Original Highways by Roy MacGregor

Author:Roy MacGregor
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House of Canada
Published: 2017-11-14T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

RETURN TO SPLENDOUR: THE GRAND

IT IS MID-AUTUMN IN SOUTHWESTERN ONTARIO, the air surprisingly, perhaps even a bit alarmingly, warm, with the sun burning off an early morning fog along the Grand River. The air is so still the mist hovers rather than swirls as the river approaches the village of Glen Morris. The canoe and a couple of accompanying kayaks waltz through the random swifts and riffles, all quiet until a half-dozen mallard ducks explode into the sky from behind a large rock in the river.

The silence is notable in that this river and its many tributaries are surrounded by a million people. Industrial cities, college towns, tourist villages, First Nations, farms, freeways, backroads, wind turbines, discount tobacco shops and, by last count, 678 bridges occupy the sprawling watershed of the Grand River. The oldest bridge dates from 1837 and straddles Mill Creek in nearby Cambridge. Another, the “Kissing Bridge,” is the oldest surviving covered bridge in the province. Wellesley Bridge No. 6, which spans the Nith River, plays a feature role in Jane Urquhart’s celebrated First World War novel, The Stone Carvers.

At times, with no visible structures along great stretches of its shoreline and no roads within hearing distance, the Grand can seem—to quote Guelph songwriter James Gordon—almost “pastoral” as it gently twists through the rolling hills and farmland on its journey south to Lake Erie.

“There are lots of stretches where once you’re on the river it’s pretty much a natural environment,” says the professional musician, who is also a Guelph city councillor. “It seems to reflect the farmland it travels through.”

As a solo artist as well as a member of the folk group Tamarack, Gordon has recorded multiple songs about the Grand, tracing its First Nations history, its European settlement and its fascinating gorges. “She Is Fickle” might well be the song that best captures the Grand:

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