I was on my own without a car Saturday because Jack, Janet and Ella went to a truck fair in the suburbs. But who was I to argue? An hour after they left the house, I got a phone call from an excited Jack, who was on board a school bus, and would also get the chance to sit in an ambulance and a transport truck!
And me? I laced up my running shoes and went in search of nature as David Suzuki would define it (trees, animals and such). I was also looking to explore somewhere new to me, so I headed for the eastern neighbourhoods just across the bay from the south-central peninsula of the city.
On foot, it’s difficult to escape the urban, industrial confines of the city so I knew I’d have a hard time meeting Suzuki’s basic criteria. When you look out over the bay to the east side, the dominant view is industrial. There is a receiving area for trains carrying oil to the refinery, a wallboard plant, a power plant and large transport ships docked on the shore. The causeway that links the southern and eastern area of the city is always buzzing with the sounds of trucks and cars.
But I soon found out that, when you run, you see and hear things in the environment that go unnoticed in a car. On my way over the causeway, for instance, I looked out over the bay and saw ducks and geese in the water. I could hear birds chirping when the cars were momentarily out of earshot.
When I got off the causeway, I headed for a residential side street I’d only ever seen when passing by in a car on the main road. I was always curious about it because a large network of above-ground pipes runs along one side of the street; there are houses on the other side. Industry and residents co-exist in Saint John; it’s the story of the city. For me this streetscape has always been the starkest illustration of this long-running narrative.
I was struck by the street names as I ran through the neighbourhood – River Avenue, Pleasant City St., and Forest City St. I wondered if they’d been named in an era when there was a different vision for this area of the city. Nowadays people live across the street from a pipe system that snakes from the bay to the refinery. Others look out their front windows at a newly built highway off-ramp that will soon roar with truck traffic headed to the industrial park.
When I left the neighbourhood to head back to the city centre, I had to stop at a railroad crossing for a long train of rail cars headed west to pick up oil for the refinery. I waited for the rail cars to pass, and the sounds of the grinding wheels and warning bells to cease. I ran across the tracks; the cars that had also been waiting whizzed by. Once they were out of earshot, I could hear birds chirp once again.
Jack, Ella and Mark are taking part in the David Suzuki Foundation 30×30 Nature Challenge. On the weekends they take Janet along with them. If you have any suggestions for places they should visit, e-mail Mark: fmleger@gmail.com
