Nation building, in my lifetime, seems to have gone out of fashion. The men and women who find themselves in positions of leadership in Canada see the role of government as maintaining the status quo.
Canadians of my vintage do not know what it’s like to see a prime minister articulate a vision on a par with the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Trans-Canada Highway or a railway to connect the country from sea to sea. Nation building over the past fifty years has consisted of announcing yet another study into the feasibility of high-speed rail. The result of that study will be that it’s totally feasible, but nobody has the political will, the desire or the energy to follow through.
Governing used to involve bold visions, some that would bring glory but others that would ensure the opposite. Some visions were simply ahead of their time.
If I could go back and kiss any leader from the past on the lips, those at the front of the queue would be every premier and prime minister who used their powers to create a park. And yes, that even includes Brian Mulroney, who was the driving force behind many protected spaces, including the incredibly significant Bruce Peninsula National Park in Ontario. Significant because it is a literal paradise for our feathered friends. Smack dab in the middle of this continent’s most important migrating path, it is the natural habitat for hundreds of species of birds, including the golden eagle and the great blue heron. Also Margaret Atwood.
It’s one thing to have a vision around parks in these allegedly enlightened times. But imagine public reaction in the late nineteenth century, when that generation’s version of hippies and tree huggers started making noise about the impact of logging and resource extraction on the environment. Today, environmentalists are written off as kooks in the National Post. Imagine what was said of these people in the 1890s—they must have been portrayed as completely unhinged. And yet, somehow the political will was found. The political capital was expended and in 1893, under a premier named Oliver Mowat, it was declared that 7,600 square kilometres of prime Ontario wilderness would be saved for the rest of time.
Yes, they declared, we may be hewers of wood and drawers of water, but some of that wood and some of that water needs to be protected. Protected from its greatest destructive force. That would be us.
That is what you called vision.
And that is why, smack dab in the middle of the province, where Southern Ontario meets Northern Ontario, there lies Algonquin Park. So old it’s not just a park, it’s a national historic site. Seven thousand, six hundred square kilometres of rugged beauty that will never be damaged, developed or paved to satisfy our basest desires. The current premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, may go to sleep at night dreaming of building a monorail and a Ferris wheel within its boundaries, but it will never happen.
Good job, Ontario.
Having not grown up in Ontario, I never visited Algonquin as a young person. It wasn’t on my radar. As a provincial entity, it’s not part of the national park system that we glossed over in school, so I don’t know if I even heard the name. But once I moved to Ontario, that changed. You don’t have to spend much time in the province before you hear the word Algonquin, and it’s always spoken in reverential terms. And often by the people of Toronto.
Toronto is a great city. Like so many before me, I moved there for work. I could start typing the reasons I love this city now and I’d still be at it this time tomorrow. But I will say this: one of the drawbacks to life in Toronto is that it is very hard to escape. It’s possible. But for the most part, if you want to get out, it means taking your life in your hands and travelling on Highway 400.
Ontario is Canada’s largest and most populated province, Toronto the country’s largest city, so it is only fitting that Toronto has a modern highway that functions as a racetrack filled with millions of cars that act as if they’re fleeing for their lives. Before you hop on the 400 and go for a spin, it’s a good idea to get your affairs in order.
If you do find yourself driving on the 400, a good rule of thumb is that you should leave a full two inches of space between you and the car in front. Also know that there are two speeds on that strip of asphalt: too fast and stopped. It occasionally becomes a parking lot that doesn’t move. By occasionally, I mean often.
Many of the vehicles on the 400 are headed for Ontario’s fabled Muskoka region. This is classic Ontario cottage country. Famous the world over, it was once a playground for regular working folks from the big city. They would head north in the summers or on weekends to enjoy modest cottages on beautiful lakes. Teachers, nurses, electricians and plumbers would go there and create beautiful memories at family cottages or roadside rentals. Those days are gone. The area is now home to some of the most expensive lakefront real estate on the planet. On beautiful Lake Rosseau, for example, you’re far more likely to get run over by some rich guys in a pontoon boat than run into a middle-class family enjoying the water.
But not too far away, accessible to everyone—not just the wealthy or well-connected—is Algonquin Park. And it holds a mythical place in the hearts and minds of millions. This is where generations of Ontarians learned to camp, canoe and canoodle.
Our system of parks, which dot the entire country, whether you use them or not, are theoretically perfect. If you have the desire and the cash, you can spend a fortune on camping or hiking. But the flip side is that you can also spend very little. And at the end of the day, the quality of Gore-Tex or the brand name on the tent won’t make a difference to the quality of the sunset or the dip in the pond.
When I was growing up there was no money for vacations. Save for one road trip to PEI, there was no travel involving hotels or rented accommodations. There were, however, countless nights spent in tents and sleeping bags that had been passed down from some ancient civilization. To this day I can close my eyes and smell the thick, bare foam mattress that lived in the back of the station wagon for summers on end. It’s not a pleasant smell, but they are beautiful memories. And is there anything more perfect than a boil-up on a beach? Which is what Newfoundlanders call lighting a fire, boiling water and having a cup of tea. The cost? Tea bags.
My introduction to Algonquin was, I admit, better than most. I didn’t roll into the park in a school bus packed with campers or drive through the gates while bouncing around unbuckled in the back of a station wagon with my brother. Although those are great options.
No, thanks to the miracle of network television, I pulled up to the headquarters of the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and hopped aboard a shiny yellow helicopter.
But before I did this, I had some work to do. I looked into Don’s camera and recorded my introduction: “Welcome to Algonquin Park in beautiful Northern Ontario. This is the place that inspired the Group of Seven. They loved to come here and paint its rugged beauty. That is, when they weren’t running away from the over two thousand black bears that make this park home. How do we know how many bears there are? Well, every winter someone has to track them down while they are hibernating in their caves, and then crawl inside those caves and tag the mother bears and any babies they may find. And this week, that person is me!”
How did we get here? is right.
The helicopter ride over Algonquin was beyond spectacular. We flew low over the tree canopy, along riverbeds, over lakes and past marshes. It goes on forever. We saw moose galore. Moose and their calves seemed to own the place.
And there were wolves. Most people know that when you’re walking in the woods in Canada, wolves are rarely far away. You can spend a long time listening to them howl at the moon and never be lucky enough to see one. From the helicopter, we saw packs of wolves roaming with impunity.
And as a slight reminder that we weren’t flying over the Garden of Eden, we saw a recently felled moose, its body in the middle of a clearing. You could see the path the desperate animal had taken as it fled its predators. And now it lay there, lifeless, surrounded by so many wolf prints it looked as if a mosh pit had dispersed, leaving a half-eaten carcass in its wake.
And then we landed.
We had a date with Dr. Martyn Obbard, resident bear biologist with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. He was straight out of Central Casting. A bespectacled, bearded professor in his natural habitat, surrounded by eager students just beginning their careers.
Before this trip, I admit I didn’t know very much about bears. I didn’t grow up in Labrador or Churchill, Manitoba, where kids have been known to go trick-or-treating with armed guards on the lookout for polar bears. And I was, like so many, guilty of lumping all bears together under the banner of beautiful creatures who are very bad news.
There are a lot of myths about bears.
In parts of Alberta, home to grizzlies, they once distributed pamphlets at lookouts along the highway that said, “If you are approached by a bear, do not lie down and pretend you are sleeping.” Do grizzlies “approach” people? When I hear that someone has been “approached,” I think of an employee at the Foot Locker walking up to a lady and offering to find a sensible tennis shoe in her size.
The tragedy is, for these pamphlets to have ever existed, someone must have done just that. Imagine the eyewitness account. Must have been horrifying. “Well, I was parked at the lookout, enjoying the scenery, and there was a fella parked next to me doing the same thing. Except he was standing outside of his car. Well, the darndest thing is a grizzly showed up. And instead of getting back in his car the man laid his binoculars on the roof, closed his door, lay down and started snoring. Damn bear started chomping at his feet and worked up to his earbuds. All that was left was a fanny pack and a Tilley hat.”
But today was all about black bears. And with the camera rolling Dr. Obbard laid out the day and dispelled some myths. First I learned that black bears, or least the females, were not hibernating. So far that day I had recorded a twenty-second introduction to the piece and I was already guilty of disseminating false information.
They do not hibernate because they have babies, and the babies need to be breast-fed. So, basically, the moms quasi-hibernate. They look like they are dead to the world and zoned out, but somehow they know what the babies are up to and on occasion have to stop them from wandering away and getting into trouble. I think most mothers can relate.
The doctor then told me my job on that day was to do exactly as I was told. That always works out.
He told me that many bears in the park had electronic collars fitted with batteries that lasted for a year. The collars didn’t give an exact location, but narrowed it down to within a few hundred feet. Today our job would be to go find a young, tagged bear in her den. The question was whether she was alone or with cubs. We were to find the den, pop in and say hello to the mother and then take her babies away, weigh them and maybe administer some ear drops.
I don’t know much about the animal kingdom, but I know the few basic rules, the big one being: never get between a mother and her cubs. My guess is pulling a baby off a bear’s teat and plopping them up on a meat scale would also qualify.
With those instructions out of the way, we were off, snowshoeing through the middle of Algonquin Park. And instead of looking out for bears, we were looking for them.
I’ve never understood snowshoeing. I understand the mechanics, that snowshoes are used to stop you from sinking into the snow, but what I don’t understand is why anyone would volunteer to do it. Sure, if you’re a von Trapp fleeing the Nazis through the Alps, strap on a pair. But I’ve never grasped why anyone would use them for pleasure. That changed in Algonquin.
We needed the shoes because we were walking in deep snow and we had a job to do. Turns out the bears don’t like to build their dens next to groomed walking trails. They go deep into the wilderness, where no human is likely to find them. For these bears, the blinds are drawn, the phone is off, the Do Not Disturb sign is on the doorknob.
It was on this trek, deeper and deeper into Algonquin, that something completely unexpected happened. I won’t say I had a spiritual experience, because I have yet to enjoy a visit from our saviour, but it was close. In fact, even before I laid eyes on a bear, I’d had about as perfect a day as anyone could.
Algonquin, with its silence, its beauty, its ruggedness and raw nature, grabbed me whole and held me tight. Why call it a park? Call it a cathedral. I imagined a time, hundreds—or thousands—of years in the future, when civilization as we know it is wiped out and gone. The victim, no doubt, of a self-inflicted fatality. Earth is visited by an alien race. The aliens will look around and see evidence that we were once here. They will see ruined cities and massive industrial development. They will look at our once-functioning infrastructure with some amusement.
What will they think of us? Nobody knows. But the evidence of a civilized society will not be the abandoned charging stations or billboards advertising Viagra. The evidence that we were civilized will be our parks.
“They weren’t completely stupid,” they will say in their telepathic click language. “They had the wherewithal to protect Algonquin Park. I wish we’d thought of that on our planet.”
And they will gaze at Algonquin and be in awe. And it will look pretty much the same as it does today.
So, yes, it’s safe to say on this day I fell in love with Algonquin and my mind was drifting.
I was brought back to earth by Dr. Obbard, who tapped me on the shoulder and said, “We are very close.”
Right. I remembered our task: find a bear and remove her cubs.
“Remind me,” I said, “why nobody has a gun.”
“Black bears are not aggressive,” he said.
“They are never aggressive?” I asked.
“Well, sometimes they can be. They will want to protect their cubs.”
“So,” I said, “they are not aggressive, unless they are aggressive?”
“Exactly,” said the doctor.
“And if they become aggressive?” I asked.
“You have the shovel,” he said. “If the bear looks like she’s about to attack or move on us in any way, you block the opening of the den with the shovel.”
I looked down at the shovel he had given me. It was at best a thirty-five-dollar aluminum Canadian Tire special. I wondered if I would die in this cathedral.
There are worse places to go, I thought. But it wasn’t the location of my death I was opposed to as much as the part about being torn limb from limb.
The professor indicated that I should follow him. Together we approached a large fallen tree. At the base of the tree the roots had been ripped out of the earth, creating a natural canopy of protection. This was the den. It was covered in snow except for a small opening no larger than a loaf of bread. We gently and quietly approached the opening and peered inside.
There, eyes wide open, was a mother bear.
We were face to face.
I locked eyes with a bear.
“Don’t worry,” I said, “we won’t hurt you.”
(I don’t know if I said the words out loud.)
“Hurt my babies and I will hurt you,” she answered.
She didn’t say that out loud exactly, but she did manage to get the message across with a look.
Dr. Obbard told me to stand by with my shovel. I felt woefully unprepared in the event of attack. This was truly absurd.
This must be what the Canadian Rangers feel like, I thought. They are Canada’s first line of defence against Russian aggression in the North. For over 70 years we issued them complimentary sweatshirts and .303 British calibre Lee Enfield rifles. With that, they were expected to beat back the Ruskies.
While Dr. Obbard prepared a dose of happy juice, I stood on guard for thee, for he and for the students who watched from afar. If that bear came charging out of that den, I’d charm her by asking, “Can I shovel your driveway for five bucks, miss?”
Ignoring my suggestion that he double up the dose, Dr. Obbard lay on his stomach, crawled towards the opening and gently placed his stick inside the den. He looked like a pool shark doing a one-handed trick shot with his cue. He pulled back and jabbed forward. A slight groan emanated from the den. Nobody breathed. Nobody moved.
Eventually the good doctor withdrew the poking stick, stood up and came to my side.
“Now,” he said, “your job is to determine that she’s under. You must crawl inside. Just your chest and arms, reach out, and pull on her ear. Give it a good, strong yank. Tell me if she makes any noise or moves at all.”
There are times when the phrase “Have you completely taken leave of your senses?” seems like an understatement. Pull on her ear? It sounded like the worst idea ever.
But in the interest of science, and a good segment, I went in.
The first thing that went into the hole was my head. What struck me immediately was the smell. I had assumed a bear den would be foul. Imagine all those months of farting and burping in a small, enclosed space.
I was completely wrong. Bears smell much nicer than humans. They smell pine-cone fresh. Their breath—I know this now because my mouth and nose were inches from hers—is divine.
I mumbled, “Forgive me,” reached out towards this majestic creature and yanked her ear like I was starting a lawn mower.
Nothing. She was in la-la land.
My next job, if you could call it that, was to reach inside and pull out the babies. One by one I pulled out three tiny bear cubs that, because their eyes were not yet open, were estimated to be just six weeks old.
Once out of the den they had to be kept warm. While the first of them was weighed and measured, the doctor told me to take the remaining two cubs and place them inside my jacket. Once there, each headed for an armpit. They snuggled in and went to sleep.
If you ever get the chance to stand in the pristine wilderness of Algonquin Park while two baby bears doze under your arms, you should not hesitate. I highly recommend it.
When the time came to pull them out from under my coat and go for the weigh-in, they did not like it. Remember what it was like to be dragged out of bed as a teen? That’s how these babies felt. They wanted no part of it. They wanted to sleep for the rest of the winter right where they were. As far as I was concerned, they were welcome to. One of them howled and cried like there was no tomorrow. I named him Danny Williams, after the not-so-shy premier of Newfoundland and Labrador.
They were weighed. Their craniums were measured. They were given a drop of some sort. I am so proud to live in a country where baby bears have universal health care. If these bears were in Yellowstone, they would have to mortgage that den twice over for this kind of attention.
And then we went and got Mama. Together, the doctor and I pulled her out. We removed her collar and replaced it with a newer, sleeker model, one that could store way more songs. We weighed and measured her. She was insanely healthy.
A healthy bear and her healthy babies in a healthy park.
And then the doctor and I returned her to the den. One tries to be gentle and respectful in these situations, but it was not unlike getting one of your first semi-conscious roommates out of the backyard and upstairs into bed. One hundred and forty-five kilograms of dead weight. No help at all.
Eventually she was in place. Then came the hard part: returning the cubs. These adorable, cuddly, puppy-like things that were literally trying to suckle on my chest when they were under my shirt had to go home. I crawled back in the den with the mother, and Dr. Obbard passed them forward one by one. I placed each of them against Mama’s chest, where they quickly went back to feeding. As I was extraditing myself from the cave, her eyes opened. We stared at each other once again. I felt like she was saying, “I know all three are back, we are good. It’s time for you to go now.”
And I slowly backed out.
We laid some branches over the opening, put the shovel to good use and covered the branches with snow, leaving mother and babies content and dozing.
They would stay that way until the spring, when Mom and three very active, eyes-wide-open cubs would begin to explore their home—oblivious to the fact that, unlike many other bears in North America, theirs was the greatest home on earth. They were safe and sound in a park established 125 years earlier by Canadians with vision.