A Christmas Walk "The Natural Thing" - Past Article

A favourite pastime of my wife and I during the Christmas holidays, provided there is snow on the ground, is to take a quiet walk down the forest road at our cottage located in Georgian Bay Township, and look at the myriad animal tracks various creatures have left behind in their travels. I can recall from some of these winter walk adventures the following story...

On several occasions, I had taken my four younger nephews (ages 6 to 11) on these adventure walks and although these forays hadn't exactly been peaceful and serene, a fantastic time was always had by all.

When a set of tracks were found they huddled around them, chatting excitedly and discussing the possibilities as to what mysterious animal might have made them.

The youngest one always came up with the most creative and entertaining hypothesis! I'm not sure who had more fun, them or me!

The big hit with everyone (adults included) are wolf tracks. When these are discovered, they create a stir unmatched by any other animal. My nephews have an insatiable curiosity when it comes to these animals, coupled with a mature understanding of their role in nature, which is considerably beyond their years. Of course this might have something to do with the fact that whenever they visited I was, and still am, deluged with questions about these creatures from the time they arrived to the time they left.  But regardless of whether we found wolf tracks or not, there were always plenty of other tracks to have fun looking at.

A few of the more common ones found in the area of our cottage are from snowshoe hare, red squirrel, red fox, coyote, porcupine, otter and last but not least, ruffled grouse.  Although these may be more common than the tracks from the larger predators, they still succeeded in producing some wide-eyed excitement for the kids and at the end of our adventure back at the cottage, everyone settled down to a cup of hot chocolate.

If you're wondering why I didn't mention deer tracks, it's because during the winter we don't have too many deer inhabiting our particular area. In fact I've seen more moose signs of different sorts, including their big hoof prints in the snow, than I have deer.

In any event, if you're looking for something fun to do over the Christmas holidays, why not take the kids or the whole family for a walk along a forest path and make a game out of trying to identify various animal tracks in the snow. Even if you don't find any, which is doubtful, chances are you'll all still have a good time.