Saturday had dawned so pleasantly cool after our week of hot and humid temperatures, with a nice cooling breeze in a clear sky that we decided to go up to Gatineau Park. It seems ages since we've been there, and mostly because it has been a very long time. Gatineau Park used to be our very personal playground, decades ago, when it was scarcely used by anyone living in that part of Quebec and nearby Ottawa.

It's a really short and pleasant drive up to Chelsea, crossing the border into Quebec, and traffic was fairly light on this civic holiday weekend. Most of the tourists who cram into Ottawa at this time of year focus on Parliament Hill, meandering along Sussex Drive, and from there to the Byward Market, and it was packed with people.

But we drove on to reach our destination and to our surprise found very few others had made the trip; the parking lot just above Mulvihill Lake, leading to the Lauriault Trails had only a handful of vehicles beside our own. And nor did we see many people during our hike, the circuit that leads halfway through up to the MacKenzie King Estate, a tourist draw that we mostly avoid.

The atmosphere was beyond pleasant; cool, yet sunny and breezy, the very epitome of perfection for a woodland ramble. We did note how degraded the old trail has become, roots and rocks now more exposed than ever from the effect of countless boots doing just as we were, enjoying a beautiful bucolic environment. From the lookout we could see farmland far below, a picture of peaceful country life. In the distance, the city of Gatineau, and further beyond that, Ottawa.

The forest of maples, oak, pine, beech and hemlock embraced us in its green coolness. Alongside the trails the remnants of plentiful spring flowering plants, columbine being king here. And her also grow the larges wild ginger we've seen anywhere. This is also where we have often found wild garlic growing in the spring, around tree trunks. This was Jack and Jill's first foray into Gatineau Park, a place beloved by our family and where we had spent so much of our time in the past when our children were young, as we picknicked, canoed, hiked, picked strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and blackberries for jam-making.

And where, in later years, we often took our granddaughter for a day of communing with nature. No sign yet that her exposure to the casual and varied nature we so love has made any appreciable impact on her own outlook on life, though it did her mother.

Jack and Jill were able briefly to socialize with a handful of other dogs we came across, mostly puppies, being walked by their owners. Strangely, we saw and heard no birds there, not much in the way of dragonflies or damselflies, but nor were we bothered by mosquitoes or blackflies thanks to the wind that cooled us and kept them away.

Wrapping up our hike, we did the short side-trip to Mulvihill Lake, a scene incredibly pleasant and serene. The odours emanating from natural sources somewhat different to what they've been accustomed to kept Jack and Jill busy exploring the terrain and the fragrances we hope to familiarize them further with, on many future such occasions.