Drought and the awsomeness of nature

It has been an unusual summer so far. Hotter than average and dry like I have never seen before. While the athletes in London are trying to break records, we are breaking a couple here without wanting or trying to. Depending on who you believe, this is the driest summer in more than 40 years. On top of that, according to Environment Canada, the past twelve months have seen the lowest amount of precipitation ever on record.

Yes!....since we began to keep records! A quick look on the net and it seems that would be 1938!

Farmers worry about their crops. Some have started to sell off livestock, because they don't think they will be able to put aside enough hay to feed them through the winter. Warnings of rising produce prices expected in the fall have started. A few of my colleagues who depend on wells for their water are very worried their wells may run dry before there is significant rain. Drilling a new well is a very expensive proposition.

Parched corn, stunted and shriveled in the field.

The drought seems to be the worst in the Ottawa Valley, but it is by no means confined to it. Water levels are so low that a ship ran aground off Sarnia trying to enter the St-Clair river. Although navigation error appears a factor, the Great Lakes only froze over partially last winter, making evaporation worse, and the water level lower than usual.

Locally, at Bate Island in the Ottawa River, you can walk out onto the rocks well into what is normally under water.  No one has any grass on their lawn anymore, just beautiful crunchy golden beige hay in which the weeds stand out like deep green sore thumbs.The city is actually asking those of us not on wells to water our gardens and lawns to avoid the risk of brush fires. The fire department is having their hands full putting them out all over the place, because, despite the news items and evidence everywhere, some people still throw burning cigarette butts out of car windows.

But nothing brought home how dry it really is as what we saw in Gatineau Park this Saturday. First the view of the baking farmland below the Eardly Escarpment was a good indication. Crops are not supposed to be that beige. But then we went into to woods of the Champlain trail and got a close up look at the devastating effect of the drought. Mature trees looked very heat stressed and leaves are curled or shriveled and many small saplings and bushes had completely dried out and appeared dead. Undergrowth was visibly reduced. The place was a tinderbox. Places where little streams normally pass were completely dry. This kind of forest is the last place to dry out in summer because of it's canopy protecting the ground from the hot sun. Not this year! The sounds of insects and birds was markedly less than usual too. We did come across a garter snake,but it did not pause to be photographed and slithered away under the carpet of dry leaves.

View from the Champlain lookout in Gatineau Park.

Entrance to the Champlain trail. 

Bottom of the trailhead stairs. Dry dry dry!

 

"Strike a pose" How does this happen?

Dry stream bed

 Dried new sapling. 

We drove home with a new appreciation for the extent of the problem. Will this take just one winter with good snowfall to correct, or is this global warning? In the mean time western Europe is having a wet and less than stellar summer. Huh......

On Sunday it was overcast and it rained three times! Unfortunately when we went to run an errand we noticed that it was very local and neighbourhoods as close as Stonebridge did not get a drop. The neighbours came over and we drank iced tea and they talked about their vacation on the east coast. The oppressive heat broke in the evening and it was much easier to sleep. On the holiday Monday morning we woke up much refreshed and in the mood for another hike, a bigger one preferably, taking advantage of the fact that it was still much cooler and not at all humid.

During the "where shall we go" discussion over coffee, the photographer came up with the idea that we should try to have a look at the damage that a big brushfire did at the Lime Kiln Trail. The fire had dominated the news in Ottawa for a good week, firefighters had a huge job getting it under control and tourists said they could smell it as far away as the Byward Market.

In a few weeks beginning new growth will likely already show, and we wanted to see the damage when the fire was just extinguished, and maybe go back at regular intervals to see the recovery of the conservation area. We drove to the trail head closest to where the fire was and parked the car.  The trailhead was still marked closed, but we saw hikers and cyclists in the distance so we decided to enter.

Initially there was not much evidence, except that the edges of the path had heavy bulldozer track imprints, a little odd for a nature reserve. After a while there was a big clearing to the left of the road and we came face to face with the mess. Before the fire the clearing was a wild field full of grass and saplings with trails through it, but now it looks more like a sand field. Small islands of burnt tree clumps dot the place, with ash at their bases. The ground had the springy feel of a forest floor but it looked like Mars' reddish sand. The fire laid complete waste to the tree line on one side of the field. Evidence of chain saw cuts to stop the fire was everywhere. The smell of wet campfire ash and smoke still hung in the air, enough that you were continuously aware of it .

The "spared" side of the clearing.

 

.....and the burnt side.

 

Ash at the bottom, scorched leaves at the top.

 

A grilly collection of knotted wood.

 

Most impressive and at the same time oppressive was the complete quiet. There was no sound of birds or insects at all. When the wind picked up a little we heard the faint rustling of scorched leaves on trees farther away. Fallen trees rub against each other with the eery creaking sound of a horror movie door. In the distance you could hear faint sounds of traffic on the closest road.

Awestruck we meandered around the clearing. At the far edge of it, cyclists emerged from a path, and we headed that way. Here there was much more evidence of firefighters trying to create a fire break. A new and absurdly wide path has been cut directly through the trees and a coarse stone bed has been laid to support heavy equipment. Uprooted and cut trees have been shoved to the edge of this road, some charred, some not.  It looked like a logging road, not a nature park. This road cut a wide arc behind the clearing and eventually reached the other side of the destroyed trees, and we appeared to have located the heart of where the fire burned.

A "logging road" carved into the nature reserve to make a fire break.

 

Blackened tree trunks stood on top of the grilly limestone-studded ground, There was no green at all here, only black tree trunks and pale grey rock. Occasionally some bark peeled off a charred three showed deep honey coloured wood underneath. None of these are viable, they will all fall with time. Most of them have severely burnt trunks especially close to the ground. The eery silence seemed almost worse here.

 Burnt trees on the limestone base.

 

 Not completely burnt. Will this recover?

Just before the other hikers "magically" appeared.

 

Blistered trunk.

 

Ash

 

A couple of hikers startled us. Despite the silence we did not hear them approach. They know the land better and hiked right through the whole devastated area. We talked for a few minutes and got some information about what else is down the main road. When we part, one of them says "enjoy the awesomeness of nature". The phrase sticks in my head immediately.

The fact is that he is right. Nature will do what it wants. It will take many years, but this parkland will recover. Trails are lost and new ones will be made. There has been a huge debate out there in recent years, a debate which includes people like David Suzuki, about whether we should fight forest fire at all. Is it part of the normal cycle of renewal, and therefore desirable or is it a huge waste as most of us think. In this case there was no choice but to fight it. The roads that box in this conservation area are also lined with houses and farms, and newer neighbourhoods are a stones' throw away. This was always going to be fought tooth and nail.

Badly scorched and burned cedars.

 

At the moment a lightning strike could start a potentially devastating fire in beautiful Gatineau Park, where the terrain is far less level and firefighters would have a much harder time. Roads run through this park. One moron with a cigarette butt............

We hiked back around and through the clearing and to the main path. We chose to go further in to the reserve and after a while we came upon the lime kiln. The historic structure was underwhelming after the things we saw earlier and we did not linger long. Further down the road was another hot spot, but it looked like so many scorched trees after the devastation we saw earlier. Predatory giant mosquitos descended on us at that spot, so after a solid two hours exploring, we called it a day and made our way back to the car and home.

We watered the lawn.