The Humber River valley’s twin personalities

What I noticed recently on two walks in the Humber River valley was the animals’ willingness to let me get close.

First I hiked south from Bloor Street West to the Lake Ontario marshes. A rabbit hopped onto the path, its brown fur not seen in pet shops. I pushed through the foliage and arrived at the towering bulrushes by the river’s edge. A hairy woodpecker clung to a tree. It knocked its beak against the bark, inching upward as if scaling a building by rope. I stood before it; I looked it in the eye. Such trust. I was struck by our nearness.

Today, I walked north from Bloor Street West and at Old Mill a family stood fishing; they cast lines as I looked on. I saw their worm twist on the hook.

Along the river grew pollinator-friendly plants like purple loosestrife. I watched the bees congregate and thought of Yeats’ magnificent promise, that he would “live alone in the bee-loud glade.” I saw one work its way up the stem, hopping from flower to flower upward then pushing off into the air. Like the woodpecker, it let me stand beside it.

I felt its intimacy, saw details of its fussy labour as it crawled over petals. Like a parent participating in take-your-childto-work day, the bee let me see its factory, its craft, firsthand.

Earlier in the day I spotted a fat toad; it was on full display with its brown pickle-skin. A frog floated in marginal water off the main river; it jumped when I approached. Amphibians suggest health in the Humber River ecosystem.

Yet the valley has manicured sections that neither delight observers nor attract wildlife. They say a happy garden is a noisy one. The Humber’s mowed spaces are the quietest places. It is the rough, unplanned forests and wetlands that engage the eye and fauna. I saw no bees on the grass north of Bloor; it was the loosestrife and other messy plants that drew the pollinators and elevated my mood.

Walking south of Bloor Street, I found the landscaped fields dispiriting. They were tame as a football pitch. I left and marched into the surrounding woods. Immediately, I reached a tributary and there, on a tree above the water, ran a mink. It raced up one branch, down another and into the rivulet, then got out and shook itself off.

The Humber River valley has competing personalities: paved paths, parking lots and fields for dog-walking press up against a surprising wilderness. The built places lack novelty and are mostly insipid. But the natural ones remain opaque and unpredictable, offering the pleasure of a pleasurable novel. They make the brain happier.

You set foot in the river or forest or marsh and don’t know how things will turn out.