The Tall Tree Trail Calabogie’s snowshoeing secret of the jingwakoki BY TIM YEARINGTON PHOTOS BY TIM YEARINGTON TIMBER WOLVES PROWL here. Cougars appear and disappear like ghosts. And sometimes, as the north wind paints your cheeks red, the very snowshoeing trail you’ve been following through the jingwakoki can vanish too. In Ojibway, jingwakoki means pine forest. It’s a wilderness place where pines are akin to humans and are called the standing people, ancient ones, grandparents who will gladly talk to you and guide you upon your journey. If you care to listen. Not far from Calabogie there is a jingwakoki that is home to more than just a ski hill. There’s a short but spectacular snowshoeing route known to locals as the Tall Tree Trail. This area long ago was covered in glaciers; then there were forests, forest fires and logging. But all in all it has grown back majestically. The secret of this jingwakoki has always been about what’s really there, or rather about what’s really here. It’s about that, about one idea, a place called here. Here is where the pileated woodpecker is still called the circle maker. Here is where the spirit of Pagwadjinini (the sasquatch or wild man) still roams the deepest parts of
www.OttawaOutdoors.ca
the jingwakoki, and shows us the truth about living wild and free. Here is where Mother Earth is still embodied as a turtle and the spirit of Father Sky soars as an eagle. Here is where the Tall Tree Trail still waves at you in the wind on the edge of a ridge. It’s here – right here – that’s far beyond a walk in the park and it’s here that contains way more than rabbit tracks in the snow. To local residents, the Tall Tree Trail is sacred; it’s a pathway where Mother Earth merges harmoniously with Father Sky to create a here composed of rockhard reality. The trail brings you to a narrow pond where a granite cliff towers into the sky. It is here, atop this red rock face, where the true Tall Tree Trail becomes visible. Like a native zig-zag design, a high horizon of pines lines its craggy horizon. The best way to experience the trail is on snowshoes when wintergreen berries have turned red and juniper (or sky berries) have turned blue. Try one
of each, and keep an open mind to what you’ll see next. The trail can be snowshoed in and out again in less than two hours from your vehicle, and the trail’s best use is as a gateway to deeper parts of the jingwakoki. Snow enables you to visit places difficult to reach in summer. There’s not much undergrowth, no leaves to block the view, no mud, no bugs. Ponds and swamps are easily crossed and are a great spot to be in the sun or build a campfire to roast those now-frozen wieners you brought along for your children and the kid that’s still inside you. Traditional ash and rawhide snowshoes know their way through snow and through the jingwakoki as well. They are made of the very essence of the trees and animals you are there to experience. And they’re quiet. They don’t yell out, Human coming! to the timber wolf you just missed around the bend. Treat yourself to a winter adventure. Make tracks to explore the deep snow
OTTAWAOUTDOORS WINTER 2005-2006
3
