Nature Appreciation

This is an excerpt from a letter to Margaret, dated October 23, 1998:

"Since I arrived in Canada (at 15 years of age), on September 6th, 1965 , at around 4 p.m., on a British Airways Boeing 707 (window seat, and first bout with air travel)... I was 'awed' in a very short time, at the vastness of this country!  I remember a particular day, in the winter of '66, when I crossed the 'Black' river (behind my brother's place in Pefferlaw), which was of course frozen at the time... and entered the forest.  I walked for hours, marveling at the beauty and silence of this winter wonderland!  I recall experiencing a great sense of wellbeing, of a 'kinship' to the earth... and even a brotherhood to the trees?  Most folks would think me a bit 'mad' if they knew of these thoughts... so I kept them to myself, which I reckon only made any of my future excursions to the wild a more private and mystical experience, for me!"

"In the thirty years since then... I have had a mixture of ways in which I interacted with 'nature'... not all were fulfilling though... for as you mentioned before... 'city' minded folk,  looking for 'excitement' in a camping experience... only disrupt the flow of tranquility that is sought by 'our' kind!  Needless to say, most of my travels have been 'solo'!"

This is an excerpt from a letter to Margaret, dated September 19, 1998:

"'Mother Nature'... she is my sanity, my true reality!  She has always opened her arms and embraced me with her uncomplicated simplicity!  When the news of greed, war, poverty, etc., takes me to the snapping point... 'Mother' is always at home, waiting to comfort her troubled son."

This is an excerpt from a letter to Margaret, dated November 25, 1998:

"A log home in the woods... walking distance to a lake, is exactly what I dream of...  To 'live' so close to nature... to wake up every morning to the smells and sounds of the forest... to observe, and ultimately name, each little creature that share the 'neck o' the wood'!"