The Treasure
of Manitou
Mountain
Calabogie area hike
offers a glimpse of spirit
world
BY TIM YEARINGTON
¦ An old chief once told me, “You can
take a boy out of the wilderness, but you
can’t take the wilderness out of a boy.” No
longer a boy, I ponder this proverb on a four-
hour hike deep into Calabogie’s Lost Valley
area in search of sacred treasure. I’m just
beyond the eastern escarpment edge of the
Madawaska Highlands, a former mountain
range older than the Himalayas that rises far
above the lowlands of the Ottawa Valley.
Few hiking boots have made tracks
through this undiscovered backcountry.
My trail winds through a hardwood hollow
of mature maple, beech, basswood and
endangered butternut trees, still here, free
of the disease that has devastated them
further south. I climb to the Juniper Ridge
lookout; it’s breathtaking. Sunlight beams
through the clouds and silvers the surface
of Calabogie Lake way down below.
Beyond the lookout the trail dives into the Valley I find the almost invisible path to the Eating blueberries, I drift from bush to
woods again and disappears into the heart lookout atop Manitou (Spirit) Mountain. As bush until just beyond the lookout I find
of the Lost Valley. A pileated woodpecker, I walk softly upon this red ochre path of pine myself in the centre of a big circle of lichen-
known to native people as the “Circle Maker,” needles I remember a story about lost gold. covered stones. It’s a medicine wheel,
drums out a solid welcome on a hollow tree. It was understood by the natives of long a circle of rocks that stand for the four
It’s a reminder to complete my circular Lost ago that the golden treasure of this sacred directions of east, south, west and north
Valley route well before dark – before the place was to remain with the spirit of the and their teachings. I take off my pack and
monsters come out. Or so I’ve been told. mountain and not in the hungry pockets of a sit in the centre of this sacred circle.
But the only monsters I’ve seen so far are greedy man. However, as the story goes, one I think about the teachings of each
remnant old growth pine, reminders of the summer day in the late 1800s a logger on his direction of the medicine wheel and a sense
of peace grows within me:
“You can take a boy out of the wilderness, but
East is the direction of spring and the child,
the emotional time of new beginnings.
you can’t take the wilderness out of a boy.”
South represents summer and youth, the
physical time of health, vigour and growth.
Ottawa Valley before the timber barons and day off hiked here to pick blueberries. But West is autumn’s time, the time of the
axes. Powerfully rooted in the earth, these instead of a bucket of berries, he came back adult, the spiritual time of contemplation
ancient conifers tower tall and dance in the with a bucket full of large gold nuggets. and belief.
winds of the sky above. Back at work driving logs on the North is the direction of winter and elders,
In the cool shade of another hardwood Madawaska River the next day, the logger the mental time of wisdom and logic.
ascent I enter the region called Indian Pass. drowned, with no time to even think about In the centre of the wheel is where all four
Respectfully I make my way through this what to do with his new-found wealth. times of being a human come together to
notch beside a long-faced cliff where trees The gold he took vanished and it’s said the create harmony and inner peace.
and plants cling like mosses and lichens to nuggets found their own way back to the The wheel speaks as well about Mother
rock. Now at the western fringe of the Lost top of Manitou Mountain. Earth as well as our human seasons:
56 OTTAWA >> SUMMER/FALL 2008 www.OttawaOutdoors.ca
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