national historic sites

An Historic Summer Holiday
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An Historic Summer Holiday

Hail Brave Hearts

The memories of summer holidays filled with fun and sun, swimming and boating and  our great escape to the Canadian wild.  This is the life!  So full of warm summer waters and warm summer sun.  A life of frolicking on beaches, camping and cottages.  The great Canadian summer holiday.  A life style to fulfill.  There’s no life like it.

Grab your canoes and head to the water.  The footsteps of travellers in the past, mark routes of undeniable beauty.  Maps and compasses, campgrounds and hotels.  The small town oasis of civilization along a path of well travelled waterway.  The iconic Canadian water transportation routes of waterway highway.  A path of rivers and lakes joining one part of Canada to another.  The rivers, waterfalls, rapids and portages.  Pack you bags, fill your canoes,  join in the adventure of Canadian travel that has marked our history with holidays from coast to coast.

The Historic Trent/Severn Canal System.  Glorious!

Trent-Severn Waterway National Historic Site (canada.ca)

Grateful are we to have this grand opportunity to visit this historic waterway, in historic voyageur canoes.  A fun and fabulous holiday in the middle of the summer.  A canoe brigade.  The fortunate few who participated in this endeavour, which leads from Georgian Bay to  Lake Ontario.  following rivers, locks, canals and lakes.  A historic waterway of magnificent scenery, birds and wildlife, lily pads and rushes.  And the locks.

Up and down, up and down, it’s the easiest paddling ever! And the locks are a marvel of engineering.  Different styles of lifts picking us up the rapids and waterfalls to a new level of water.  Spectacular!

The Severn River to Lake Couchiching, to Simcoe, the Trent Canal to Balsam, Cameron and Kawartha Lakes, Otonabee River, the Trent River and on to Lake Ontario.    It’s an historic route for an historic paddling group, or for anyone with a boat and a licence to pursue this holiday adventure.

Canadian Voyageur Brigade Society | coordinate and support big canoe brigades

This 386 km of historic waterway was first started in 1833 and completed in 1922 with 45 locks connecting Georgian Bay to Lake Ontario.  This  ambitious idea was appointed by  Sir John Colborne of the the inland Water  Commision who constructed the first lock at Bobcaygeon.  Now a National Historic Site, this waterway is a path of boating delight.  In it’s early history, the canal was hoped to be a passage for steamships plying these waters with trade, but the canal had several setbacks, which delayed it’s progress.  By the time it was finished, the steamboats were too large for the locks.  Now this historic canal is used by thousands of tourists in pleasure craft from May to October each year.

The iconic canoe, a favourite of many family outings and wilderness adventure, is part of Canada’s  historic lifeline to survival.  The canoe has been with us for centuries, as a transportation vessel and a pleasure craft.  From it’s aboriginal routes to the fur trade, to modern day vehicle, the canoe has been a valuable and necessary part of Canada’s wilderness history  With this in the past and so much enjoyment today, the canoe is a classic pleasure craft.

 

written by Dr Louise Hayes

October 21, 2023

Settlers in the West
by

Settlers in the West

Hail Bravehearts

Come out of your houses, come out to play, search for your destiny, fill it this way.  Joy for our lives, filled with our passions, educate yourself in many ways, don’t settle for small rations. Here in the mountains was a new way of life, carved from the environment, full of love  and strife.  Back in the day, when the nation was growing, came a homesteading family with a history, worth knowing.  Migrate to the mountains, fill up this land, settle this area, prosperity is at hand.  Work and strive, build your home, grow where the deer and the caribou roam.  Mighty are we,we own this land, wrought from the skills and tools of our hands.  Building a house and shed for our needs, makes us the Moberly’s and we are Metis.

Look at this beauty, this fabulous land, nature has given us her golden hand.  Flowers and scenery, game galore, all right outside our open front door.  A fabulous view, so much desired, we planned to pass this along to our descendants to admire.  In the heart of Jasper, a national park, lies the trail to our cabin, in a meadow that’s marked.  Come to our land, follow the trail, to a Canadian adventure in homesteading tale.  Brilliant flowers now nod their heads,where a family with children once softly tread.

Ancient are we, in a land we admire, full of perils and hardship and landscape that’s dire.  Mountains and crevices, rock falls and forest, fill our lives with the wild lands of birds chorus.  Settle these lands, farming, hunting and fishing, trading with explores is how we make our living. Earning our right to clear the land, is how we survived and thrived with our band.  A family are we, brothers and wives, making a living with strong family ties.

http://www.mountainmetis.com/pages/henry_john_moberly.html

The west was being opened with adventure and more as the trading posts flourished throughout our world.  Settle the nation, fill your hearts, with the bountiful prosperity that  trading starts.  A nation rich, with people so smart, that they discovered routes to join us together, not keep us apart.  From coast to coast a path was laid, and along the way, some homesteaders stayed.  Explore this world, discover this land, a nation is forming with peace at hand.

Markets and trade, influence our lives, building a homestead where families can thrive.  Open these routes, help find the path, the adventure is growing, it will stay and it lasts.  The west is fought for, it belongs to us, brilliant and daring, the exploration is a must.  Join the coasts, find a way, for this land to become a nation one day.

A place in history, is only a name, but cabins in the wilderness, is this families fame.  Interesting and ancient, when all went well, meeting travelers and explorers, is the story they tell.  Building connections, building ties, enter the landscape where this family once thrived.

Now a national park, intensely protected,whose worth to the world was UNESO`s projection. Visit us here in this world famous place, the mountains and wilderness of Canada`s grace.

Jasper National Park.

written by Dr. Louise Hayes

July 13, 2017

The Unconquered Land
by

The Unconquered Land

Good Day all of You.  Welcome to National Preservation month.

This month we celebrate the great nation that we are.  This is a nation of prosperity, of grandeur, of negotiation, of peace!  Look around yourselves!  This great land given to us by the Almighty!  This land, this great peace!  A nation founded on Love, adventure, compassion, sharing and caring. This land, in the immense universe.  This land on planet Earth.

The early explorers encountered a land of diversity.  Fabulous creation by the great planet!  A wealth of discovery to explore.  This land, cast by the hand of the Almighty.  Fabulous country.  Awesome mankind.  Who are we, but the daring adventurer.  The uncharted wilderness was only a dare, courageous human, to explore.  Courageous human to share.  Life everlasting.  No  mortal perish. One great nation, one unified force.  For preservation, for  humanity, the moral, courageous spirit of man.  Hail Braveheart.  Your bravery conquers all.

Here, the parklands preserve and protect, the immense uncharted wilderness.  Here, the indomitable predator saves that wilderness space.  It’s need to survive demands the compliance of the spirit of the moral man, who listens to the song of the planet.  Sing!  Awesome planet!  Sing the song of your brilliant inspiration.  Sing the song of life, liberty, freedom!  Sing from your heart, your mind and sing from your soul!  The fabulous great Earth sings from the being of its creatures.  It sings with the wind, the howls of wolves, the song of the loon, the hoot of the owls and the buzzing of bees.  The Earth sings and it sings with glory!  Almighty mankind sing the praises of this great planet.  Sing with the Earth.  Sing with the great Forest, the tumbling waters, the gentle breezes.  Sing with the giants of the planet as they play and dance in freedom.  Sing for another protected place, another surviving ecosystem an0ther warm and endearing heart, another day.

Mighty human, who encountered no adversity here, praises.  The guiding light that shone for you centuries ago, is still the guiding light of this nation.  No plunder here.  No war.  A nation at peace with its peoples.  A nation where it’s multicultural people experience that direct acceptance.  That direct kinship.  That direct connection to place.  visit:  www.pc.gc.ca/progs/lhn-nhs/index.aspx  for national historic sites

It is wilderness, full of the beauty of the creation of the Earth.  The birds fly in multitudes,  the mighty beasts fill the lands and the ocean brims with creatures aquatic.  This is the land that the Almighty gave us and this is the land we share.

Early man, who married the indigenous people and lived.  Clever human, to   share so wisely.  To care so deeply.  To love so unconditionally.  Clever human, to build this great land.  To protect.   To preserve.  Clever human, to save the forest so the earth can breathe, to save the watershed so that the earth can cleanse itself, to save the animals so that the earth can create another miracle of an ecosystem, a miracle of life, a miracle of love.  The gift of the Almighty, to the human, was the great planet Earth, with all of the magnificence that  the Earth can create.  Lucky human, to share such a tremendous creation as the great planet Earth.

The Earth sighs,  thank you, almighty human, for protecting all of my creation.  The needs of the planet are high.

Thank you almighty human for saving the great oceans and all of the aquatic life within.  Thank you great human, for the protected airways, the protected landscapes and the protected ecosystem.

I am the great planet Earth.  Your holy ways of peace and acceptance, great human, thrive with me and we live for another day.  I am the great planet Earth, awesome mankind.  Sing with me and we express our joy, dance with me and we move in harmony.  Share with me and we dine in abundance.  Drink the waters of my pure unpolluted waterways.  Heal with me and we rid the pain.  Listen to me, almighty human.  I am the great planet Earth.  All of my creation is for the joy, the love of my being.  Care for it, great human.

I am all that you have.

Your call to action:  share this post.  visit www.pc.gc.ca/progs/lhn-nhs/index.aspx for national historic sites.  Also visit http://www.savetheearth.org/  for updated information about the state of the planet.

Written by:   Louise Hayes

May 4, 2103