Last autumn, Sue and I disposed of our car and turned to VrtuCar (a local car-sharing business) for our transportation needs. Consequently, this spring, I’ve lacked an easy way of transporting my canoe around Ottawa. I have yet to fish for pike in Constance Bay, or paddle up the Rideau looking for the big snapping turtle that basks on a sagging crack willow, or fall on my butt in the muck while hauling over a beaver dam along some narrow creek in the Marlborough Forest. In fact, I feel a bit stir crazy.
![The author paddles his canoe along a river, with a beautiful Brittany Spaniel sitting up in the canoe.](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/A-man-and-his-dog-1024x827.jpg)
I didn’t like Ottawa when I arrived here twenty years ago. I had grown up in Victoria and Vancouver, with the sea and the mountains close at hand. I had lived for eight years in Edmonton, with frequent forays to Jasper or out into the prairie parkland. I revelled in the sky, the space and the light. Ottawa, in contrast, seemed to have none of these: the forests were beautiful, and I appreciated the chance to swim in deep, clean lakes after years of prairie potholes; but I missed the horizon and the bevelled edge of the rockies. I missed the gothic skies: the vast, blue dome of the sky on a still, deadly-cold winter morning, or cathedral pillars of thunderheads mounting over fields of wheat. In Ottawa, it seemed, every sightline ended with another row of trees.
Then, a few years ago, I bought a canoe. Light enough to portage and control myself, but long enough to float over all but the shallowest rock. I launched it on lakes, rivers and streams around the region, exploring side channels and bays, tucking under leafy banks and cruising tight, winding channels through marshes and swamps. In it, I discovered the secret of Ottawa’s beauty: intimacy.
![A patch of sunlit shoreline reflects in the still dark water of a creek.](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Reflections-2-1024x755.jpg)
If the prairies are a cathedral, then Ottawa is a chapel. Whispers replace echoes. Everything feels immediate. I skirt lilypads along the bend of creek and watch a painted turtle slip off a log just ahead. I watch dark shadows of pike and gar dart from under my bow as I edge through rushes along the Ottawa River. Or I drift slowly, while a muskrat swims past with a mouthful of reeds and a heron watches serenely from the shore. On foot or on my bike, I dip into a damp, cove forest and stop to admire a garden of ferns, impossibly green under the dense maple canopy. Oyster mushrooms spread over a rotting log (and I curse that I’ve again forgotten to bring a paper bag). A red-eyed vireo sings incessantly overhead. A small brook chuckles nearby. I follow the banks, admiring the liverworts and turning over small logs to look for salamanders. The damp odour triggers hovering memories, like the scent of incense.
![White Pond Lilies float in still water near the shore.](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/White-pond-lilies-1024x737.jpg)
![A shallow creek runs under the shade of leaning cedar trees](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Poole-Creek-7-768x1024.jpg)
![Maple leaves glow red and gold in a sunbeam through the forest canopy.](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Forest-Light-741x1024.jpg)
![A Large, orange shelf fungi, known as chicken of the woods, grows from a mossy log in a damp forest.](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Chicken-of-the-Woods-1024x985.jpg)
Even the vistas seem intimate. Standing on the prairie, the vastness takes away my breath. I feel like a visitor, tolerated but never entirely welcome. A distant hawk, spiraling on a thermal, calls out his accusation (as Whitman would put it). Whereas, standing on an escarpment, looking over the Ottawa Valley or the Madwaska Highlands, I feel the distance shrink and the details grow. The forests and fields each have their own character, and I can imagine walking through them. I know where I’ll find the sagging line of an old, split rail fence, the craggy bark of burr oak, and a lichen-crusted mossy rock outcrop on which to eat my lunch.
![A View from the top of Green Mountain in Early Spring](https://naturallyottawa.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/Green-Lake-Mountain-view-1024x768.jpg)