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Townsman, 1992-03, Page 12C@ UM After the devastation comes the beauty By Sandra Orr Like most people, I sometimes like change and surprises, but I was not prepared for the change in the wood - lot when the large old trees were har- vested, if only because the bush was not the way I remembered it, both as a child and as an adult. I thought some- thing which had been the same for many years should continue to be, as if one's childhood memories were engraved in cement. The change in the season from win- ter to spring is usually very pleasant. After the leeks have had their day, the wild flowers begin to sprout. The hills are covered with hepatica. There are dog -tooth violets under the trees and there are a few trilliums on the knolls. The change from spring to summer is more gradual, the undergrowth becoming thick and lush. The bush along the river has always seemed to be the same, at Least the parts that are protected from the growth of trailer camps. In the sum- mer, the noise of bands from the camps on a Saturday night carries across the gully and you find their footprints and discarded beer bottles on a logging trail. The logging trails of the past, though unused for years, remained the same because of a canopy of Targe deciduous trees. A tractor might pass by or, now and then, someone on foot. A bush should be harvested before the trees are too far past their prime. If not, the trees will rot at the core. They will be worthless, full of disease, and the disease will spread. Harvesting will let in the light and encourage growth. But too many trees were taken, almost everything large enough. I didn't like the dreadful, naked look of the newly harvested bush. I didn't 10 TOWNSMAN/MARCH-APRIL 1992 like the Tight and the spindly remain- ing younger trees. The canopy was gone. I liked the quiet, the dark, and the predictable dappling of the filtered Tight. There was too much trash, too many tops here and there, making the trails unnavigable. It was obvious that the loggers had been over zealous, try- ing to get all they could and I was angry that I hadn't kept a closer eye on them. Everyone was thinking too much of the dollar signs and not of the mess they would leave behind. To make matters worse, the wind now assailed the unprotected trees and uprooted many large beech, destined to rot or be fodder for the fireplace. A walk on the trails was no longer a favourite weekend activity, as in the past we were sauntering under the trees, watching shadows as the dark- ness fell, brushing away cobwebs, or looking at blue streaks on the snow. A walk meant climbing over piles of branches, scaling criss-crossed limbs, and estimating the damage, large trees downed by the wind. Snow beats down the undergrowth and I could use the trails the deer made in their passage through the bush. When the snow melted, the trampled maze in the snow where the deer crossed and recrossed became scuff marks in the dirt. I was impatient for improvement, but, several years after the harvest, things seemed to be the same. Then, in the spring, when the weather is alternately warm and cold, rainy and dry, I turned the corner after walking through the stand of pines and I could hardly believe my eyes. Thousands upon thousands of white trilliums carpeted the bush bathed in light, where any other year there had been only a few hundred scattered here and there. I was so astonished I almost fell over. Acres of three -point- ed white leaves in the bush. It was like someone scattered seed through largess but I knew no one had. So many plants springing up in single season seemed a miracle. In a few weeks, the white leaves faded and the red trilliums and pink stood in tiny groups here and there. I looked for evidence of the white trilli- ums, dropping leaves or faded stalks, but there was none. Once the buds burst on the trees and leaves developed, the wild flowers were gone and the undergrowth was so thick that brambles clutched at waist and legs. But, the deer still passed through and along their trails I could see the droppings where the coyote had been following, where the deer made their bed under the hemlocks, venturing out at dusk and at daybreak into the orchard. If I went out just before dusk, the deer sometimes followed, just keeping out of sight, coming out at the other end of the bush when I emerged a hundred rods away. One watched me come around the corner and as I approached it soon loped off. The deer were nervous but not so much that they stayed away. There were far too many deer. One evening, eighteen of them ran past, some limping. If you went out of the house during the night and said something, you could hear stamping of hooves as a crowd of deer, four or five or six or more, ran for shelter in the bush. The bush was devastated for several years, I thought, and I loathed the sight of it, the light and the trash. Then, inevitably growth took place. Not wanting change at first, I mar- velled at the proliferation of trilliums and now that a few more years have taken place and I have become famil- iar with it, the bush seems even better than it used to be. The undergrowth is thicker than it used to be, and there are many more young trees. It will take many years to develop into a stand of mature hardwood. A sugar shack of logs and covered with steel and tar is still standing, waiting to be used, but no one has for years. The bush, now unprotected, is so changed I can no longer take a walk on the trails my grandfather used, but my children in their old age may see the stand the way it used to be.