What’s In The Woods?
An article as part of the Who’s Visiting The Woods project.
A half-fallen tree with branches laying against it makes a natural doorway / refuge in McCarthy Woods, South Ottawa. Small animal footprints can be seen in the snow.
McCarthy Woods foremost is a place of life, even in winter. Birds can be heard throughout; chickadees, woodpeckers, ravens, and more. Mammals such as rabbits, coyotes, foxes, snowshoe hares, red squirrels, and white-tailed deer leave their trails most visible along or crossing human trails. And many insects are overwintering in the leaf litter below the snow in the subnivean zone. But obviously the animals aren’t the only life in the woods. The woods themselves, the trees and plants, live! Beyond just the evergreens, perennials, and the taking-a-break deciduous trees, there is still the oak, holding onto leaves. This is called “marcescence” and keeps colour up above the ground, but also provides ecological value which evolved symbiotically with all the other natural elements around it in more southern latitudes until the glaciers retreating 10,000 years ago revealed the top 1/3 of North America from under a kilometer of ice.
A map from the City of Ottawa’s website for a climate change stormwater retrofit eligibility program, centered on McCarthy Woods: Priority Area.
Beyond the fact that this space is full of less appreciated homes, it is also surrounded by bigger, visible human homes! As a human, I deeply value the selfish benefits nature gives me, such as stress-relief, exercise opportunity, inspiration, perspective, as well as more tangible environmental services like water management and air purification, etc. I’ll start with environmental services, then I’ll get to the more human / experiential benefits.
The light absorption of a surface, its albedo, affects how much heat holds onto from the sun. The Urban Heat Island Effect shows that paved surfaces make the air around it significantly hotter. This not only means stronger heat waves in the summer, but also changes in water patterns from precipitation. The city of Ottawa actually has the McCarthy area away from the river as a stormwater retrofit area, showing the need for more conscientious land use with environmental consideration. Impermeable surfaces make water management more costly, and we should look at the success of “sponge city” projects across the world to help Ottawa be more robust for the coming future.
A ring of logs stood on their end, making a circle around 4 meters across. There are a few centimeters of snow atop the flat log-sets, and human and different animal tracks and be observed within and around.
Now for the feely human part. I just find these areas beautiful. I walk maybe 30 kilometers a week, and ever since the first week I moved to this neighbourhood and noticed the nearby green spaces within walking distance of me and McCarthy Woods. I have continued to visit. McCarthy Woods is notable for its size as well as ecological value, as well as it being on my way to Hog’s Back and north along the water. That is not to say that McCarthy itself isn’t an important place in itself. The dense woods along McCarthy give way to open and rich meadows (especially key for the foundation of the ecosystem), with clear paths often traversed by humans, some with their leashed dogs, as well as keypoints throughout.
Tying up the first round of QR codes, mindfully minimizing environmental impacts by not using nails (or paint, that arrow isn’t ours!), choosing key trees, and recording each location as not to abandon materials.
All of this to say again that we’ve put QR codes in the forest. What a jarring cyber-future we live in! But we do it to protect the forest! We invite all visitors to these areas to scan the code every time that you visit to tell us that you were here. The data helps us with advocacy for these woods. Every time I go to the woods I see a handful of people and chat with them and get to hear about how important the area is to their health and community. That’s what’s in the woods!
Article by Tyler Locey