Two packs of coyotes – also called eastern wolves – are howling and yipping to each other from the woods on both sides of the back field. They sound close, not far from where the light of the sun rising in a clear, blue sky has just started to reach the tree line along the north-west side. It’s not usual to hear them out and about this time of the morning. They tend to be more nocturnal. But I’m wondering if they’ve been aroused and excited by the sight of the sun after many grey days. I sympathize. Continue reading
Hope Ness
Let’s just call it a “snow day”
Lot of snow coming down today in Hope Ness as you can see. Yes, those are my car tracks in the driveway. I’ve just come back from a wild goose chase to Owen Sound where it wasn’t snowing. If this keeps up Mr. Massey Too and his attached snow-blower will have lots to do tomorrow morning.
Being Canadian, eh, I’ve seen it snow this much, and much more lots of times. Not to get too moody about it, but it does bring back a memory of one morning that year I lived at Rolling Acres when the snow was falling just like this, with little or no wind. I was walking to school on the side-road about a half-mile from the ranch when it started coming down so heavy I could barely see the gloved hand in front of my face. I was lost in a world of white. Continue reading
The day Dow came to Hope Ness
Any discussion here of the history of Hope Ness will include respect paid to the fact First Nation people lived here for many thousands of years before European settlers, mainly from the British Isles, started arriving less than 150 years ago
As far as I know, I don’t have any First Nation blood running through my veins. Both my parents were adopted, my mother by her grandparents, my father by unrelated people when he was a newborn baby. He had no interest in delving into the mystery of his biological origins. “let sleeping dogs lie,” he said.
(A young anthropologist I met on a trip out west in the mid-1970s told me, from what he had learned, a lot of Canadians would be much surprised at the extent of the First Nation presence in their family background. I believed him, and I still do.)
At any event, I don’t feel comfortable writing much at all about the traditional First Nation presence in this area others named Hope Ness. It’s presumptuous, and there’s been far too much of that already. Besides, what do I know, anyway?
I will say only this: I understand from what I’ve read of the information gathered by the nearby Chippewas of Nawash First Nation that this area was traditionally regarded as a powerful spiritual place, a place of healing for Aboriginal people who came here from all over the Great Lakes region. And I think that’s wonderful.
I also think that adds more weight to my thought that Hope Ness should never have been considered by anyone as a site for a major industrial development. Continue reading
An unexpected but rewarding visit from “The Emperor”
The sun is shining. The driveway has been snow-blown as we say here in Hope Ness. And all’s right with the world.
Yesterday wasn’t great. My cold was getting me down. But today it’s getting better; so I’m going to pick up where I left the day before with the residual effect of an unexpected moment in music.
Here’s the thing: never underestimate the power of music to lift your spirits when the day seems to be getting off to a discouraging start.
So it was a couple of days ago. At a certain point in mid-morning – for various reasons I’d just as soon not get into – a certain level of turmoil was starting to make me feel overwhelmed. As usual I had the radio on, tuned, also as usual, to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) local “Radio 2” FM frequency. Familiar music was playing. I recognized it as Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto, “The Emperor.” Continue reading
“Blue Monday,” no way
Well, so I hear it’s “Blue Monday” today in Canada, the day when the various midwinter factors in this good country supposedly come together to make people feel blue. There’s some truth in it, I suppose. I am after all one who experiences Seasonal Affective Disorder (SADS), a feeling of being somewhat depressed, or “blue.” It’s brought on by a lack of sunlight at this time of year in northern latitudes. Hope Ness is just south of the 45th Parallel, halfway to the North Pole from the equator. The village of Lion’s Head, about 10 kilometres north of here is exactly halfway, by the way. (Pretty place that, especially when the rays of the setting sun shine like gold on the Niagara Escarpment cliffs just across from Lion’s Head harbour.) Continue reading
Moment by Moment, Day by Day
It makes no sense whatsoever to make looking forward to spring my strategy for getting through the winter that’s finally come. That means three months at least, likely more, before the warm weather arrives, the snow melts, and I can start cultivating and planting. That’s not the spirit that will find Hope Ness. That’s the same old spirit that has missed it time and time again, in the sense of not being fully present and alive in its moment, however long that may be. Continue reading
Finding Hope Ness
One day many years ago, stuck in Toronto traffic yet again, I began to chew my steering wheel in frustration. I knew then it was time to look for somewhere else to live, and something else to do. Continue reading
Media Interviews to be Pre-approved by the Minister
This is the latest in my “It boggles the mind” series. I’d like to give the federal Conservatives a break, I really would. There are other things to write about, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’ve got some insatiable bone to pick with these guys, from our Own Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound MP Larry Miller to Prime Minister Stephen Harper in Ottawa. Continue reading
Foolish $9 Billion Plan to Build New Jails
If you live in a rural area, as many of us in this area do, you’ll maybe know the old saying, “the (insert name fruit or vegetable here) want picking.” Well, I’ve got rows of beans that “want picking,” and hundreds of pounds of potatoes virtually crying out from underground to, “please, please, please dig us up soon or heaven knows what we’ll do.” Continue reading
Hopeness forest gorillas and those that overreacted during G20 are 2 totally different kinds of beasts
Just a few kilometres down our road here in the resurgent wilderness of Hope Ness on the Bruce Peninsula is perhaps one of the strangest, and certainly one of the most unexpected sights one would expect to find here of all places.
Just where the road passes through the deepest, darkest, most mysterious section of the Hope Ness-Hope Bay forest there’s been for many years a large group of jungle animals hanging on the tree trunks and branches on either side.
Finding Hope Ness 