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.