Grebe Lodge Shout-Out

(A little poem written at a research station) Adventurous cottagers challenge blue waters They feel as homely as the gulls screaming ‘mine!’ With white sails they traverse the great blue horizon Expanses of Canadian beauty – a shrine. The waves they come crashing on limestone beaches, With crustacean fossils from eons ago, While people keep trodding and paying no mind, They step over history they’ll now never know. Oh Grebe Lodge, near an alvar, in Wingfield Basin, You host many minds intrigued by your treasures, Unsung insect heroes, the great tree-topped bluffs, And all in between, a naturalist’s pleasures! Still tourists fly great distances to seek beauty, Ontario: what a home we inhabit! Yet we plunder and pillage without reservation, How lucky we are, we don’t often deserve it. The shipwrecks that litter the Bay and its neighbours, They carry ghost sailors of centuries past, With mysteries untold amidst scattered cargo, The people, the vessels, are resting at last. The islands like flower pots and caves unexplored, Attracting spelunkers from far and from wide, The Sturgeon returning like fossils reviving, Miraculous homecoming brought in by the tide. How fortunate are we all on the Georgian Bay, Where the waters are freezing and get very deep, Just maybe, dear Nature if you would allow us, We might one day discover the secrets you keep. June 11, 2016