to know the land

It’s that time of year again, when the animals are getting out and getting down. While driving home the other day I drove past a forest where I had once trailed a part of courting Coyotes ( Canis latrans ) and realized that now is the time we will be seeing these courting behaviours. I had written about them before, but it was worth revisiting as it will likely be coming up on the land, and in my...

We had just crossed over from the thick White Cedar forest into a little more spacious deciduous forest, when, in a very unassuming tone, a friend called us over to check out some tracks. I don’t know if he realized at first how cool the trail he had just found was, but as we stepped off of the path and looked down at the tracks everyone leaned in a little closer, and our voices started to ring wi...

s we get ready for the longest night of the year, it’s also a time to celebrate traditions and set our sights for the new year with the rebirth of the Sun. Making radio for me also holds traditions embedded within the episodes. Every Solstice I dig into the archives and pull out a rebroadcast which was originally aired December 21st, 1985 at 10:30pm on the BBC. And now, for the 6th year in a row,...

You know when there is someone kicking around the party whom you recognize, maybe even say hello to, but you just don’t know that well? Or perhaps you two have been acquainted for a while but something comes up and that gets you talking a little more intimately? I feel like that with Turkey Tail ( Trametes versicolor). I wanted to try my hand at foraging and creating some medicine, but really I ne...

If you didn’t know already, I work at an outdoor school doing place-based, or nature-based education. Through this work I have come to know many people who have challenged and supported me to grow and to learn more about the complex relationships that exist within this field of work. How do we aim to teach about a land which has been occupied through theft, displacement, war, and genocide? How can...

My room, my house, my bags are all full of books, twigs, fruits, feathers, seeds, nuts, and bits of mushrooms this time of year. So too my stomach, my dreams, and my heart. My bedroom is littered with naturalist books and books of fairy tales and myths which I pull out and read before I turn out the light. I love the folk tales because if you read them in the right light, they share stories of rel...

Every big mast year for Black Walnuts ( Juglans nigra ) I like to harvest a ton of them and then process them for both the husks and the nutmeat inside. While the nutmeats are very troublesome to access it is getting easier as I learn which tools are better than others, and the food value is totally worth it. As for the husks, it’s pretty easy to rip or cut them off of the nut. This year, as in pr...

A week ago, I got to join the Field Botanists of Ontario on a field trip to the Dufferin County Forest Main Tract site for a mushroom I.D. walk. We saw all sorts of different mushrooms and had a ton of fun. Scattered in the back of the Main tract there are many American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) trees. Some tall, some small, but they are there amidst the Red Oaks (Quercus rubra) and Sugar Maples...

Lichens been a draw for me for the last few years. When it comes to a diversity of lifeforms coming together in a fungal structure to draw down nutrients from the atmosphere, to beautify a landscape, to feed some of the largest land mammals down to sheltering some of the smallest arthropods, I’m hooked. For many of us, the problem has been where to start, how to get into the lichens, how to identi...

Last Thursday a call came over the radio at work. “I just want to let everyone know that there are two Walking Sticks mating on the tent”. I can’t really remember what I was doing with the students at the time, but we all dropped everything and made our way, some faster than others. I had seen a couple of Walking Sticks over the Summer, but realized, while jogging through the forest on my way to s...

Animal Forms is a project is all about empathy, about remembering how to be in connection with the other-than-human world. As Miki asks, “aims to explore how we (humans) can imagine ourselves in the place of the other people we share our planet with. How might our thoughts and actions change if we practiced seeing the world through another's eyes?” Miki Tamblyn has created a project where folk...

In some circles, reciprocate is the new “sustainable”, a hot word which implies a lot but isn’t always doing what we might imagine. But how can we try to actually live up to, and create the reciprocity, the giving back and forth, to that and those who give us so much? For me, Moth Garden feels like a project trying to demonstrate reciprocity in a real, tangible, replicable ways. Christina Kingsbur...

A couple of days after my recent interview discussing Mulberries with Matt Soltys , the Arboretum at the University of Guelph shared a couple of posts on instagram about the Red Mulberry Recovery Program where researchers are looking into how to identify, propagate, and eventually distribute Red Mulberries ( Morus rubra ) to their partners (mostly conservation organizations). They are also trying...

I have had a long curiosity regarding Water Hemlock ( Cicuta maculata ) ever since I had heard of them. Perhaps the most toxic plant on Turtle Island/North America. Of course I would be enamoured! I misidentified them for a couple of years thinking I knew who they were, but it wasn’t until the past four or five years that I began taking a closer look, seeking them out, learning the lore, and readi...

The Serviceberry ( Amelanchier spp. ) is a widely distributed edible fruit tree which fills my heart as much as my belly. It’s just sweet enough, with berries just big enough, just in reach to make me so happy to come across. Sometimes we happen upon them wandering through the woods, sometimes we go visit our favourite individuals, sometimes we make detailed extensive maps of every tree the city h...

Mulberries are a well known and popular wild urban edible that a lot of foragers come to know early in the development of the craft. They are easily identifiable, taste great, and prolific in urban and peri-urban environments which means lots of people can get to know them. Not only are there an abundant of Mulberry trees out there, each fruit producing tree makes buckets of fruit that litter the...

In the previous post I mentioned that I had been watching a specific Chokecherry ( Prunus virginiana , or the Anishnaabemowin name asasawemin ) looking at Eastern Tent Caterpillar ( Malacosoma americanum ) egg masses and how the caterpillars had emerged. I ended up taking a closer look at the Chokecherry in the days following as my interest had been piqued. Chokecherry is a role model. How can we...

The car broke down on our way to visit my mum. My brother and I got out of the car, and while he researched how to change the alternator, I went behind the vacant garage where we parked the inoperable vehicle. When I explored to the far back of the lot I was grateful to find a small wetland, thriving with tons of species. Trees, tall and low shrubs, and understory thick with both native and non-na...

Lately a lot of folks I know have been finding Morels ( Morchella spp. ) in and around the city where I live. Possibly one of the most prized edible fungi on the planet, everyone seems very excited to bring them home and cook them into an ephemeral dish. If I find a bunch I may do the same, but until then I wanted to look into this amazing fruiting body a little bit more. It wasn’t long ago that I...

I was out with a couple of friends the evening before. We’d been thoroughly engaged listening to the painfully loud calls of the Spring Peepers ( Pseudacris crucifer ) when I pointed out an Eastern Meadowlark ( Sturnella magna ) call to one of my pals. He pulled out his phone and got on the Merlin App to try and id the call a little better. Lo and behold, on the list of birds included in his immed...

Cardinals, Blue Jays, Robins, Mourning Doves, Mallards, Black-capped Chickadees. Quite common and familiar birds most folks seem to know. One of the reasons is that they have very distinct patterning and physical traits that render them easily identifiable. Even some of the Sparrows can be differentiated by a slightly advanced beginner. Flycatchers? They can be tough. When I see a Yellow-bellied F...

Red-tailed Hawks ( Buteo jamaicensis ) are always exciting to see. However ubiquitous or plentiful they may be on the land, it is always a gift to observe them circling and soaring overhead. I have been noting their behaviours for a few years now, trying to catch a glimpse whenever I can. A couple of years ago I watched a pair eager to find out if they were nesting in the valley I walk or ride on...

When you want to get to know someone, you listen to the stories they have to share. We might ask some questions once in a while, but mostly we watch and listen and that’s how we learn more about who they are and how they exist in the world. We might go visit them in their spaces and ask more questions, like why do they hang out in a particular space more than another? Slowly we start to build a de...

Recently while tracking a Fisher ( Pekania pennanti ) in Algonquin Park we encountered a large galloping trail that had a long stride length of 106 cm (41¾ in). This was about 28 cm (10 in) longer than what is recorded in Mark Elbroch's “Mammal Tracks and Sign” (Stackpole, 2019). When I finished measuring, I was discussing this extraordinarily long stride with some colleagues. They told me about a...

Over and over on this podcast (and through the blog) I have spoken to the need to be outdoors and the value for us emotionally, physically, spiritually and socially in participating with the wider wilder world around us. But when these opportunities are interrupted by white-supremacist narratives on who belongs outdoors, the BIPOC Outdoor Gear Library steps up and reminds us that everyone belongs...