On the commons

I've been cycling now for a week with an intention - it feels slightly like an Otesha cycling and performing tour, where you are adventuring with a certain sense of hope, passion and intention.

The Commons - what is it, what is is about, who uses it, who manages it, who protects it? Well, I've been slowly learning the answers to these questions over the past week, as I've been cycling with Paul around Lake Ontario (one of the five greatest commons we have in Canada). The thing about the Commons, is that we all use it, own it and have a responsibility to manage and protect it. But in a democratic, capitaistic society, where collective and shared communal property has truned into private ownership, the idea of responsibility for the commons that we all share, stewardship for precious shared resources, somehow gets confusing and grey, lost in translation.

Paul and I pedalled off from Kitchener last week, and from the day we left, we definitely had water on the brain. We made an intention to try and swim every day, and ask others if they would swim where we landed, and to use this as sort of guage for water quality in Lake Ontario. Day one took us along through countryside, until we emerged in Cambridge along the Grand River, where we cycled to Brant Conservation area. Hankering for a swim, we were impressed to read that the conservation area had swimming. It wasn't until Paul went to investigate that we learned that it was not swimming in the Grand River that we would be doing, no, rather we would be swimming in a massive, bright blue chlorinated swimming pool, one that we later learned costs $100 000 to maintain throughout the year, while, the Grand River wasn't swimable, and could benefit from these funds used for environmental stewardship. It seemed so ironic. Even though we didn't swim in the river, we did walk along it, bike along it, and saw many canoeists, fisher people, and heard wonderful stories from a woman and her grand daughter in Paris, as we had lunch by the river.

Onwards to Hamilton, and our mission to swim during the day was amplified as the thermometers rose to scorching levels. Water was everywhere, sprinklers watering lawns (and driveways), public water fountains, and bottled water machines, big water parks and marshes, wetlands separated by the Hwy403, and at busy splashpads (think mini-water parks) beside a near empty Hamilton harbour beach. We made it to Lake Ontario via the escarpment in Dundas, and as we sat with our wonderful hosts in Hamilton, I came to know a bit more about the 'Hammer', a city so frequently in my mind considered filthy and polluted as mostly the only view I've had of the water surrounding it is coming over that horrible bridge and seeing all the steel industries at work. But our hosts loved their new home in Hamilton, and spoke of having hundreds of waterfalls at easy access on the escarpment, of the budding arts scene, and of funky neighbourhoods and affordable housing. Hmm, Hamilton eh? And as we cycled onwards throughout this city aiming for the waterfront trail, through a funky neighbourhood or two, and then through the industrial section of Hamilton, I totally began to think I was in an environmental documentary, one of those dramatic doom and gloom types:

Picture: loud trucks with invisible drivers, deserted streets, heat throbbing off the pavement, greenspace nowhere, smoke stacks reaching high into the sky, and two small people on their bicycles navigating through it all. Crossing over the 403 with traffic buzzing by, and onto the waterfront trail, we passed by a monstrous person made waterpark where a friendly over exubarant voice came on the loud speaker to advertise a new slide that they had at the park. I listened to this while while I looked to the empty, litter and aglae filled beach to my left. And the cranks on my pedals kept turning, through suburban streets on the 'waterfront trail' which was often a big house and yard or two away from the waterfront, as private ownership has dominated.

The documentary I felt I was in continued... We collected a few more stories from people when along the waterfront in the Niagara Region, between Beamsville and Niagara on the Lake. We spoke with a couple of people in Port Dalhousie, who just loved the lake, and had been close to it for a good deal of time in their lives. It was so engrained in their personhood.  Any concerns about Lake Ontario? What does stewardship mean to you? They expressed their concerns about a high rise condominium development due to be constructed in their beloved Lakeside Park, and about the algae blooms that are constant, and the smell that they bring with them. We heard people tell us how they just don't know what is going on with our waters, who is managing quality, water levels, what is being done to positively or negatively affect the state of Lake Ontario. So many unknowns.

We continued onwards to the super kitchy and quaint Niagara on the Lake, and then got mentally lost in the kerfuffle of the boarder crossing. As I got quizzed from boarder guards about "how I support myself" and we rode our bicycles into America, we landed at a cute little state park where we looked across Lake Ontario and watched the sunset beside the visible Toronto skyline. What a vantage point. Onwards along the Lake we went, all the way stopping at fruit and veggie stalls, and swimming in the Lake wherever we thought we could (including some algae and garbage ridden spots, and another spot where a few others said they wouldn't have swam where we did). It's a good qualitative judge of water quality: "would you swim in the lake?"

All the way to Rochester we went: having a memorable stop at Singer Naturals, where a family there has retrofitted a barn to be sustainable, endeavours to grow healthy organic foods, and brings community into their beautiful store and space for workshops and events. And let's not forget the Rochester Canoe Club, where Paul and I had the opportunity to help run a sailboat race, and talk to numerous interested sailors about thier love, connection and importance for the water. And the generosity kept coming, as we met our hosts from a cycling/travelling website Chris and Kate, wonderful interested folks. And as we watched water fall over the escarpment in Rochester I thought once more about what this beautiful resource really means.

It means life.

I made a song up recently, picture, me, in my camp song voice chanting it, 'repeat after me style' - wish I could sing it for you here, but instead will type it:

Were going on a bicycle ride,
to hear, heaps, of stories,
about how water means life!
For the plants, the animals, the people too,

So were going on a bicycle ride,
to talk to people, young and old,
about how water is a common resource!
So treat water with respect,
so we have it for years to come.