ELK ISLAND NATIONAL PARK – May long weekend.
On the May long weekend we thought we would take the girls camping. Not because we particularly love camping but more because it was Matilda’s birthday and that was what she wanted to do, inspired no doubt by the fact that we had purchased a camping trailer. The first camping trailer, I imagine, was built shortly after mankind invented the wheel. Although they have never been found and the design plans were probably washed from the Lascaux cave walls millennia ago, I can imagine it was pretty primitive, nothing more than a bit of water proofing, some flea infested bedding and a couple of wheels to stop the whole thing scraping itself to pieces. By 1971, when ours was built, this basic model and premise hadn’t changed. We bought the trailer from two lovely Poms in Edmonton. When we got home I discovered that 41 years of wear and tear had not improved our Parkable Palace. With Ralph’s help we fixed the wheels, rewired the lights and said a silent prayer over the hydraulic breaks. After which, I made a mental note to never trust a Pom again. Either they are ruthless, unscrupulous liars cleverly disguised with lovely accents that make you think of High Tea and pints of lager in the beer garden on Sunday, or they are morons, with no idea about the basics of physics, touring lights or axle grease. This, of course is a terrible generalisation and I am sure that there are some members of England capable of honesty or tying their shoe laces, just not many and certainly none in the cricketing world. Thursday was the last day of school. After fixing the trailer, teaching for a whole four days and packing, I managed to stifle any hint of enthusiasm. Eventually, after loading the car and reloading the trailer we departed for Elk Island, Canada’s first wild life sanctuary. I felt slightly mollified by Mary’s reassurance that it was not far from where we live and if things went to hell in a hand basket: flooding rain, fire , rabid squirrels, bears or mad park rangers, we could escape and be home dry and safe in a couple of hours. There were very few people when we arrived. In fact there wasn’t even a ranger for us to register with. This was probably a good sign; it meant that there was so little danger or trouble in the park that there was no need for continual ranger presence. Provided, of course, that the evening overseer hadn’t been eaten by a cougar. The lockable bear proof garbage bins were not reassuring but there weren’t any obvious blood trails so we went in search of our camp site. Josie and Matilda briefly put down their IPods in order to help park the trailer. They did this largely by interpreting their mother’s hand signals, ‘You are too close. You are too far. It’s not straight.’ With all this helpful advice it only took me half a dozen attempts to reverse the trailer into its allotted parking spot. Mary lit the fire and I put up the tent. In between levels of Plants versus Zombies the girls helped, ‘Yeah that looks good. Where are you going to put the car? What’s for tea?’ Friday brought cold, at the point of freezing, rain. Clear, viscous drops slid down our plastic windows and tried to decide whether they were hail, snow or sleet. The tent didn’t leak much and we spent a blissful morning reading, dozing and pretending we weren’t hungry. I lost, which meant I cooked bacon and egg wraps for everyone. The drumming on our tent eased. The sun came out and we hit the hiking trails. The area is heavily wooded, with aspen (white poplar) being the dominant species. There is a Quaking Aspen tree in Utah purported to be 80,000 years old. I couldn’t help wonder at the age of all the aspen that threatens to reclaim any neglected farm land along the Yellowhead Trail. The farmers claim that in the past it was all burnt by grass fires and wasn’t as prevalent as it is today. The fact that up to 60,000,000 bison once roamed across the prairies supports this theory. A herd of a 100,000 would take 3 days to walk past. They would need a lot of fodder and all the bison I’ve seen seem to prefer to eat grass. Someone had obviously informed all the moose, elk, deer, pygmy shrews, cougars, bison and beavers that it was the long weekend and they had all gone camping . We managed to walk for several kilometres without seeing anything. Strangely enough, as we trekked we could hear the distinct sound of someone trying to start a large single piston diesel engine. Just like the one in the old shearing shed at home. It would almost start and then die away. My shoulders hurt with sympathy. There must have been someone cranking that motor. After a couple of hours of this I began to realise no one could keep trying to crank a motor for that long. Not even a Pom would be that stupid. I also remembered that there are no motor boats allowed on the lake and the park is connected to the power grid. ‘So why,’ I began to ask myself, ‘would anyone be using a single piston antique here in the woods?’ The noise followed us as we walked, forever hidden among the trees. Emus make a huge hollow drumming sound, could it be a bird cry? Was it a woodpecker thumping his brains out in the hollow of a tree? Was it elk or moose making love calls across the glens? No matter how quickly we stalked or how silently we crept, it was always beyond our vision. For the next few days we tried to capture that elusive sound without success. Eventually I discarded the girls, whose idea of walking in silence was similar to two pups playing in a sheep pen, and managed to spot some elk and beaver. The beaver slapped the water with their tales as a sure sign to leave and I did. On Sunday we visited the Ukrainian village which is situated nearby and is another story in itself but the highlight of that excursion was spotting a Walmartian . Truly, there was this elderly lady in an all white skin tight tracksuit, with gold braid, bouffant hair and matching sandals (that had wedges on the bottom that were so solid and steep they could second as a tractor loading ramp). On the final day, Monday, we had birthday cake and fire toasted wieners for Till’s birthday. The camping trip was, despite my misgivings, a wonderful success. I even felt more positively inclined towards the English, despite the fact that they have the ashes . I also developed a theory about the strange thumping sound in the forest. Most likely it was a Sasquatch, some sort of abominable forest man preparing to snatch our children and lumber off into the woods. Evidently he had a good look because they are still here. Footnote: Pom: A person from England – possibly derogatory It only took a railway track and thirty years or so and the 60,000,000 bison had been reduced to just a few thousand. Places like Elk Island saved them from extinction but naturally enough they should be still wary of humans. Walmartian: alien species dressed as humans, normally found wondering the isles of the huge Wal-Mart super stores in North America. The ashes: After England was defeated by a bunch of convicts the set of cricket stumps were burnt to symbolise the death of England’s world dominance. the ashes were placed in a silver bucket that is now a trophy coveted by both nations. |