The trail

There is certainly a magic to travelling the Old Danforth Road in Hillier, late, on a moonlit and early summer’s night. There has always been what I feel to be a subconscious want to travel that route. Even when sometimes pressed for schedule, I still choose that road, feeling it a familiar, calming friend; how its undulation of easy rises and gentle falls offers a feel of the motion of the earth when it was once tundra ecology after the retreat of the glaciers. Leaving Wellington on Consecon Street and following the moon on its own path to the west, the land is shaped by the creeks, Hubb’s and Trumpour’s, that partially drain the watershed of the region.

The road passes fallow fields, acres of newly planted vegetables and grains, vineyards, cideries, dairy farms and wetlands. With car windows lowered each of the previously mentioned offer traces of scent of the ancientness and evolutions of the soil itself. Arriving home and then sleeping under a screened and open skylight, the ambience of moonlight and earthscent mix into a soothing balm that further softens the already subdued calm of the night. In that nightscape I think about how riding atop the crust of the land are buildings of antiquity—houses, barns, outbuildings and cemeteries that speak of the dreams and struggles of families that became connected through destiny, sharing parallel ages of living and efforts of hope and mutual support formed with the bonds of community.

I have recently become aware that the very trail I am pulled to travel is an ancient trail, one formed by First Peoples who used the path as a land portage and travel way connecting the safer inland waters of West Lake with those of Pleasant Bay. A put-in location for the latter water basin would likely have been at Slab Creek where the Old Danforth has been renamed Highway 33. As was practice of the majority of land surveyors of the colonial era, they chose strategic locations and markings—intersections of waterways and long established travel ways once surveyed and used by First Nations in order for the colonials to lay out a blueprint atop of the patterns of land-use long established by previous occupants.

There are many of the above impressions that come to mind during past walks with the donkey Thunder. We will veer into lesser explored back country having robust terrain, but often our route is that of the former rail corridor cum Millennium Trail. The trail itself was laid out by surveyors and contractors on the basis of efficiency, avoiding steep grades and wide waterways. The fact that the original intent and opposition to the rail line became pages of transcriptions of Council meetings, the project was eventually approved. While encouraging investors, the final goal of linking Picton Harbour at waterside and therefore lake traffic with east-west railways at Trenton was never realized. The harbour goal fell short with the explanation that managing rail construction along the hill and surrounding contours of land leading to the head of the bay was cost prohibitive.

The walks with Thunder allow us to note the lay of the land from a different perspective, and while the rail line in most cases remains much of a straight route on the map, the point of view of the landscape is telling, the myriad of creeks and wetlands which the trail and therefore our roadways cross and through can be clearly appreciated. That appreciation of the landscape that offers us well-being on our watch is something that is important to be passed down to younger generations. Follow the pathways of before to learn the lessons of the sentient ground we stand on now.