Pinery PP - May 2011

Pinery Provincial Park has an interesting history. Back in the 1950's people got to thinking about how to make some hard cash out of land that hadn't a hope in Hades of ever being arable. The obvious choices of yacht club and golf course were limited in that the surrounding population was poor and sparse. Eventually, out of sheer desperation, they made a park, stamped it "FOR RECREATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY" and packed up the planning committee.

Not so bad a choice really. Pinery provides A-1 recreational venues. It has a mostly torpid river for canoeing, It has a beach to die for. It has massive sand dunes for sliding down. You can wander into them and play Lawrence of Arabia to your heart's content.

I ought to know. I've done it. In fact, having watched a St. Bernard ski gleefully down a sand dune, I'm here to tell you that sand is a lot like snow. Pinery is mystical. It is large. In some instances it looks almost exactly like the Polish Baltic coast. Oh yes, Pinery is the place to be for Recreational Purposes.

However, sometime in the 1980's someone studied something and came to some interesting conclusions. Back in the '50's, about 3 million red and white pine were planted to stabilize the sand. Good choice. Unstabalized sand tends to travel. An entire beach rampages 3k up and down the Baltic coast at Leba, for example, eating up trees in the process. Stabilization is good. Thing is, pine trees are death on oak savanna and in the '80's what they concluded was that 1) globally there is about 4% of  oak savanna habitat left and 2) Southern Ontario is supposed to be carpeted with it.

Oops.

Suddenly " RECREATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY" became "BIOLOGICALLY SIGNIFICANT" This was quite a volte face. It is hard to re-educate upwards of half a million people per year. The process is bound to take some time.

Plus, there was the small matter of 3 million pine trees. They proved easier to manage. Firebreaks were built. Proscribed burns were initiated.Pinery reverted to form.

The half million visitors began to learn about deer habitat and oak savanna. They were informed that dune grasses are delicate. Pinery's ecosystem supports around 400 plant species, 30 mammal, 300 bird and 60 butterfly and is an important migratory way-station. All this is crammed into the largest protected forest in Southern Ontario. That makes a person think. The scale of it is a bit shocking but then most of Southern Ontario proved to be much more arable than the Pinery.  "We built you boardwalks and paths," the visitors were told. Keep off the grass. Tone down the Lawrence of Arabia sztick. 4% of the world looks like this and of that 4%, 50% is right here before your eyes. Be amazed.

Well, oak savanna is  kind of cool really, especially if you're into fairy woodlands and re-made primeval forest. However, there is also much to be said for skiing down those sand dunes. Luckily, this is still possible, I say this because as a once in a lifetime experience for the young adult it scores up there high on the Needful Scale. The trick to is be circumspect about it - respectful even. Actually, it behooves a person to be respectful. Dem dunes are rife with poison ivy and poison ivy shows no mercy.

We like Pinery because of the beach. We like it because of the savanna, the walking trails and the biking trails. We like the canoeing. It represents 3 separate ecosystems within the larger whole and thus shares some of the magic of Russian stacking dolls. 

If you take 6 families to the Pinery, made up of 11 adults and 19 kids here are some tips:

• One tent serves nicely as a play tent and a kid sleeping out tent. You can even solicit kid-power in putting it up. 
• 2 or 3 active fire pits allow for site rambling and shared camaraderie
• 3 canoes over 2 days allow everyone a comfortable paddle on the Old Ausable (from the Fench of course) Channel - life jackets the park will provide free of charge
•  Parents provide good supervision for the beach. It is endowed with a series of sandbars and quite cold in May. Be advised that there are no lifeguards on the beach 
• Bicycles, like canoes, can be shared
• Pinery has some very good guided hike programs
• In case of rain the Visitor's Center is equipped with some long and some short films
• The drive to Grand bend is not all THAT long, nor to Goderich but it is lengthy so try to avoid needing to go out
• Check out a local sand ridge for poison ivy and, if it is free of the stuff, let the kids discover the properties of sand
• White dollar store string makes good visual markers of p ivy patches 
• There are many geo-caches in and around Grand Bend 
• Leave the Lawrence of Arabia for when your kid is older and goes camping solo or with friends. Fun as it is, there is a time and place for everything.

We went over the May long weekend. There is an alcohol ban that weekend and the chance to see a Roving Kevlar Clad Officer in and around the beaches. They also, it seems, are migratory, or, at the very least, seasonal. A trip to Pinery is something of a pilgrimage from here in the Barrie area. It's about a 3 1/2 hour trip (and on a long weekend avoid the highways past the 89 turn off from the 400) but it is well worth the drive.

You can read all about Pinery Provincial Park here: http://www.pinerypark.on.ca/ 

Walking in a Swamp

Today we signed on to a new project. Many parents who homeschool have quite a bit of knowledge up their sleeves. One of our local parents has decided to share her environmental background with us in a series of monthly outings. It being spring, now is the time to look for emerging insects and larvae. The goal was to find dragonfly larvae but, as it transpired, the water was too warm and the wetland not healthy enough to support dragonflies. Your dragonfly, you see, is picky about its living arrangements.

Wetlands, even unhealthy ones, have other attractions, such as, say, blackflies. Today there were many blackflies but few were biting, they being still too confused to have worked out than human = bloodmeal!!

Half and hour or so spent bug hunting in a cedar swamp revealed: small millipedes, various spiders (small ones), a slug, an ant, beetles, a worm, and a winged insect that was not a blackfly.

Birds were abundant: a swan, redwing blackbirds, a turkey vulture, Canada Geese and mallards were in evidence.

The nature of Homeschooling frequently lends itself to a wide range of participants in any given activity. I love this aspect since all age groups usually find a niche in the outing and enjoy it on their own terms. Today we had young teen intent on fishing. He was quite happy to show the fish to the younger kids and had the "cool factor" down pat when he caught a fish and wrangled with the water snake for possession.

Our Environmentally Enabled Parent brought some lovely information about insects, bugs and metamorphosis for us to mull over at home. Our kids were too busy hunting to listen to an actual lesson on site. The entire exercise took about 2 hours and was never boring.

Today we sign into a new blog. It is our hope that it will grow and that all participants of the Naturalist Club will contribute. If you have thoughts about an outing, insights, musings, poetry, artwork or whatever then please share it. Also, if you go some place neat or discover something cool about this fantastic planet of ours then share it!