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Painting Canada - footprint
Friday, November 21, 2008
footprint
Algonquin park moose, in it's natural habitat
A footprint tells many stories. Stories about where something is going, and where it’s been. How fast it’s moving, how big it is, or even what condition it’s in. Someone skilled in reading tracks can tell you a lot about an animal, or a person, using just a few footprints.
Natural things leave an amazingly light footprint, often hardly noticeable, and yet their relationship to each other is profoundly deep. Creatures and their environment are inextricably tied to one another, and yet the marks they leave upon each other are barely evident.
Near my studio, I am told, once existed one of the largest Huron Indian villages in Ontario. I walk through the site nearly every day, and yet I see nothing to indicate thousands of years of native habitation. Once however, I found an old broken piece of blackened pottery, no bigger than a quarter. A tiny footprint, a story of a culture.
Ten miles away, big box stores sprawl over farmland, permanently scarring the face of the landscape. Thousands of tons of soil are scraped and redeposited, roads built, concrete poured. Footprints of glacial proportions…a different culture, and a different story.
Places like Algonquin Park are unique in that they allow many to walk together. Some walk lightly but deeply, exploring the intimacies of the park. Paddle a canoe through the park for a few days, and when you leave, there may be no trace of your presence at all. Hike a trail, and no one knows you’ve been there. You leave little behind, yet take so much with you.
Others prefer the highway experience. A sort of drive-thru of natural wonders. A stop at the falls, pull over and roll down the windows for a snapshot of a moose, check the visitor centre, and maybe an ice cream to finish off the trip. It takes a lot of impact, and a very heavy footprint, to make such an experience happen.
Often nature chooses to reveal very little of herself to those who tread so heavily, saving her secrets for those with a lighter step. Try it for yourself sometime. Take a walk, slowly and quietly, with hardly a footfall’s noise, and see what you discover. You will experience a world of wonder and awe, a world of small and large miracles. You’ll notice things that you never saw before, and come away from the park with an understanding of how you fit into the world, instead of on it.
And you will leave with much more than a snapshot of a moose on the side of the highway.
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