For me, September has always been about going to back to school. I haven’t started a school year since my last year of veterinary school in 1991, but I get the same thrill of new adventure every fall hearing everyone else’s experiences. This would be the “University” hike. I arrived late to Kim’s house (yes me…) making the timing perfect to drop her Grade 11 daughter Charlotte to McMaster University on our way to Niagara. She was participating in a high school program there and we drove through campus amidst the rush of student pedestrians on their way to class. Kim’s oldest daughter, Brooke, had just started her first year at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. Kim and her husband Brett had both attended Queen’s. I was so interested to hear how Brooke was doing. Brooke was the same age as Isabel, they had been quite close, and I couldn’t stop wondering where Isabel would have been starting school if she had still been here. After someone dies you can easily imagine what their next move would have been, but as time passes that becomes less clear. There could have been so many forks in their road.

The talk of universities and what all of Brooke’s and Isabel’s friends were doing crept into our hike throughout the day. I was eager to hear it all yet I never dwelled on missing this piece of Isabel. Similarly Kim did not mention that it must be bothering her terribly that Brett didn’t get to see his oldest daughter head off to their Alma Mater.  This is the beauty of these hikes – we walk forward, and for much of it, we talk forward.

Today’s hike started where we left off in June on the east side of the Welland Canal. That is a lift bridge in the background that allows passage of large ships travelling the canal under Glendale Ave.

In 2012 Johnny and I had taken the Seafox VI through the Welland Canal to Lake Erie. That was a great adventure that I chronicled in my Seafox Journeys blog that can still be found online. It was fun to reminisce and see a small section on foot.

From the Glendale bridge we could see Locks 4, 5 and 6. They are twinned and contiguous meaning ships move through the locks in both directions simultaneously and they move from one lock directly into the next one. Looking at these massive gates I remembered how small our trawler – a substantial 40 feet long – felt moving into these chambers which are 80 feet wide and almost 800 feet long. What hadn’t occurred to me until today was that these locks are carrying ships over the Niagara Escarpment – the very reason for the Bruce Trail and our hikes.  It is a massive engineering feat, but a better alternative than Niagara Falls which tumbles 51m over the Escarpment Edge!

From the west side of the canal we viewed Lock 7 which provides the final boost over the top of the Escarpment.

We headed west from the canal towards St. Catherine’s. In this small woods we came across numerous puff balls, large edible fungi that grow in the woodlands this time of year.

Then along the trail we crossed a bridge over this old canal structure. It was unmarked, but based on location and construction I figured out later that it is a remnant of the second Welland Canal built between 1842 and 1853.

St. Catherine’s, a city of 135,000, straddles the Escarpment so we could not avoid it. We came across more second canal remnants behind The Keg and followed the trail right through an Esso station. Look at the trail blazes on the light pole!

We headed back into the wooded escarpment. These pictures make me smile as we both seem to need our hands to talk. And since we chat the entire way, these hikes are a full body workout!

This for information nerds like myself….

A large portion of the hike crossed through the campus of Brock University. By this time we had discussed all of Brooke and Isabel’s peers and what schools they were attending. None of them were coming here, but that September feeling was in the air! What a beautiful campus – these students can study and hike along the Bruce Trail every day.

There is a spot on campus where you can stand at the Escarpment edge and look out over the Niagara Region and Lake Ontario all the way to the Toronto skyline across the lake. My iPhone camera didn’t pick it up, but the CN tower was in our view that day.

It was a very windy day and as we continued through the Brock campus portion of the trail there was a massive cracking sound and we turned to see a large tree fall to where it became suspended by its neighbours. It reminded me of the old saying “if a tree falls in the woods and nobody is there does it make a sound?”. Well it sure does!! It also reminded us of the danger of walking in the woods on a windy day!

The day was not only windy but also very hot. Over 10km in the dogs were in great need of a cool down. We knew that there was a clean lake at the end where we had a parked car, but as we crossed over another lovely Bruce Trail bridge Jack took matters into his own hands and slipped into the black swampy water. See if you can spot him!

A cleaner canine cool down…

Our hike ended 11.6km further along the trail from where we started. We were hot but happy – lots of ground had been covered. The quiet thoughts I had been having about Isabel and what our lives would look like now if she were in university were said out loud, and caught by a compassionate ear. Somehow grief loses its power when it is shared. We gain power through the love and sharing of friendship. And it’s fun – that’s the part that really keeps us going. Only 864km to go…