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I had belonged to the local bonsai club for a number of years and had become known as somewhat of an expert in collecting bonsai stock from the wild. Canada has several tree species that are particularly well suited for bonsai. The Japanese and Chinese have got nothing on us in that department.
For several years I had been receiving coercion to lead a collecting expedition for the club. I hummed and hawed until finally I agreed to give a presentation to the club of what it's really about and to ask who is interested in going.
The presentation went smoothly of course. I explained what species were available, various collecting techniques and tools required. Then I stressed just how arduous a task it really is and just how far away one must travel to get to suitable collecting grounds. One can't simply travel an hour or two north of Toronto and traipse through someone's cottage property or farm field ripping up their trees. One has to travel into northern Ontario and find Crown Land from which collecting is, at least marginally, acceptable.
About a dozen people indicated that they were interested in coming along.
After the presentation I had to corner five of them and gently tell them -- you're too old, I appreciate your enthusiasm, but let's face it, you are not going to be jumping out of an aluminium boat onto slippery granite rock and scrambling, with rope sometimes, around the Canadian Shield. You're walking with a cane right now. It was painful to have to do it, but reality is reality.
Two women and six men agreed to go. I was still a little dubious if three out of the eight, two of the men and one woman, could handle it.
I started a series of emails to the eight. The time was set, second week in May. A day to drive up and a day to drive back and at least two, preferably three, days of collecting -- and hey -- bring some fishing gear too. We would stay at a hunting/fishing lodge and rent boats. I had my own.
On the third weekend in May, which has a holiday Monday (Victoria Day) after it, or as it's better known in Ontario, May Two-Four Weekend (two-four being a reference to a case of twenty-four beer), three things happen in northern Ontario. Number one, pickerel season opens, pickerel being the Canadian term for walleye, a popular game fish. Two, with the fishing season open the fishing/hunting camps have their busiest week with mainly American tourists. And three, and probably most importantly, the black-fly come out.
There are reasons why most of Canada is uninhabited. One of them is black-fly. They are only around for a month or two. Unprotected, you'll only last a minute or two before they attack. Black-fly is a plural term. There is no such thing as one black-fly. Unlike a mosquito that stabs you with a little tube, these tiny little devils cut you and lick your blood out leaving an anticoagulant that itches and hurts. They are attracted by your warmth and your breath. Their choice target is right behind your ears.
There are mosquitoes too, starting in January, but by comparison to black-fly, mosquitoes are tame.
The boreal forest sits atop the Canadian Shield which is a vast pre-Cambrian slab of mainly granite that has been ground down by successive ice-ages leaving an undulating topography broken by the western interior lowlands and the Rockies to the west. With the forest sitting on top, it is basically a massive sponge. Mosquitoes breed in stagnant water, black-fly in moving water, such as the spring run-off.
As I expected, as the expedition date approached, several people backed out. Thankfully they included the three I was skeptical about.
Then there were four going, plus myself. Then, three. Then two.
Then only one. Aya Arslan.
Frankly, I was pissed off. I passed up going pike fishing with my buddies in the second week in May so I could do this bonsai trip. It's during those fishing trips that I buzz off and do my little bonsai collecting as a sidebar. My fishing buds tolerate my kooky little self-indulgence.
Aya was always the most enthusiastic amongst the bunch of them, but there was no way her husband or significant other was going to let her go to some remote cabin with just me for a couple of days. And although I didn't know anything about her personal life, any woman that good looking and that vivacious was not going to be single or somehow not committed.
I phoned her up to break the bad news.
"You mean we're not going up?"
"Well it's just you and me. How's it going to look?"
"I don't give a damn how it looks," she said.
"So you're still okay with going?" I asked.
"Of course," she paused, "are you?"
"Yeah," I answered with I'm sure a little shock in my voice.
It was settled. We'd take my Ford F-150 pick-up truck and my fourteen foot Lund aluminium boat with 9.9 Hp Envinrude outboard motor up on the Thursday and come back on the following Monday. She was going to pre-make and freeze dinner for three nights plus pack whatever else she fancied. I'd bring steaks, potatoes and veggies for the first night. I'd bring booze -- plenty. On our way we would stop and pick-up whatever else we felt was required for breakfast and lunch.
"Is there anything that you don't eat?" she asked.
"Aside from brazil nuts, I'm good with everything."
"Great."
I was clear in my description of what she needed for clothing. In addition to the usual items, she needed to have: quality hiking boots, layers of clothing, rain-gear, boots for snow, hats, gloves, sunglasses, bathing suit, a one-piece nylon jumpsuit, preferably with Velcro sleeve fasteners and good quality thin, work gloves, a mesh anti-bug head net and a good pair of binoculars.
The reality was that during the second week in May I've seen the lakes still frozen and snow on the ground, only once albeit, or it can be eighty degrees Frankenheit. One has to be prepared. Up there, you are not ducking out to a corner store to pick up something that you've forgotten to pack.
Shining Tree, Ontario is seven and a half hours due north from Toronto. The town itself is a quanza hut general store/post office/liquor/beer store/gas station and a couple of small houses. That's it. There are hunting/fishing camps nearby. That is, miles down the gravel highway. There's no electricity down the highway. If you believe in sasquatch, that is sasquatch country.
Culturally, it's northern Ontario. Geographically, it's central Ontario. To get an idea of the vastness of this country...in the Province of Ontario, there is an
electoral
district that is the size of Poland. It takes pretty much the same time to drive from Toronto to the Manitoba border as it does to drive from Toronto to Florida.
Aya and I were off to Shining Tree. Bonsai hunting.
As arranged, I picked Aya up from her townhouse at 7:30 in the morning.
She was stunning in her tight blue jeans, short tan leather jacket and running shoes. As always Aya's thick black hair flowed like a jet black waterfall down her shoulders and back. Her brown eyes twinkled in the early morning light.
"Good morning Rob," she said with obvious glee in her voice as she packed her bags into the pick-up.
"Good morning Aya, can I help you with your bags?"
I didn't see anybody in her townhouse unit waving goodbye or saying have a great time as I picked up a large cooler from her front hall. She had one more large pack and her purse strapped over her arm as she locked the door to her townhouse.
"Let's go," she said smiling.
We stopped at the Tim Horton's drive-through and picked up two large coffees and some doughnuts and off we went through the morning rush hour traffic, heading the other way. Due north.
We talked about how I got into bonsai a number of years ago. I joined the club to learn more about it than just what I could glean from books. Then I just stayed. I'd always had a need to express myself artistically in some fashion. I love nature, I explained, trees and rocks.
"I guess I'm still playing with sticks and stones, just like when I was a kid," I said, "how about you?"
"I've always loved bonsai. Looking at them. I joined the club about a year ago to learn, just like you. And just like you I wanted to express myself. But I'm still learning." She paused to sip her coffee. "Living in a townhouse like I do, I'd love to have a big garden, I guess bonsai is one way to do it, to have a garden in miniature."
"I don't see bonsai as miniaturization per se. I mean on the face of it, it is. But I see it for exactly what it's supposed to be. A tree in a pot. End of story. To me it's more like a painting in a picture frame. Or a living sculpture, as some prefer to refer to it."
I reached for my coffee cup.
"You must have a lot, how long have you been doing it?"
"Oh gee," I paused trying to figure it out, "twelve, thirteen years now, maybe fourteen. And no I don't have a lot. I think I have eleven that I could honestly describe as a bonsai. But there are a few being raised in the ground that I'm working on. Most of the stuff that I had either died, or put it this way -- I killed them, or I've given away."
"By not watering them?"
"Sometimes, but it's usually because I've stressed them beyond what they could handle. I'm still learning."
We drove on for a minute.
