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October 02, 2003  Indian Summer Along the line of smoky hills The crimson forest stands, And all the day the blue-jay calls Throughout the autumn lands. Now by the brook the maple leans With all its glory spread, And all the sumachs on the hill Have turned their green to red. Now by great marshes wrapt in mist Or past some river’s mouth, Throughout the long, still autumn day Wild birds are flying south. William Wilfred Campbell (1858 - 1918) When I was nine years old I read this poem in one of our school readers. The words immediately found a receptive spot in my soul and spoke directly to my experiences, idyllic days of Canadian autumns, just as I had known them. I could smell the smoke of wood fires and feel the hush of sunny, yet cool days, days so quiet that one crisp leaf could be heard as it broke free and tumbled on its way through the tree branches to the leaf-carpeted forest floor below. Living at the time in North Western Ontario, I was no stranger to the call of the Eastern Blue-jay. Sumacs too, grew in openings in the forest in places where we went as kids on weekend treks. It was certainly a poem about an Ontario fall. To put it mildly, autumn has always been a very special time for me. It was in autumn that I discovered the Cariboo. It was autumn in the Cariboo that first made me want to live in this part of the world. And though I now live far from my Ontario roots, and the words of the poem aren’t quite accurate for the Cariboo experience, it still captures the essence of what fall is. I’ve gotten used to not having the Eastern Blue-jay calling, more likely we’d hear a Raven bellowing, or a flock of Canada Geese jabbering. We don’t have the crimson Maple tree but we’ve got rose bushes, Red Osier Dogwood and Saskatoon trees for our reds. Rest assured, even with these substitutions, we do have a spectacular fall in the Cariboo. Yesterday was the first day of October and I made a trip to Williams Lake to help put up an art show. I was certainly aware that fall had crept in and turned leaves from green to autumn colours but it was a drive to Williams Lake in particular that revealed to me the exceptional fall colours. Normally Aspens sport their yellow and grasses glow with colours from brass to platinum but this year the whole presentation has gone overboard. Perhaps it was the long dry summer or some other influence, but I have never seen colour variations on poplar trees as I have this fall. Some verged on red others are decidedly orange. All this, added to the usual yellow, made the scenery absolutely breathtaking. ‘Breathtaking’ is an overused word and possibly doesn’t describe most experiences accurately, but I found at times that the spectacle before me actually caused a gripping in my body, as if my memory wanted to grab and hold what was before it. Being predominantly a landscape painter, this sensation isn’t cause for alarm, more a cause for getting out the brushes and paint. I drove past Lac La Hache as the morning mist rose off the west end of the lake. Icy blue puffs of vapour ascended over the close-cropped sloping hillsides. Cattle appeared as phantoms through the fog, sunbursts cut through the haze highlighting Canada Geese sprinkled lightly and feeding in the grass. Black Cottonwood trees, always the traditionalists, sported their golden leaves, which glowed even in the mist all down the San Jose Creek as it wound down through the cleft at lake’s end. I cursed because I forgot to bring my camera. Later though, my eyes full of incredible vistas, I knew there was no way I would have enjoyed the visual banquet that was spread along this 50 mile stretch of highway if I was trying to capture even a portion of it on film. It was just too much. Every turn revealed a different postcard. Remnants of rail fences appeared out of copses of trees, tumbling down or still standing like tents, their burnished lengths embracing yet another splendid scene. Lichen-skinned boulders raised their heads near Knife Creek inviting any passing Short-eared Owl to take a seat. Little ponds, hard ultramarine blue under the intense Cerulean sky, laughed with sun sparkles. Golden trees that couldn’t quite make it to the roadside, stood shoulder to shoulder around the back of tossed, choppy fields. Erosion clefts hid glowing clumps of Saskatoon and bruised-purple wild rose shrubs that lurched out at the eye without warning. The sky was an absolute blue on my return trip and the cottonwood trees looked solid as sculptures, like golden coral clumps, as someone remarked. A little log shanty in a field reminded me that I was driving the gold rush trail and on this day there was certainly gold to be found in the Cariboo. To e-mail Tom CLICK HERE To look at previous column CLICK HERE |
