My third Mayor. This is getting to be a habit. Honourable Mayor Dennis O’Keefe of St. John’s, Newfoundland, the oldest city in North America, is behind my wheel today on the LAST DAY.
I picked him up at City Hall, where my drivers presented him with the gift entrusted to me by Victoria’s Honourable Mayor Dean Fortin oh so many days ago at Mile 0 west. 32 days to be exact. And it’s been go, go, go since then.
11, 208 kilometres, 25 drivers. Whew! Mayor O’Keefe is driving the last few kilometres, expertly weaving through the tangled web of streets of St. John’s to the Botanical Gardens at Memorial University.
After visiting or touring 55 Canadian environmental venues and citizens, driving out to Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America, getting to Mile O of the Trans-Canada Highway in downtown St. John’s then picking up the Mayor, MUN Botanical Gardens is our last stop.
It’s a perfect day here with warm breezes blowing, sun shining, bees buzzing and birds bobbing among the native flora. We are enthusiastically and energetically toured around by Wilf Nicholls, Director of the Gardens as he explains that every natural setting of Newfoundland is represented here.
There are gardens galore including a Medicinal Garden (gingko anyone?), a Shade Garden, an Alpine Garden, a Rock Garden, a Wildlife Garden, even a Crevice Garden.
You think things don’t grow in Newfoundland? Ha! Pshaw on that common notion! Not only are the things that grow in Newfoundland beautiful, but they are super smart.
How about plants that grow in rock crevices to gather heat, or the many Alpine plants that conserve water by keeping low to the ground or growing fur on the underside of their leaves? The ubiquitous Pitcher Plant (you’ve seen it in the Newfoundland Tourism ads on TV) that grows in bogs and swamps even traps insects to get protein! A carnivorous plant? Wow, what a province!
The peaceful gardens are the perfect place to stop and gather thoughts after this trek from sea to shining sea. Think about the sights I’ve seen, the sheer size and heart-stopping natural beauty of the country.
I can sit quietly and recall the passion of the Canadians that I’ve met in defending and protecting the planet, Canadians like the spunky socially-responsible 3rd-grade students at Bench Elementary who saved a marsh on Vancouver Island from destruction, or Edmundston’s enthusiastic composting café owners, Louise Fyfe and Estelle Sabatier, or the entire eco-village in Craik, Saskatchewan.
I can’t forget about Heidi Reimer-Epp, owner of Botanical Paperworks, the Winnipeg company that makes paper you can plant, or Catherine Page who toured me through Canada’s ‘greenest’ zoo in Granby, Quebec, or Choleena DiTullio, a New Brunswick artist who makes beautiful art out of banished junk.
There are too many to name again here but please go back through my blog and think about what all these individuals have done and are doing for the Planet and then realize that, like Colleen Kennedy of the Gros Morne Institute for Sustainable Tourism says, one hundred small steps are as good as one large step.
And take that step.
Insight Out.
