Bliss is Elora

It’s best known for its cliffs; the hanging rocks taunting the bubbling water, seemingly a mile below. The cracked rocks are heavy with teenage nostalgia for anyone who grew up in the area; back in the not-so-distant past when jumping into unknown water didn’t hold any consequence.

Since it opened in July of 1954, Elora Gorge Conservation Area has played host to numerous families, children’s camps and tourists. I’ve slept on its cosy bed of cedar needles and fluffy earth numerous times. But this time, I stroll through it after the park is closed for the season.

I park on the street in front; the gates swung shut to visitors. My car is nestled between two others, on the gravel shoulder beside a field of horses kept contained by a wooden fence.

Walking along the windy road into the park, I’m first met with a sign indicating that the park has a complete alcohol ban. It’s the only park in the Grand River Conservation Authority’s care that does. When the full ban was put in place years ago, I stood in the wooden registration cabin, with its thin walls and undated furniture, while I submitted my information and credit card.

“There’s a total ban now?” I asked, surprised.

“Yeah, there is now. And we haven’t had any deaths this year yet,” the teenage boy in the ranger uniform answered. The word “yet,” hung in the air as he scribbled my license plate number across the parking permit.

Now, walking through the area the week after it closed, it has the feeling of an abandoned amusement park. I expect to see thirsty, dried water slides and a rusted Ferris wheel. The swimming pond is drained, leaving a miniature rolling hillside of murk and muck. The wind whips through the trees and you can almost hear children as they run, playing tag; their tube socks pulled up to their knees and their shaggy haircuts growing in the wind. The sun crawls over the pavilion and reaches the old shore, warming up the last smells of summer.

A plaque stands on disintegrated stones in front of the pond, the colour of the words running into each other from the sun and time. It reads that the area “became the first in a series of areas dedicated to public use and recreation by the Grand Valley Conservation Authority.” Above it, three flags ripple in the wind.

In the shade, a touch of chill, the looming winter, hits my face. As the leaves crunch under my feet, sounding far too much like snapping snow, I am reminded of the time when I stayed here in the hazy days of summer, trying to find the safety of shade from the glaring sun and sticky air. When I stayed here, I did so by myself. A liberating experience at the tender age of 30, I finally overcame my fear of the dark and my fear of strangers. Finally.

The park offers tubing down the Grand River. As I walk past the rental hut, its gates pulled down, I almost see the kids running up to the teenage girl working the booth, her head slumped in her hand, looking off to the distance. On their tippy-toes, and their hands on the counter, the two young girls peered at the tube-girl and told her about their dog, who was trying to run in the opposite direction, pulled back by its leash.

“What’s your dog’s name?” I asked.

The two girls hesitantly answered. It must have been the lack of uniform making them uneasy.

As an avid camper who has been far and wide to sleep out under the stars, this is still my favourite park, and walking through, even on the off season, confirms it. As I walk past the campsites right next to the rolling rocks, I imagine a family on its first trip, young children running around with sticks, full of immortality, and nerve-wracked parents repeating once again that they come away from the edge of the cliffs. Or a young couple, on their first trip away together, judging whether their relationship can withstand being stripped of pretense, makeup and blow-dryers. Through the creaky windblown trees, I see the raccoons, breathing a sigh of relief at the lack of disorder only humans bring, yet missing the open bag of potato chips, left on the picnic table overnight by inexperienced campers.

After two hours of walking the trail of the park and running into just one middle aged woman walking her dog, I’m left in a cloud of nostalgia, a sense of awe and a haze of imagination. The park is full of wonder during the summer months, but has a completely different sense of wonder in the off-season, too.