When you just want to scream - "Stop The Madness!"
I was wandering through The Bog the other day, admiring the transformation from winter slumber to this amazing regeneration of ferns and soon-to-emerge wildflowers.....enjoying the sounds of all types of creatures large and small, adjusting to this pleasant new reality of an emerging, soul-restorative spring.
There had been some earlier activity this particular day, in our neighborhood here in Gravenhurst, attributed to a rattling All Terrain Vehicle, with some resident-driver on a mission of some sort. For about two hours this gent drove back and forth along our lane on whatever mission or adventure in progress, with his youngsters hanging on the back. We watched him pass a couple of times so we know kids were involved, as was some haulage endeavor because we noticed the trailer hitched behind.
About the mid-zone of The Bog trail, I was staggered to find many deep ruts into the mud where someone had driven through, stopping at the edge of the basin to dump a large quantity of evergreen cast-offs from a neighbor’s recent property clean-up. I was actually standing there with my chin on my chest when I heard the ATV coming down the lane once more. I stood out in the open so I wouldn’t surprise the driver.....I didn’t want him to be surprised to see me then hit a tree......but then again! He drove that sucker right up to the toe of my boot which was itching to kick his arse. Onboard he had a load of cuttings from a tree that had been felled in his yard. He was going to dump this trailer-full as well over the edge and down into The Bog.....which by the way we fought to save from destruction two years ago when the Town had a plan to sell it off as a small subdivision......as a fundraiser for other town projects at the expense of an important wetland. We won, the neighborhood won, and all ecologically minded folks in Muskoka rejoiced at this small victory for the little guy over the capitalists.....who very much wish to pave over paradise for that insatiable financial gain.
When I confronted the BOG-Dumper, as to "What the hell are you doing," he simply stated "I’m dumping some stuff here." "Well I can see that sir, and you’ve been busy but do you own this property?" "No," he answered, encouraging me to ask therefore, "Why then are you dumping your refuse on someone else’s property?" "Cause everybody else is doing it?" he answered as if bolstered by the constitution of general consensus. When I informed him that he had no right whatsoever to dump anything on this beautiful and important bogland in the centre of the urban community of Gravenhurst, he had the kind of puzzled look that actually looked pretty sincere. And while there was a trace of sarcasm and some concern that I was an unauthorized "watcher in the woods,’ on such matters of what can and can not be considered trespassing and unlawful dumping, he did finally concede it may not have been a good idea to follow his equally uniformed, dumb-ass neighbors who do indeed dump regularly into these beautiful woodlands.
As well I pointed out to him the great ruts his day of dumping had caused to a beautiful expanse of soon-to-be ferns that in all likelihood will not flourish this year as a direct result. He admitted that his transgressions had indeed left a scar on the landscape and he offered to disappear from this sight and never pulverize it again with his ATV. Whether he was genuine with his apology or not, I was satisfied he had learned a little something from our encounter that just might be relayed to his neighbors when they pile up their refuse in preparation for a little dumping somewhere or other.
Last spring I caught a local handyman-caretaker doing the same thing......dumping the assorted lawn and household debris from a neighbor’s property into the same woods. When I confronted him, after having first gathered enough evidence to back my case for illegal dumping, he told me "He (the property owner) said it’s okay to dump it in there (The Bog)." And I asked "Does he own the woods over there?" "I don’t think so," he answered, a little annoyed I had bothered his disposal in progress. "Well then, if he doesn’t own it, and you don’t own it, then why would you think it’s okay to dump your crap on someone else’s property?" "I don’t know," was the best response I could get. So I asked if he knew how long it would take for the plastic oil bottles, he was casting with leaves and branches into The Bog, to diminish into dust as he obviously assumed would happen eventually. What I found was that he simply couldn’t have cared less whether the garbage ever broke down and in fact he didn’t find it all that offensive to stare at the garbage between the birches, ferns and trilliums. So that’s when we took some photographs of the offence in operation and suggested that the bylaw office would be interested in knowing of his opinion on the matter.....and possibly a fine would help him learn about illegal dumping and the property maintenance business. Haven’t had a problem since and all the refuse is bagged and hauled away.
I do footnote this last paragraph to inform you that I didn’t leave it at that.......I let him know that if I ever saw him dumping the refuse gathered anywhere else in the region....other than at a registered disposal site, I’d fulfill my promise to file a report with the bylaw department and see him lawfully prosecuted. The good news is,......seems he got the message.
The biggest problem we have as a global community desiring health and welfare, is the ongoing pollution and contamination of the already compromised wild places that give us a modest grip on ecological balance. The small restoration project here in The Bog has shown a glimmer of possibility for the wider community and the district.....until you meet up with someone who has a different plan.....to remove crap from one property to another despite the peril to an important resource. The Bog by the way, filters a huge run-off of town surface water and springs before it hits Muskoka Bay of Lake Muskoka. The flavor of the water, should you be outlandishly inclined, is going to have a distinctly pine taste for awhile until the wood dumped here deteriorates.....thankfully it’s not oil and anti-freeze which has wound up there in the past.
It makes me sick to think of all the contamination being dumped into our rivers, lakes and forests by morons who have no concept of the danger they are inflicting upon all of us.....just to avoid paying a tipping fee at the landfill site where these materials can be properly disposed.
Get involved. Let an illegal dumper know just how stupid they are for endangering our lives because they’re too cheap to haul it to the landfill site......so give them a couple of bucks as a donation toward a healthy tomorrow, and draw them a map to the disposal location......or show them the phone you’re going to use to call the bylaw department and report them for illegal dumping.
Look out for the welfare of your community by getting involved. They’ve had their day to dump as they saw fit.....now it’s your time in history to make an imprint for a better, cleaner, healthier future. And I trust you’re not as daft as some who can’t really see too much wrong with a field of beer bottle empties and car parts rising from the ferns and wildflowers. It’s time for concerned citizens to mobilize and nab perpetrators.....grab a licence number and make a phone call!

Spring sensations welcome at Birch Hollow
Still writing here in Gravenhurst.....with just a few words left to spare
Strangely this has been an incredibly prolific period in my senior years as a writer. I can’t believe I can still sit for four and five hours at this keyboard without collapsing into a great heap of expired authordom. While in some areas I’ve been penning much less, in others I’ve been pumping out copy like I did my first years as editor of the former Herald-Gazette, in Bracebridge, back in the early 1980's. Then I was driven by a passion for expression and the weekly gain of readership.....fueled by raw enthusiasm and beer. Lots and lots of beer. My young writing days almost killed me.....many times. The more I drank the more I wrote. The more I wrote while drinking.....the less I could salvage when I went to edit the copy later. I would be lucky to get one decent paragraph. I used to hold off on the booze until the writing was done. I can’t watch the movie, "Lost Weekend," without feeling it was my biography. The good news is that I can’t afford to drink any more and I’m getting a much better feeling.....a pretty fair high, just enjoying the fact I can still compose a well received column these days minus the fuel.
This past winter was spent getting the bulk of my paranormal stories on line, in my Muskoka Ghosts blog, including a long series of columns on the mysterious circumstances surrounding the death of Canadian landscape painter, Tom Thomson, back in July of 1917, while on a canoe traverse of Algonquin Park’s Canoe Lake.
I have been writing many columns ahead on a new series of antique and collectable themed columns for Curious; The Tourist Guide (available locally). These are all biographical accounts of a lengthy career as a treasure hunter. I’ve been hunting antiques and interesting stuff since I was about five years old, and gathering assorted stuff while on my way to school at Lakeshore Public School in Burlington. By time I got home each night I had my pockets jammed to over-flowing, and arm-fulls of old auto parts I found on the road, broken hockey sticks, dozens of chestnuts gathered on the hillside of Torrance Avenue, and anything else that was shiny and would attract the attention of a racoon. My poor mother Merle never knew what was coming home in those topped-up pockets and hidden in my bulging coat. She used to cull the items in my room once a month or I would have filled every open space by year’s end. I’m still doing this at 53 years of age so you can imagine how much patience my wife possesses, to put up with the calamity of road trips and ceremonious returns with van loads of treasure.....some purchased, some found, some given for the asking, some retrieved from the sidewalks beneath the sign that reads.... "Free to Good Home." I figured it was time this year to begin a biographical work for my kids because they’ve never really appreciated that there was a method to my madness. I began writing a memoir of a crazy collector and it went from an old ledger book where I was making notes to the pages of Curious; The Tourist Guide, which reaches about 40,000 readers a month. Not bad for a few anecdotes about collecting excesses over the years. If you can’t poke fun at yourself.....life’s too bloody serious.
All this writing stuff has been happening here at our mid-town, residential cabin we call Birch Hollow, and once again I must say it has been a most wonderful, calming sojourn in this magnificent Muskoka. As I have noted before, I was concerned when we moved to Gravenhurst back in the late 1980's because for a time, my writing wasn’t generating with the same vigor as in other abodes, particularly in Bracebridge and Windermere. Writers need a safe and inspiring haven. After about a year of plucking about at the typewriter I gradually found The Bog across the road, and the sea of lilacs and raspberry canes outside my window, were the generous treats of semi-solitude, and ever since spring has always set me free....... No danger of running out of things to write about. And I’m not disappointed this year either. It’s been one of those second-wind kind of situations, and it would be wrong not to express my gratitude to my hometown here for kindnesses bestowed an old writer. I might not have much praise for local politicians, but then they’re used to it, and urban sprawl which I despise, but by golly, I do love the setting here at my Gravenhurst retreat.