Leaf looking, moose gawking and potty squatting are not race related: Dale Peacock

Muskoka and area is having a bumper year for the annual Cavalcade of Colour. The leaf changing spectacle is nowhere more celebrated than it is in Algonquin Park. It is a shame that it has become something of an international incident thanks to the crowds and to one small stretch of road that fronts pretty Oxtongue Lake on the way to the iconic Park.

Everyone knows the story by now: a picturesque lakeside road on the way to the Park has spectacular views and the land is all privately owned by a number of small resorts and private residents who are fed up with wandering leaf peepers. They’ve taken action and placed do-not-enter signs in English and Mandarin, which has dismayed some people: they don’t want strangers on their front lawns but they also don’t want to be seen as racist.

In my humble opinion these folks are not racist but they are exasperated; perhaps it can be argued that exasperation caused them to not think through the ramifications of their sign-planting actions. But I recognize that one might reasonably be pushed over the edge by people relieving themselves in your front yard, while looking at the leaves. I have a feeling that the odd trespasser taking a photo might not be as egregious an action as the sight of someone squatting in your bushes.

I think the real culprit here is neither the property owners nor the leaf peepers. It is the Province, which has dismally failed to provide clean, modern comfort stations with picnic areas and tourism kiosks at reasonable intervals along all of our highways. I’ve been to third world countries that have more places to relieve oneself than Ontario does. The U.S. – and yes I know it has a 10-fold population of residents and likely a 20-fold population of visitors – excels in this area.

According to U.S. federal policy, about every half-hour of driving or so there should be a place to take a break. This includes state-run rest stops, commercial rest stops, and regular city exits—in other words, the placement of official rest stops is calculated against the existence of other, non-state-run opportunities to pull over. Every half hour? In Canada we are lucky if we find a place to stop every six hours!

I think it is ridiculous that Tim Horton’s and McDonald’s have become Ontario’s designated toilets. They should be lobbying for the government to do something.

Even when we do have rest stops they are almost always unmanned and dirty. A couple of years ago as we were crossing the border to come home we saw a car with U.S. plates stopped at a shabby rest area about a half hour north of the border. It has since closed. We pulled in and the place was so disgusting that I felt obliged to personally apologize to the families who were gingerly using the ghastly facilities. The two big rest areas that have sprung up between Toronto and Orillia are so incredibly busy in summer that even they are usually none too clean with overflowing waste baskets inside and out. It is just not acceptable.

If a decision is made to place port-a-potties at high traffic areas, like Algonquin Park, following this recent debacle, note that is is NOT okay to clean and refresh supplies only once a day on weekdays. We see this even in our own municipality’s parks and recreation areas. If the Province won’t take action maybe local governments should. But please, do a better job than you are doing now.

My raised-in-the-city husband is horrified that I frequently ask him to pull over so that I can pee on the side of the road. Of course I take any paper litter with me. To his query, “Were you raised in the back woods or something?” I shrug and answer in the affirmative. I doubt that it’s an uncommon practice in anyone raised here but maybe I’m just shameless.

The sign issue also caused me to reflect on two periods in my life that have some bearing on these recent events. The most recent is that we converted the big house we then owned to a bed and breakfast once the kids left the nest and hubby started working in the U.S. The vast majority of our guests were Europeans on the way to Algonquin Park. Consequently, we had signs in the predominant languages (French, Spanish, Italian and German spread liberally throughout the house to designate private versus common areas etc. This was way before Huntsville had attracted any Asian visitors to speak of; if we’d had Chinese guests, I would have had signs in Cantonese and Mandarin.

Way back in my childhood there were two weekend trips available to my family of modest means – a drive to visit our cousins who lived within 25 or so kilometres and Sunday drives to Algonquin Park.

My memories are a bit fuzzy but I don’t recall seeing faces other than white on these forays. Many of these (white) visitors also screeched to a halt in the middle of the road if a moose or deer was spotted. Today, many of the faces in the park are people of colour – and thank goodness for them – and yes, some of them stop abruptly when they spot a moose too. BUT…it is no different than it ever was except for the complexion of the players.

The other thing I recall is that there were line-ups on Sundays approaching the west gate. Also no different than it ever was except for the increase in people of colour.

I mention both of these things because although I believe the Oxtongue folks didn’t deliberately behave in any way racist, it did bring out many nasty comments on social media and in the mainstream press. Most of those comments suggested that trespassing, being inconsiderate and relieving oneself in public are somehow exclusively Chinese habits.

I really liked the letter of someone identified in The Globe & Mail comments section as JimbotheBaker. This is a portion of what he wrote: “HOW to educate and inform our visitors is the issue at the epicenter of the current situation. I believe Mr. H. and neighboring resort owners did the best they could, given the circumstances and the lack of any guidelines set by the provincial government and tourism industry.

“Similarly, our visitors did the best they could, given their limited understanding and awareness of local customs and rules. No blame should be cast on the resort owners, and no blame should be cast on the visitors. Next October, with vigilant assistance from Council, the provincial government, and the O.P.P., and with an aggressive campaign of public education and a more insightful, common-sense approach to the marketing of tourism, we all will do better.”

Following a career in the hospitality sector and the acquisition of a law and justice degree in her 50s, Dale embarked on a writing career armed with the fanciful idea that a living could be made as a freelancer. To her own great surprise she was right. The proof lies in hundreds of published works on almost any topic but favourites include travel, humour & satire, feature writing, environment, politics and entrepreneurship. Having re-invented herself half a dozen times, Dale doesn’t rule anything out. Her time is divided equally between Muskoka and Tampa Bay with Jim, her husband of 7 years and partner of 32 years. Two grown ‘kids’ and their spouses receive double doses of love and attention when she’s at home.

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