The Thing About the Mill - June 19, 2010 - Niagara

Today we met the docents of the Morningstar Mill. There was some discussion as to whether we could park at the actual mill parking lot in order to hike. Apparently through-hikers do not, as a rule, tour the mill. It was clear that the interests of the mill and that of the hikers were at odds with each other.

We promised the advent of 6 children and parked the cars. A few hours later, after a discussion with a man on a bicycle at DeCew House, we came filing out of the woods with the promised gaggle of kiddies. We were over the tour like water on a wheel.

DeCew House proved to be a revelation. The man on the bike knew his history. We basked it in awhile, at the house ruins, imagining the sound of white canvas flapping on the lawns. DeCew House was the end-point of Laura Secord's journey to warn the Gen. Fitzgibbons about an American advance. The warning proved instrumental in helping win the battle of  Beaver Dams for the British. Interestingly, when I was in school learning my 1812 history Laura was sort of glossed over No one wanted to say even how old she had been which was frustrating to a girl looking for historical heroines. One had the sense that we were better off just to eat chocolate and not ask awkward questions. There were jokes made about the cow.

In actual fact, Larua was the mother of 6 children when she made her march. She went because her husband could not. She had already covered herself in glory by going and dragging his wounded body of the field at Queenston heights, probably then providing nursing that saved his life. He was still lame. She had to do it. She was 38 years old. The journey was 28kms long and to avoid American sentries she snuck through the swamps. There was no cow. There was a sister in the initial stages but the sister broke a nail and had to turn back. Laura was made of sterner stuff.

Local opinion concerning the Battle of Beaver Dams (June 24, 1913) was as follows: The Caughnawaga (natives) got the victory, the Mohawks got the plunder and Fitzgibbons got the credit." Lara was not mentioned. In fact, she was 85 years old before anyone admitted that she had saved the day.

Some of this we looked up when we got home, much of it was imparted by the man on the bike. This is one of those points where history really informs on human behaviour, where the people in charge get to set the tone. Lara was 85 years old before she got a grudging letter of thanks from the government. In 1982, in history class in the Hamilton-Wentworth school system, her role was still shrouded in chocolate.

Down at the mill the docents were mollified. We all looked at the machinery. We heard about the shipping of the millstones, being of a rock the escarpment does not provide, they came from France. We heard about a very modern ghost, that of an elderly man who went into a cave behind the falls in the 1990's and died there of a heart attack. All this we did and then we left a freewill donation as thanks. We draped ourselves over a picnic table and had lunch.

Why would one want to seperate the walking from the touring in Niagara? True, the land is older than the history that played out here but the history is vibrant. To a certain extent it was shaped by the land. Keys turned here that were vital to Canada's survival as a country. Brock made his plans. Laura Secord made her journey. Merritt powered his empire. A man went into a tunnel in a cliff and emerged as a ghost.

One aspect of the trail enriches the other, much like overlays on a composite map. The peninsula stitches itself onto the people who inhabit it and vice versa. There is push and there is shove. Each shapes the other.

Once I took a relative to Point Pele. She is from Poland and at the time was not much older than I am now. I was in my early 20's. The two of us walked a trail that pointed out how the farmland, which had been carefully tended by one family for generations, was being reclaimed by nature.

"Is it not wonderful?" I enthused.
She was thoughtful, as was her reply, "All that man's work is being undone," and her tone spoke of a sorrow in that fact.

Later I went to live in the urban landscape of Warsaw, where I  saw city married to greenspace, and I understood what she had been saying.In some cases it need not be a matter of nature battling mankind. Synergy can be attained. Symbiosis is a viable model. In fact, given the fate of most parasites, it is even desirable.

On the same day that we toured the mill, the trail took is to Short Hills Provincial Park. Here farmland abuts what was almost certainly also farmland and is now Crown land. The write-ups for Short Hills emphasize geology. They have nothing to say about cultural heritage. The use to which the land was put back in 1812 is not mentioned.

Do we do the land, or ourselves, a service in erasing the humans from its story?

There is a reason why the docents of Morningstar Mill are so protective. When the bottom fell out of the milling industrythe place fell to ruin. It decayed as elegantly as possible and at the 11th hour was noticed by a number of retired professionals on the cusp of Terminal Boredom. Thus was the mill lovingly restored, plank by plank, nail by nail, gear mechanism by gear mechanism.

Much passion went into the work. The end product is outstanding, as is the knowledge base of the people conducting The Tour. There is nothing superficial about Morningstar Mill. She's all dressed up and looking for love.

Yet, if we go by the reaction of the of the docent to our trespass on the parking lot it would seem that little attention is paid to the place by through-hikers. The hikers and the docents are on different pages of a linked story but neither is reading the entire text. In fact, the Bruce Trail guide accurately describes the trail but has very little to say about the history. Me, I would change that.

We, as a species, do not love things that are alien. Each hiker will inevitably build a private relationship with the trail. However, it is through shared stories and experiences that things endure. If the story of the mill can not catch the passion of the up and coming generation of the Terminally Bored then it will again fall to ruin. If the trail can not capture public pride, then it too must fade. It seems to me that the two causes, linked, provide a more compelling argument for preservation than one standing alone.

Thus does a natural wonder gain a human face and become familiar. We do not love that which is alien but we do love a good story. The escarpment, as it happens, is full of stories. Linked, kilometer by kilometer, just as the trail guide is linked, they prove to be wonderful indeed, worth knowing and worth keeping.