On the Art Trail with Peter Buwalda

During the years 2006-09 I was fortunate to be part of a group of artists that documented the Massasauga Provincial Park in Ontario. We would stay together and cook meals exchanging stories at night and by day the park rangers would take us out to a destination(s) of our choice to paint and draw. We would show our work at Parry Sounds' Stockey Centre of the Performing Arts for a month in the peak of summer. On this particular day we went out on Blackstone Harbour and visited the Old Calhoun Lodge and Baker Homestead. I did a few drawings of the old buildings but was drawn away by the sheer power of the landscape, where I ultimately found this wee white oak growing on the lee side of a giant stone, clearly a survivor of extremes. I gravitate toward these creatures, trying to imagine what they have been through to be there. What good fortune, for this seed to have ended up in this safe place. What good fortune for us all to be here at all, on this little blue earth!