Seeing nature with fresh eyes

Posted on May 28, 2024 by Ian Kinross

As a hike leader in the Haliburton area, Rob Halupka gets a kick out of helping others experience nature. “My role is being a conduit to help them discover the great outdoors,” says the retired engineer, who’s worked in the mining and financial sectors. “One of my rewards is to see things fresh through their eyes.”

Above: Rob at left with hikers on a Ganaraska Hiking Trail event in May, 2024

I know first-hand Rob’s experience and skills in the wilderness. When our kids were young, we joined Rob, his wife Jacquie and their children Madde and Emma on some epic canoe trips to Ontario destinations like northwest Algonquin Park. With another family of four, our friends the Finleys, we 12 paddled, portaged, swam and cooked up some feasts over the campfire. I recall Rob venturing off into the woods with a small hatchet and knife, and returning to set up a wooden tripod for our stew, complete with a hook on an adjustable wire that could raise and lower the pot over the fire as required. He also helped us prepare with detailed checklists for the trip that always ended with these two items: unmentionables and a rubber chicken.

Fast forward 20-plus years and Rob is a certified hike leader and president of the Wilderness Club — one of nine trail sections of Ontario’s Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association. The rugged section of trails Rob heads up is definitely off-grid. It includes 72 kilometres of trails winding through rivers, lakes, Canadian Shield, woodland and wetland, most of it within Queen Elizabeth II Wildlands Provincial Park. The legendary “cross-over” hike typically takes three days — including two nights of overnight camping.

I invited Rob, Jacquie and their faithful hound Mungo to join me recently for a hike to one of my favourite spots, Kinross Creek, back in the bush about a 45-minute walk from our cottage. Rob showed me a neat app called Avenza that I used to track the hike. The four of us took a little rest near a tiny lake, then ventured back to Kinross Creek where four frogs scattered after Mungo hopped in the water to cool off.

Afterwards, I spoke more to Rob about hiking, the great outdoors, and his impressions of Kinross Creek. In future, I look forward to interviewing Jacquie for her take on interpreting the great outdoors through art.

You lead hiking groups that may include veteran hikers but also newbies. What do they get out of this experience?

Some of our new hikers are also new Canadians. They want to experience the beauty of the Canadian wilderness and wildlife but may not have the skills, knowledge or equipment to do it. They may have certain fears — like a fear of bears or snakes.

They may not know how to do it, but they know they want to do it!

Yesterday on a trail-clearing event we had hikers who had immigrated to Canada from Iran, United Arab Emirates, England, Russia, India and Vietnam. My role is being a conduit for them to experience the outdoors, and one of my rewards is to see things fresh through their eyes.

We also have some veteran hikers. One woman, in her 70s, has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail (more than 2,000 miles) in the U.S. She’s exceptionally fit and well prepared with ultralight gear and the right clothing. She is testing her stamina and knowledge, so it is a different kind of reward for her.

What responsibilities do you take on as a hike leader? How do you prepare?

Leading up to a hike, I ask a lot of questions. I want to know where each person is in terms of their experience. Also whether there are health issues I should know about. In some cases it is a reality check. If we are looking at a full day hike, or multi-day hike, through some areas that may not have cell phone service or road access, they need to know exactly what they are getting into. Each person also gets a checklist of equipment and supplies.

So there is individual preparation but we also look at preparation as a group — for example, to make sure that if one person has forgotten something, we can still function as a group. A simple example is ensuring we have a water filter and enough stoves for the group. We also look at weather conditions and limit the size of the group for safety.

The hike leaders have to be trained. I have my Certified Hike Leader — CHL — accreditation from Hike Ontario. The training involves fundamentals and simulated emergencies and how to deal with them. As well, I regularly update my first-aid training.

For longer hikes, we have a leader and a sweep — two experienced people responsible for the group. Between us, we want to keep the group safe and to avoid the slinky effect — we do not want the hike group to get stretched too far.

Can you describe a challenging situation on a hike and how you addressed it?

When you are into a multi-day hike, there is a point of no-return. You are all in.

On our cross-over hike from Devil’s Lake (south of Minden, Ontario) to Victoria Falls (north of Sebright, Ontario), we had a group of women who were veteran day hikers but had not done overnight trips. We carried 30-pound packs with food and gear. On our first day, my experienced partner Vlad was the guide, while I brought up the rear as sweep. Vlad became concerned that our group was too slow. Everyone was enjoying the hike, but Vlad quickly realized we were not going to reach our campsite in good time. He had to get serious and hustle the group and they were taken aback at first. I played more of the good cop, encouraging everyone. We were able to speed up and thankfully make camp that night.

They forgave Vlad later — they knew there was a good reason he was a bit brusque earlier in the day. We also realized not all hikers had good sleeping bags. During the day, the temperature was fine but overnight we were getting some frost. So as a group we were able to rustle up and share some gear so our hikers could stay warm.

Hiking can be a serious business but you also address the lighter side.

Our hikers want to have fun and experience wildlife and nature. This is not the marine corps!

There is an education component but I try to treat that in a fun way. I’ve been known to ask skill-testing questions along a hike. When a hiker gets it right, they get a little plastic model dinosaur as a prize. We take a break at a little enclave of rocks and moss. I explain that 66 million years ago, most dinosaurs were killed off in a mass extinction — except for this little spot on our hike. The hikers get a kick out of finding what I call Jurassic Parkette — a collection of little plastic dinosaurs in the wilderness. The prize-winners add their dinosaurs to the montage.

Hikers have a lot of questions about the natural world. On a recent hike we found some moose tracks and ended up having a great chat about animal poop and its different qualities — like the difference between small dry deer pellets and the messy poop of a bear who has feasted on berries. I was also able to explain the odd behaviour of a grouse that was apparently harassing our group, but was actually protecting her chicks.

On breaks, I’ve also been known to recite Robert Service poetry like the Cremation of Sam McGee — and tell bad jokes.

Jacquie and Rob near Kinross Creek

When we visited Kinross Creek, you showed me how to use the Avenza app to map out the hike. Is this a tool you use on your guided hikes?

Avenza is great to document a hike — the route, the distance, the time it takes, and points of interest along the way. It can also help to lay out and document the best trail. Of course, it is also important to use physical markers. I use coloured tape, and also am constantly snipping branches and removing obstacles. For example, we can document a main route using orange and yellow tape, and then mark some alternative routes with blue and yellow markers. So the combination of the digital app and the trail markings are important for navigation.

Near Kinross Creek we came across some massive stone piles and abandoned farm buildings.

We saw evidence of some of the history of the early farmers in that area. My first reaction was — somebody broke their back moving all those stones to try to establish a farm! They were likely given free land but had to work to develop it in a very challenging topography and climate. Some of them eked out a living for awhile but could not sustain it and had to abandon their farms, unfortunately.

Most people on my hikes are not from this area and have questions about history and the natural world here. So I have done some research on the Haliburton area. I also use an app called Merlin to track the bird life on our hikes. When we were at Kinross Creek, I heard a Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, and the app also identified an Indigo Bunting, which is a gorgeous blue bird returning here after migration. If you combine the app with a pair of binoculars, you can see many birds along the way.

Rob and Mungo, back in the bush

Over the past year, you have taken on many different hikes with groups including Hike Haliburton and of course the Ganaraska group. What is the reward for you?

I used to do a lot of hiking and canoeing either solo or with family, which is always fun. Leading group hikes now, with so many different participants, I can give them some guidance and a little boost.

Seeing nature through their eyes too — that is a big reward.

For more information, please visit the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association — Wilderness Club Facebook page. Or you can visit the Ganaraska Hiking Trail Association website here: https://ganaraska-hiking-trail.org/

My first frog at Kinross Creek. Cutie!

Riverbed restoration at Kinross Creek

Posted on September 17, 2023 by Ian Kinross

The first fall colours in Minden Hills are subtle — the purples and whites of wild asters blooming in September on the roadside, yellow goldenrod, the browns and beiges of forest fungi, green milkweed pods ripening. Not quite the splendor of traditional fall colours — of maple and other hardwoods we will see in October — but just as rich and diverse in their own way.

Kinross Creek is bone dry downriver of the two “check” dams built this spring. As the nights get longer with heavier dew, the creek should flow again soon, spilling into Ali’s pond with its stone semicircle smile. The creek is in the woods near the hydro corridor, about a 40-minute hike from our cottage.

I use the opportunity to wander along the dry creek bed, downriver to the edge of the valley, the spot where Kinross Creek transforms to a cascading waterfall when the snow melts each spring.

There are hundreds of stones of diverse shapes and sizes revealed in the dry creek bed today. For someone who likes working with stone, this is mecca.

A site for the next check dam presents itself. The top of a huge dead tree has fallen across the creek. When the water ran here earlier this year, the deadfall created a natural pond. But it also diverted the flow of the creek to the side, away from its original course. The remaining vertical tree stump is a sentinel, about 8-feet high, marking the spot.

So I start to pull away the fallen part of the trunk and limbs from the creek bed, to replace them with the next stone check dam. This stone feature will restore the original creek course and feed into Colleen’s pond just downriver.

The woods are still and cool — no bird song but for the occasional screech of a Blue Jay and coarse cry of a crow. The mosquitoes and blackflies that pestered me over the past few visits have vanished.

I mine maybe 25 stones from the dry creek bed and arrange them into the start of a one-rock-high check dam, following the contours of the original creek bed. After a few minutes, I realize my heart is thumping pretty fast — my stonework excitement seems to be giving me a cardio workout.

With the tree cleared and first stones in place, I start to head out, but stumble upon another small stone-pile in the forest. It’s not quite the motherlode, but will add 20 stones to this effort.

In the woods around here, even though I keep my eyes peeled for stones, it is often my feet that find them. When one sticks out of the forest floor to catch my foot, it is typically the tip of an iceberg of many stones — likely piled up by farmers who worked this area before the farm was abandoned.

Likewise, it is often my feet that find remaining relics of barbed wire fences strung perhaps 75 to 100 years ago. When a jagged piece of wire threatens to snare a human rambler, I bend it back out of harm’s way.

The cool weather and subtle colours of early fall make for a nice walk back, after the heat of mid-summer. I come upon a strange and splendid drooping fungi, hanging from the end of a log. Milkweed pods swell and will release their feathered seeds to fly away later this fall.

I’ll be back in October to check the creek flow and start work on the next pond.

Messing about with stone at Kinross Creek

Posted on June 29, 2023 by Ian Kinross

To my surprise, Kinross Creek is still burbling on a visit in late June, 2023. I had suspected that this little creek, which carried away the spring run-off from a melting snowpack, would be dry by now. On the other hand, we’ve had a few periods of heavy rain lately.

The creek drains a mostly forested watershed north of Minden, Ontario, next to a hydro corridor and abandoned farm. It’s a green and peaceful place.

My goal today is to build a little “check dam” using about 50 stones I gathered on previous visits to the creek. These stone features are used particularly in arid climates to “check” or delay the flow of water in a creek or river.

Arid areas in places like India or Arizona sometimes get heavy rains, so a series of check dams can preserve some of the water before it runs off. The word “dam” is somewhat misleading, as these features delay water flow but do not stop it entirely like some dams.

Minden is not an arid place, although we’ve had spells of drought in summer. But I like messing about with stones. So thought I would try building a few check dams on my favourite little creek back in the bush.

Kinross Creek already features some small ponds created by deadfalls of trees, so my plan is to enhance those pond features by adding some local stone. There’s no shortage of stone in these parts: the first farmers spent a lot of time clearing stone and placing it in piles and rows so they could grow crops and pasture cattle.

Building a tiny dam — check!

One design I came across is called the “one-rock dam.” Another misleading title. The dam is in fact one-rock high, but built out of many rocks. And again, it’s not a dam, but more of a stone feature that checks the flow a bit as the water runs through it. The check dam also blends in with nature by following the contours of the existing creek bed.

The first step is to place a few slim, flat stones in the centre of the creek. These will act as a splash pad, as most of the flow will be directed over them. Then I use progressively thicker stones to build out the one-rock dam upriver and to the sides of the creek. Finally, I use small stones to fill gaps in the bigger stones. I’m following methods of some folks from different parts of the world who have shared their one-rock-dam methods on YouTube, often under the permaculture theme.

I find myself placing stones with one hand and swatting away mosquitoes with the other. Above, a big crow is commenting on my work with his rough cry.

A crow commentary

Last time I was here in May, the forest was filled with birdsong. Today, there is just one black American Crow, high in the trees. Is he mocking me? Perhaps all the songbirds I heard before are napping now, or were just stopping here before on their migration north.

The creek seems to appreciate my efforts. The water gathers and flows through the centre of the stone feature, dancing around the stones along the way.

My next goal is to build a slightly bigger version of this check dam just downstream. If I get it right, this will create a small pond, with an overflow.

There are many deer in these parts, especially in winter. When snow was still on the ground in April, I saw their countless trails crisscrossing in the woods. So given there are rarely humans here, perhaps the deer will appreciate my pond. Maybe they’ll stop here to have a cool drink.

I’ll be back next month. If the creek has dried up by then, all the better for building the next little check dam at Kinross Creek.

Wild leeks and birdsong

Posted on May 14, 2023 by Ian Kinross

Kinross Creek, the little seasonal stream I found high up a hill north of Minden, is still running strong in Mid-May. I’m on a mission to pick up some wild leeks here for supper.

At the top of the hill on the hydro corridor, huffing and puffing from the short but steep hike, I ditch my fleece and jacket. The sun is out — it’s T-shirt weather. I pause and look back down at the green fields of a nearby farm. A blue tractor chugs in straight lines, spreading manure to enrich the crops. An old draft horse munches his way through the fresh shoots of grass. I will take a pic of him when I get back down.

The tall hardwood forests are filled with birdsong. Last time I was here, I recognized one or two calls, like the feisty screech of a red-winged blackbird. Today there is a richer chorus as many more birds have completed their spring migration north.

The birds are back

To fill in the gaps, I pull out my cell phone with its Merlin app. Cornell University created this app to identify birds by their song. Within 46 seconds, it picks up eight different species: the Great Crested Flycatcher, Ovenbird, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Scarlet Tanager, American Redstart, and three different types of Warblers: Black-and-White, Nashville, and Chestnut-sided.

Amazing! I can’t see any of these birds, and recognize only one of the species identified, but they are with me, singing out in the forest canopy.

In the clearing along the hydro line, I do spot a lone turkey vulture, floating clockwise on a thermal, looking for his next meal. The feather tips at the end of his enormous wingspan look like fingers. I hope it’s not me he has in his sights.

I tramp down to the small valley that feeds the creek. My plan is to visit this creek throughout the year to track its lifecycle and the natural world around it.

Catching the sun

Today, my mission is simple. I’m after the tiny, tasty wild leeks of Minden Hills. Before the trees come into full leaf, these tiny greens spring up and catch the energy of the sun. In this area, they grow in clumps of hundreds. In some spots, they carpet the forest floor in the thousands.

After tracking downstream maybe 50 yards, I find the first clump of leeks, kneel down, and carefully dig up a few with a garden trowel. I knock off the dirt to see the purple and white stems below tender greens.

The entire plant is edible. These will go nicely fried with mushrooms, atop the mini-pizzas Nadine is planning for dinner. I put them and my garden trowel into a small bag.

A peaceful spot

This is a peaceful spot with the little creek still burbling. I’ve been gathering a few stones to improve a small pond along the watercourse. The first trillium blooms against a fallen log.

But today I’ve noticed that blackfly season has begun. The little critters are going after my ears and neck.

Mission accomplished, I pick up my jacket and start the hike back down the hill, leeks in hand.

April — up on Kinross Creek

Posted on April 30, 2023 by Ian Kinross

There’s a little place in the woods near our cottage where I enjoy a peaceful moment and the natural beauty of Minden Hills, Ontario.

Let’s call it Kinross Creek.

The first time I came upon it, I had hiked up a steep hill along a hydro corridor north of Minden, Ontario.

The hydro line, high above Minden Lake, runs alongside hardwood forest, and through an abandoned farm and pasture. Massive stones of the Canadian shield protrude from the earth, and many pieces of stone have been tossed and scattered about by glaciers long ago.

Because there is no designated trail, and the going is a little steep, there is nobody up there except the birds and other creatures — like deer, whose trails crisscross under old maples, and follow time-tested routes through the forest.

At the beginning of April, the ground still had a crust of hard-packed snow, making it easy to get around, except for the odd time when my foot punched through the crust.

Kinross Creek was bubbling up from its headwaters next to a massive granite face. It meandered and burbled for a few hundred yards through a forest valley, then cascaded off a cliff. Below, it joined other small creeks flowing into Minden Lake.

In this area, the spring run-off is called “the freshet” — a time when the winter snow and ice thaws and flows into lakes and rivers. I believe Kinross Creek is one of those seasonal small rivers — it likely flows mostly during spring and perhaps after a heavy period of rainfall.

Getting to know you

My plan is to visit Kinross Creek throughout the season to get to know its annual cycle better, and to enjoy some of its natural surroundings.

And because I find its splashing and gurgling sounds soothing.

When I returned in late April, the snow had all gone and the creek was still running vigorously. I explored northwards a bit and found another section of the same creek — bubbling up as a spring and then draining into crevices under the massive granite shield.

Altogether the little creek, including its two sections above-ground, and its subterranean route under rock, is maybe 400 yards long. Its downstream section also collects water from a small forest valley.

Signs of spring

Before the trees had put on their leaves, trilliums were sprouting with their trios of green leaves. Their iconic white flowers were just beginning to open. Here and there, a patch of wild leeks created a green carpet on the forest floor. Robins pecked for worms, and a turkey vulture floated and circled on an air current above the hydro corridor.

I noticed that Kinross Creek had developed a couple of natural ponds along the way, from moss-covered fallen trees that partially blocked the flow of water. I decided to try to expand the ponds a little bit, and collected some nearby stone to be ready to do the work when the creek was drier in summer.

Besides the glacier-tossed bits of stone, I came across old stone piles placed there when the area had been farmed, perhaps a hundred years ago. Further along the hydro line, there is evidence of a cattle pasture. In the adjacent woods, there are the remains of a barbed-wire farm fence.

“Stone farmers”

It’s no understatement to call the people who once worked this land “stone farmers”. Year after year, they had to remove and pile stone to make their pasture or crop fields more productive. Before them, people of the Michi Saagiig and Chippewa Nations hunted, fished and trapped in this area.

The stones I had found would now help me enhance the water features of Kinross Creek — perhaps creating two slightly bigger ponds, and augmenting the little waterfall.

I would be that little kid again, messing around in his galoshes and using stones to divert a small stream and make a pond.

Cramming them in at the Kids’ Kabin

Posted on November 14, 2019 by Ian Kinross

Around 2007, my father-in-law Claus was under the gun to squeeze even more grandkids into the little log cabin he had completed in 1998.

Claus and Ann were lifelong learners, enjoying courses at Haliburton’s School for the Arts in summer. Ann honed her pottery and art skills, while Claus learned about the fine art of woodworking — including a course specializing in the use of the router.

Another course that caught Claus’s eye was memoir writing. During that one-week course, he told stories about his childhood in Manitoba, school days, his volunteer work in Africa — and about the little problem he was having fitting all the grandkids into the log cabin.

The title and story are his original; I have added a few subheads and photos. I would add an editor’s note: I recall Claus joking that there was sometimes an excess of emotion when his memoir-writing classmates read their stories — tissues had to be close at hand. Claus, by comparison, shared stories of his life and family with his own sense of humour, and carefully crafted details, without shedding a tear. The emotion — his love of family and pride in his craft — was implicit.

Here is the story he titled: “Cramming them in…”

By Claus Wirsig:

While large and rambling, our log cottage has only two bedrooms and a bunkie. Though a huge living room also lends itself well to accommodation of a pullout double or twin bed in one corer, the growing family size signalled trouble ahead.

All four of our daughters, scattered across the continent, wanted to gather at the cottage for their annual get-togethers. There were also friends to accommodate and the two oldest, Denise and Nadine, were married and already had three children between them. The first grandchildren were aged four and two in the summer of 1996. They liked to romp in the woods, play house, of course, swim when possible, and so on. Their mother, Nadine, suggested what they would really enjoy was a playhouse in the bush they could call their own.

Scouring the hills for cedar

Someone guessed they might even want to sleep in such a house. An idea started to take shape in my mind. Wouldn’t it be nice to build a small cedar log structure with a proper roof, door and real windows? I spend the summer scouring the Haliburton hills and found old, very old, Harvey Macintosh with a fence-post cutting business and a small sawmill operation. Perfect. A descendent of Macintosh apple creator, he had stacks of eight-foot cedar posts and 12-foot brace rails. I picked out about 80 posts of the rather small size I needed and a dozen brace rails of similar diameter.

Peeled, sawn on two sides to a uniform thickness of three and one-half inches, another long story, and dried over the winter, they were ready for my construction project to begin the next spring. In the meantime, I had built a solid full one-inch cedar floor in my garage workshop. It was the exact size, nine feet by 11, to fit within the hundred square feet exemption cut-off for a building permit in the county. The floor boards were solidly mounted on four pressure treated four-by-fours. I also prepared a site behind the cedars quite close to the cottage and hauled in a solid crushed gravel base. That was year one.

The logs fall into place

First thing in spring of 1997, after gardening was properly underway, we hauled the floor to the building site. Then, one by one, the logs were put in place with spaces for the door and four windows, all of which were installed as the building went up. The door I constructed of solid cedar planking. The windows were recycled from an old fruit packing shed in B.C. which my dad had demolished many years earlier and I was able to have transported to Toronto. The three grandchildren, all girls, were delighted to climb over the construction site with growing anticipation of the time they had a real house of their own.

To finish off I designed gable ends that looked like logs set vertically and an asphalt shingle clad roof, all specially designed to be air tight and animal proof. One son-in-law, Ian, helped with shingling the roof. Another, Frank, installed the electric service on an underground line from the switch box in the main cottage that Ann had helped me bury under our front lawn. All was in readiness for the interior finishing — but next year.

Design dreams in the wee hours

The workshop was humming in May and June of 1997. During the winter, I had worked out the designs in my head for four sleeping bunks and other fixtures that would be needed. These design sessions usually came upon me in the middle of the night and robbed me of many hours of sleep, just as they had done the previous winter when I had worked out the plans for the bunkie itself. In my mind, I always thought of it as a bunkie. When it was finished, the kids quickly baptised it “The Kids’ Kabin” with two K’s.

With three grandchildren underfoot and a fourth underway, clearly the least number of sleeping bunks required was four. So, the design provided one set of upper and lower bunks on each side of the cabin. All were attached to the wall with hinges so they could be tucked out of the way against the wall when not needed. The ground floor bunks each hid a large roll-out drawer and had additional space on the floor for other storage including a ladder needed to get to the top bunks.

Windows front and back had hinges and screens for fresh, cooling night air. The window on the side facing the cottage gives a good view of the cottage past the cedar tree trunks. Against the blank wall at the foot of the bunks, I built a corner bench along two sides stretching from the end of the bunks around to the small closet in the opposite corner where the door opens in a tight spot between the closet and the bunks on the other side. I made a bookshelf high over the bench and window at the open wall. The drawers are rarely used and the main function of the closet has been to house the potty that is so handy for the younger children.

“Their eyes sparkled…”

The best inspiration I got in my nocturnal mental wanderings was the construction of a collapsible table between the two sets of bunks, reminiscent of dining tables seen typically in travel trailers. Hinged about 12 inches from the wall, when the single but sturdy supporting leg is clapped inward, the table provides a marvellous card or other game playing space between the bunks and is readily collapsed into a small night stand. Four covered foam mattresses, each 30 inches wide and 72 inches long, and voila! The Kids’ Kabin was ready for business.

The two oldest grandchildren, Alison and Colleen, arrived on Friday evening of the July 1st long weekend. Their eyes sparkled as they came down the lane and I opened the door to the building I had finished not 10 minutes before. They could hardly wait for bedtime. After some excited chatter which we followed on the baby monitor beamed to the cottage, at the age of only five and three, the girls slept right through to morning. They have only rarely spent a cottage night anywhere else since.

The grandkids keep coming!

Two weeks later, their cousin Anna from New York arrived. And so did Chantal, the daughter of Karen’s partner, Stefan. All four bunks were filled each night!

By the spring of 1999, trouble arrived in the shape of newest grandson, Paul. Where were we to put him? The four bunks were occupied. With some reluctance, I converted the nice bench at the end wall to a bed with a 24 by 60 inch foam mattress. It worked like a charm. This was Paul’s special bed.

But life and laws of fertility being what they are, the next year brought another body to the house in the Kids’ Kabin in the form of Rachel. What to do? I designed a slat frame similar to the bunk beds that could be fit between the two lower bunks. Rachel was delighted to be able to sleep between two big cousins. Problem solved. Six kids housed in a four-bunk cabin.

A few years later, yet another challenge arrived in the firm of Karen and Stefan’s new son, Felix. Suggestions anyone?

Epilogue

Now let’s hear from more of the grandkids…

Rachel, now an engineering student, recalls:

“The cabin had an assortment of blankets — the tiger, the red plaid etc. — and Paul and I would call dibs on the best ones. There was always a rotation of Archie comics that travelled between the cabin and the cottage, and I would hunt down the ones that I hadn’t read yet (that summer) all over the property and bring them back to the cabin.”

“It was always the most fun when the cabin was full of cousins; I would stay up late to listen to all of the gossip.”

Felix, the youngest, and now the tallest, writes:

The first memory I have of the cottage is the cabin and the sand box outside of it. I was the youngest of the kids so I slept on the small bench at the edge of the cabin.

I remember having a lot of fun as a young boy. I would sleep with my older sister and my five cousins in a confined space. The cabin reminds me of summer and of nature. I spent a lot of my summer at the cottage in which I slept in the cabin. We swam, went on boat rides, did treasure hunts, had marshmallow fires, played cards and name games and had many fun and memorable moments at the cottage.

I was always amazed that the cabin was built by Claus (grandpa). I remember waiting for the other kids to have pancakes, porridge or eggs and bacon. We would have great conversations late at night.

I was so sad when we could no longer go to the cottage. A big part of my childhood was spent at the cottage and in the cabin so I was glad we could keep a big piece of the cottage. Nadine and Ian’s cottage is very close to the old one. When the old cottage got sold, Ian and Nadine decided to move the cabin to their cottage. Although we cannot go to the old cottage, we can still go to the cabin.

Haliburton stone — so Gneiss!

Posted on September 30, 2019 by Ian Kinross

As the terraces came into shape, I learned more about the stone I was working with.

“Your geology in Minden and Haliburton is quite different than ours,” explained Nadine’s cousin Jay, who lives with his family in Kingston, Ontario:

“Your stones are well-rounded because they were tumbled in the glacier melt, thousands of years ago. They were left to be found in the sand-glacial till mix.”

Stone farmers

Farmers here know this, as they have been plowing up rocks with rounded edges of all shapes and sizes, and leaving them in rough fencerows, for more than a hundred and fifty years in the Minden area. In fact, I had pilfered quite a few of these beauties from an old farm field boundary behind Nadine’s parents’ cottage on Horseshoe Lake years ago.

As the stones often have a rounded look to them, sometimes they are referred to as “river rock.” Fortunately, many of these tumbled stones do lend themselves to dry stone walling, as they may have at least one set of parallel edges.

Different parts of the country each tell their own stone stories. In contrast to the Minden/Haliburton area, the stone near Jay’s home in Kingston “is still being calved by the freeze/thaw cycle from the original rock,” he noted.

Metamorphosis

My friend Rob had seen the big pile of stone on our front lawn, delivered that spring by local aggregates supplier Brent Coltman. Rob had a closer look and identified the stone as mostly Gneiss (pronounced “nice”).

It’s a metamorphic rock — meaning it has been transformed under high pressure and temperatures. And it was rolled along on journeys propelled by the glaciers that once covered Ontario.

Not only is Gneiss nicely-rounded, but it has a banded, layered texture and splits fairly well. In a few cases where I needed to remove imperfections from a stone, I was able to find the seam of the stone and split off the bad bits with a hammer and stone chisel, and some patience. With a little more skill and practice, I could split more stone where needed to get flat edges.

“You can actually split it like firewood,” said Brent, who had dropped five tons of stone next to our cottage earlier that spring.

So the new terrace walls rising around the log cabin at our cottage were mostly made of Gneiss. And the thicker, heavier capstones I had obtained to top off the walls were from granite seams of rock that had been untouched by glaciers.

An ancient fault-line

Feeding my addiction to dry stone walling, my mother-in-law Ann gave me a book telling the fascinating backstory of stone in Ontario.

I learned about a giant fault line that bisects the tiny town of Miner’s Bay, just a short drive south of our cottage on Highway 35.

Nick Eyles, author of Road Rocks Ontario, describes the clash of two major divisions of the Canadian Shield, seen in the road cut on the highway there. One is the Central Gneiss Belt. The second is the Central Medisedimentary Belt. The contact between these two belts comprises rocks “that were stretched like warm toffee at temperatures up to 800C at a depth of up to 25 kilometres,” Eyles noted. Some Canadian Shield stone in Ontario is more than a billion years old.

The site at Miner’s Bay, which houses a popular old-style lodge between two lakes, “shows a superb outcrop of highly deformed marble.” This is made up of Gneiss and Granite — some of it marbleized and some busted up from tectonic activity. The tiny town also has a pretty church, its walls showcasing the beauty and diversity of local stone.

Eyles hypothesizes about earthquake potential in this area: “It’s an inexact science but (this fault line) may be capable of creating a magnitude 7 earthquake every couple of thousand years. The trouble is we don’t know when the last one was.”

Batten down the hatches!

Learning more about the stone from friends, family, and experts, made me appreciate the material I had been working with that summer to build terraces — its history, composition, and the beauty of its pink and grey layers.

So Gneiss!!

Building with B-grade stone

Posted on September 5, 2019 by Ian Kinross

The log cabin needed some breathing room behind it, to the east, where it nestled into a fairly steep hill. A little terrace there would keep it high and dry in winter, and allow a walk-about around the exterior.

But I had used up the best stone on the first terrace. It now propped up the cabin’s entrance area. I would have to dig deep for more stone.

Many years ago, when our young family had moved into our home on Fulton Avenue in Toronto, the contractor had recommended “tavern-grade” oak for a reno on the main floor. “The B-grade stuff is half the price but actually looks nicer with the variations in grain and colour,” he had told us. Sold!

So my task now was to build a pretty and functional retaining wall out of the remaining B-grade stone. This one would be a book-end to the first terrace, with a straight stretch tracking parallel to the cabin wall, and a freelance curve ending next to a tree.

Working with gravity and gnarly stone

I got the area excavated with a spade, and put down some gravel. With my old wheelbarrow and the benefit of gravity, I trucked the stone downhill to the job site.

The stone was local Gneiss, which had been washed by glaciers here thousands of years ago. The B-grade stone was gnarly, generally less straight than the first batch I had picked, and with rougher edges that sometimes needed to be knocked off with a chisel. Its colours were motley, ranging from pink to dark blue-grey. But as I got the stone sorted, and a straight and level line put in as my guide, the wall started to come together.

Cross-cultural fun

Our younger daughter Colleen had arrived, with her boyfriend Tim, and his family from France. Tim and Colleen stayed in the log cabin, getting a nice view of the lake each morning through the trees. The two families enjoyed some cross-cultural fine dining, both with home-cooked meals and at some nearby eateries.

We also took advantage of a great stretch of weather to swim, canoe and kayak in Minden Lake, and walk to nearby rapids. One day, the gang swam about an hour down the Gull River — an annual tradition known as “floating your hull down the Gull.” We treated ourselves to some Kawartha Dairy ice cream as a reward — gazing at dozens of flavours and their mouth-watering descriptions as we stood in line outside the dairy. Muskoka Mocha, Death by Chocolate, Moose Tracks — there were way too many choices.

Flexing to the flora

The following week, I kept at the stone-walling, building up the second terrace course by course, and packing it with heart-stones. The wall behind the cabin was interrupted by two conjoined trees and their large root-ball — I walled around it rather than remove the trees and roots. They gave the cabin some privacy from the neighbor to the east.

A big old Beech tree had been taken down nearby due to disease, and Nadine suggested some flower pots to go on the tree stumps. We kept it simple, with colourful and shade-tolerant impatiens — by mid-summer they had come into their prime.

I still had some nice heavy capstones left to crown stone terrace number two. The little terrace curved to end at the foot of a young maple tree, which was growing fast. It would add to the forest colour around the cabin, especially in fall.

From B-grade stone had come a cute and functional little A-grade terrace!

The bluebirds were calling

Posted on August 28, 2019 by Ian Kinross

As we experimented with gardens on our stone terraces, we continued to keep an eye on the eastern bluebird family in our small red bird box. They were busy feeding chicks, the mother and father bluebirds swooping in with food and out with guano.

Earlier in the year, I had attended a naturalist group lecture about bluebirds and learned about a study underway in the Minden area. Local volunteers had built and set up many bluebird boxes in nearby Gelert, Ontario. They were monitoring the effectiveness of the boxes to attract bluebirds, and a university student was preparing a report on the results. The intent was to turn around recent declines in the eastern bluebird population.

I contacted a reporter at the Minden Times, a small but feisty local paper still practising old-fashioned journalism with news, features, and commentary on local affairs. On a sunny Saturday morning, reporter Vanessa Balintec dropped by with her camera and tape recorder. Nadine and I sat with her in our screen porch. As she asked us questions about our experience with hosting bluebird families at Minden Lake, we would occasionally point to the box outside our cottage when one of the adult bluebirds alit on the box: “Oh, oh, oh — look!!”

Vanessa took a nice close-up photo of the male bluebird, with its orange breast and bold blue wings. She wrote the following piece about this small initiative in Minden that hopes to understand the impact of nesting boxes — and to give these birds a fighting chance for the future…

(You can also find this story online at the Minden Times website.)

Eastern bluebirds: A story of success

By Vanessa Balintec

For Ian Kinross and his wife Nadine Wirsig, it was a pleasant surprise to hear that the Haliburton Highlands Field Naturalists were launching an eastern bluebird bird box program along Gelert Road, as they’ve been housing two boxes of their own for over five years at their property in Minden.

“I saw it in the Minden Times and I went to the seminar,” said decade-long cottager Kinross. “I chatted to the guys and I really support their work.”

For years they’ve been watching eastern bluebirds use two little boxes on their property to nest and raise their young. Although they were out of town by the time the HHFN called for their support in putting up the boxes, Kinross arrived back home in time to see a new family of bluebirds getting ready for nesting season.

“They’re just beautiful creatures,” he said. “And it’s kind of like, you feel good that you made this small step of putting up a little box and it actually works, it’s actually attracted the birds. So that’s pretty cool.”

Local teamwork, broader impact

Although they were at it years before the HHFN, the non-profit organization took it to new heights. With the help from U-Links, they paired up with Anna Robbins, now a graduated Trent University biology student, to launch their project. The group has been working since fall to get around 20 boxes erected for this and next year’s summer.

“The field naturalists, we used to have one of our members that had a bluebird trail with nesting boxes and some of the members would go out and do some monitoring,” said Gord Sheehan, treasurer for the HHFN. “So then, when he left the club, we decided we would like to try one of our own, and decided a good route would be along Gelert Road.”

With Robbins’s help, they were able to determine 39 ideal locations for bluebird boxes. While building them is just one part of the process, putting them up proves to be more challenging as some of these locations are privately owned, requiring the HHFN to get permission to build and monitor the boxes for long periods of time.

“All these things, getting people together, getting time, it’s much more of a project than it appears to be,” said Sheehan. “Putting up houses, it’s a piece of cake, right? I’m glad we didn’t do 20 houses on our own.”

Robbins was thrilled to see the enthusiasm of the group behind the project, and was drawn to them because of it.

“I think this one stood out to me the most because it was such a small organization of people who weren’t being paid to do anything, it was all volunteer,” said Robbins. “It was a great little community, and I really liked that.”

Stabilizing the bluebird population

But another big motivator behind the project was to monitor the bluebird population.
“When Shirley was working with bluebirds about 30 years ago, their populations were really low,” said Robbins about HHFN director Shirley Morden. “Now they are increasing, so she wanted to monitor to see how that was going.”

According to Canadian Geographic, during the mid- to late-1900s, the eastern bluebird had a declining population due to the introduction of two competing birds, the house sparrow and the European starling, and loss of habitat due to human development.

It was the work done by bird watchers and bluebird lovers, who began the initial movement of building bluebird birdboxes to aid in their chances of survival, that the population was able to slowly stabilize and become a species of least concern today.

“In addition to that, bluebirds are just loved among bird watchers,” said Robbins. “They’re very beautiful, they have this vibrant blue colour. When you see one up here, it’s very exciting.”

Monitoring the new bird boxes

Today, according to the HHFN, there are 16 bluebird boxes up in total: four along Gelert Road, six along HHFN member Don Kerr’s property, and the other six at Walkabout Farm on Spring Valley Road. Although the other four boxes have yet to go up, Sheehan has already been receiving reports about some of them being in use.

“We have one of the four nests occupied by bluebirds, and last report there were five eggs,” said Sheehan. “The other boxes are empty at this time. We will continue to monitor them for more results.”

Kinross says watching the bluebirds finally fledge and leave their nest is something that reminds him of his own role as a parent.

The cycle of life

“They’re always dealing with these little challenges and it kind of makes you realize that life is a little bit precarious,” said Kinross, who says out of close to six to seven cycles of bluebird watching, only four to five of them have been successful. “‘Cause the parents are busy building the nest, and she’s got to lay the eggs, and they’ve got to raise the chicks and help them fledge successfully. It’s a sweet moment that makes you think about the cycle of life. Also, as us as parents. These are parents working so hard to raise these little babies, and they have a much tougher time.”

For more resources on how to build your own bluebird bird box, visit the Ontario Eastern Bluebird Society at oebs.ca.

Stone terrace gardeners

Posted on August 12, 2019 by Ian Kinross

After being inspired by the terraced hillside gardens of Cinque Terre, Italy, Nadine and I took a trial-and-error approach to gardening our emerging stone terraces at Minden Lake.

In the sunnier area near the lake, a hydrangea flourished, delivering large white blooms as big as sun hats. Hydrangeas love stone — their roots slither under and around it, seeking the cool soil. The big, healthy hydrangea bush was temporarily subdivided while a new terrace was built around it. The baby hydrangeas resulting from the division were gifted to a few of our neighbors. Part of the original root was replanted and will flourish again in the next year or two.

Along with the gardening miracles came a few disasters. A groundhog burrowing near the lake wreaked havoc on our begonias, for example, nibbling the leaves each time the plants attempted to grow. We ended up with some stunted begonias, and none of the colour we thought they might add to the terraces. Live and learn.

Nadine took a page from her parents’ garden at Horseshoe Lake, and planted gladiola bulbs in spring. Their multi-coloured spikes dressed up our hillside garden in summer. The bulbs — and any new bulbs generated that year — would be taken inside to be stored over winter in a cool spot in the basement, then set out again each spring to bloom again.

Butterfly blooms

Likewise, multi-coloured zinnias, grown from seeds saved from Nadine’s parents’ garden, attracted Monarchs and other butterflies. We learned they would produce even more flowers if the first few blooms were nipped off, stimulating the plant to grow more stems sideways and upwards. Zinnia seeds could be easily saved over winter and replanted. We also experimented with a couple of perennial flowers, including a butterfly bush, purchased and grown from seed from a company called William Dam Seeds near Hamilton.

Nadine’s Mom suggested Nasturtiums, which would cascade in green over the stone while putting out bold orange and red blooms. As a bonus, the blooms were edible, with a fresh but mild flavour, perfect for a quick snack near the lake. Further below on a rough stone amphitheatre near the lake, Nadine was nurturing plants including lilies, creeping thyme, perennial geraniums, phlox and other flowers that had taken to the site and climate of Minden Hills.

Wildflowers such as brown-eyed susans and daisies complemented the mix. Wild milkweed was another big draw for the Monarch butterflies.

A taste of Italy

To tip our hat to the terraced gardens of Italy, we set out a couple of small fig trees in pots. They would be brought inside over winter. Nearby I found some wild grape vines, resembling Ontario’s native concord variety. These were replanted next to the farmer’s fence alongside our lot in the hopes they would grow and produce some sweet fruit.

On the stone terraces, the new plants did well. The terraces held moisture and were partially shaded by some young oak and poplar trees. We continued to enrich the sandy soil with some peat moss, worm castings, and home-grown compost.

While most flowers flourished, we also learned what did not work in the sunny spot. After the groundhog had his way with the begonias, we discovered that colourful impatiens were too tender for this hot spot.

An organic approach

Further up from the lake, at the new terrace fronting the little log cabin, we planned a garden that could accommodate more shade. We decided on a natural approach, letting the new terrace area green up by itself, and adding just a few subtle garden accents. These included hostas, propagated from our home in Toronto, and some small pots of shade-tolerant impatiens. These were planted at each end of the new terrace fronting the cabin. To accessorize, we placed the same plants in pots on the stumps of the old beech tree nearby.

Meanwhile, the forest was declaring itself on and around the site of the cabin. A maple tree that been cut down to squeeze the cabin into its new forest home was shooting out stems again. It looked like it would regrow nicely to the north of the cabin. Similarly, some smaller beech trees that were taken down next to the cabin site were starting to bud out from the stumps.

A life force

The Minden flora and fauna were relentless, nesting the human-made structures of wood and stone in their life force and life cycles.

Behind the cabin, a groundhog had established its home, with its circular hole marking the entrance to its underground lair in the sandy soil. In the oak trees above, squirrels chewed off small branches, which would drop to the cabin roof and forest floor, where the acorn bounty could be claimed.

Beneath the soil, tiny blind moles made subterranean tunnels next to the new terrace capstones, pushing up the backfilled sand in a telltale pattern. Chipmunks established new tunnels around the site that would keep them warm in winter. The nesting bluebirds in front of our cottage made regular trips to sit in an old oak branch above the cabin, as if to check our progress.

The final push for the stone terrace project was a second dry-stone retaining wall behind the cabin. By early August, I had got most of it built. I was down to the “B-grade” stone in my pile but I still found a few gems to piece the terrace together.

The design echoed the first terrace built just to the west of the cabin — a straight line with freelance curve ending in a small tree cluster. This would afford breathing room and a safe gravel pathway against the hill sloping above the cabin. The second terrace would also keep away ice in winter.

More sun cut through the trees here, especially in the morning, so we imagined some sun-loving flowers to dress up the terrace there once it was complete. The days were getting shorter in August, and the sky cast shades of pink and purple as the sun set over the Cox barn next door.

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