Nature is elusive. And with regards to the environment, ignorance is not bliss; it can be dangerous.
Although I grew up in Canada's banana belt, I never realized it had once belonged to the country's richest and most diverse ecosystem. Although from an early age I related deeply to nature, I didn't realize until adulthood how deeply scarred my surroundings were.
Exotic paradise
I attended Harrow District High School, the most southerly secondary school in Canada. I lived several kilometres (about two miles) further south, on the north shore of Lake Erie, surrounded by a small golf course, bountiful gardens and lush wood lots. At 42 Degress North, I shared the longitude of Rome, Italy, and California's northern boundary.The beach road was aptly named Poplar Bluff for the shining stands of silver poplars (Populus alba) that lined the bank above the beach. The neighbouring children and I built networks of tree forts through a place we called The Jungle, an acre or so of trees-of-heaven (Ailanthus altissima) and heavy, twisted Manitoba maples (Acer negundo). Nature around my home seemed bountiful. Not until many years later did I realize most of these tree species are exotic (introduced from other parts of the world) and none are characteristic of the rich forest that once covered southwestern Ontario.
Rich heritage
A narrow strip of the province, bounded on the north by a line from Toronto to the southern end of Lake Huron, is classified as Carolinian Canada. It is so named because it is part of the rich temperate deciduous forest that ranges south through the American Ozark Mountains as far south as the Carolinas. It has the greatest species diversity of any ecosystem in Canada.Unfortunately, it is also the country's most densely populated region. Its fertile soil and mild climate have given rural areas a top value in agriculture. Only an estimated three per cent of original habitat remain in a few scattered tracts of woodland.
Carolinian trees
I first learned about Carolinian Canada in 1985 while working as a summer research assistant in plant ecology at University of Guelph. I spent four months helping conduct a survey of plant species in several tracts of woods near the town of Simcoe, managed by the Grand River Conservation Authority. They contained trees I had only ever read about until that time: sassafras (Sassafras albidum), tulip tree (Liriodendron tulipifera), hophornbeam (Ostrya virginiana), black walnut (Juglans nigra) and shagbark hickory (Carya ovata). Other nearby tracts contained wild crabapple
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