Bruce Trail (Burnt Point)

Marian and I made a covenant to hike the Bruce Trail, all 800 kilometres (500 miles) of it.

For me, hiking is more than a pastime; it is a sacrament. I might never make a pilgrimage to Rome or Mecca, but every summer I trudge dozens of kilometres through Ontario's countryside and backwoods. It brings the mind close to nature, in rhythm with its sounds and contours, and in harmony with the resonance of pilgrims who followed the same paths before. Some trails are much older than roads. When I hike along a river or cliff, I follow a highway of human foot traffic hundreds or thousands of years old.

The Bruce Trail follows one of Southwestern Ontario's most distinct geographical features, the Niagara Escarpment, from Queenston Heights on the Niagara River to Tobermory on Lake Huron. Years ago I bought a guide book to the trail, and at times have explored certain sections of it: most famously Hockley Valley with Brenna in October 2004, Rattlesnake Point with dakoopst in July 2005, and Mono Cliffs with djjo in October 2005. It follows a green belt through Canada's most densely populated region (seven million people live within 100 kilometres of the escarpment), offering breathtaking vistas of Lake Ontario, rolling countryside, and Georgian Bay. It is named after the Bruce Peninsula, and the most spectacular segment of the trail lies there, as evidenced by some photos from the national park posted here last week.

On Wednesday, August 23, my daughters and I had just returned from a boat tour to Flowerpot Island when rain started to fall. We ducked into a fish-and-chips restaurant for food, then took the opportunity to explore a brand new $7-million visitor centre for Bruce Peninsula National Park and Fathom Five National Marine Park. It had only been open one week. It included some interesting exhibits, although I've had a fanatical interest in natural history of the escarpment for years, so didn't learn much besides trivia.

Going out and finding the rain had stopped, we decided to follow a new side loop of the Bruce Trail running some five kilometres from the visitor centre around a place called Burnt Point, a ragged promontory extending just east of Tobermory into Georgian Bay. It's easy to see where the name came from: dolostone turns rough and black when it weathers, although frequent traffic will wear it to a smooth, creamy grey. Bright orange lichen covering the rock in some places creates a striking effect.

It was a strange, silent evening. The earlier wind had died. The newly blazed trail was soft and spongy underfoot. We saw little wildlife: a snowshoe hair, frogs, crayfish, some unusual ducks too distant and shy for me to identify. Through the woods we moved quickly, hardly stopping to talk. Whenever we emerged on the shattered, bleak shoreline, we would scour the way more closely for signs of life and beauty. The only humans we encountered were two girls wandering less deliberately. They crossed to a series of barren islets torn off the end of the headland. Light rain fell now and again, but the air was mild and humid. Mostly it held off until we were most of the way back to the car, then the sky opened up. We ran the rest of the way along a wide, gravel path.

Somewhere in the course of that excursion, Marian and I resolved to hike the entire Bruce Trail in our lifetimes. I've considered it casually before, but this was like a pact. It's no minor undertaking, and with the onset of arthritis, perhaps my time is limited. I don't expect to do it sequentially, but if there's any pilgrimage worth making, it's this, through the heart of the land I know and love so well. A good chunk of the distance lies within an hour's drive of Guelph, so I can make it in idle weekend excursions. Other sections will be more challenging. A second car could make it more practical. Perhaps I can enlist the company of various friends. Besides Marg and Sylvie, who are avid hikers, I can imagine several LJ friends might be interested to cover some of the territory together.

I want to find a big map of Ontario, plot the Bruce Trail onto it, plan my attack, and start this fall.

Another photo is posted in texture.