not to cower in the bushes and hide, as their status as a much-hunted animal might suggest. No, the snowshoe hare along other small animals such the meadow vole, although at the 'bottom of the heap' in the food pyramid and thus always alert for predators, had too much zest for life. Instead of mourning their fate as a 'prey' animal, the hares had indulged in what could only be described as a wild nocturnal dance beneath the cedars as January drew to a close.

132

Winter literally got its second (or third?) wind as February commenced; the new month arrived on a persistent breeze which blew down from the northeast and brought even colder weather. The wind sculpted the surface of the hard-packed snow, creating graceful curves around the bases of the trees and rendering smooth once more the river's white surface. Perhaps the snowshoe hares rejoiced in this cold weather, but a particular blue jay which I saw huddled in a tree beside the Hogback trail, appeared to be 'under the weather.' The jay was fluffed-up on its perch in an effort to maximize the insulating properties of its feathers. Its bare legs especially were susceptible to freezing if the bird did not take care to keep them covered. It would require all of the jay's reputed boldness and resourcefulness to find enough food to survive. The blue jay wouldn't have to endure the cold for long—if signs along the river were true indicators of the winter's age. Despite the renewed cold, the morning sun cast an appreciable warmth. And when I stopped out of the wind among the riverside cedars to soak up some of this feeble radiation, I noticed another undeniable measure of the winter's limited future. The roughly north-to-south-oriented river was acting as a giant sundial, with the trees barring the river's frozen surface with thin shadows. Unlike the diffuse shades of early winter, these shadows were clear and sharp due to the sun's

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Thaw on the Rouge, Finch Meander area.

133

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

134

increasing altitude. Their sharpness also served to accentuate the abundance of light that was flooding the valley and finding its way deep into the winter forest, where it drenched the grey trunks of the trees with pastel light. A flock of chickadees flew among the trees. They were busily engaged in finding food, more so than the blue jay had appeared to be. Still they kept close to the rough bark of the trees, searching for sustenance and also finding there, no doubt, hidden niches out of the wind where the sunlight was strongest. A bright blue sky was visible above the poplars beside the river; an intense blue which found its way down into the sinuous shadows of the trees, giving them a bluish cast. The shadows moved slightly in the cold wind which swept the sky clear from the north. The shiny branches of the poplars with the wind whistling through, sieved an ultimate freshness from the rushing air and light, causing it to remain for awhile in the valley. And upon walking onto the bottomland meadow immediately north of Twyn Rivers Drive, I found more signs of how one life form was responding to that energizing freshness. More snowshoe hare tracks covered much of the meadow's five acre area.77 Again the size of the tracks made them unmistakable; the hind prints alone averaged ten by five inches, while the total length of each impression was about thirty inches. These tracks were very fresh, probably made the previous night. Were they produced by the same hares which had frolicked beneath the cedars south of Twyn Rivers? Here, too, the animals had ventured mysteriously into the open, apparently unconcerned, and left only these chaotic patterns in the snow to prompt me to wonder further about their motivation. Although animal behaviourists shied away from probing the emotional lives of their subjects (to do so risked narrowing the perceived clinical gap between animals and humans), naturalist Joseph Wood Krutch particularly in his book The Great Chain of Life, offered comments which, I felt, shed light on the hares' behaviour. In his book Krutch argued that "joy" and the "capacity for gladness" were fundamental qualities of life—qualities as indigenous to life as was the basic struggle for survival, so emphasized by Charles Darwin.78 That the lowly snowshoe hare was able to express its pure sense of joy in life in the Rouge, further affirmed not only the innateness of that emotion, but also the value of the place in which it throve. Leaving the meadow, I crossed Twyn Rivers Drive and continued south up to the Hogback. Upon reaching the top, I heard sounds of laughter and voices. Coming out from among the trees, I saw that humans, too, were enjoying the

THE R O U G E

R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

exhilarating weather by tobogganing down the Hogback's steep east-facing slope. Several decades ago this slope had been cleared and used as a downhill skiing site, then known as Caper Valley. Besides tobogganing, people were using sleighs, skis and inflated inner tubes to grease their slide down the hill. It was a slope only for die-hard enthusiasts, since little space existed at the bottom before a possible encounter with trees or other people milling around. Additionally, the hardpacked icy surface made falling a serious matter. The sounds of the people—their screams and laughter—soon faded as I walked south along the Hogback. About halfway, a side trail took me down to the Rouge bottomland, and bought me out among the cedars beside the river. There, in the relative stillness out of the wind, I paused and listened again to the river's now familiar winter voice. Here, it was obvious that some people had attempted to build a fire on the bank. Whoever those people were, they had obviously never successfully attended Brownies or Cubs; for, although their fireplace was piled high with charred green wood, it had, of course, never burned properly. In their frustration, the people had ripped down several live trees and stripped living limbs off many of the cedars in a futile attempt to coax a fire. Thus, in a few thoughtless minutes they had defaced a grove of trees which had taken... how many years to grow? Such causal vandalism was a routine hazard for any natural area located within the city. And after walking further south, almost to the confluence of the Rouge and Little Rouge, I made a discovery which brought home the particular fragility of this valley. I was about to brush aside a slender sapling which stood by the bottomland trail, subconsciously assuming it was one of the abundant Manitoba maples which formed dense thickets along the river. A second glance, however, caused me to stop and examine the sapling more closely. It wasn't a maple, but a black walnut sapling. Glancing around, I quickly identified almost two dozen of this nationally rare species clustered together adjacent to the trail. The largest of the saplings stood fifteen feet high and had a maximum diameter of about two inches. Altogether, they constituted a good portion of the entire black walnut population in the Rouge, part of its future also, since this grove was much younger than the mature stand of walnuts located near the Finch Meander (and partially ruined by road construction). Yet these young trees could be easily eliminated by a careless horseback rider or clumsy hiker, located as they were along a heavily used pathway. The resolution to the dilemma of how best to "enjoy but not destroy" the Rouge lay in constant vigilance by a caring and aware community of Rouge users.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

135

Once people accepted responsibility for this environment in which they lived, worked or played, then their stewardship could be relied upon. But how to awaken that sense of caring for the Earth? The problem was especially acute within the city's depersonalizing milieu, where environmental planning (if done at all) was relegated to anonymous 'experts/ Most people were left with little sense of control over their surroundings; besides, hadn't the modern city developed largely from a 'fortress mentality' which promised protection from what was perceived by the European settlers to be a hostile environment? Of course, to some extent the Rouge and other natural areas could now sell themselves. But the longer-term answer to the challenge of helping people to rediscover their kinship with the Earth, lay in environmental education. Only by giving people the facts and actual outdoor experiences with nature, could the prevalent dependency on human-made solutions be balanced with environmental needs and goals. It was essential also to make provision for the future when—perhaps in the next generation—the present educational efforts would bear their greatest fruit. To this end, lobbying, as had occurred in the Rouge, was required to ensure the preservation of sufficiently large natural areas which were also interconnected to maintain biological diversity and ecological integrity. It is hoped, then, that enough places such as the Rouge Valley would endure, and provide primary materials for the radical lifestyle changes those enlightened humans of the future would have to make. Hidden beneath snow-laced cedars, beside the Rouge, were tracks of a ruffed grouse. Although the tracks were fresh, having been made the previous night, most had already been obliterated by a cold wind. The wind was strengthening minute by minute, whistling as it dusted snow over the tell-tale signs. Soon all the prints would disappear as the wind reached farther among the cedars. The grouse had also left a single tiny grey and beige feather, snagged on a twig protruding from the snow. The wind worried this feather, causing it to twist and turn and lose its precarious balance on the twig. Soon it would be whirled away, vanishing along with the tracks. All traces of the bird's presence would be removed. Probably, though, the grouse was hidden close by waiting, as were countless other life forms. For this year was coming full-circle. And I'd learned through the years to trust the valley to provide places for life to flourish, once winter's repose yielded to the awakening of spring. 136

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

THE ROUGE VALLEY ENTERS THE NEW MILLENNIUM AFTER HAVING ESCAPED THE FATE of most urban river valleys. However, it was a narrow escape, and the Rouge's future is far from secure. Despite the Rouge Park Plan with its protective vision and goals, land-hungry interests and organizations with private agendas continue to probe for any possible way to alter and/or penetrate the valley's defences. While the continuing threats to the Rouge may be infinite in their variety, they can be arranged into three main categories: Biological, 'Developmental,' Political. What follows are a few general comments pertaining to each category which, I believe, sketch some of the challenges facing the Rouge as the new century dawns. Situated as it is within an urban setting, the Rouge must bear the brunt of any humantransported biological invaders. Purple loosestrife, reed canary grass, garlic mustard, swallow-wort, gypsy moth, zebra mussel, starry sky beetle... all are among recent invasive species. True, species within a given area will change naturally over time, and ecosystems are not static. But the impact of these species, given their method of arrival, is unprecedented. Their management is a uniquely human responsibility and presents a looming issue for up and coming Rouge Park activists. Developers and other land-seekers have not vanished from the scene. In fact, many are capitalizing on the Rouge's natural attributes by selling houses in new subdivisions which hug the valley's edge. In northern reaches of the watershed, heated battles are being waged to preserve the integrity of the river's aquatic ecology from urban sprawl. In many cases, the valley itself is shallow and less well-defined, compared to areas south of Steeles Avenue, making it more

Afterword «

137

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

138

difficult to argue from the standpoint of ecological principles. In any case, the increasingly legalistic and technical qualities of pro and/or anti-development arguments require the on-going attention of a regulatory agency. It is hoped that The Toronto Regional Conservation Authority (TRCA) will continue to evolve and pursure its role as the official environmental watchdog of the watershed. The political front is problematic. Confusion exists as to what agency has primary responsibility for managing the Rouge Park. The Rouge Park Alliance was given a three year mandate to do the job. It has successfully nutured a positive, calm atmosphere during that time. However, some of the alliance partners are getting restless... some may have their own ideas about how the park should be developed regardless of the Rouge Park Plan. Perhaps the idealistic language and concepts contained in the Rouge Park Plan can best be realized by Federal involvement, via the National Parks program. The formal designation of the Rouge as a National Park remains a worthy long term goal for activists. Suggestions as to how best to utilize the Rouge Park's ten million dollar bequest from the Federal Government are a dime a dozen. Wisely, the alliance has refrained from indulging in a spending spree. Perhaps it is best, in the foreseeable future, for the park to finance itself with whatever interest may accrue from the principal, after prudent investments. It is, at this stage, wishful thinking to imagine that, once the initial ten million is gone, many more dollars will be forthcoming from Federal coffers. Politics are, of course, subject to the fashions and whims of the electorate. Thus, as the century changes, we find that the City of Scarborough no longer exists, having been legislated away with a change in government. Gone with it is the easy access to councillors which Rouge activists once enjoyed. It will be much more difficult to communicate and mount effective campaigns with respect to the distant City of Toronto Council. Changes have occurred at the Provincial level too. The present provincial government is much cooler toward the Rouge and the environment in general, to the extent that the Province has recently expressed interest in re-examining the possibility of constructing a major north-south highway through the Rouge—as if the park was nonexistent! On the other hand, this same government recently announced a major addition of land to the northeast area of the park (in the order of 650 hectares). Questions remain, however, as to whether or not sufficient funding will be forthcoming to manage this new land in accordance with the Rouge Park Plan.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Even with these challenges in mind, I remain confident about the Rouge Valley's future. Many new people have come forward and are deeply involved in Rouge Park stewardship. It is vital for them to concentrate first on "what's out there"—the environment itself—and not be overly distracted by the hot-house of personalities and politics. The overall integrity, honesty and idealism with which people have responded to the Rouge Valley are exemplary, and infinitely encouraging.

139

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Endnotes

1. ] tan L. McHarq, Design With Nature. (New York: Doubleday & Co. Ltd., 1969) 5.

2.; Morningside Tributary. This is a separate story in itself. Briefly during the late 1980s 1the Provincial Government through its agency, the Ontario Land Corporation i(OLC), sold to developers much of the land surrounding the Morningside Tributary in Toronto. Save the Rouge Valley System (SRVS) attempted to negotiate with the

iOLC in order to minimize environmental impacts resulting from development of

Malvern 3 (a residential community). Some concessions were made by the OLC and a significant portion of natural land was preserved; however, much was lost. 3. Highways 2 and 401. The latter highway is slated to be widened (work began in 1993), further threatening this area of the Rouge. Due to intervention by SRVS and other concerned citizens, the Ministry of Transporation promised to excercise extreme care during construction and to follow-up with remedial measures. This work was completed in 1997. As promised, some effort was made to minimize damage during construction.

4. PA. Taverner, Birds of Canada. (Toronto: The Musson Book Co. Ltd., 1945) 312. 5. Bradford Torrey & Francis H.Allen (eds.) The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. (New York: Dover Publication, 1906, reprinted 1962). Journal entry, March 1, 1856. 6. Russ Reesor. This meeting took place on March 5, 1988. At the time of publication, Russ Reesor continues to live on his farm. 7. Hydro Towers. Ontario Hydro was eventually persuaded to install extra-tall towers (in 1993) and thus avoided felling Russ Reesor's woodlot. The woodlot is still standing (2000) and the tall towers can be seen if you drive south on Reesor Road from Steeles Avenue. 8. Beare Road. The possibility of reopening and/or establishing a new dump within the vicinity of Beare Road continues to be a threat today. However, landscape restoration efforts are underway. Groups such as 10,000 Trees and Jim Robb's Friends of the Rouge Watershed are reforesting the dump. 140

9. Malcolm MacDonald, The Birds of Brewery Creek. (Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1947) 245.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

10. Mary Quayle Innis (ed.), Mrs. Simcoe's Diary. (Toronto: MacMillan of Canada, 1965) 104. For more information on the occurrence of the Atlantic salmon at the time of early settlement, see Edwin C. Guillet, Pioneer Days in Upper Canada. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1933) 113. 11. John L. Riley, "Forty-five Dams/' Ontario Field Biologist, in "Bibliography," an OFB Special Publication #1, 1978, 2. 12. Cedar. This striking tree, likely more than 200 years old, fell and disappeared in late 1993. The tree shown in the photograph on the cover of the book is this cedar. 13. Victor A. Konrad, William A. Ross and Irene Bowan, North Pickering Archaeology. Parts 1 & 2. (Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, 1974) 12. 14. Glen Eagles Hotel. This hotel—a traditional 'country' type of venue—no longer exists. It was torn down to make way for a condominium development; through the 1990s the site at the intersection of TWyn Rivers Drive and Sheppard Avenue, on the very west edge of the valley, became involved in a tug-of-war between developers on one hand and the City of Scarborough and environmentalists on the other. The latter want this land to serve as a 'gateway' to the Rouge Park. In late 1999, a coalition of government bodies, led by Rouge activists, managed to finally acquire the Glen Eagles site from the developer. Cost was in the ten million dollar range. 15. Storm Sewer. Date of this excursion: May 5, 1985. 16. Date of this occurrence: May 4, 1986. 17. Attempt to purchase Centennial Swamp. The Nature Conservancy of Canada, through the efforts of people such as Lois James, had a donor interested in giving a large sum of money toward the purchase of Centennial Swamp. But the developer refused to sell! 18. Michael D. Cadman, Paul F.J. Eagles & Frederick H. Helleiner, Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario. (Waterloo: University of Waterloo Press, 1987) 66. 19. Mary Quayle Innis, Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, 119. 20. Ernest Thompson Seton, Trail of an Artist-Naturalist. (New York: Arno Press 1978) 93. 21. Ibid, 93-4. 22. Paul Harpley, "Some Birds and Mammals of the Rouge River Valley," TFN Newsletter. No. 352, 1982. 23. Louise de Kiriline Lawrence, The Lovely and the Wild. (Toronto: Natural Heritage Books 1987) 220-1. 24. Although still relatively common, the ovenbird is another species which dwells in

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

141

the forest interior, and thus is threatened by forest fragmentation. The more a given forest is reduced in size, the easier it becomes for nest-robbing predators such as crows, blue jays, cow-birds, raccoons, etc. to penetrate. 25. S.T. Wood, Rambles of a Canadian Naturalist. (Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd. 1916)

76. 26. Olaus Murie, A Field Guide to Animal Tracks. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co. 1954)

135-6. 27. Motor Boat. Power boating is illegal on the river. 28. Personal communication re black terns with Steve Varga in 1992. 29. Michael D. Cadman et al., Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario, 248. Notes

population increases for this species. 30. Percy Tavener, Birds of Canada, 280. 31. R.D. Lawrence, The Place in The Forest. (Toronto: Natural Heritage Books 1998) 11. 32. Gypsy Moth. I noticed this first major investation in the summer of 1991.

Subsequent outbreaks have not been as severe, possibly due to unfavourable weather—too cool or too hot. 33. Edwin Way Teale, North With the Spring. (New York: Dodd Meade & Co., 1951) 2. 34. Peter Quinby visited this site with me on September 16, 1989. He used the young

pines as a test site to practise a regeneration sampling technique. 35. Date of this meeting was June 27, 1988. This meeting was one of a series which

began in 1984 with the publication of the Northeast Scarborough Land Use Study. These meetings culminated on March 26, 1990 when, after a successful effort by SRVS and other groups, the then Premier David Peterson, announced the Province's intention to create the Rouge Valley Park—a park which even in its first phase would cover almost twelve thousand acres. The Federal Government also became involved, primarily through the lobbying of MP Pauline Browse, and pledged ten million dollars of initial funding for the Park. Subsequently, the Rouge Valley Park Advisory Committee was formed to seek public opinion and come up with recommendations as to what the final Park Plan should include. After much consultation, the committee's report went to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), who issued the Rouge Park Management Plan in May, 1994. Although, from an environmental point-of-view, the final plan has flaws (such as including the possibility of active recreational facilities within the Park, and not paying enough attention to the upper areas of the Rouge watershed), it is generally laudable. Presently, a Rouge Park Alliance with some 'stakeholder' representation has been established and a General Manager hired. Continued public support and pressure are needed to nudge the Park forward, and then to make sure the values enshrined in the plan are not eroded. 142

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

36. These words represent the tone of many of the politicians of the time. Obviously,

they were overwhelmed by the unexpected public support. 37. Torrey & Allen (Eds.), The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. Journal entry, January 3,

1861. 38. Ian Johnson. Letter from Ian Johnson, United Indian Councils of the Mississauga-

Chippewa Nations, addressed to "Mr. Mayor, Council Members, Friends of the Rouge," June 27, 1988. 39. Ibid. 40. Ann Zwinger, "The Quintessential Wanderer/' The Thoreau Society Bulletin. Number

169, 1984, not paginated. 41. Bob Johnson, Familiar Amphibians and Reptiles of Ontario. (Toronto: Natural

Heritage / Natural History Inc. 1989) 11; 1982 Inventory. On August 18, 1987, at this same location, I found a yellow-spotted salamander which Johnson lists as "rare/extripated" in the the Toronto region. Perhaps the limestone rock at this site acts as a buffer against acidic precipitation to which salamanders are very sensitive. 42. Finch and Sewells Road. Date of this initial reconnaissance; July 30, 1987. 43. Date of demonstration: August 5, 1987. 44. Alfreda Stratos, "Road to Destruction, "Atews of the Rouge. Volume 14, Number 1,

(SRVS March 1988) 7. Mentioned in "Other Sources of Information." 45. P. A. Taverner, Birds of Canada, 123. 46. Construction Site. This visit took place August 30, 1987. 47. Black Bear. Although extripated from the Toronto area, this species still

occasionally appears in the Rouge. The most recent case occurred in the spring of 1991, when "Bobby the Bear" made his way south through the Rouge from Markham and into Toronto. The bear was finally tranquillized and relocated. 48. Robert R. Bonis, A History of Scarbourgh. (Toronto Public Library, 1968) 32.

This village may have actually been located near the confluence of the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers (the Bead Hill site). 49. Ibid. 50. Victor A. Konrad, William A. Ross & Irene Bowman, North Pickering Archaeology. Parts I & H. (Toronto: OMR, 1974) 26. 51. Nathaniel Lord Britton & Addison Brown, An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada. Volume 3. (New York: Dover Publications, 1913, 1970) 486. 143

52. Canoe. Date of canoe trip, September 29, 1986.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

53. During and prior to the 1700s, the Rouge was seen as a potentially navigable waterway. Today, rocky shallows make the river usually impassable. See also Konrad, Ross & Bowman, North Pickering Archaeology. Part 2, 21-2. 54. The RDHP Conservation Report of 1956 depicted the Rouge Trail as following the eastern edge of the little Rouge Valley through Toronto, but this was apparently unsubstantiated. 55. John Andre, Infant Toronto as Simcoe's Policy. (Toronto: Centennial Press, 1971) 49. 56. Ibid, 112. 57. Bob Johnson, Familiar Amphibians and Reptiles. 1982 Inventory, 37. 58. Konrad, Ross & Bowan, North Pickering Archaelogy, 9. 59. Mary Quayle Innis (ed.), Mrs. Simcoe's Diary, 101. 60. Ibid. 61. Friends of Altona. In 1993 the Provincial Government announced that money would be made available for the MTRCA to purchase and preserve a significant portion of Altona Forest. This represents a major victory for this small but energtic group led by Katherine Murray. In addition to this purchase, a sizable portion of adjacent land, privately owned by Doris and Murray Speirs, was donated to enhance the protected portion of the Altona Forest. 62. The Woodlands is designated as an environmentally significant area. Environmentally Significant Area Study, Metro Hall and Region Conservation Authority (MTRCA, 1982). 63. Conrad Heidenreich, Huronia. (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd. 1971), 201. 64. Beneficial wasps. Wasps help to control insects such as moth and butterfly larvae. 65. Steeles Avenue. Construction was expected to begin in 1998, and in 2000, is still pending. 66. Grey Owl, Men of the Last Frontier. (Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1931), 138. 67. Conversation with Vern Harper on March 26, 1990. 68. Ella Elizabeth Clark, Indian Legends of Canada. (Toronto, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 1960) 147-9. 69. Bead Hill. In 1993, after investigating the Bead Hill site, the Federal Government announced plans to purchase it from its private owners. Bead Hill may be the only relatively undisturbed Seneca village remaining in Canada. It will be preserved and interpreted as part of the Rouge Valley Park. 144

70. Kenneth Graham, Wind in the Willows. (New York: New American Library, 1962) 57-8.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

71. Meeting. Date of meeting, January 14, 1989. 72. Public Interest. Although many people worked to publize the Rouge, Cathy

Gregorio in particular, as volunteer coordinator and Executive Director with SRVS, played a prominent role in recruiting new people. John Boyd and Allan Dobb as, respectively, first and second chairmen of SRUS, played very strong and under-acknowledged roles as champions of the Rouge before the cause became popular. 73. Murray Johnson, A Rouge Valley Landmark. George W.S. Duncan (ed.)

(Scarborough: Pearse House Planning Committee 1989) 1. 74. Dedication. The Pearse House was (in 1995) relocated to a permanent site on the

west edge of the Valley near the Zoo. It has been completely renovated inside and out and is fully operational under the direction of the Rouge Valley Foundation (RVF). 75. A.W.F. Banfield, The Mammals of Canada. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,

1974) 210. 76. Snowshoe Hare. Date of sighting of snowhoe hare, January 29, 1986. See Diana

Banville, TFNNewsletter 411, p. 18 (TFN received no reports of snowshoe hares within fifty kilometers of the Toronto Region during the 1980s). Also, no recent sightings have been reported in the Kortright area, for instance, northwest of Toronto (roughly same latitude as the Rouge). Personal communication with Dan Stuckey, Wildlife Theme Coordinator at Kortright, 1994. 77.

Hare Tracks. Dates of sightings of hare tracks: February 3, 1986, February 11, 1986 and February 14, 1988.

78. For more information see: Joseph Wood Krutch, The Great Chain of Life. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956.

145

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

INDEX

Aboriginal(s) (Native people), 28, 63, 64, 88, 91, 94-96, 99, 108, 113, 114, village sites, 63 alewives, 90 Allen, Francis, 47, 140, 143 Altona Forest, 99-102, 124, 144 Always Awake (the Seneca Peacemaker), 114, 115 Amercian bittern, 10 Andre, John, 95, 144 anemone, Canada, 54 ash (tree), 101 white, 53, 96 aster, blue wood, 97 heath, 86 large-leafed, 60 New England, 86 Atlantic Ocean, 90 Atlantic salmon (see fish) Attfield, Peter, 26

146

Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t.), 60 Banai, Eddy Benton, 64 Banfield, A.W.F., 47, 145 basswood, 113, 114 Bead Hill site, 115, 143, 145 Beare Road Dump (Landfill), 24, 25, 58 beaver(s), 39,95 dams, 95

Beaver Creek, 8 beech(es), 84, 99, 101, 107109, 112, 120, 124 beechnuts, 84, 111 blue, 109 giant (guardian) beech, 103, 104, 107 sapling, 46 bedstraw, northern, 56, 79 Bercy, William, 94, 95 Berczy Creek, 8 bergamont, wild, 69, 80 birch(es), 9, 21,43, 55, 60, 87 white, 33, 35, 43, 120 yellow, 121 Birds of Brewery Creek, The, 26 black bear(s), 84, 143 black tern, 10 blackflies, 40, 46 bloodroot, 30 blue cohosh, 31 bluejay(s), 41, 72, 81, 84, 100, 132, 134, 142 Boreal Forest, 55, 121 Boston (MA), 59 Bowman, Irene, 63, 141, 144 Boyd, John, 145 Bramalea (developer), 102 Brant, Joseph, 114 Brenner, Maurice, 102 British, 44 British navy, 63 Britton, Nathaniel Lord, 31,

91, 144 Brown, Addison, 31, 91, 144 Browse, Pauline, 142 Bruce Creek, 8, 121 Bruce's Mills Conservation Area, 121 bumblebee(s), 69, 82, 83 Burt, William H., 47 butterfly(flies), 56, 57, 60, 144 black swallowtail, 69 monarch, 57 mourning cloak, 25 pearl crescent, 57 wood nymph, 57 Butternut Farm, 107

Cadman, Michael J., 141, 142 Canada anemone, 54 Canada goose (geese), 10, 97, 113 cankerworm (moth), 115 green looper (inch-worm larva), 115 canoe, 93-95, 97, 144 Caper Valley, 135 Carolinian species, 31, 76, 98, 107 carp (see fish) carpenter ants, 54 Carson, Rachel, 38 catfish (see fish) cattails, 9, 35,48, 50, 51, 97, 100

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

cedar(s) (arbor vitae), 26, 27, 30, 31,44, 53, 91, 100, 101, 107, 111, 112, 116, 132, 134, 136, 141 eastern white, 26, 44, 100 cedar grove (stand), 66, 87, 105, 112 Centennial Swamp, 34-36, 50, 141 cherry (trees), 60 black, 102, 103 - choke, 79 chestnut blight, 101 chickadee(s), 17, 39, 91, 105, 109, 116, 134 Chippewa (First Nation), 65 chipmunk(s), 84, 99, 117 cicada, 68, 71, 82 clover, 57 white, 69 red, 57 Coal Age, 70 coltsfoot, 66 columbine, 44 cormorant, double-crested, 91 cowbirds, 142 cowparsnip (heracleum), 66 cottontail rabbit (see rabbit) Cree (First Nation), 4, 114 crickets, 46, 47, 54, 80, 82 field, 68 crow(s), 21, 142 cucumber, wild, 73 daisy, fleabane, 67 damselfly(flies), 70 Darwin, Charles, 134 DeBaeremacker, Glen, 18 de Denonville, Govenor, 88 de Salignac-Fenelen, Francois, 99 deer, 9, 29, 30,61, 87, 103, 111, 122, 123, 127 tracks, 29, 30, 84, 87, 111, 123 trail, 107

scats, 30 white-tailed, 8, 23, 29, 122 Dobb, Allan, 145 dogwood shrubs, 16, 23, 39, 68, 71, 91, 124 round-leafed, 56 Don River, 36 dove mourning, 76 dragonflies, giant, 70 Drysdale, Art, 64 ducks, 35 common mergansers (sheldrakes), 17, 21 blue-winged teal, 35, 51 mallard, 66, 130 wood, 34-36 duckweed, 100 Duffins Creek, 100 Dutch elm disease, 101 eagle(s), 36, 37 bald, 36, 38 golden, 36, 38 Earth, 70, 130 Earth Day, 4 earthworms, 71 eastern meadowlark, 23 elderberry, 35, 65 elm, rock, 124 environmental advocacy, 6 Europe, 59 Europeans, 94, 95 European settlers (settlement), 27, 63, 99, 128, 136 Federal Fisheries Act, 75 Federation of Ontario Naturalists, 102 fern(s), 32, 70, 72, 86, 122 Christmas, 122 lady, 44 maidenhair, 41, 86 ostrich, 9, 33 wood, 53

Field Guide to Animals Tracks, A, 47 Field Guide to the Mammals, A,

47 Finch Avenue, 8, 73, 74, 76, 82, 83, 143 Finch Meander, 8, 14, 21, 22 35, 36, 51, 71, 108, 118, 133 135 fir, balsam, 55, 121 firefly (flies), 55 fish, 26, 27, 82, 90 Atlantic salmon, 27, 141 carp, 48, 50 perch, 10 sunfish, 10 white sucker, 26, 27 flycatcher, great-crested, 41 fossils, 45 fossil tribolite, 45 fox, 9 red, 117 French, 44 French explorers, 88 Frenchmans Bay, 88 Friends of Altona Forest and Petticoat Creek, 102, 144 frog(s), grey tree, 34 leopard, 48 wood, 34, 72 fungus, coral, 72

Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth, 128 garlic mustard, 137 garter snake, 48 geraniums, wild, 43 Glen Eagle Hotel, 31, 34, 39, 46, 93, 116, 141 Glen Rouge Campground, 109 gnatcatcher(s), 39 blue/grey, 9, 39 Gnatsewyagon, 88, 91, 115 goldenrod(s), 16, 46, 71, 80,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

147

81, 83, 86, 97, 112, 116, 120, 122 wreath, 86, 97 zig-zag, 86, 97, 122 goldfinch(es), 68, 91 grackles, common, 16 Grahame, Kenneth, 123, 145 grasshoppers, 68 green looper (see cankerworm moth) Gregorio-Robb, Cathy, 145 Grey Owl, 111, 144 grosbeak, rose-breasted, 46 Grossenheider, Richard P., 47 gull(s), 90 greater black-backed, 90 ring-billed, 90 gypsy moth, 59-61, 63, 137, 142 caterpillars, 59, 60 larvae, 60, 68

Harper, Vern, 4, 7, 64, 114, 115, 144 Harpley, Paul, 30, 36, 141 hawk(s), 41 Cooper's, 79, 80 red-shouldered, 36 red-tailed, 8, 36, 37, 78, 79, 12 hawkweed, yellow, 54 hawthorn(s), 85, 86, 124 hazelnut shrubs, 28 Heidenreich, Conrad, 103, 144 hemlock(s), 9, 30, 41, 53, 54, 67, 81, 115, 116, 120, 125, 127 grove (stand), 30, 41, 79, 115, 125 seeds, 125 hepatica(s), 30 herb-Robert, 68, 111 heron, great blue, 66, 76, 80,

95 hickory, 99, 101 bitternut, 14, 19, 53, 76, 98, 107 nuts, 98, 99, 111, 117 Highland Creek, 34 Highland Creek Valley, 34 Hogback, the, 9, 30, 31, 33, 40, 41, 44, 57, 60, 65, 66, 68, 79, 86, 95, 113, 115, 117, 119, 122, 125-127, 134, 135 Hogback trail, 56, 59, 79, 81, 83, 84, 97, 111, 124, 132 Hogback forest, 67, 117, 122 Holland River, 94 honeybee(s), 25 honeysuckle, bush, 56, 79 horsetail, 66 Humber River, 88 hummingbird, rubythroated, 70 Hurricane Hazel, 50 Ice Age, 8, 9, 26, 51 Indian Point, 96, 114, 115 indigo bunting(s), 39, 68 Innes, Mary Quayle, 141 ironwood (hop hornbeam), 125 seeds, 125 Iroquoian people, 29, 91, 114 Iroquoian village, 103 Iroquois Confederacy, 114 Isabella moth(s), 112 woolly bear caterpillar, 112 Island Road, 48

Jack-in-the-pulpit, 86 James, Lois, 34, 128, 141 Jerusalem artichoke, 91 jewelweed, 60, 71 Joe-Pye weed, 80

Johnson, Bob, 73, 96, 143, 144 Johnson, Ian, 64, 143 Johnson, Murray, 128, 145 Jones, August, 63 juncos, dark-eyed, 10 katydids, 82 kingbird, 68 kingfisher, belted, 26, 27 kinglet(s) 125 golden-crowned, 30, 116 Kingston Road, 34 Konrad Victor A., 28, 141, 144 Kortright Centre for Conservation, 26, 145 Krutch, Joseph Wood, 134, 145 lady bug, 124 Lake Iroquois, 9 Lake Ontario, 4, 8-10, 27, 33, 34, 44, 81, 88, 94, 99, 101, 114, 115, 121 Lake Simcoe, 94, 114 Lawrence, Louise de Kiriline, 38, 141 Lawrence, R.D., 54, 142 lichen, 55 Little Rouge Creek, 8 Little Rouge Forest, 9, 25, 30, 40,43 Little Rouge River, 8, 9, 23, 24, 27-29, 33, 43, 44, 55, 65, 66, 80, 87, 88, 91, 93, 96, 102, 105, 113, 126, 130, 135, 143 confluence, 9, 88, 93, 96, 113, 135 valley, 23, 43, 58, 129, 144 Loane, Bill, 36 loosestrife, 97 fringed, 68

148

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

purple, 9, 97, 137 lousewort(wood betony), 43 Lovelock, James, 128 Lower Rouge Marsh, 9, 48, 66 Lower Rouge Valley, 4, 9 MTRCA (Metro Toronto Regional Conservation Authority), 144 MacDonald, Malcolm, 26, 140 mallard duck (see ducks) maple(s), 16, 28, 35, 43, 87, 101, 107, 124 black, 53, 107 Manitoba, 9, 26, 31, 33, 39,48, 50, 60, 68, 96, 113, 126, 135 red, 30, 33, 35 sugar, 96, 103, 106 Markham (ON), 8, 9, 95, 143 Marshall, Bob, 34 "Mast Road," 44 mayapple, 33 McHarg, Ian, 7, 140 Meadowvale Road, 23, 35, 128, 129 mergansers (see ducks) methane gas, 24 midden(s), 91 milkweed, 16, 57 Mississauga (First Nation), 65 Montgomery, Edith, 64 Morningside Tributary, 8, 140 mosquitoes, 46, 54, 56 moss(es), 30, 121 sphagnum, 121 mouse (mice), 36, 60, 103, 125 Murie, Olaus, 47, 142 Murray, Katherine, 102, 144 muskrat(s), 35, 50 National Parks Program, 138 Native People, (see

Aboriginal) Nature Conservancy of Canada, 141 nodding ladies' tresses (see orchid) "North," 61, 84, 93, 121 North America, 59 North with the Spring, 61 northern oriole, 38 Oak Ridges Moraine, 8, 121 oak(s), 25, 31, 33, 35, 43, 60, 83, 99, 101 giant oak, 99, 100-102, 124 red, 53, 96, 99, 101 twin white oaks, 31, 32, 111 white, 9, 31, 40, 48, 59, 98, 99 Ojibway (First Nation), 96, 114, 121 Ontario, 8, 44, 54, 61, 84, 93 Ontario Hydro, 19, 23, 87, 140 hydro towers, 23, 140 transmission corridor, 19, 20, 23, 58, 87, 100 Ontario Land Cprporation (OLC), 140 orchid(s), 40, 41 nodding ladies' tresses, 42 yellow ladyslipper, 40 ovenbird, 40, 142 owl(s), 54, 55 barred, 9 great-horned, 19, 45 saw-whet, 54 passive recreation, 6 Pearse family, 128 Pearse House, 128, 130, 145 perch (see fish) Peterson, David, 142 Petticoat Creek, 101, 102 pheasant, ring-necked, 1'3 Pickering (ON), 4, 9, 43, 99

Pickering Airport, 27 pine(s), 9, 24, 25, 31,44,46, 60, 61, 63, 68, 69, 79, 81, 99, 120, 127 sentinel, 68 white (see white pine) poison ivy, 38, 56, 68, 79 polygala, fringed, 41 poplar(s), 23, 39, 114, 134 balsam, 40 seeds, 48 Poulton, Dana, 88 puffball(s), 87 purple bugloss, 67 Queen Ann's lace, 80, 120 Quinby, Peter (Dr.), 61, 62, 142 RDHP Conservation Report, 96, 144 rabbit(s), 36 cottontail, 23, 131 raccoon(s) 65, 103, 142 rainforest, South America, raspberries, wild, 79 reed canary grass, 137 Report of Hastings and Other Timber Fit for the Use of the Royal Navy, 63 Red Jacket, 114 red-shouldered hawks (see hawk) red-tailed hawk (see hawk) red-winged blackbird(s), 23, 28, 35, 48 Reesor, Russ, 17-19, 21, 123, 140 Reesor family, 17, 19, 107 Reesor Road, 140 Reesor woodlot, 17, 19, 140 Riley, John L., 141 River Nen (see Rouge River) river otter, 23 Robb, Jim, 34, 78

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

149

150

robin(s), 23, 28, 46, 47, 68, 80 rose, wild, 56 Rosebank Road, 100 Ross, William A., 28, 141, 144 Rouge beach, 10, 87, 88, 90, 91, 97 Rouge Canal, 93 Rouge Creek, 8 Rouge forest, 98, 99, 112, 115, 119, 120, 126, 130 Rouge Marsh, 50, 96, 97, 122 Rouge River, 8-10, 14-17, 21, 23, 25-27, 33, 35, 36, 39, 40,42,46, 50, 51, 53, 66, 67, 73, 76, 82, 88, 93-97, 102, 107, 109,112, 113, 116, 121-123, 127, 130, 131, 133, 135, 143 colour, 17, 26, 71, 73, 78, 97 confluence, 8, 9, 33, 88, 93, 96, 113, 135 estuary, 10, 97 fishery, 73 ice, 15-17 River Nen, 94 source, 8 watershed, 8, 27, 102, 121, 122, 142 wetland, 50 Rouge River Valley, 4-6, 23, 24, 28-31, 33-35, 38-41, 43-45, 51, 54-57, 59-61, 63-65, 67-73, 76, 78-80, 82, 84-86, 91, 92, 96, 98, 99, 102, 105, 108, 109, 112, 114, 115, 119, 120, 127, 128, 131, 134-137, 139,143, 145 "Rouge Trail," 91, 144 Rouge trail(s), 93, 94 Rouge Valley Foundation, 145 Rouge Valley Park, 5, 137,

138, 141, 142, 145 Rouge Valley Park Advisory Committee, 142 Rouge Valley Park Alliance, 138, 143 Rouge Valley Park Management Plan, 137139, 142 "Rouge/Duffin Corridor," 100 SRVS (see Save The Rouge Valley System) salamander, red-backed, 72, 73 yellow-spotted, 143 sandpiper, spotted, 65, 76 Save The Rouge Valley System (SRVS), 19, 64, 65, 76, 108, 109, 128, 140, 142, 145 Scarborough, 4, 8, 44, 64, 138, 141 Council, 64, 65, 67 Council Chambers, 5, 64 Works Department, 105 scorpion grass, 66 scouring rushes, 117 Seneca (First Nation), 114 Seton, Ernest Thompson, 36, 141 Sewells Road, 21, 27-28, 73, 74, 76, 82, 123, 143 Sewells woodlot, 123 shale, 45 Sheppard Avenue, 34 Simcoe, Elizabeth, 27, 36, 99, 101 Sierra Club, 102 Silent Spring, 38 Sitting Bull, 114 smelt, 90 snake, 83 garter, 105 red-bellied, 83 snowshoe hare, 131, 132,

134, 145 soapwort, 70 Solomon's seal, 43 South America, 38, 39, 51 sparrow, song, 72 whitethroated, 87, 98 Speirs, Doris, 102, 144 Speirs, Murray (Dr.), 38, 102, 144 spider(s), 25, 59, 60 spring beauties, 31 squirrel(s), 68, 84, 99, 103, 125 flying, 9 grey, 68, 125 red, 9, 79, 101, 115 starflower(s), 43 Steeles Avenue, 4, 8, 102, 107-109, 137, 140, 141, 144 stinging nettle (s), 70 storm, 21, 23, 73 summer, 80, 81 storm sewer, 33-35, 76, 77, 100, 141 Stratos, Alfreda, 78, 143 Stuckey, Dan, 145 Styles, Toby, 30 sumac, staghorn, 86 sunfish (see fish) sunf lower (s) wild, 71 woodland, 71, 86 swallow(s), 72 bank, 51-53, 71 tree, 35 swan, mute, 48 sweet cicely, 31V, 79 sycamore, 9 syrphid fly, 98 tadpoles, 48, 51 tamarack(s), 121 Taverner, Percy, 17, 53, 80, 140, 142, 143

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

Teale, Edwin Way, 61,142 Temagami district, 61 tern, black, 50, 142 Thoreau, Henry D., 17, 64 tick-trefoil, 67, 81 timothy, 16 toads, American, 47 Toronto (ON), 4, 8, 9, 10, 14, 17, 19, 21, 25, 27, 30, 36, 40, 41, 43, 82, 88, 94, 101, 102, 105, 110, 117, 123, 131, 143-145 Toronto City Council, 138 Toronto Field Naturalists, 47 Toronto and Region Conservation Authority, The (TRCA), 121, 138 Toronto Transit System, 131 Toronto Zoo, 8, 30, 73, 96, 128, 145 Canadian Animal Domain, 30 Torrey, Bradford, 140, 143 Trail of an Artist, tree-toad (see cicada) trillium(s), 31-33,40,43 white, 31 "Trillium Month," 31 Trimmer, Joyce, 64 trout lily, 30 turtle(s), 9, 35, 67, 96 Blandings, 96 painted, 35 snapping, 67 Twyn Rivers Drive, 8, 9, 15, 16, 21, 25, 29, 30, 40, 43, 44, 56, 57, 67, 69, 79, 82, 92-94, 97, 116, 122, 130, 134, 141 Unionville (ON), 8 United Indian Councils of the Mississauga-Chippewa Nations, 64, 143 United States, 31, 57 urban wilderness, 6

Varga, Steve, 142 veery, 53 vetch, 57 violets, 30, 33 vipers bugloss, vireo, red-eyed, 59, 60 Virginia creeper, 113 vole, meadow, 130, 132 walnut(s), 99 black, 9, 76, 84, 85, 98, 99, 107, 135 butternut, 107 saplings, 135 warbler(s), 84, 85, 91 blackburnian, 40 black-throated green, 85 chestnut-sided, 39 mourning, 47 yellow, 39, 40 yellowthroat, 48 'warbler wave/ 40, 85, 98 wasps, 105, 144 wasp nest, 105 water lilies, 51 yellow, 51 weevil, white pine, 61 Whitby Formation, 45 white pine(s, 43, 45, 60, 61, 63, 67, 68, 95, 101, 105, 113 ancient grove, 44 regeneration, 61, 63 saplings, 69 stumps, 103 Temagami old growth, 61 white snakeroot, 83 White, Cecil, 50 white-sucker (see fish) wild cucumber, 113 wild grape, 113 willow(s), 9, 16, 31, 38, 39, 47,48, 60, 96, 113, 114, 126 Wind in the Willow, The, 123 witch hazel, 9, 97, 98, 111

wintergreen, 25, 41 wood duck, (see ducks) Wood, S.T., 40, 142 wood-pewee, eastern, 46 woodchuck, 47 woodcock(s), 24, 71, 100, 105 Woodlands, 102-108, 144 woodpecker (s), 105 - black-backed, 21 - downy, 111 -hairy, 111 -pileated, 53-55, 111 Woodview Forest, 43-45, 91, 113 Woodview Road, 43 woolly bear caterpillar (see Isabella moth) wren, - house, 68 - yellow-shafted flicker, 80 yew, 53 Yonge Street, 88, 95 York (Toronto), 99, 114 zebra mussel, 137 Zwinger, Ann, 67, 143

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

151

Wilderness

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

GENERAL: NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: Banfield, A.W.E, The Mammals of Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974. Borror, Donald J. & Richard E. White, A Field Guide to the Insects. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970. Britton, Nathaniel Lord and Addison Brown. An Illustrated Flora of the Northern United States and Canada. 3 volumes. New York: Dover Publications, 1913, 1970. Burt, William H. & Richard P. Grossenheider, A Field Guide to the Mammals. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1976. Cadman, Michael D., Paul F.J. Eagles & Frederick M. Helleiner. Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Ontario. Waterloo: University of Waterloo Press, 1987. Chapman, L.J. & D.F. Putman. The Physiography of Southern Ontario. Third Edition. Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR), 1984. Cobb, Boughton, A Field Guide to the Ferns. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1936. Godfrey, Earl W., The Birds of Canada. Ottawa: National Museum of Canada, 1966. Goodwin, Clive E., A Birdflnding Guide to the Toronto Region. Toronto: Clive and Joy Goodwin Enterprises Ltd., 1988. Hosie, R.C., Native Trees of Canada. Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1973. Johnson, Bob, Familiar Amphibians and Reptiles of Ontario. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1989. Klots, Alexander B., A Field Guide to the Butterflies. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1951. Logier, E.B.S., The Snakes of Ontario. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975. Mitchell, Robert T. and Herbert S. Zim, Butterflies and Moths. New York: Golden Press, 1964. Murie, Olaus, A Field Guide to Animal Tracks. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1954. 152

Peterson, Roger Tory & Margaret McKenny, A Field Guide to Wildflowers. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1968.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Richardson, A.H. & A.S.L. Barnes, Rouge, Duffin, Highland, Petticoat Creeks Conservation Report. Ontario: Department of Planning and Development, 1956. Robbins, Chandler S., Bertel Brunn & Herbert S. Zim. Birds of North America. New York: Golden Press, 1966. Rose, A.H. & O.K. Lindquist, Insects of Eastern Pines. Ottawa: Environment Canada, 1973. Scott, W.B. & E.J. Grossman, Freshwater Fishes of Canada. Ottawa: Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 1973. Soper, James H. & Margaret L. Heimburger, Shrubs of Ontario. Toronto: The Royal Ontario Museum, 1982. Speirs, J.Murray, Birds of Ontario. Volumes 1 and 2. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1985. Spurr, Stephen H. & Burton V. Barnes, Forest Ecology. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1980. Taverner, P. A., Birds of Canada. Toronto: The Musson Book Co. Ltd., 1945. van Zyll de Jong, C.G., Handbook of Canadian Mammals. Volume 1. Ottawa: National Museum of Natural Science, 1983. Zichmanis, Zile & James Hodgins, Flowers of the Wild: Ontario and the Great Lakes Region. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1982.

REPORTS AND PAPERS: NATURAL ENVIRONMENT: Environmental Assessment: Storm Water Management in the Morningside Tributary Watershed of the Tapscott Industrial District, Borough of Scarborough, Works Department, 1981. Environmentally Significant Areas Study. Metro Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (MTRCA), 1982. Checklist of Toronto in Four Toronto Parks, TFN, Botany Group, 1972. Gypsy Moth in Ontario. OMNR, undated. Northeast Scarborough Land Use Study, Natural and Environmentally Sensitive Areas. City of Scarborough Planning Department, 1984. Our Vanishing Flora. Toronto: Toronto Field Naturalists (TFN), undated. Urban Fishing: Feasibility Study. MTRCA, 1986. Darragh, Ian, "Our Largest Woodpecker is Thriving/' Canadian Geographic. March/April, 1994, p. 6. Garratt, James, "Altona Forest/' TFN Newsletter. Number 431, 1992. Garratt, James, Letter requesting information about "singing groundhogs." TFN

THE R O U G E

RIVER

V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

153

Newsletter. Number. 375, 1985. Garratt, James & Paul Harpley, "Woodview Forest/' Technical Paper. Save the Rouge Valley System Inc. Volume 3, Number 1. SRVS, 1986. Garratt, James and Paul Harpley, "The 'Woodlands'—A Carolinian Forest in Northeast Scarborough/' Technical Paper. Volume 4, Number 1. SRVS, 1987. Gorrie, Peter, "The Enchanted Woodland," Canadian Geographic. March/April, 1994, pp. 32-42. Harpley, Paul, "White-tailed Deer Herd in the Rouge." Technical Paper. Volume 1, Number 1. SRVS, 1982. Harpley, Paul, "Some Birds and Mammals of the Rouge River Valley." TFN Newsletter. Number 352, 1982. James, R.D., PL. McLaren & J.C. Barlow, Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Ontario. Toronto: The Royal Ontario Museum, 1976. Johnson, Bob, Amphibians and Reptiles in Metropolitan Toronto. TFN, 1983. Mohr, Patricia and Ulrika Korn, Water Quality Survey of The Rouge River System South of Steeles Avenue. SRVS, 1986. Morse, L.A., White Pinef Ontario Celebrates its History. OMNR, 1984. Parker, Bruce D., Hugh Currie, D.V. Weseloh, Glenn Coady, Alvaro Jaramillo & Karl Konz, Toronto Region Bird Report. Toronto Ornithological Club, 1985. Quinby, Peter A., "Old Growth Survey in Temagami'sWakimika Triangle." Tall Pines Project, Research Report. Number 2 and 3, Toronto: Temagami Wilderness Society, 1989. Riley, John L., "Guide to the Vascular Plants and Wildlife of the Rouge River Valley in Metro Toronto and Durham Region". Ontario Field Biologist. Special Publication Number 1, 1978. Riley, John & Steve Varga, "A White Pine Stand in the Rouge River Valley—What Can We Make of It?" TFN Newsletter. Number 329. 1980. Scott, J.D., A Silvicultural Guide to the White Pine Working Group. OMNR, 1983. Seasons Magazine. Volume 25, Number 2, Summer 1985. "Special issue celebrating Carolinian Canada." Toronto: Federation of Ontario Naturalists, Summer, 1985. Varga, S., J.Jalava and J.L.Riley, Ecological Survey of the Rouge Valley Park. Aurora: OMNR, 1991. Webber, L.R. and D.W. Hoffman, Origin, Classification and Use of Ontario Soils. Ontario: Department of Agriculture and Food, undated.

REPORTS AND PAPERS: POLITICAL AND PLANNING ISSUES: 154

Draft Rouge Park Management Plan. Toronto: OMNR, 1993.

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

Northeast Scarborough Land Use Study (NESLUS) Background Report. Scarborough: Scarborough Planning Department, 1984. NESLUS, Concepts Report. Scarborough Planning Department CS, 1987. NESLUS, Revised Concepts Report. Scarborough Planning Department, CS, 1987. NESLUS, Notification Report. Scarborough Planning Department, CS, 1988. "Park Options/' Interest Group Workshop Summary. Rouge Valley Park Advisory Committee (RVPAC) Rouge Valley Park Project, 1996. Preliminary Park Management Plan. PVPAC and Hough Stansbury Woodland Ltd., Rouge Valley Park Project, 1992. Rouge Park Management Plan. Toronto: OMNR, 1994. Rouge Valley System Natural Heritage Park Proposal. SRUS, 1988. Submission by SRVS and COSCA to City of Scarborough Concerning Northeast Scarborough Official Plan Amendment Notification Report. SRVS and Coalition of Scarborough Community Associations (COSCA), 1988. Cundiff, Brad, "Saving the Rouge/' Canadian Geographic. Volume 110, Number 5, 1990. Garratt, James, "Letter concerning Woodview Forest." TFN Newsletter. Number. 379, 1986. Gregorio, Cathy & Glenn De Baeremaeker, "Battle for the Rouge." Probe Post. Volume 11, Number 1, 1988. McHarg, Ian L., Design with Nature. New York: Doubleday & Co. Ltd., 1969. O'Mara, J. and M. Thompson, "East Metro Transportation Corridor (EMTC)," Volume 1 of 2. Environmental Assessment Report—Type 1. Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications, 1982. Peterson, David, "Woodview Forest." TFN Newsletter Number 390, 1987. Peterson, David, "Letter concerning the Rouge." TFN Newsletter Number 400, 1988. LITERARY WORKS: Brooks, Paul, Speaking for Nature. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1980. Carson, Rachel, Silent Spring. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1962. Grahame, Kenneth, Wind in the Willows. New York: New American Library, 1962. Innis, Mary Quayle (editor), Mrs. Simcoe's Diary. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1965. Ivy, Bill, A Little Wilderness, The Natural History of Toronto. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1983. Kieran, John, A Natural History of New York City. New York: Fordham University Press,

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

155

1959. Krutch, Joesph Wood, The Great Chain of Life. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1956. Lawrence, Louise De Kiriline, The Lovely and the Wild. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1987. Lawrence, Louise De Kiriline, The Loghouse Nest. Toronto: Natural Heritage/Natural History Inc., 1988. Lawrence, R.D., The Place in the Forest. Toronto: Natural Heritage / Natural History Inc., 1998. Lovelock, James E., Gala: A New Look at Life on Earth. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1987. MacDonald, Malcolm, The Birds of Brewery Creek. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1947. Owl, Grey, Men of the Last Frontier. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1931. Seton, Ernest Thompson, Trail of an Artist-Naturalist. New York: Arno Press, 1978. Teale, Edwin Way, North With the Spring. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1951. Torrey, Bradford and Francis H. Allen (editors), The Journal of Henry D. Thoreau. In Fourteen Volumes Bound as Two. New York: Dover Publications, 1906 (reprinted 1962). Thoreau, Henry D., Faith in a Seed. (The Dispersion of Seeds and Other Late Natural History Writings). Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1993. Wood, S.T., Rambles of a Canadian Naturalist. Toronto: J.M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1916. Zwinger, Ann, Beyond the Aspen Grove. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Zwinger, Ann, "The Quintessential Wanderer/' The Thoreau Society Bulletin. Number 169, 1984.

HUMAN HISTORY: Andre, John, Infant Toronto as Simcoe's Folly. Toronto: Centennial Press, 1971. Bonis, Robert R., A History of Scarborough. Toronto Public Library, 1968. Clark, Ella Elizabeth, Indian Legends of Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1960. Duncan, George W.J., (editor), A Rouge Valley Landmark, The James Pearse Jr. House. The Pearse House Planning Committee, 1989. Guillet, Edwin C., Pioneer Days in Upper Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1933. Heidenreich, Conrad, Huronia. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 1971. 156

Hughson, John W., & Courtney C.J. Bond, Hurling Down the Pine. Chelsea, Quebec: The

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban Wilderness

Historical Society of the Gatineau, 1964.. Kavasch, Barrie, Native Harvests. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Konrad, Victor A., William A. Ross & Irene Bowman, North Pickering Archaeology. Parts 1&2. Toronto: OMNR, 1974. Waugh, F.W., Iroquois Foods and Food Preparation. Ottawa: National Museum of Man, 1916. Wright, J.V, Ontario Prehistory. Toronto: Van Nostrand Reinhold Ltd., 1972. Yarnell, Richard Asa, Aboriginal Relationships between Culture and Plant Life in the Upper Great Lakes Region. Ann Arbour: University of Michigan, 1964. GUIDEBOOKS AND TRAIL INFORMATION: City of Scarborough, A Guide to Fishing in the Rouge River. Scarborough: Prepared by the Economic Development Department, undated. Beeby, Susan and Steve Varga, "Rouge Rambles/' (hiking information). Seasons Magazine. Spring 1990, Volume 30, Number 1. Toronto: Federation of Ontario Naturalists, 1990. Heseltine, Nigel, (editor), An Ecotour of the Rouge River Valley. Scarborough: SRVS and the Rouge Valley Foundation, 1987. Rouge Park Office. Present address: 50 Bloomington Road West, Aurora, Ontario, L4G 3G8, or contact TRCA (416) 28-ROUGE. Has recently published trail guides. OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION: The Federation of Ontario Naturalists, 355 Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, M3B 2W8. Information about areas of the Rouge watershed beyond Toronto's boundaries. The Friends of Altona Forest and Petticoat Creek, c/o 1434 Rougemount Drive, Pickering, Ontario, L1V INI. This activist group can provide information about issues affecting the Rouge Valley's eastern reaches. Toronto and Region Conservation Authority (TRCA), 5 Shoreham Drive, Downsview, Ontario, M3N 1S4. This watershed-based agency is a good source of technical information about the Rouge environment, particularly flood-prone areas. The TRCA is developing a comprehensive "vision" of the watershed, crossing political boundries. Rouge Park office. Directed by General Manager Gord Weeden and working with the Rouge Park Alliance, this newly established office is responsible for implementing the Park Plan. Phone: (416) 28-ROUGE. Save the Rouge Valley System Inc. maintains an archive of written material pertaining to the Rouge, as well as conducting monthly nature walks and providing issue up-dates through their membership newsletter, News of the Rouge. The current SRVS phone

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

157

number is listed in the directory; their present mailing address is Box 88005, Cliffcrest Plaza P.O., 2975 Kingston Road, Toronto, Ontario, M1M 3W1. Soon SRVS and its archives will be moving into the renovated Pearse House, and sharing the facilities with the Rouge Valley Foundation. Toronto Public Library. The Cedarbrae branch keeps a special file of newspaper clippings relating to the Rouge, as well as several hard-to-find books, such as a copy of the Rouge, Duffin, Highland, Petticoat Creeks Conservation Report. Toronto Field Naturalists. Their newsletters are valuable sources of local knowledge about the Toronto region's natural environment. A complete set of TFN Newsletters is located in the City of Toronto's Central Reference Library, and an index is available, dating from 1938 to the present. Current address: 20 College Street, Suite 11, Toronto, Ontario, M5G 1K2.

158

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

JAMES E. GARRATT WAS BORN ON MAY18,1954 IN TORONTO. OVER THE YEARS he has developed a lifelong love of the outdoors and nature. After attending Forestry School in Lindsay, Ontario, he worked for Ontario Hydro doing forest inventories (timber cruising). Part of his accomplishments in environmental advocacy include: Past Chairman of Save the Rouge Valley System Inc. Founding member, Friends of Altona Forest & Petticoat and Friends of the Rouge Watershed. Appointment to Scarborough Environmental Advisory Director, Federation of Committee. Ontario Naturalists. Participation in first surveys of old growth pine in Temagami with Peter Quinby on behalf of Temagami Wilderness Society. Presently, James Garratt is employed in environmental education at the Kortright Centre (Vaughan) and Scanlon Creek Outdoor Education Centre (Bradford). An avid canoeist, hiker and amateur musician, he is also very interested in amateur astronomy and 'ham' radio (morse code) (call sign VA3JEG). James Garratt is very interested in the literature of the wilderness, particularly the work of the American naturalist-philosopher Henry David Thoreau. While he has published numerous articles, this is his first book. As well, all photographs, both black and white and colour, are the work of the author, all taken with a 2 1/4 Bronica Camera.

About the Author

159

T H E R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness

MAP II LOWER ROUGE VALLEY Some points of interest mentioned in text

1. Little Rouge forest.

7. Beare Road Landfill Site.

2. Finch Meander.

8. Altona Forest.

3. Woodview Forest, east side of valley.

9. Confluence of the Rouge and Little Rouge rivers.

4. Reesor farm (private).

10. Mouth of the Rouge River, and Rouge Beach.

5. Woodlands.

11. Hydro Transmission Corridor.

6. Toronto Zoo.

160

THE

R O U G E R I V E R V A L L E Y A n Urban

Wilderness