FortWhyte Alive

Frost clings to the old burr oak bark in front of me, lending it a dull grizzled look against the bright blue above. The top of the tree pokes through the cool groundlevel fog and into the sunshine.

Cloaked in fog and pricked by frost, the tree looks anything but a source of stories. The hundred-year- old oak stands surrounded by snow, stark and bare, leafless and seemingly lifeless. However, this old oak has seen more life than I have in my thirty years, or hope to see should I live to one hundred. I am not a tree in a forest; my story is dull by comparison.

Today, with the hoar frost turning rich brown bark to silver-grey, the oak looks its age, but this noble tree is still a vibrant member of its forest community. Ask the junco, who has been contemplating me as I have contemplated the tree, and who now  its away intent on finding breakfast.

A squirrel digging in a root hollow at the base of the tree interrupts my meditation. Awake from a long winter nap, the squirrel digs some acorns out of a cache, looks at me accusingly and chitters in defense of her food. I stand my ground, undeterred.

A loud VIVIVIVIVEE! erupts from the other side of the oak trunk. I jump, and fall back into the snow. A nuthatch, with a calm demeanor contrasting my surprise, hops, upside down, around the oak trunk and watches me rearrange my snowshoes and dust off the snow. Each time I hear a nuthatch, I am surprised at how loud these birds are for their size.

While I was on my back, I saw what I thought was a squirrel nest—but now the nest is moving! It is in fact a porcupine, perhaps disturbed by my shout when I fell. Porcupines eat tree bark—the old oak providing both shelter and food. I recall another encounter with a porcupine, a few winters ago. Snowshoeing with fellow interpreters, we stopped to watch a porcupine. As it turned to watch us, it fell from the  fteen-metre high top of the tree into the snow, where it lay motionless. We held our collective breath and approached—had we killed the porcupine? A shivering shake which sent snow  ying gave us our answer; the porcupine might have had a bruised ego, but soon waddled away. Funny, this porcupine watched me fall, shake off the snow, and get up. I’d like to think it might be the same porcupine, and now we are even.

The brilliant blue of the sunrise sky is breaking the lifting fog more clearly now. Faint stirrings of a south wind shake the frost from the branches, and break my reverie.

How many trees are in this forest? How many stories like the oak’s are unfolding around me this morning? We humans are characters in the story; sometimes prime
movers and sometimes characters in the background. We are in a unique position to appreciate the whole story, and where we  fit in. May your snowshoes, like mine, be
a pair of reading glasses this winter.