We came up to New Glasgow for Easter. As usual, it was an opportunity to catch up with the latest magazines. In Saltscapes, there is a photoessay by Scott Leslie, Migrant Songs of Spring.
”Every Spring we welcome back throngs of songbirds to the region’s forests, as neotropical migrants of every shape, size and colour lift our spirits with a serenade that grows a little quieter each passing year. By truly adopting in both spirit and practice ecologically sensitive sustainable forestry practices we can ensure that this wondrous natural event can continue indefinitely.” p.49.
In Canada’s History, Nancy Payne’s Dreams of Harmony describes the utopian Finnish community of Sointula on Malcolm Island. Malcolm Island is off the northeast coast of Vancouver Island.
“Even though it’s name means place of harmony in Finnish, life in Sointula had never been easy. Born of deeply held beliefs in equality, cooperation and hard work, the colony had for a few short years at the start of the twentieth century, offered a shining alternative to a world of exploitation and competition” p.36.
Canada’s History magazine used to be The Beaver. It is the history equivalent to Canadian Geographic.
Refreshed, I continued with my reading of Wendell Berry’s essays. From Preserving Wildness, p.151
”Looking at the monoculture of industrial civilization, we yearn with a kind of homesickness for humanness and the naturalness of a highly diversified, multipurpose landscape, democratically divided, with many margins. The margins are of utmost importance. They are the divisions between holdings, as well as between kinds of work and kinds of lands. These margins – lanes, streamsides, wooded fencerows, and the like – are always freeholds of wildness, where limits are set on human intention.” p.151.
Acknowledgements
John Stewart for his magazine subscriptions. Edward for his editorial graphics. Heather for her support.
References
Scott Leslie. Migrant Songs of Spring. Saltscapes. April/May 2021 Vol 22 No 2. p. 44-49.
Nancy Payne. Dreams of Harmony. Canada’s History. April/May 2021. p.36-43.
Wendell Berry. 1987. Home Economics. Preserving Wildness. p.137-151. North Point Press.
Ernest Blair Experiment 