We're seeing more people coming through the forest trails in the ravine than ever before. Not that we still cannot do a daily jaunt of an hour or hour-and-a-half with our two little dogs and see no one else out on the trails, but increasingly we do come across people never before seen in our 27 years of daily ravine hikes, often with dogs of their own.

The ravined forest runs through the Orleans suburb of Ottawa, the nation's capital. Altogether it is said to take up some 30 acres. It acts for the municipality as a stormwater management site and is zoned conservation. The simple reality is that it is a geological presence not given to development as a building site for tract  housing and shopping centres. A gift from nature to residents of the area ensuring that its green forest presence will remain so. The forest itself is administered by the province of Ontario.

For us, as area residents, the ravine and its forest has been a superb recreational boon, as it has been for many others who appreciate its presence and the opportunities to hike about on a series of interconnecting forest trails. The ravine itself is compromised however, in the fact that the area is comprised of Leda clay, susceptible to slumping in extremely wet weather, as did the ravine hill adjacent our street last spring, which required remedial work, jack-hammering steel posts deep into bedrock to maintain stability.

The remedial work, which took months of heavy equipment and work crews to accomplish followed ultimately by some reforestation where mature old trees had been taken down to make the work possible, also resulted in a new trail opening from a main street where previously all the trail entrances had emerged adjacent to residential streets.

Yesterday we saw for the first time a four-month-old Chow puppy, taking its human companion for a jaunt in the snow-infused woodland, and a bit later on our walk a four-month-old miniature Australian Shepherd, both little dogs appealing in their puppyhood and voraciously excited about life's new experiences, bundles of bright energy, both of them.

Once past that portion of the ravine the forest resumes its normal presentation, beech, poplars, maples, oaks, ironwood and willows, along with hawthorns represent the hardwoods (the elms have been destroyed by invasive beetles), while pines, firs, spruces, hemlock and other evergreens are also present in their numbers. Wandering about on the trails in all seasons restores the mind and exercises the body for all those devoted to appreciating the opportunity to approach and delve into a natural environment in the midst of a thriving metropolis.

Our good fortune in living proximate to such a natural delight is never lost on us. Nor on the two little sibling dogs who are part of our household.