The story of Hope Ness

Featured / findinghopeness / 5 Comments

IMG_0186Oh, if only these rocks could talk, what a story they could tell about how they got here thousands of years ago. They were part of what’s now called the Canadian Shield, a primeval formation of igneous rock, forged over many millions of years. When the vast glaciers of the last ice age began their slow, relentless march south, these rocks were broken off the shield and pushed south by the immense power of the ice. So great was the weight of the ice, several kilometers thick, that it tilted the eastern edge of an ancient sedimentary rock seabed upward, thus creating the unique, cliff-edge rock formation we call the Niagara Escarpment. When the ice age waned, and the ice began to melt and retreat, these rocks were left right here, where you see them now, on the section of the Bruce Trail from Hope Ness to Hope Bay, on the Bruce (Saugeen) Peninsula.

Prior to 1854 the peninsula was the territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nations, the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, and the Saugeen First Nation. As a result of Treaty 72, signed that year under duress and and other questionable circumstances, the two First Nations ‘surrendered’ most of what remained of their territory and were left with several relatively small reserves. Even so, in 1857, the Nawash people were compelled to move from their community near the present-day city of Owen Sound to make way for the new, non-Indigenous town’s expansion. The name of the Saugeen Peninsula, as it was known before 1854, was changed to Bruce Peninsula, after the name of the Governor-General of the Province of Canada, which was still a British colony at the time. Canada, an independent and sovereign country, is a Constitutional Monarchy, with a legal obligation to uphold the ‘honour of the Crown’ regarding treaties First Nations.

In 1994 the Saugeen Ojibway Nations (SON) took the unusual step of filing a land-claim lawsuit in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The action claims the honour of the Crown was breached by the manner in which Crown negotiators negotiated Treaty 72. It also claims the Crown failed in its Fiduciary duty to protect SON territory from incursions of non-Indigenous squatters as promised when an earlier treaty was signed. That 1836 treaty ‘surrendered’ the larger part of Saugeen Territory south of the Saugeen Peninsula, as far south as present-day Goderich on the Lake Huron shore, and west as far as the Nottawasaga River near present-day Wasaga Beach. Crown negotiators said they were unable to stop trespassing in that huge area. The two First Nations only agreed to sign the 1836 treaty on the promise that their territory on the Saugeen Peninsula would be protected “forever” by the Crown from further trespass. But again, in 1854, the Crown negotiators said they couldn’t stop the trespassing. The trial into the SON lawsuit began in April, 2019. During the trial, which ended in the fall of 2020, SON presented evidence that showed that was a lie.

On July 29, 2021 Justice W. Matheson’s 211-page judgement was presented to the  court and made public. It found in favor of key elements of SON’s claim related to Treaty 72, including that Crown negotiators breached the ‘honour of the Crown.’ However, the judgement denied SON’s claim for a declaration of Aboriginal Title to the lakebed under a large part of Lake Huron on both sides of the Bruce (Saugeen) Peninsula.  Phase 2 of the case will determine the amount and method of compensation owed the Saugeen Ojibway First Nations. But that won’t start until after any appeals of the judgement are heard.

Hope Ness was almost destroyed more than 50 years ago when the Dow Chemical Company wanted to develop a huge quarry to mine the limestone bedrock for its rich magnesium content. The plan included a large shipping facility at the foot of the Niagara Escarpment at nearby Hope Bay. The plan did not proceed for reasons that were never clear. It may be the market for magnesium crashed; or it may be that in the mid-1960s the Ontario government was already developing a plan to protect the Niagara Escarpment, and political pressure was applied. At any event, Dow had already bought up most of the farms in Hope Ness when the quarry plan was dropped. The company offered Hope Ness farmers $5,000 for their 100-acre farms, and all but a few accepted, though it caused grief and bitter discord and in some homes. Most of the homes and barns were demolished. One exception was the home and barn on the property I now call home. It survived only because Dow used it as its on-site base of preliminary testing. So, although the natural environment of Hope Ness escaped disaster, the homestead community, the sons and daughters of pioneer settlers, was devastated. The Ontario government soon acquired that land and to this day still owns most of it. A large portion is now the Hope Bay Nature Reserve, a provincial park. More details of the story of how all that happened, and other aspects of the history and continuing existence of a special place can be found here in this blog, Finding Hope Ness. Welcome.11 Revisions

Wilma’s Daffodils

/ findinghopeness / 2 Comments

I am once again amazed by the beauty and the enduring hardiness of ‘the host of golden daffodils’ blooming again in front of my house at Cathedral Drive Farm. That’s especially considering this is the spring of the polar vortex, with unseasonably cold temperatures prevailing in mid-April as a blast of stubborn arctic air hovers over southern Ontario and other parts of eastern Canada.

But these are daffodils Wilma Butchart planted many years ago, as early as 1941; and I wouldn’t be surprised if her spirit is still here offering them some added protection from the cold. Indeed, I will go further and say, so strong was her love for Hope Ness, and its precious natural environment of land, forests and waters, that her spirit certainly remains.

Wilma was one of the first people who welcomed my young family when we moved to Hope Ness from Toronto in June of 1979. She was generous in helping us learn much about the area and its history. And in that regard, she often spoke of seeing people from the nearby Chippewas of Nawash community across Hope Bay still gathering forest edibles when she was a girl growing up on her Tucker family farm. Her attitude was entirely respectful and accepting of their continuing right to do that.

An only child, Wilma Tucker was born and raised a short distance from the farm that would become her matrimonial home, on the ‘no exit’ road she would name Cathedral Drive when the 911 emergency system was created. That name was derived from the forest at the end of the road she called ‘Cathedral Woods’ because of the overhead effect created by the mature deciduous forest canopy. As the years went by, Wilma often took to a trail through the woods with her easel and paints, to a lookout on the Niagara Escarpment cliffs overlooking the waters of Hope Bay and Georgian Bay.

The Dow Chemical takeover of most Hope Ness farms, including the Butchart-Tucker farms, against her wishes, was a deeply troublesome time, to say the least. Fortunately, Dow used that Butchart farm as its on-site base for study and testing. As a result the house and barn were not demolished like the rest of the farms Dow acquired. Meanwhile, the Butchart family continue to live and work the farm. There came a time some years later when Wilma and her adult son Cliff were able to get title back to the house and barn and 5.9 acres after the Ontario government acquired the 2,000 acres Dow had bought.

I count myself fortunate now to have had the opportunity to buy the farm after Wilma and Cliff passed because of their determination and endurance.

Wilma was a woman of many talents: artist, musician, poet, local historian, and gifted, creative gardener. She could have taken any of those talents and prospered in any number of places that offered many more opportunties; but she chose to remain in Hope Ness which she loved and where she felt a special energy. It is interesting to note that for thousands of years Indigenous people throughout the Great Lakes region regarded this same area as a ‘place of healing,’ called Nochemoweniing, in the Anishinaabe language of the Saugeen first nations.

Wilma had an intuitive understanding of the extent to which floral gardens – with something always in bloom – are able to help lift and maintain human spirits. She created beautiful gardens near the house and other locations. To this day, from early spring, starting with Daffodils, through the summer and falls seasons, lilies, tulips, roses and other flowers Wilma planted still bloom in their time. She was also an avid produce gardener. “Wilma’s raspberries” were highly regarded by her Hope Ness neighbors and to this day continue to produce delicious fruit for me.

I believe Wilma saw daffodils as the hopeful flower. She planted them deliberately to be the first thing her family would see as they rose from their upstairs bedrooms for another day’s hard work. A feature of the upstairs hall was, and remains, the fire-escape door and window overlooking the front of the house and a view of what the great English poet William Wordsworth would call, “a host of golden daffodils.”

I am not the only one who feels Wilma’s presence here. During a recent visit, Tobermory resident Yvette Roberts was drawn to a certain, secluded area of Wilma’s gardens. She found herself stopped, held by the intensity of the feeling she felt, prompting her to say, “Her energy still lives.”

The polar vortex isn’t quite finished with us. The forecast temperature for tonight is -3 Celsius. But with Wilma’s help, I’m sure her daffodils will endure, as always.


Reflections on the Universality of Easter

/ findinghopeness / Leave a comment

I found myself thinking of Easter a few moments ago, this Good Friday afternoon; and what came to mind is that it’s a holiday that people of many different cultural and religious traditions can honour and appreciate. That’s because it’s about the miracle of life, actual and spiritual, resurgent and ressurected.

I am grateful that as a boy living on a farm near Streetsville many years ago my guardian family attended church every Sunday in town; and, as a result, I became familiar with the story of Jesus, his life as a boy, and as a great spirit and man who I love to this day. And that remains true, even as my spiritual journey into what I often call the Great Mystery continues.

Certain images stand out: I see Jesus going alone at the night into the Garden of Gethsemane, to pray, to ask if perhaps there might be another way. He wept. He loved life. He accepted his fate, the very next day on the Cross.

I hear him cry out, “my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me.” And I feel for Him, my beloved friend. And moments later, when one of the ‘transgressors’ crucified on either side of Jesus speaks harshly to Him, the other comes to His defence, saying, “we receive the due reward of our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then that man, feeling that he is unworthy of anything more, asks Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” Instead, Jesus says, “Truly, I promise you, today you will be with me in paradise.” That is, for me, the most powerful moment in the New Testament, only to be found in St. Luke.

Today I am an elder man, but young at heart, even like the child I was on that Streetsville area farm, now that I have one of my own. The seeds I planted indoors at the west kitchen window have germinated. They will be planted outdoors in one of my three garden plots come warmer weather. I am excited again at the prospect of watching the gardens come alive with new life.

I live, surrounded by nature, in a secluded area on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula called Hope Ness. It is near a precious body of water called Hope Bay, sacred, to those who know it leads to ‘a place of healing’ visited by indigenous people throughout the Great Lakes for thousands of years. And so, I am surrounded by Hope, and the blessings of Mother Earth. I count my blessings every day.

Happy Easter to everyone on this beautiful, little blue-green jewel of a planet, this sacred gift. We are all one family in truth and spirit.

May be an image of collard greens and grass

Like

Comment

Share

Giving thanks for Mother Earth at Singing Sands

/ findinghopeness / 1 Comment

Last night on my way home I stopped by Singing Sands to give thanks.

If you believe you are a Child of the Earth then you know you cannot hide from anything.
You are one with your creator – Mother Earth.
You are joined to Mother Earth with every step and action you take .
From the air you breath to the food you eat that comes from her womb.
To the ground you walk on and build your life on.
To the sun that heals and warms you.
The water that sustains you and all life.
I say Miigwetch. Chi Migwetch

Yvette Roberts – Guest author/contributor

Photos by Yvette

Singing Sands beach, in the traditional territory of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation, is on the shores of Lake Huron in the Bruce Peninsula National Park. It is known for its fragile sand dunes, rare flowers, boardwalk and hiking trails. It is one of Mother Nature’s most precious creations.

Morning moment: a gift

/ findinghopeness / 7 Comments

On my morning walk at sunrise I noticed a few well-placed clouds and the sun had combined to offer this momentary gentle, and to my eye, lovely image. And as I happened to have my camera in my pocket, I accepted the offer, thanked them both, and now share it with others; with the thought added, that one never knows what wonders the next moment will bring into your life. Believe that, and you will always have hope in your heart.

The sleep apnea challenge: one man’s experience

/ findinghopeness / 2 Comments

As I began to look at the on-line news in the very ‘wee hours’ of this morning, The headline of a CBC Radio Canada article soon caught by eye: “Millions of people in Canada have sleep apnea. The problem is not all of them realize it.”

Indeed, “not all of them” was putting it mildly, when that was followed by this sub-heading: “Roughly 8 out (of) 10 with sleep apnea are undiagnosed.”

The article cites a 2014 study by Canadian medical experts. They cited information gathered by Statistics Canada indicating an estimated 5.4 Million Canadian adults had been diagnosed with sleep apnea or were at high risk of experiencing obstructive sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is a condition in which breathing stops and restarts often many times during sleep. When that happens the heart has to work harder to keep pumping vital oxygen-rich blood to the body. Over time that can lead to heart problems. Meanwhile, there’s always the risk a person with sleep apneal won’t start breathing again.

Sunrise on Cathedral Drive is always inspiring. That’s my Shepherd, Buddy. Just because.

So, if someone says, or perhaps complains, you snore and gasp in your sleep, you may want to consider seeking medical advice; or also, if you experience other symptoms of poor quality, or lack of sleep, like excessive tiredness and lack of energy during the day. The latter has become the story of my life in the past year as I struggle, so far unsuccessfully, to master the art of using what the CBC article calls the “first-line, gold-standard” treatment for sleep apnea, the CPAP machine

More about that in a moment; but first, the basics. The U.S. National Library of Medicine has one of the best, brief descriptions of the two types of sleep apnea, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), and central sleep apnea. OSA “happens when your upper airway becomes blocked many times while you sleep, reducing or completely stopping airflow. This is the most common type of sleep apnea. Anything that could narrow your airway such as obesity, large tonsils, or changes in your hormone levels can increase your risk for obstructive sleep apnea. Central sleep apnea happens when your brain does not send the signals needed to breathe. Health conditions that affect how your brain controls your airway and chest muscles can cause central sleep apnea.”

I get the impression central sleep apnea is a relatively new area of study, but to be honest I don’t know, and maybe my memory has failed me on this point; but I don’t recall ever being told which type of sleep apnea I have, despite having had three overnight sleep lab tests, all of them in Owen Sound. The last one was mid-October, 2023. So far there are no results, and no telling how long I will wait to hear from a specialist to discuss them. I waited a year after my second overnight test about five years ago. I take that to be a measure of the level of demand. When I had my first test, the technician told me I woke up briefly 40 times because I had stopped breathing, but I had no memory of that happening. Fortunately, my brain took charge and pushed the figurative ‘restart’ button. And that was called “mild, to moderate” sleep apnea.

After the second sleep test, I was prescribed to go on a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine, after a trial run of a week when it seemed to work for me. With a constant level of measured, pressurized air going from the machine to your airway, the system is designed to take keep you breathing if you stop. And you will, that is a given with sleep apnea.

But, despite the encouraging start, there was a problem, though the machine itself was working properly when tested. I tried different remedies, including going from a nasal to a full mask (nose and mouth) and still the problem continued: waking up after an hour or two with a very dry mouth and throat.

Turns out this problem, getting used to the CPAP machine, is not unusual: Forty percent or more of people who start, give up on it; but that should not be an option.

I confess I gave up for a while, but, realizing the risk I was taking, tried again, and again. And I’m still trying, as my sleep quality has continued to worsen. Recently, I bought an oximeter device, as a kind of ‘back up’ just in case. Made to fit like a ring on suitable finger, the device keeps track of blood-oxygen level and heart pulse. One of the risks of sleep apnea is that the heart has to work harder to keep pumping oxygenated blood when breathing stops. If the blood-oxygen level goes below a set percentage – I’ve set mine at 92 percent – the device has a vibration-alarm that is supposed to ‘gently’ alert you to restart breathing, but not necessarily wake you up. I’ve got the alarm set a ‘very strong’ but still it doesn’t consciously wake me up. Fair to say, I think, it’s not a good idea for the hard of hearing. So, time to get hearing aids after all, I guess, ASAP.

The ring-device comes with a smart phone or computer app which, when connected to the device shows the ups and downs of your blood-oxygen and heart pulse. That has been interesting and eye-opening, especially when the blood-oxygen level has gone below 90, before recovering, which has happened a few times. That’s troubling, but better to know than not.

To summarize, my sleep apnea has recently become life-changing: tired during the day, while trying to catch up by napping one or more times; and worst of all, lack of energy, having to push myself to get doing what came so easily even up to a year ago.

That’s not the way I want to live; but I am determined to find a way to overcome this sleep apnea challenge. And when that happens, I’ll be sure to let you know.

My touchstone, a different way of being

/ findinghopeness / 9 Comments
My shattered touchstone, the sun rising in the background: a different ‘way of being.’

The Niagara Escarpment landscape here at Hope Ness and in the Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park nature reserve has many natural features well worth appreciating and protecting. I am fortunate to live, literally, in the midst of it. Among that wonderful diversity of features are numerous moss-covered rocks left here thousands of years ago when the vast ice-age glaciers began to melt and recede. At dusk, their moss blanket takes on a luminous glow that I find spell-binding. As I walk the Bruce Trail in the woods near my home, I always stop beside beside one large rock and marvel at the little garden of flowers and other small plants at its top that somehow survive the cold winters.

“There’s life in that rock,” I have said, stopping there for a while, imagining the stories it could tell of its creation, and, yes, the spirits within.

There is another rock, though, that is perhaps more special. I call it ‘my touchstone.’ If that sounds like I’ve somehow taken possession of it, I guess that’s true in some sense. When Buddy, my beautiful canine, German Shepherd came to live with me, and then a short time later, Sophie the mischievous Cockapoo, we three started walking north down Cathedral Drive. There was one of those moss-covered rocks standing alone beside the road, and partially hidden by wild raspberries bushes, tiny maple and ash saplings. The little trees never got bigger because the municipal plows, mowers, and those infernal machines that whip the young tree growth to an ugly death, wouldn’t allow it.

I suppose too the machinery sometime gets damaged because the rock is easily overlooked during the growing season, or covered with snow in winter. I get it; and to that extent, I understand.

Still, I was surprised and shocked to discover last Friday morning about 9:30 my touchstone had been demolished.

With few exceptions, my dogs and I have walked down Cathedral Drive every morning after breakfast for five years, or thereabouts, to the touchstone. Usually it’s just as the sun is rising over the woods to the east. Between the road and those woods, a former farm field that hasn’t been worked for a long time is filling up with wild apple trees as the field is left to revegetate naturally. When we reach the rock I put my right hand on its moss blanket. My left hand holds Sophie’s leash. Buddy stays close by. Often, especially when someone in my family was not well or for other reasons needed spiritual help, or I was myself feeling not so good, I pray; usually the Lord’s Prayer – because that’s what I grew up with, and I’m a creature of habit – with some additional words.

The road, Cathedral Drive, Hope Ness

Sometimes, I let the rock inspire my spiritual imagination; or should I say, ‘horizons;’ because we are, above all, spiritual beings, and it is no small matter to go there and grow. Our spiritual journey is the most important one we will ever take. So, an extended opening of unknowable depth near where the rock met the earth, became a portal to the Cosmos, and beyond that, the Great Mystery, which is what I call God in my open-minded way.

And then suddenly at 9:30 am Friday morning, there it was: in a few minutes at best broken into pieces large and small, each exposed and strangely raw and white in the morning light, except for the one partially covered by what was left of the moss blanket. Further along Cathedral Drive other rocks that must have been causing problems for municipal equipment were also broken up.

“So, this is what a rock looks like when it dies,” I think just now, as I write this and look at the photos I took this morning. But, on second thought, I don’t think so. It has taken on a different way of being, as I will when my time comes. And that gives me much consolation.

This morning, Saturday, November, 4, 2023, the dogs and I took our morning walk as usual. I note the date here because, after all, that rock was millions of years old, and it only seemed right. Buddy, off leash, was the first to reach the site. I could see he was surprised, as he carefully explored the ground where the rock had been, and then the pieces, large and small, before he looked back at me as I approached.

So, there it is; but I will continue to go to the place, pay homage to what remains, and quietly say the words I need to say.

New Hope Bay park signs end up saying a lot about Saugeen Ojibway Nation’s land and water claim lawsuit

/ findinghopeness / 2 Comments

It may have been August 30 when I first saw the new ‘park boundary’ and ‘no hunting’ signs posted on both sides of Cathedral Drive north of my property at the end of the ‘No Exit’ gravel road. I’d been away on a long trip and took a couple of days to rest up at home before going up that way with the tractor.

My first thought was the signs might have something to do with a possible out-of-court, negotiated settlement of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) land and water claim lawsuit. I’ve long believed a settlement of the multi-billion-dollar SON lawsuit would have to include a lot of land as well money in compensation, and that Hope Ness is bound to be part of it. The Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park (Nature Reserve) includes 353 hectares (873 acres). Other Ontario Crown land in the Hope Bay-Hope Ness area is of similar size and includes a large swath of Georgian Bay-Hope Bay shoreline.

My first thought was surely too much of a leap I initially told myself; but still, it was worth some research and a few phone calls.

And that’s how I found out, yes, there have been tentative talks at least; or, as a reliable source told me only, “there have been a few meetings.”

I was also surprised to discover that a three-judge, Ontario Court of Appeal panel has finished their deliberations regarding SON’s appeal of the initial Superior Court trial decisions two years ago. The appeal court decisions were published on the courts website August 30. That’s two weeks ago as I write this, and as far as I know, the news media has not picked up on and covered this important news.

The non-indigenous, local community has especially been kept in the dark over the years as the lawsuit has been slowly making its way through the legal process. Meanwhile, little has been done to prepare people for a day, and a negotiated settlement, that may be coming soon.

Late last year, a newsletter sent out to members of the two SON First Nations under the heading ‘Negotiations’ spoke of an intention to reach out to the two main defendants in the lawsuit.

“While we are pursuing our appeals, there may be a chance to start negotiations with Canada and Ontario to settle our claims.” In the past little progress was made, “but now we have a finding from the court in the treaty claim that the Crown behaved dishonourably towards us … We are reaching out to Canada and Ontario to invite them to begin those negotiations,” the newsletter said.

The appeal court also dealt with issues raised by municipal defendants who have not already settled with SON, including the Northern Bruce Peninsula and Southern Bruce Peninsula.

For example, the court has decided local municipalities are not responsible for financial damages SON may stand to get in connection with former Saugeen land now taken up by municipal roads. Under a treaty signed in 1854 surrendered land was to be surveyed, including into 100-acre farm lots, and the money put into trust funds for the benefit of the Saugeen first nations. But no provision was made for land that became road allowances under municipal jurisdiction.

The Ontario appeal court again denied the larger Aboriginal Title to the waters around the peninsula, as far as the U.S. border in Lake Huron; but in an unusual move the court has invited SON to seek title to a smaller area. That would most likely be an area known to the Saugeen Ojibway in the Anishinaabe language as Nochemowenaing, translated to English as ‘Place of Healing.’ That location is on the Georgian Bay side of the peninsula in the Hope Bay area.

A view of Hope Bay from the lookout in the Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park (Nature Reserve). Dow Chemical would have built a large shipping facility on the shore below.

Justice Wendy Matheson, who presided over the initial Ontario Superior Court trial, did not decide in favor of the larger Aboriginal Title; but she was much impressed by the cultural and spiritual evidence presented by elders from both First Nations that make up the Saugeen Ojibway Nation. They are the Chippewas of Nawash First Nation, with their home community beside Hope Bay, and the Saugeen First Nation beside the Saugeen River on the Lake Huron side.

“Joanne Keeshig testified about the role Anishinaabe women carry out with respect to water,” Justice Matheson wrote in her decision. “Like Karl Keeshig, she is a Third Degree Midewin and a member of a Midewin Lodge. She testified about the resurgence of the Midewin Lodge beginning in the 1970s. I found her evidence about her faith deserving of significant weight.

“Joanne Keeshig’s evidence also spoke of the Creator,” Justice Matheson wrote. “The Creator gave Anishinaabe women the primary responsibility to care for water. Anishinaabe women perform water ceremonies. In Joanne Keeshig’s view, if the Anishinaabe did not conduct water ceremonies, they would become disconnected from their purpose in life.

“Nochemowenaing was a very significant place from the Indigenous perspective, both as of 1763 and in more modern times. The waters at Nochemowenaing were and are believed to have healing qualities.”

The Court of Appeal judges took serious note of Justice Matheson’s written comments about Nochemowenaing, and also her inability to go further without a submission from SON during the trial. However, the court noted “SON asks this court to remit this alternative claim to the trial judge ‘for a judgment, after further evidence and submissions, on the question of Aboriginal title to a portion of the Aboriginal title area claimed.’”

The appeal judges agreed. “SON should not have to begin a new proceeding to determine this issue. The trial judge in this case is uniquely qualified to assess this request because of her long familiarity with the evidence and issues. The trial judge can devise a procedure that is fair to both sides, including further pleadings, discovery, and hearings that she deems necessary” to meet the legal test based on precedence.

Meanwhile, “the concerns of some of the parties and interveners about Aboriginal title to submerged lands and the public right of navigation cannot be addressed until the extent of Aboriginal title, if any, is determined.”

The multi-billion-dollar lawsuit was first filed in Ontario Superior Court in 1994. Initially, it focused on issues related to the way SON’s ancestors were pressured into signing a treaty that surrendered most of their remaining territory on the then Saugeen, now Bruce, Peninsula. Saugeen leaders were given one day to comply, or not, while Crown agents said they could no longer keep non-Indigenous squatters out of the territory. Just 18 years year earlier other Crown negotiators had promised to protect the integrity of the Saugeen territory on the peninsula if the ancestors signed a first treaty in 1836 that surrendered an even larger area.

The claim for Aboriginal Title to the waters around the peninsula was added later to the lawsuit.

After years of ‘discovery’ the Superior Court trial began April 2019. It ended July 2021 with Justice Matheson’s 200-page decision partially in favor of SON, in that it agreed the ‘Honour of the Crown’ had been brought into disrepute by the behavior of Crown representatives at the treaty negotiations; but Justice Matheson did not find in favor of the Aboriginal Title claim, and she also did not agree the Crown had a fiduciary (trust) duty that had been violated. SON appealed those decisions to the Ontario Court of Appeal.

Here is a link to that court’s decision: https://coadecisions.ontariocourts.ca/coa/coa/en/item/21689/index.do#_Toc144139795

Readers might want to jump to Part VI near the end of the document under the heading ‘Dispositions’ before tackling the rest.

And what of those signs that sent me on my quest for information?

The Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park, designated a Nature Reserve, now comes under the management of the Ontario Environment Ministry. It was previously the Ministry of Natural Resources responsibility. The park was created in 1985.

The Ontario government acquired about 2,000 acres in the former farm homestead community of Hope Ness after Dow Chemical decided not to go ahead with a plan to develop a huge quarry to mine the limestone bedrock for its magnesium content. In the mid-1960s Dow offered Hope Ness farmers $5,000 for their 100-acre farms. At the time “there was a farm on every hundred acres,” I was told when I came to live in Hope Ness in the spring of 1979. I bought one of the few houses that survived the Dow takeover because the farmer who owned it at the time refused the Dow offer. Most went for it, though it caused much bitterness in some families. Houses and barns were demolished, and families had to move.

The house and barns on the property where I live now on Cathedral Drive were saved because Dow had its on-site testing and research base here. And the Butchart family that had owned the farm were able to stay. They continued to live here after the farm became Ontario Crown land. Wilma Butchart (Tucker) and her son Cliff went to the Natural Resources office in Owen Sound to see if there was any way they could get title back to the farm. Eventually, they were able to get ownership of 5.9 acres and the house and barn and other outbuildings. The Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park/Nature Reserve now surrounds that piece of private property. What does the future hold? I wonder.

Earlier this week I contacted an Environment Ministry spokesperson to ask about the new signs. I was asked to email my questions. Had the park/nature reserve been expanded? Not that long ago in my eight years at the Cathedral Drive farm, I had seen deer hunters in the area recently posted with the new signs. Why now, and why the new signs? And I asked, is it because talks are underway for a possible, negotiated settlement of the SON lawsuit?

The answer came back: there has been no change, and no expansion of the nature reserve. It has always been there since the park was established. Hunting is allowed on other no-park provincial Crown land farther north.

As for talks about a possible negotiated settlement of the SON lawsuit currently underway? No answer. No mention at all.

Part of the Hope Bay Forest Provincial Park (Nature Reserve) on the east side of Cathedral Drive in Hope Ness. Formerly a farm site before the Dow takeover. Note the remnants of the farm fences amid the wild apple trees and other revegetation.

The old barnyard comes alive

/ findinghopeness / 1 Comment

DSC00627In the spring of 2022, I finally put two and two together and decided the time had come to work up the ground in part of the old barnyard to see if that might be a better place to grow vegetables.

My two existing garden plots closer to the house have poor drainage and low fertility issues that seem to aggravate the already challenging characteristics of the heavy clay loam soil. A few days without rain and it turns into the dreaded, unworkable hardpan. Not ideal for gardening, to say the least. The use of lots of straw mulch to help keep moisture in the soil, and to be worked into it after harvest, hasn’t seemed to seem to help much in the seven years I’ve been gardening here.

Meanwhile, the barnyard sloped gently and naturally toward my small portion of the old hay field. (The greater portion, stretching west between the forest on either side is now part of the Hope Bay Nature Reserve. A long story that: see ‘The Day Dow Came to Hope Ness’ in this blog.)

For 100-plus years the barnyard had been fertilized by livestock, beginning in the 1880s as a pioneer homestead, mixed farm. The barn was set up for beef cattle; first, oxen, then horses, were used to till the soil. The first temporary home for the farm family was built near the barn some time soon after John Heath bought the 100-acre lot in 1880 for $100. It eventually became a pig barn after the permanent house was built in 1895.

So, it was a given: the barnyard soil was bound to be fertile.

After I had the 2022 season garden planted by the late spring, I first broke the south portion of the barnyard ground with the 1950-vintage Ferguson cultivator. The 1930’s vintage drag cultivator worked best for the final passes. As a cover crop I scattered 50 pounds of buckwheat in early June when the risk of frost had passed. Despite its name, Buckwheat is not a grain, though it is often used like cereal grains. I use it along with wheat flour in my favorite muffin recipe; and I use it as my favorite cover crop because it grows high and dense enough to shade out and discourage the growth of twitch grass. Still a bane of an organic farmer’s existence, twitch grass, also known around the world by other names, such as couch grass in the U.K., is not indigenous to North America. It’s arrival sometime in the early 20th Century quickly spread and became a big problem for farmers and other plants because, among other attributes, it secretes an enzyme that discourages the growth of other plants. It’s no doubt one of the big reasons why Monsanto invented the now much-used herbicide Roundup.

The barnyard was overrun with twitch grass. Two, successive crops of buckwheat, the first mowed down to re-seed itself, is best to discourage twitch grass; but I wanted to plant a garden in the spring of 2023, so I made a point of cultivating before the first frost in the fall of 2022, and in the early spring of 2023 to expose the dense twitch grass root-network to killing cold. I used my 40-year-old TroyBilt rototiller sparingly (two passes – one shallow, one deeper – to prepare the soil for the planting of ‘the three sisters,’ rows of beans, pumpkin, butternut squash, and sweet corn.

Organic Cinderella pumpkin seed was acquired locally, from Franken Farms Seed. Untreated bean, butternut squash, and one variety of sweet corn came from Willian Dam Seeds. My old standby, early peaches and cream sweet corn, also untreated, and not bioengineered, came from Ontario Seed Company (OSC).

I started planting May 26, and finished in the first week of June. But, as Ontario farmers and gardeners know, the 2023 season began with a month-long drought in late May and early June. I hand-watered my three garden plots daily from a dug well. There’s nothing like rain; but I managed to keep the transplanted, started indoors pumpkin and squash alive; However, I feared the untreated corn seed in the new barnyard garden was a loss because the soil temperature was too low for germination; but, to my surprise, three planting of corn came up, at a rate of about 60 percent after the rain. Still, it was a joyful occasion.

And within a couple of weeks, the new garden in the old barnyard was flourishing. Indeed, I don’t think I’ve ever seen such dynamic growth, especially of the squash family, pumpkins (Cinderella) and butternut squash. Meanwhile, the sweet corn is growing so well I’m not going to bother with the usual side dressing of fertilizer for this heavy feeder.

I also hope in some way to honor those who came before on this farm, and worked so hard, for so little. From the barnyard garden I look out across that long, hay field reaching out to the west in the darkening sky. Soom enough the forest on either side will close in again, and their being here, most of them for less than 100 years, may be remembered only as a brief episode. I feel their tears in the soil as, on my knees, I pull out weeds by hand; but I see little of the twitch grass that drove men mad remains.

I see them smile and hear them say, “well now, isn’t that something. Good for you, young fellow.”

April 2023, a new climate reality, and gardening lesson learned

/ findinghopeness / 5 Comments
Buddy wonders why the peas aren’t up yet

“April is the cruelest month,” T.S. Eliott wrote in the first line of his epic poem, The Waste Land.

And so it has been, first bringing forth hope, an early spring warmth that seemed to say ‘YES’ in no uncertain terms and sent me out too early to the wonderfully workable soil to plant Oregon Giant edible pod peas, onion sets, a row of well-sprouted potatoes, and beets. All hardy or semi-hardy, early crops that need not wait ‘til all risk of frost has passed; but, even so, they have their limits: weeks of cold, wet weather do not make for happily germinating peas, I fear.

April beguiled me, in collusion with the reality of a jet stream no longer predictable, but weakened and disrupted by climate change, with the Arctic warming much more so far than the tropics. As a result, after the warm spell, a huge jet stream nodule of cold air dropped down below The Great Lakes, well into the U.S. Midwest. And there it has stayed, day after day after day.

Some there are who say, this is the new reality: spring comes, but don’t count on it for the old assumptions gardeners relied on; they no longer apply.

The temperature hit a balmy 26 Celsius here in Hope Ness on the Saugeen (Bruce) Peninsula one day a couple of weeks ago. I was out planting that afternoon in a T-shirt, the annual, seasonally-new, straw hat tried on for the first time; surely, this could not be wrong, I thought: the soil had worked up so nicely. If anything, it seemed late to be sowing peas, more like mid-May or early summer, than mid-April.

Raise your hand if you thought so too.

And now, April 29, the forecast for next week as May arrives is continuous overnight, single-digit temperatures and flurries mixed in with cold rain. It leaves me wondering how well the peas and onion sets will produce, or even if they will.

Meanwhile, the flats of seedings I put out in the cold frame are back inside the house and struggling to recover under grow lights.

I’ve often said gardening is a never-ending ‘learning experience.’ And that certainly has been true this April of 2023.