Ontario Nature Youth Challenge

I wonder

by Rachel
Grade 7 at Centennial Public School in Elmira

This winter, my class and I went winter camping in MacGregor Point Provincial Park. During the time we spent there, some friends and I would go out into the forest and explore it whenever we had the time.

On the last night I decided to go out into the woods by myself just before the evening’s supper, for the last time before we left. I walked down the dirt path to the area where the path ended and the forest began. The cool air tousled my hair, or what was spilling out of my warm hat. The air smelled of campfire just as it was lit. The night was one I would remember for a long time. The stars shone so brightly, and there was no need for me to use my flashlight for they gave off a bright glow that was most inviting.

I reached the earthy door of the forest and stepped inside, the trees protected me from the cool air and it warmed my insides, making me feel ever so welcome into this peaceful home of nature. I walked through the snow, stepping on footprints my friends and I had already made on our previous adventures through the woods. I came to a small stream that ran through the forest and sat down, gazing into the water. The water slowly moved, resisting the harsh winter’s cold grasp, as it sought out to freeze this small wonder. I picked up some sticks and added them to the small bridge had been building so my friends and I could cross the stream more easily, but now that we were leaving, I decided to finish the bridge so that in the future, others could cross it with ease if they ever came across this place. I finished off and crossed the bridge, hoping some day I might see it again.

I kept walking through the woods and came to a curve in the path. I kept on walking until I saw the most beautiful tree. It was twisted, and had no branches, or leaves, but yet it stood out to me as the most beautiful tree in the whole forest. I continued on the hike and thought to myself, “I hope someone else will be as blessed to see it in the trees’ beautiful state of glory.” I ended in a clearing that was most familiar to me. It was where my friends and I had seen trees poking up from the snow. I laid back and created a sort of disfigured snow angel. I stared up at the sky, and listened to the quiet chirping of some chickadees and nuthatches in the far off distance. I stared at the stars, hoping that this moment would last forever, until I heard a car. I wondered how I could hear a car in the forest and got up and pushed through the trees. Just outside of the clearing I had recently been in was a cement road.

I started to notice how late it was and started on my trip back. I walked past the tree, and the stream, and left the forest and all its little wonders behind me as I walked down the path to supper. I thought of all that the forest held, and how it was a home to so many animals. I also thought of how we were destroying it for our own needs. We ploughed down forests just like the one I had so few moments ago been in, for our roads, for our cities, for our homes. We were killing off nature for our own needs. Not for the needs of the animals but the human race.

I laid down my head at night and wondered: One day, will we ever stop destroying nature? Will someday, children dream of trees, and what they once looked like, felt like? Will someday, that stream, twisted tree, and those new born trees cease to exist?

I slept that night and I wondered all those things. Even now I wonder. I wonder if nature will someday just be a long lost memory, tales of trees and flowers. I wonder.

Ontario Nature gratefully acknowledges Dow Chemical Canada Inc. for sponsoring the Ontario Nature Youth Challenge Essay Writing Contest.