Essentially the Only One

Lake Nipigon

It's a fiendishly hot day here in St. Louis, quite enough to inhibit me from going out. So instead I think of cool summer places I've visited at some time or another and this is one. From 2007 on our trip to Ontario, I spent far too little time at this beautiful lake. Just an hour or two walking the shoreline by this little jetty on a very windy warm (but not hot) summer day.

That year's trip to Ontario has special meaning for me thanks to the remoteness of wonderful places like this. I always enjoy the road less traveled than the familiar tourist destinations.

Two sunset photographs, the top one of Loch Leven on our last night in Scotland this summer, the bottom one of an unknown (to me) lake in northern Ontario almost exactly one year earlier.

I have deep memories of those evenings, both involving hours of gazing at the changing light, of which what you see here is only a microsecond's fractional framing, and does little justice to either.

Nonetheless, they illustrate a qualitatively different experience that is a function of their location. Loch Leven, although remote and unspoilt, is only a few dozen miles from large populations and is well known to a lot of people. That unknown Ontario lake is hundreds of miles from a large city, and even small settlements are sparse and scattered far.

You can see the small boat moored in the center of the Scottish lake. Below me, out of that shot's sight, a couple of fishermen were pulling herring in from the salt water. There was no one close to me by the shore of that Ontario lake. There was no sound of man, no cars, no lights, no boats. I had reached it by driving down a loose gravel road; at this point there were no paved roads, indeed no roads, whatsoever between me and the Arctic Ocean far to the North.

Ironically, in terms of latitude, I was much farther north in Scotland than my northernmost sally into Ontario, but that mattered far less than my relative position to large of groups of people. Ontario felt wild in a way that Scotland, for all its natural beauty and undeveloped landscape, could not.

Moving so far from the human crowd gave me a profound sense of peacefulness that I have never experienced elsewhere. The closest I had come before was our other Canadian vacation in northern Quebec two years earlier. Now, whether this feeling would last were I truly isolated is debatable. After all, a drive back down that gravel road took me back to my family in the small resort complex outside of Jellicoe. It is easier to feel alone when you know you are not going to be forever so.

But the ease with which I could, in essence, disappear into those Ontario forests was intoxicating. It clearly speaks to that part of myself that desires solitude without interruption. That's only one aspect of what I seek from life, but I had not clearly identified it until that warm, biting-insect infested, evening.

If has taken 50 years to clarify such a feeling, I wonder what else time is going to bring me as I age?

One month ago to the day and almost to the hour, I was standing on these rocks photographing a very attractive sunset over Lake Superior. Very enjoyable it was too.

We were staying at the Poplar Grove Motel on Highway 17 that runs just behind the treeline that you see in the photograph. An old fashioned motel, currently for sale. It's nice to think of it again, and that's why this post is here!

The temperature here in St. Louis has just equaled the 1936 record for this day, 102° F. The stock market has creamed another 200 points off the Dow. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I will be 50.

All clutter. Instead, I find myself thinking of a time only just over a week ago, yet already assuming the detached distance that is the fate of all memories. At the Cedar Shores Motel in Jellicoe, Ontario, with no news (the television remained off over the 5 days of our stay), no internet, and just the trees, lake, gravel roads and rivers around our cabin on this charmingly ramshackle estate.

We were so far north that the sun did not set until about 9:30 at night, and light lingered in the twilight sky until almost midnight. This gave each evening a languor that altered my sense of time and eased out each day into a much more relaxed state. It was not possible to hurry in such a place, the best thing to do was to sit and watch the sun go down, or take a lengthy and leisurely drive in the forest, float in a canoe, or simply read a book. (In this case, the latest and last Harry Potter.)

Our cabin was small and simply furnished but had everything we wanted. To wake in the morning, make a cup of tea and a plate of bluebery pancakes, and then sit out on the wooden porch overlooking the lake and watch for loons - it is hard to think of a better way to spend time. In many ways, the stay reminded me of childhood memories at my grandfather's country house, but the setting, the wildness of the place set it apart. No bears or moose showed themselves to us, but we knew that the woods all around us were their home. Despite the highway - Ontario King's Highway 11 - close by us, there was a strong sense that this was a land that had not been conquered by man. Perhaps it was the almost complete absence of any sort of farming that aided this impression. It was like a nature reserve that had not yet needed to be reserved.
The air was filled with biting things - mosquitos, flies, strange insects that I had never seen before, and we were scratching bumps of varying size and soreness almost the whole time we were there, yet it really didn't bother me at all. Somehow, to offer a little blood to these creatures was a small price to pay for being allowed to briefly share their world. Not that I did not take pleasure in swatting a lazy mosquito sinking its proboscis into my wrist - it's just that when I missed them it really didn't seem to matter. With the sun sinking and the cool evening air stealing over me, I was immune to disturbance.

Six days in Canada, and this unassuming motel in the French-Canadian town of Hearst, Ontario, is my first access to the internet since we arrived.

A good thing too. I realise - once again - how much a news junkie like myself likes to put it all out of my mind once in a while and return to a less well-informed and slower pace of living.

For the past five days we've been in a small lakeside cabin just outside the tiny town of Jellicoe. This is found on Ontario Highway 11, not that far from Lake Nipigon. The countryside reminds me of that of Northern Quebec, but not so hilly - vast ranges of boreal forest that have only been slightly impacted by modern man. I get the sense, walking through these woods and gazing upon pristine blue lakes, that I am getting much closer to real wilderness than I am likely to find in much of the rest of the developed world.

I like this feeling very much.



And now, back to my vacation...