Senses of Place in Northern Ontario

The tempurature dipped down to 4 degrees last night and so as I sit outside on the front porch to catch some 10 am sunlight (a fine vintage) I can smell the burning cedar logs wafting from the fireplace next door. This is a smell I definitely associate with Northern Ontario. Situated where we are (quite a distance from town), I can hear the hummingbirds as they hover around the hedge that lines our steep driveway and the crickets that are seemingly ubiquitous throughout the long grass along the front of the property. I can hear these sounds over the dull roar of traffic and construction coming from Sudbury's center. It's either too cold or too early for boaters to be on the lake and so the peace is not yet disturbed. Since kids go back to school tomorrow I'm sure that there will be many water toys out on the water once the day warms up but for now, it is undisturbed. These are the sounds that I associate with my last two summers spent in Sudbury and the many summers I spent in Gravenhurst, a town south of here but north of the city where I grew up. As I type this message I can look out the window onto the lake which for at least this moment is like a cool black mirror. The colour of the pine trees are reflected into the water which appears green instead of the deep blue.

I wonder if this sense of peace, which I associate with the sights, sounds and smells of Sudbury and with northern areas of Canada, will be available in one of the most populated places in Europe? I think it is nostalgic and misrepresentative to equate all of Canada with any form of 'the great wide open' yet, there is a sense of peace and tranquility that I feel is particular to Canadian spaces, even in our busy cities (just walk down the streets of Toronto in the summertime at 3am, or on an early morning when the city's been hit by a fresh batch of snow, you can still find this calm). As I write this last comment, the first boat of the morning has just driven by and the waves have broken up the image of upside trees. Maybe this sense of place will yet be translatable...yes, I know, deep thoughts by Jack Hannah :)