In An Alien Land

A Volunteer for Nature group explores the otherworldly landscape of Manitoulin Island’s Quarry Bay alvar on one of Ontario Nature’s biggest nature reserves.

By Graeme Stemp-Morlock

A dozen nature lovers and a handful of Ontario Nature staff have assembled at the Mississagi Lighthouse Campground on the western tip of Manitoulin Island for this five-day excursion. At 2,766 square kilometres, Manitoulin is reputed to be the largest freshwater island in the world. Most of the island’s 12,600 people live at the eastern end, near the highway that leads to the Chi-Cheemaun ferry and the mainland.

Ontario Nature owns and manages 21 nature reserves, but the QBNR that we’ve come to explore is the organization’s second largest, at just under 400 hectares. In 1999, Ontario Nature, along with the Nature Conservancy of Canada (NCC), the Nature Conservancy in the U.S. and Ontario Parks, spent over $5 million in the largest conservation land deal at the time, to aquire not just QBNR but another 6, 600 hectares now owned by NCC. “The uniqueness of the Quarry Bay Nature Reserve – it’s part of the largest amount of protected alvar in Ontario –makes it a really important site to preserve,” says Mark Carabetta, Ontario Nature’s conservation science manager. “It’s exciting to go there. It’s so remote – there are even wolves on the island.” Few Ontario Nature staff have visited the site before, due to its out-of-the-way location. During our time here, we hope to identify a wide variety of plants, animals, birds and rocks, as well as get a good look around the place.

Our group is an eclectic assortment of young and old, from recent university graduates to retirees. A few have been on VfN trips before, but for most of us this is our first time. Held in common is our collective desire to experience and help protect nature.

The nature we have come to experience and protect on Manitoulin Island is a highly unusual ecosystem and geological formation known as alvar (see “Endangered ecosystem: alvars,” page 22). Alvars – “alvar” is a Nordic word meaning “limestone pavement” – are large areas of exposed bedrock that do indeed resemble pavement.

The plant life that manages to survive on this parking lot is equally intriguing. Because soil does not accumulate on the rocky surface, plants are forced to grow in the cracks and fissures patterning the rock. For the same reason, junipers, which grow low to the ground, are plentiful while larger trees are almost non-existent. The harsh alvar ecosystem possesses a feast or famine quality. Spring rains result in pools of water on the rock surface, creating a boggy wetland, while the hot, dry days of summer roast everything that has the misfortune to live here.

The first morning I wake up to what sounds like rocks hitting my tiny tent. It makes sense, in my fuzzybrained state, because I had asked Don McLeod, my long-white-bearded neighbour, to wake me if I slept in.

“Okay, okay, I’m up,” I say with a loud laugh. The rain of rocks continues, however. I crawl out of my tent to show McLeod that I am truly awake, but he is nowhere to be seen. Instead, I find an angry squirrel dropping cones from his treetop perch above my tent. It seems I have an alarm clock and an arch nemesis.

Karen Saarkoppel, an Ontario Nature conservation intern, makes us a delicious breakfast of berry pancakes with banana sauce. After my third helping, we pack up our day-tripping equipment to visit the 860-hectare Misery Bay Provincial Nature Reserve, whose slogan is “misery loves company.” (Folklore has it that when government surveyors came across a man cutting hay in the sweltering summer sun, they asked him the name of the bay. The man replied, “Sure is a misery bay.”)

After walking through patches of short, twisted junipers, we emerge onto a wide beach checkered with alvar and marsh. John Geale, a retired math teacher, and Carabetta, both keen birders, have their small birding telescopes out and are searching the skies and shoreline intently for avian travellers.

Geale soon spots an adult bald eagle. He watches the eagle until it settles back in the trees, then moves on with the rest of us in tow. Over the next few days Geale spots about 80 different species of birds, from the rufouscapped, yellow-undertailed palm warbler to the brown and white ruffed grouse.

In the clear sunny afternoon, I stumble over the uneven, dried-out marsh. Between the patches of open alvar, tall rushes and bladderworts grow. I stop to notice a dead plant because of its oddly shaped leaves that look kind of like jars. I call over Maria Papoulias, Ontario Nature stewardship coordinator and a botanist, who tells me that it’s a pitcher plant, a type of insectivorous plant.

The tiny bladderworts that peek out of the sand are also insectivorous. “Normally,” says Papoulias, “the leaves are underwater and they have hairs that, when contacted by an insect, close in on it and gulp.” In this case, the water must have receded, leaving the bladderworts stranded and partially covered in sand.

In the warm flicker of the campfire that night we share stories. Mark Toma, an infantry officer in the Canadian Forces, tells us about field kitchens and the pleasure of receiving warm doughnuts in a wet foxhole. Geale and his wife, Dorothy, recount how they met at the magnetic North Pole and about exploring South America with their bird expert son.

Ian Choi, who left Hong Kong over a decade ago when he was just 12, tells us how, on his arrival in Canada, he filled his apartment with salamanders. As an adult, Choi decided to pursue his interest in nature by studying ecology at university. “Rather than capturing life in an aquarium, I wanted to treat it as a whole ecosystem and help tend it.”

The night’s highlight is a poetry reading by poet Soraya Peerbaye. She reads some nature-themed works by John Steffler, Canada’s Parliamentary Poet Laureate. Moose, owls, rocks, trees – the images flicker in our minds after a day of hiking along the scraggy Manitoulin shore.

As the campfire burns lower, I offer to show people the stars through my telescope. About 10 people join me in gazing at the brilliantly shining Jupiter; we can see the four Galilean moons easily. We stare up at star clusters and nebulae – the highlight is the “E.T.” cluster with its uncanny resemblance to the gangly-armed Steven Spielberg character.

The next day we head out to Mac’s Bay, where two dozen members of the Manitoulin Nature Club meet us before traipsing off to their regular shorebird observing grounds. The VfN participants and nature club members set up bird scopes and binoculars along the bay’s fog-filled muddy shoreline. By now I’ve discovered that bird watching is quite an exciting hobby – normally I would never dream of using a telescope to stare at a beautiful pair of legs, but here that kind of behaviour is encouraged. We spend the better part of the morning hiking through mud and swamp, sighting spotted sandpipers, yellowlegs and an assortment of plant species, including ladies’-tresses, a type of orchid, and the wonderfully named grass of Parnassus, a delicate off-white flower.

That afternoon, the entire group converges on the QBNR. For many it is their first visit to the remote reserve, and we all stop dead in our tracks as we pass a road sign proclaiming a wide stretch of alvar as “George Street.” People disappear into the dense fog as we set out to explore the shoreline and adjacent coniferous forest. Carabetta and Toma stake out the perimeter of the sprawling nature reserve.

Papoulias spots the rare lakeside daisy, a short plant with rubbery leaves (hence its other common name “rubber weed”). In spring, the alvar will be carpeted in beautiful little yellow flowers, but on this August day the flowers have turned to white puffballs.

She also points out the slender blazing-star, a spiky plant with several purple flowers emerging along the long stalk. These flowers are scattered across Manitoulin, but, outside of the island, they are restricted to alvar regions along the Great Lakes. “Alvar vegetation is unique,” says Papoulias. “The flora is adapted to an extreme environment where it needs to survive flooding, drought, intense heat and a number of other challenges.”

By the end of our stay, we will have seen a long list of birds, including several species of warblers, kingfishers, woodpeckers, hawks and, of course, waterfowl such as mallards and blue-winged and green-winged teal.

As I leave the reserve and walk along the logging road, I hear the soft wind in the trees and the odd bird call. At the end of our trip, we have left behind only a small QBNR sign to mark where to turn to find the reserve. The remote and undeveloped location makes this alien landscape the perfect nature reserve – a protected area containing one of the province’s most unusual habitats.

Graeme Stemp-Morlock is a freelance science writer whose articles have been published in Popular Science, Green Living and National Geographic News. When not writing about the latest scientific advances, he is busy baking cookies for his two year- old daughter.