Quetico: Near to Nature's Heart

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

From its formation when the Laurentide glacier retreated at the end of the ice age to the provision of homemade root beer to canoe trippers, the various parts that make up Quetico coalesce under Nelson’s scrutiny.

Quetico, a huge wilderness park in northwestern Ontario, is more than the sum of its parts, but it is the intriguing detail tucked into the essays on those parts that give this substantial work its strength.

The geology of the park receives considerable attention, with an account of how landscape features owe their existence to the glaciers and how pollen analysis is being used to track post-glacier changes in vegetation. It is, Nelson says, “a land expressed in stone.”

Rocks, lakes, trees, animals, orchids, lichen, fungus—even ravens and moose antlers—are part of the park’s story. As is the human element. Aboriginal peoples inhabited the park for at least 12,000 years. Today the Anishinabe in the area struggle to preserve that heritage through input into park management policy. Again, the rocks speak. Pictographs located throughout the park are viewed as prayers, a means of connecting people to the spirit world. Part of this discussion is the story of how First Nations elders view archaeological research.

A section of the work is devoted to essays on special areas within Quetico, such as an ancient portage, an area of old-growth pines, a campsite that was used 12 centuries ago, and a deposit of volcanic siltstone used by Paleo-Indians to make knives and other tools. Nelson also includes the history of the struggle to keep Quetico a “primitive” wilderness park, from its designation in 1909, through the logging era, to today’s strictly enforced rules of wilderness camping. The impact of global warming and environmental change on tree and animal species is part of the story.

Although the writing style is uninspiring, the information is solid, the details and anecdotes are intriguing, and there’s a generous number of quality colour photos. A biography and index add to its value to anyone interested in our natural heritage.