After all my visits to Canada over the years, I have never really spent time away from the main cities.

My visit to Paul Begley was to sort that out. Paul is a (or rather is a freshy retired) Professor at Nippissing University in Northern Ontario. He customarily did a lot of his work from home, and as of the Victoria conference is now retired. We had arranged to spend some time working over issues to do with our running of the Values conference next year and some material around current thinking in the field. Paul and his wife Marilyn are the most wonderful hosts, so I managed to do some planning, some review and some writing interspersed by seeing local sights during the first half of my visit, and in the midst of Paul's bush camp in the second.

You can see where Mt St Louis is on the map. I got there from London by Greyhound to Toronto, then Barrie, to be picked up by Paul, who lives about 25 minutes north in a lovely tree sheltered house not far from the slightly larger, but still rather tiny and well worn, township of Hillsdale. It is in the midst of farming country, not unlike that around Rita's place.

As is my custom, I won't take up space with the academic. Wednesday morning we drove the few kilometres to Midland to the historic recreation of St Marie among the Hurons, the site, near Midland, of an ill fated Jesuit mission to the Wendat (as the Hurons were known). Full details at the link for those interested. That was followed by a visit to the shrine of the Canadian martyrs - some of whom died in and around this place. The combination was a good way of appreciating the difficulties of life for missionaries to the new world - and the tremendous culture clash at the core of what often became hostilities. When you think about it, whole world views were at stake! I have not long finished Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks - which deals with this issue in a less violent but no less powerful way - from both the European and the First Nations perspective. Worth a read!

Business for the afternoon and evening - and Marilyn's fine cooking!

Paul is a keen hunter. He owns a bush cabin about 90 minutes north of his home, nestled alongside its own little lake - unofficially called Spruce Lake. I know it is up near Muskoka, but I need to get more detail to say exactly where - sorry. Anyway, the first task once we got there was to check two concealed cameras for signs of wildlife - and there were signs aplenty - moose, deer, racoon, bear - did I say bear? Bear - at least four bears live on his property. They moved in quite recently after a big tornado tore down a swathe of trees, whose roots make lovely caves for them to live in. So when we went for a walk, Paul carried a rifle. I felt somewhat comforted by that. Don't know why we didn't carry the pepper spray (see the pics on Facebook). Paul has been a keen hunter all his life, and the hunt (which lasts for only one week a year) is seen as a way of controlling moose numbers. It is very tightly controlled by the government, and very well run on Paul's block. (Marthese - close your eyes for the next sentence). Did I mention that we had moose bourguignon the previous evening from last year's hunt? Mmmmm.

(The only wildlife I saw apart form the odd bird were three gartersnakes at different times. Paul has never seen that many on the block.)

The cabin is small but very well equipped. It got down to about zero overnight, but it has a wood burning stove that could heat a building three times the size, so we were toasty. After sitting by a fire outside, discussing the state of affairs, we caught a glimpse of beaver swimming in the lake in the moonlight.

Today saw us pack up and head to Mt St Louis for lunch, then back to the Sandman near Toronto Airport. Paul dropped me here and then had to dodge the Thanksgiving weekend traffic to get back home. Generous to a fault. I am now waiting to go across to meet Anne in about an hour. She emailed from Dallas to say she was on time as her phone couldn't get a signal.

So .... Mick and Anne really get on the road tomorrow! Hoooray!