It is definitely not a good thing when people decide to bring a companion animal into their life and then find themselves unable or unwilling to fulfill all their obligations to providing the necessities of life for that animal. Exercise and opportunities to stave off boredom are as necessary to dogs, particularly young and large-breed dogs, as they are to humans.

When those whose responsibility it is to enable a dog to have the exercise it craves and needs, along with exposure to socializing situations and the opportunity when it is available to roam about in a natural outdoor, treed atmosphere fail to take advantage of it, this represents a failure of purpose. On the other hand, those people whose health is impaired and cannot walk their dogs, or those stressed for time and the inclination to give their pets those opportunities who recognize that lack and its consequences can always turn to the services of dog walkers.

Yesterday, during our afternoon ravine hike we came across a small herd of dogs we'd never before seen being walked by a cheerful young man. There were three fair-sized black-lab mixes and a black Dachshund . One of the lab mixes must have had some beagle in its genetic inheritance; it was only partially black; there was white in its coat and its back was of brindle/tortoiseshell colouration.

It was the friendliest of the quartet. Interested as they all were briefly, in our two little poodles, but more interested in being noticed by us. The oddly-coated one in particular, who seemed to take to my husband, enjoying being stroked. The expression in his eyes amply delivered the message that he appreciated the attention. And his eyes were striking; one brown the other perfectly white.

As we carried on after that brief little gathering, we passed a wild apple tree burdened with ripening apples, growing larger and more colourfully enticing by the day. This spring and summer's ample-to-excess rain events and more than adequate sun have ensured that a good crop ensues of these apples.

We also came across a large and very beautiful fungal growth beside a tree trunk, bursting into creamy colour with a scalloped shape amongst the plenitude of forest-floor greenery, yet another delightful discovery among the many we encounter each day of our woodland adventures under the sun-sheltering canopy of the forest. Mind, the shade wasn't as much appreciated as it would be on a typical hot summer day, since it wasn't hot and the wind on a cool 21-C degree day was brisk enough to make us feel the warmth of the sun would be welcome.

The greater community in which we live represents a fairly dense population in the outer reaches of this city within which exists an even denser and far more numerous population. We have the good fortune overall in this geographic environment being a source of clean air, scrubbed clean of airborne particles injurious to peoples' health and the condition of their lungs by the preponderance of green growing things.

We have an endless source of carbon-dioxide-absorbing trees far and wide in the green forested areas that proliferate both in the city and its near environs, along with propinquity to wider, semi-wilderness areas inviting us to take our recreational leisure, canoeing, swimming, picnicking, hiking, berry-picking and in the winter snow-shoeing and skiing in those same areas rife with opportunity and a richness of beautiful landscapes.

For us, our daily excursions with our two little dogs into the forested ravine adjacent our home is an absolute necessity. It so enhances the quality of our lives to make daily re-acquaintance with nature, to stride along the forest trails, feeling free and fortunate to be able to do so. In that environment our eyes are always treated to new spectacles representing the wide array of natural phenomena that nature blesses us with, the flora and fauna to which the forest is home, and those just passing through on their way to the boreal forests further north of us.

Jewelweed

Although we've been taking these daily hikes in Bilberry Creek Ravine Forest for the past twenty-five years, and we know that those with similar proclivities are relatively rare in number, there are still occasions when we come across people we've never before seen with their companion animals or simply striding along singly, enjoying the atmosphere.

Chicory/Cornflower

Yesterday, we saw fungi and flowers, the rare sighting of a good-sized garter snake darting off one of the pathways into the bracken of the forest floor, and watched as Jackie and Jillie introduced themselves in the traditional manner of canines, to a new acquaintance, a good-natured dog twice their size, but pretty laid back, taking little notice of our two's initial excited and off-putting barking frenzy.

We come home from these daily excursions refreshed and relaxed, content to have had that bit of intimacy with nature, yet another day.

The wreck of the HMS Erebus, above, was found in 2014 west of O'Reilly Island in Nunavut. (Parks Canada)

In 1819 the geography of North America was little better known than that of Baffin Bay. It was widely accepted, even by Barrow [Second Secretary of the British Admiralty], that Canada had to stop somewhere. But its northern coastline had only been touched upon in two places. In 1789 Alexander Mackenzie had followed the river since named after him and found open sea at a point about 1,000 miles east of Bering Strait. He had been preceded in 1771 by Samuel Hearne who had done the same with the Coppermine River, meeting the ocean 500 miles east of the Mackenzie. Franklin's job was to fill in the gaps.

Barrow's intention was that Franklin should travel overland with boats and canoes to the Great Slave Lake, follow the Coppermine River from there to its mouth and then take to the sea. He would take a bare minimum of naval personnel, using hired help supplied by the Hudson's Bay Company or its larger competitor, the North West Company. Orkney boatmen would see him through the first part of his journey, after which their place would be taken by Canadian porters, or voyageurs, who would escort him from the Great Slave Lake to the coast. Indian and Eskimo guides would assist him and provide whatever food was necessary should his stores run out.

On reaching the coast he was advised to go east, either to rendezvous with Parry or to make his way to Repulse Bay, but if he wanted he could go west to the Mackenzie and if he really felt like it he could even go north into the unknown.....
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'It is impossible to describe our sensations', Richardson wrote, 'when, on attaining the eminence that overlooks [Fort Enterprise] we beheld the smoke issuing from one of the chimneys.' During their journey he and Hepburn had lived off nothing but tripes de roche [rock-scraped lichens] and Hood's hide blanket. Richardson was now so weak that he fell down twenty times covering a distance of only 100 yards. However, the prospect of salvation gave them strength and on the evening of 29 October they flung open the door of Fort Enterprise.

'No words can convey an idea of the filth and wretchedness that met our eyes', Richardson wrote. The floor had been pulled up [for firewood], the partitions had been demolished and the skin off the windows was gone [eaten]. Of the four men present -- Franklin, Samandre, Adam and Peltier -- only Peltier seemed able to move. He had risen, expecting them to be an Indian relief party. Now he sank back in despair. Accustomed as Hepburn and Richardson were to the sight of each others' emaciated frames, 'the ghastly countenances, dilated eye-balls, and sepulchral voices of Captain Franklin and those with him were more than we could at first bear'.

Richardson and Hepburn had been expecting Franklin to help them. Now they found themselves having to help him. Despite their weakness they were both far stronger than any man in the building and from that day they undertook the chores of chopping wood and carrying it home. They also went hunting, but were too enfeebled to hold the gun steady on the rare occasions when they encountered game. Franklin, meanwhile, dragged in deer skins from the pile which had been discarded the previous winter. The pile was thirty yards away. Franklin managed to bring back three skins in a day. There were about twenty-six skins in all, thin, rotten things, riddled with warble-fly grubs. The explorers devoured them avidly, right down to the warble grubs which they squeezed out of the hide with their fingernails. They tasted 'as fine as gooseberries'.

Contrarily, while Peltier had previously been one of the healthiest in the group, he now collapsed, and Adam showed signs of renewed life. Richardson [expedition doctor] diagnosed Adam's swollen limbs as the result of protein-deficiency oedema and incised his abdomen, scrotum and legs, whereby 'a large quantity of water flowing out he obtained some ease'. But there was nothing else he could do for Peltier or Samandre. They both died on the night of 1 November.

Richardson and Hepburn now began to flag. On 3 November Richardson noted that Hepburn's limbs were beginning to swell -- 'his strength as well as mine is declining rapidly'. That day they ate the last of the bones.

On 5 November Adam began to wander, leaping to his feet and seizing his gun with the promise of a good day's hunting and food for all, before subsiding into a dejection so deep that he could not even be persuaded to eat. The others were little better off. They tried not to talk about their situation, chatting instead about 'common and light subjects'. But as Franklin wrote, 'our minds exhibited symptoms of weakness, evinced by a kind of unreasonable pettishness with each other. Each of us thought the other weaker in intellect than himself, and more in need of advice and assistance. So trifling a circumstance as a change of place, recommended by one as being more warm and comfortable, and refused by the other, from a dread of motion, frequently called forth fretful expressions, which were no sooner uttered than atoned for, to be repeated, perhaps in the course of a few minutes.'

They were all so thin that it hurt even to sleep. Their bones ached against the floorboards but they put up with it because the pain of turning to a more comfortable position was even greater. To this was added initially the pain of constant hunger. But once the pangs had eased -- after three or four days -- they usually enjoyed a few hours in which they dreamed of limitless food.

On 7 November Richardson and Hepburn were in the storehouse, trying to separate logs from the frozen pile stored there the previous winter, when they heard a shot. Three of Akaitcho's Indians were outside They had been contacted by Back two days previously and on hearing his tale, and on taking in his shrivelled appearance -- he too was pathetically reduced, and had lost one man from his party -- they had immediately set out with emergency rations comprising fat, some dried venison and a few deer tongues.

Sending the youngest of them back for further supplies, the remaining two Indians swiftly took control. They cleared Fort Enterprise of its corpses, swept out the wet, blackened filth of charred bones and singed hair that covered the floor, and built up a crackling fire. The ease with which they did all this stunned Richardson. 'We could scarcely', he wrote, 'by any effort of reasoning, efface from our minds the idea that they possessed a supernatural degree of strength'.

Then came the feeding. Despite Richardson's injunction to 'be moderate!', they all suffered severely from overeating. Richardson, who should have known better, devoured the food as extravagantly as the others. For days afterwards -- weeks, in Richardson's case -- they suffered from distention and indigestion. The passing of a stool caused immense pain Only Adam, who had to be spoon-fed, escaped the effects of sudden indulgence.

The Indians treated the survivors 'with the same tenderness they would have bestowed on their own infants'. They persuaded them to wash and to shave their beards which had not been touched since they left the coast and which had grown to a 'hideous length'. On learning that the Europeans had eaten too much meat they strung lines across the river and came back with four large trout. In every respect they could not have been more solicitous.

But hardly had salvation arrived than it departed. On 13 November the Indians vanished, leaving behind them a handful of pemmican per man. For a while Franklin feared his men would have to revert to their old diet, save that instead of deer skins they now had fish skins. It transpired, however, that the Indians, fearing their messenger had not reached base, had left on a twenty-four-hour march to fetch more supplies from Akaitcho's camp. The Indians reappeared on the morning of 15 November, having walked through a stormy and snow-filled night with two of their wives and Benoit, one of the voyageurs who had accompanied Back, Once again the survivors were faced with an abundance of food, but this time they measured their pace. On 16 November, a sunny Thursday, they left Fort Enterprise for good.

From Barrow's Boys ... A stirring story of daring fortitude, and outright lunacy, by Fergus Fleming

Shown is the route of Sir John Franklin's final expedition from 1845-47.

Pretty amazing the way a forest can absorb moisture during the hot summer months, when rainfall has been so frequent as in this year's spring and summer. All the small marshy areas that had occupied the forest floor from spring to the present are now gone, but for a few diehards. Although most have finally dried up, yesterday saw a bumper crop of mosquitoes and even a few blackflies zipping around our faces and exposed arms.

These pests plague wildlife in their search for blood to nourish their increase in numbers. At least we're capable of fending them off, while deer, moose and caribou in the forests cannot and suffer for it. At least in this forest we're spared the presence of deerflies. Without doubt they feast on smaller forest creatures and birds at rest as well. One just wonders what nature had in mind in their creation.

Just as well the forest canopy shields us on the walking trails from most sun exposure. And that breezes arise to cool us now and again. The creek is always a favourite with companion animals, and we can always tell when one has been by within a relatively short period of time, by the wet footprints left behind once the animal has retreated from its cooling, albeit muddy waters.

Our two puppies have never been interested in the water, although poodles were originally bred as hunting and water dogs. Button, our miniature poodle, loved water. We used to throw stones into the lake for her and she adored retrieving them; always the very one we had tossed in for her. She'd bring back the stone and drop it at our feet for a repeat. Once she took a wide dive out of the canoe to have herself a deep-water swim. We'd have to dry her off quickly once she was done swimming, because when she became drenched her body heat plummeted.

At one point, after she'd gone into the stream in the ravine, when she emerged we saw she had sustained a bad cut on one of her legs. Young people in the neighbourhood would throw beer bottles into the creek, no doubt enjoying the sound of the glass crashing and breaking. That was the last time she was allowed into the creek. No such problem with Riley, he was disinterested, just as Jackie and Jillie are.

On yesterday's walk we came across other dogs who do love to waddle about in the water. Which is far more characteristic of most dogs, looking for any opportunity to cool down on a hot summer's day in a forested setting.

Now, with other wildflowers receding somewhat in numbers, goldenrod is beginning to take over. And the first of the fall asters has begun to bloom. These first ones are sparsely petalled and none too beautiful, but flowers, nonetheless. And the wild apples are in the process of maturing, taking on colour, looking quite inviting.

The devastation in our gardens continues apace. We appreciate our gardens for their wide aesthetic appeal, the variety of plants, their presentations, colours, textures, growth patterns, fragrance, and companionability with other flowering and green plants. Their presence is a delight and a pleasure to us. They make summertime an especial time of visual enjoyment.

The Japanese beetles that have been infesting the gardens appreciate them for the opportunity they provide to feast without hindrance. There are no natural predators for these beetles, since they're an invasive species. Birds don't seem to be attracted to them as a food source, more's the pity. And though they only stick around for about a month (life-cycle of the adult) they make a powerful impact in the garden.

They certainly have their favourite plants to satisfy their feeding frenzies. Enabling the females to lay her eggs in the soil under the grass. The grubs feed on grass roots, and of course impact the grass in their grub stage. This spring's (and summer's) unusual level of rainfall has ensured that the grubs have been larger and more vigorous than ever; and hence the beetles have benefited hugely. When you make the effort to try to deter them by spraying, they've got to be sprayed directly, it isn't enough to spray the plant they're devouring. And then, guess what? If you succeed in knocking off a handful of them, before they fly off self-protectively, more just keep coming.

If your plants are more plentiful and attractive to them than your neighbours' plants they'll vacate your neighbour's gardens and make the short flight to yours in an obvious show of preference, a showing that may make you wince for the impact they have, but which just points out how they've been equipped by nature to be a voracious feeding machine. Patience is one of those virtues that is called upon on such occasions.

The fact is, you can't do much else but wait for them to expire and leave your poor, ragged garden in peace. Oddly enough they don't seem to be a problem in Japan where they hail from. I lived there for a year, grew a bit of a garden, and don't recall ever seeing them, though when summer really got going and it was both hot and humid beyond belief, it was cicadas that made their presence known, strumming like high-tension wires in the atmosphere.

Our gardens are somewhat over-planted, since I tend to cram plants into any available bit of soil that isn't otherwise occupied. And when plants prosper and mature, they spread, crowding one another out. And then, the most aggressive are the winners for space. My Echinacea that's been around for quite awhile in various spots in the garden were far more robust and colour-dense last year than they are turning out to be this year, but it's early days yet.

The begonias that were over-wintered as bare bulbs are doing well; the foliage is large and well-formed, the flowers a little more shy. In the rock garden running alongside one side of the house, the hostas and heucheras have really taken over. I've got to exercise care to tread on the flat rocks, not the plants.

Oddly the million bells we've got in a hanging planter off the deck just above one of the roses that are being hopelessly consumed by the Japanese beetles seems not to be of the slightest interest to those discriminating beasts. We have at least that to be thankful for.

Today's a real scorcher of a summer day. So we decided we'd hie ourselves over to the ravine earlier than usual, in hopes of beating the heat. Hardly so, since it was already registering 30-C under a cloud-free sky when we set out.

Additionally, the weather forecast was for the chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon and on into the evening. And since we had dental appointments for teeth-cleaning in the early afternoon, we thought it best all around to get our daily forest walk in.

We came across a patch of mushrooms that had suddenly appeared yesterday, but today the original mushrooms had already aged, and among them a new crop was thrusting forth out of the forest floor, not wasting any time. No doubt the heat and humidity has something to do with that. Shelf fungi are certainly not affected in this way.

The same heat and humidity have, without a doubt, hastened the ripening of the wild apples in the ravine. They've taken on heft and colour.

We were surprised to come across a middle-aged woman with a dog we knew well, but would never have associated with anyone but the man who always walks the tiny Chihuahua. We'd met that little mite, Taz, for the first time years ago being walked by our friend Henry's son, but never seen him with a woman. We'd wondered why we hadn't seen Henry in quite a long while, although we only got to see him intermittently. This was his wife, and she obviously knew who we were, though we'd never before met.

True enough, Henry's health had deteriorated; he was diagnosed a short while ago with a degenerative condition affecting his back. All the time we've known him Henry walked with the aid of a cane and he never hesitated, even with that cane and the physical pain we knew he was suffering, to ascend steep hills in the ravine. Now, his wife told us, he's in a wheelchair. As long as we've known him he's left us with the impression that he was a cheerful man. His wife told us they're still planning a trip to China in the fall, and before that several weeks in California where her older brother lives.

We stood talking for quite a while, and then a couple of women came by and it became a scene of pandemonium. Taz is hostile to the presence of people he doesn't know, tiny as he is. He is also not friendly to other dogs. Because he knows us and our two dogs, however, he tolerates our presence in his near vicinity. Taz, sweet little thing t hat he is, is a rescue dog. Someone had originally had him and abandoned him. Henry had adopted him from the Gatineau Humane Society.

Along with the two women came a black Labrador and a smaller Lab mix, and a newly-adopted Golden Retriever puppy. And thus were we introduced to lovable little Harvey.

Jackie and Jillie were interested and behaved well -- for them -- but Taz was beside himself with outrage over the presence of the five newcomers. He did his usual parry-and-thrust, growling and barking furiously, running after and even leaping toward and onto the puppy who hardly knew how to react. The puppy was a small bundle of fluff, happy, already attached to the woman to whom he will become a companion, and innocently interested in everything and everyone.

The two larger dogs were above the fray. They preferred to approach us for a brief conversation and patting, before ambling off. Jackie and Jillie and Taz engaged in a sniff-fest with the three, but Taz was hardly mollified because he took a dislike to the two women. A tiny Chihuahua-misogynist, go figure!

My husband loves to chat and he chatted up the two younger women, while Henry's wife and I discussed Henry.

The two younger women now have been introduced to the novel idea of going a little further out of Ottawa, for a one-hour drive to Ogdensburg, New York, to the Country Veterinarian there whose clientele must be comprised of as many Canadians as Americans because they use technologically advanced surgical equipment, are agreeably friendly and professional, and charge one-fifth the fees for services as their Canadian veterinarian colleagues.

As we eventually continued on with our walk, we came across the first of the fall Asters to bloom. Imagine, the second day of August and already fall Asters are blooming. Oh, and Goldenrod as well. Nice to see them, not so wonderful to think of summer waning. It isn't, actually, not yet. It's just that this hugely unusual weather we've had this spring and summer has hastened everything.

There's a conflict raging in our gardens. Particularly in the backyard. For the past several summer seasons we've experienced raiding parties of Japanese beetles. Oh, not our backyards alone certainly; our neighbours too have witnessed an influx of these raiders. They are nothing if not voracious. True, they are also beautiful little beetles, but they increase their numbers exponentially in no time at all when their appetites have been satiated.

And they're more than adequately satiated, feeding off the flowering plants in our gardens. Not just the perennial flowering and annual plants, however. Our prize corkscrew hazel tree's foliage has been utterly ransacked, it looks forlorn and beaten. And that's how we feel about this brazen, unstoppable carnage.

So far, the score is garden zil, beetles skyhigh command of all they survey. Perhaps not quite all, since they have their preferences; there are plants they are disinterested in, thank heavens, and others that they descend upon in hungry swarms, to destroy. The integrity of the garden has been challenged. As in previous years, we've decided they're living creatures and we'd leave them to it.

This morning, their predations quite got to me. So I took a spray bottle and filled it with baking soda, dishwashing soap (insecticidal soap is recommended; I don't happen to have any), cooking oil, vinegar and topped it all off with water. I measured the baking soda and soap, oil and vinegar in a tsp.each, and filled the spray bottle to the top with water. And then proceeded to spray. Mostly an old, productive rose shrub whose leaves now resemble lace.

This is what healthy, non-beetle-predation rose foliage looks like; one they've overlooked.

An inspection at close range of the beetles ensconced on the plants will reveal that among the throngs there are pairs copulating. Thus producing even greater numbers. They truly do seem unstoppable. When they've destroyed as much as they mean to, we've noted that in a month or so they gradually diminish in numbers, obviously going on elsewhere; not to a neighbour's gardens but elsewhere as in returning from whence they came wherever that may be, unless it's really a group life-span in a seasonal phenomenon, for all we know.

They've chewed enthusiastically on the New Guinea impatiens, so they got sprayed as well as the affected rose shrubs, though there is one they appear to have overlooked. Things get strange and stranger....

They really enjoyed raiding the bergamots and they look quite ragged now, though that's an expression as well of their life-span. Since they're the favourites of bees (it's why they're also called bee's balm), I did not, of course spray the bergamots, despite the presence of beetles on them, since they're outnumbered by the hovering bees and I don't intend to discourage or worse yet, harm them.

The bees are swift, difficult to capture in a photo; this is one at bottom-right

While I was at it, I boiled several kettles-full of water, took them out to the cobbled walkway at the side door and gave some really intractable weeds a steaming bath, to get rid of them, since just pulling them out hasn't proven to be sufficiently influential on their presence. We'll see what comes of that, too. It has been a tried-and-true method.