The Wild Beauty of Stony Brook North

I’ve taken you through the authorized and plaqued version of the Stony Brook for which Steinbach was perhaps named (or perhaps not… as really “Steinbach” was lifted from the OG village in what is today Ukraine but ANYHOW I digress…)

I also took you through the ugly side of the Stony Brook.

And then the tidy yet also not really authorized side of the Stony Brook (for which you must use a lot of imagination).

Now it is time to show you where it all ends up.

Eventually, these drainage ditches lead you to what the google map calls Blind Creek. I did not know of this creek or its beauty until a few years ago. It’s strange how these teeny creeks and brooks and drainage ditches somehow can be so easily overlooked.

I feel like this is probably everyone’s favourite local trail and it maybe should be kept a huge secret and continue to be overlooked because frankly I think enough people are enjoying it for now, according to the litter I’ve seen strewn about.

BUT I’m talking about it here because I like to tell myself not many people read this blog, and those who do are quality. So, this seems pretty safe to me. I can be honest and tell you about this secret. It is safe here. ON THE INTERNET.

I think he was posting a Daily Bonnet while we walked.

One evening in early March, I managed to urge Andrew out of the house and out into the wilderness. I managed to coax him a very long way along this footpath, which at the time was magnificent. It was still snowy but the snow had toughened up along the footpath so it was similar to concrete. It made for very easy walking!

The creek was caught between thawing and freezing too, and was beautiful, in my opinion.

Here’s another annoying secret — the location is next to Ledingham GM. So when you visit at night, it’s lit up quite strangely, like in the above photograph.

If you follow the creek far enough to the west side of the section, you will encounter the Keating cairn.

But we drove to it.

And THEN I mentioned to Andrew that we were pretty near Oakridge at this point so we might as well go for a coffee and dessert AND SO WE DID.

This was my face after an adventure and dessert. Honestly, at this point in the pandemic I was kinda leaning into the whole “no one else is around” thing and really liking it. I mean, I miss people, I truly do, but when you’re supposed to stay far away from them anyway, you might as well enjoy the luxurious side of the situation.

I look like the cat that ate the canary (are you familiar with that saying or do I just sound like a weirdo now?) also note my sweet mask-lanyard from dconstruct.

Okay so that was early March. Then, in early June, I revisited the site and HERE we see the drainage ditch situation behind Walmart.

Facing southwest. The ass-end of Walmart is on the left.

Here is the bridge that leads to Walmart (if you happen to be going that way… which you probably wouldn’t).

And here is more outright beauty of the Blind Creek Trail which is connected to the Stony Brook by way of engineered drainage ditches.

I like to tell myself that this is perhaps what the Stony Brook was like when my ancestors arrived here in 1874. Some would say yes, some would say no. I feel like it was probably kinda like this though because this here has not been tampered with (yet), and only ever sees foot and bike traffic.

Every local photographer’s favourite place for family pictures.

And THEN I returned last week for yet another walk and snapped a few quick pictures while engaged in conversation with my friend. So, here we are in early July: