The Well-trodden Path

The amazing thing about the well-trodden path is that no matter how many times one follows it there is always something new to discover.

At the cottage this summer, I was reminiscing with my brother about a recent fishing trip. We had traveled to Gander, Newfoundland and then flown by float plane from there to a lodge on Banting Lake.

Banting Lake is named in tribute to Sir Frederick Banting. It was there in 1941 that he perished in a plane crash. He is known as the Nobel Prize winning discoverer of Insulin.

As remarkable as this discovery was, Frederick Banting went on to do something even more remarkable still. He did not seek to profit from this life saving discovery. Instead of applying for a patent, he transferred his rights to the University of Toronto. The price? One dollar. This act of selfless nobility is what made it possible for the millions suffering from diabetes to have affordable access to his health restoring serum.

Back from my digression. I was talking about the well-trodden path. The guides at Banting Lake Lodge were perfect specimens of the amazingly capable and resourceful men life in Newfoundland demands.

While trudging along a barely discernible path, an act of gritty endurance on my part but what my guide described as,

”a quick skip up the river”

I pointed out to him a dense patch of Round Leaf Sundew.

The Round Leaf Sundew is a tiny plant that grows in the nutrient starved barrens throughout the Maritimes.

It only grows 3 or 4 centimeters tall and has several round leaves of a soft green colour, each covered with many bright red hairs.

Every hair is tipped with the tiniest drop of sweet, sticky liquid.

An insect unfortunate enough to try for a sip of this deadly nectar finds itself trapped and slowly digested by the enzyme rich liquid as the hairs slowly enwrap its body.

My guide stopped to look at the miniature plantation. He pretended interest in deference to my need to take a breather.

When I pointed out the remains of a small insect wrapped in the hairs of one leaf, his interest was suddenly real. Captured by a plant that eats bugs.

Even though he knew the woods and waters of this country as well as or better than most, he was seeing something new and enjoying it as much as I was to be learning the broader strokes of the landscape unfolding before me.

And that is the amazing thing about the well-trodden path.