Bon Echo

Near the turn of the century, a woman named Flora McDonald Dennison bought a wilderness property and a retreat lodge from a doctor, and turned her newly acquired paradise into a retreat for Canada's nascent artistic community, which included the "group of seven" who, inspired by Tom Tompson, would essentially invent Canada's distinct style of northern artwork.

Directly across from her lodge was a mile long cliff that justs up from the deep floor of Lake Mazinaw. The cliff was a creation of plate tektonics, and was covered in native pictographs - the highest concentration of them anywhere. Very fond of the American poet Walt Whitman, she named one of the rock faces of the Mazinaw cliffs "Old Walt", and carved a huge inscription into it, dedicating the rock to " the democratic ideals" of Walt Whitman, and quoted one of his poems.

We arrived at the park without my brother in law, who had headed home because he had to work the next day. (He lives only forty five minutes away from Bon Echo, so we hoped he would visit us after work.) Lake Mazinaw is the deepest lake in Ontario outside of the great lakes, nearly five hundred feet deep. So naturally I had to swim there. At the beach by the old lodge (which burnt down in the thirties and was replaced by a stand of red pine), I took my daughter out from the edge of the beach, riding on my back, and said, "Go under water, and look down!"

"AAAH!!" She said, peering into the complete blackness.

I also went kayaking, as did my niece and daughter. The water was quite rough, especially in the channel between upper and lower Mazinaw. Mindful of Tom Tompson's grim end, I was a bit nervous, but I kayaked over to the face of Old Walt, and saw the big inscription for myself.

The next day, we took the boat tour, and saw the pictographs, which I had not been able to find... and we saw Nanabush, or "trickster" as he is sometimes known, a shapeshifting spirit reputed to be sent to test people. My niece's baby girl had a Nanabush doll, which she vigorously chewed on the whole time we were there. I'd say it was Nanabush being tested, personally.