The Niagara Escarpment: A Portfolio

Hans B. Neumann is a history lecturer at Scarborough College, University
of Toronto.

How do the Keoughs do it? Putting together three benchmark publications
within four years is surely no easy task. Indeed, they have supassed
themselves in their latest portfolio-sized book, dedicated to the
Niagara Escarpment from Niagara Falls to Manitoulin Island. They
continue their pioneering approach to dealing with distinct geographic
features or regions—an approach that features top-of-the-line color
photography combined with demanding, highly educational text that
stresses conservation and ecology. This book will serve as a vivid
inspiration to nature photographers, conservationists, and aspiring
hikers of the Bruce Trail along the Escarpment.

The subject is well served by the thoughtful, informative introduction
by wildlife artist, environmentalist, and friend of the Keoughs, Robert
Bateman; he relates some of his experiences while serving 11 years on
the Niagara Escarpment Commission and discusses the eventual
establishment (and the problems) of the Bruce Trail.

The book’s first section treats, in brief chapters, the region’s
geology and its settlement from first peoples to the present. The main
part of the latter section covers European settlement. The text is
accompanied by almost 50 pages of often-rare historical photographs
illustrating the area’s development. An extremely useful feature of
this first section is an excellent map of the Escarpment. The map serves
not only as a fine anchor for the text, but also to help the reader
place many of the following section’s photographs.

The remainder of the book contains what must be the most stunning
collection of color photographs of the Escarpment region yet published.
Virtually all the plates sparkle in rich, saturated colors, in
crystal-sharp, well-composed focus, and with totally professional depth
of field. Whether depicting wildflowers, wildlife, or landscape, each
plate reflects the same loving attention from the superb photographic
eye of the photographers/authors. Almost any of the photographs would be
the envy of serious camera buffs.

But even in this splendid cornucopia, some stand out. Plate 7, an
elusive Northern goshawk, must surely rank as one of the most
outstanding ornithological portraits of recent times. Equally stunning
is plate 131, taken on Flowerpot Island: what composition; and what
patience must have been needed to highlight the seagull! Others are
didactic. After looking at plate 58, no explorer of Ontario’s
woodlands could fail to recognize that spoiler of summer hikes, poison
ivy.

The photographs are paralleled at intervals by extensive and informed
comments by the authors. An excellent aid to the prospective
visitor/photographer of the Escarpment is the seasonal and place
identification of each picture.

This fragile area of rare wildflowers (such as native orchids), rare
reptiles, and often hauntingly beautiful scenery (which reaches its
apogee on the eastern shores of the Bruce Peninsula, as naturalist John
Muir noted in the 1860s) has received a sensitive and vivid tribute.
That book deserves to be on every Canadian’s bookshelf, to be enjoyed
and learned from time and time again.