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Late April finds me hiking the Bruce Trail. The trees are still stark stick silhouettes against the blue sky, but a fresh smell hangs in the air, announcing that the earth is fertile and ready to give birth. Small green shoots poke out though
the dull monochrome of dead leaves and barren bushes. Here and there delicate white and green patches of trilliums are contrasted against the barren hillside. A jack-in-the-pulpit rises at the base of a tree, small and delicate against the ponderous trunk. These are the signs that spring has arrived in Niagara and another life cycle has started.
A delightful way to enjoy nature's rebirth is to travel along the Niagara Parkway. Niagara-on-the-Lake is ablaze with floral displays. Lush gardens adorn stately historic homes and colourful flower pots hang from lamp posts. Venturing southward, the Parkway is a continuous cornucopia of flowers and blossoms. A special place for a picnic is Queenston Heights where tulips sparkle under the towering statue of Sir Isaac Brock. Next is the world-famous Floral Clock composed of over 16,000 plants.
At the Botanical Gardens, over 2,000 plant varieties are displayed in 100 acres of manicured gardens. Also on the grounds is the Butterfly Conservatory, which features 2,000 exotic butterflies.
At Niagara Falls, the thundering cascades compete with the blooms and blossoms of the adjacent Queen Victoria Park and Oakes Garden Theatre. Every spring over 500,000 daffodils, tulips and a sprawling rock garden form a graceful tableau against the rising mist and tumbling water.
A few steps past the Falls is the Greenhouse, where a special display of hydrangeas, delphiniums, and foxgloves celebrates the arrival of spring. Leading up to the Greenhouse, my favourite spring spot consists of an avenue of magnolia trees, whose massive pinkish white petals are the Rolls Royce's of blossoms. I love to strut like a monarch along the lane, a canopy of pink overhead and my shoes immersed in the thick carpet of petals.
Along the back roads below the escarpment, every orchard celebrates a giant wedding with the cherry, apple and peach trees marching down the aisle festooned in their most dazzling white and pink finery. Sunlight glints from the blossoms, the smell of fertile earth is everywhere and birds chirp happily.
Who cannot rejoice when the cycle of life starts afresh in Niagara?
Hans Tammemagi has written two travel books: Exploring Niagara - The Complete Guide to Niagara Falls & Vicinity and Exploring the Hill - A Guide to Canada's Parliament Past & Present. He is the environment columnist for the Vancouver Sun.
The Bruce Trail: Hiking the Thin Ribbon of Nature
© By Hans Tammemagi
I love to hike the Bruce Trail. Walking into the peaceful, cool greens of the forest is like entering a majestic cathedral. Trees sweep upward reaching toward the sky like vast organ pipes. Ancient boulders lie scattered along the long slope, and waterfalls tumble delicately over limestone crags. The Bruce Trail meanders along the Niagara Escarpment for 773 kilometres from Queenston Heights to Tobermory. But the escarpment puts on its finest display in the Niagara Peninsula.
The Bruce Trail can be enjoyed all year; however, my favourite time is in the spring when wildflowers in dazzling quantities spread on the forest floor like magnificent carpets. A cairn at Queenston Heights is the beginning of the Bruce Trail. Worry and stress disappear as you hike. You pass magnificent views of the plain below with orchards, vineyards, and tilled fields stretching to Lake Ontario. Many signs of historic quarrying operations are evident including the foundations of a worker's village built in 1897s. A delightful glade is strewn with moss-covered rectangular boulders that remain from quarrying over 150 years ago, when Scottish masons cut stones and rolled them over the edge of the escarpment to wagons waiting below.
The Bruce Trail passes through many parks and conservation areas. Woodend Conservation Area, for example, is located on a narrow promontory of the escarpment just above the Niagara College campus. It features an historic stone house and a lovely Carolinian forest.
At DeCew Falls in St. Catharines, you can stand behind a waterfall, enveloped by flying mist. In winter, the falls turn into a massive ice sculpture and the gorge walls are adorned with giant gleaming icicles. The historic Morningstar Mill (1872) perches on the lip of the falls.
Rockway Falls is one of several spectacular waterfalls that few Niagara residents know about, in spite of their close proximity. Ball's Falls near Jordan is a pearl suspended on the string of the Bruce Trail. Once an early 19th century industrial hamlet, this site has a restored mill, two waterfalls, numerous historic buildings, and lovely nature trails.
Each spring, the Beamer Conservation Area near Grimsby attracts birdwatchers from across North America, gazing through binoculars at the annual migration of peregrine falcons.
As the world becomes more crowded and impersonal, the Bruce Trail offers a place to escape from the stress and crush of humanity, a place where the spirit can soar. So start hiking.
Hans Tammemagi has written two travel books: Exploring Niagara - The Complete Guide to Niagara Falls & Vicinity and Exploring the Hill - A Guide to Canada's Parliament Past & Present. He is the environment columnist for the Vancouver Sun.
Photo Credits:
Hans Tamamegi
If you go
For information or to order a trail guide visit: www.brucetrail.org
For the Niagara Branch of the Bruce Trail Association visit: http://members.becon.org/~nbtc/
Tourism Niagara: www.tourismniagara.com
Wikitravel: http://wikitravel.org/en/Bruce_Peninsula
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