Luther Marsh

Farmland near Monticello, Ontario, on the edge of Luther Marsh, April 10







Luther Marsh


Yesterday I drove to Luther Marsh, one of Ontario's most significant wetlands and wildlife areas. I had never been there before. It's an hour north of Guelph, near Grand Valley. Fifteen duck species have nested there and I expected to see them arriving.

I've been depressed. A busy month has caught up to me. I need to honour my need for solitude more. Otherwise I burn out, then isolate, a dangerous pendulum swing. I'm struggling this week. Mornings are the worst. It's hard to answer emails. It's hard to pour a glass of juice. But I'm doing it: writing, walking, and driving to Luther Marsh.

The lake was still frozen. There were no ducks. Atop an observation tower a woman stood gazing through binoculars.

"Anything out there to see?" I asked.

She pointed to a distant island and two monolithic shadows. It was the ruins of a farmhouse her grandfather built. Her family had to move in 1952 to make way for the dam.

The pictures have a strange fisheye quality about them, as if the too-big sky were trying to pry my camera open.

Instead of migrating waterfowl I followed the violent Grand River downstream through Fergus and Elora.







The Grand River, Elora dam


More pictures posted elsewhere:

• iamthelorax: Trees in Luther Marsh
  
• texture: orange lichen on a tree and fence
  
• rural_ruin: a burned out farmhouse
  

Flatlands

It just occurred to me that the first photo in my previous post, the one with gulls on a field, illustrates and glorifies the agricultural landscape of Southwestern Ontario. It is hellishly flat but lacks the wide open quality of the Prairies because it is sparsely wooded, but even the woods are drab and immature. I have trouble loving this landscape that surrounded my youth, so I cleave to the river and lakeshore. Guelph is relatively hilly. But I ought to look more often for beauty in these flatlands.

Here is another example:

http://vaneramos.livejournal.com/2003/07/30/