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One winter day while walking with my dog Candy down a trail we frequently used, I stopped to take a break. Candy sniffed the ground and chewed on a piece of bark from a birch branch.

As I looked across the frozen lake, I could see dogs walking around on the other side. My attention then shifted back to where Candy was playing.

Before getting up from the bench, I glanced across the ice again. I realized what I thought were dogs were not dogs at all. As they moved closer, I could see there was nobody with them.

I started walking calmly back to the car with Candy, picking up speed as we went.

Because of the distance between us, the sighting remains a mystery. I will never really know if it was a pack of wolves or coyotes that cloudy winter day.

I remember going blueberry picking with my mom and grandma as a kid. It was a sunny, warm day, and we walked across the road from my grandma’s driveway to the blueberry hill.

I stayed close so I could still see them. One time though, I wandered farther away and lost sight of them. What I did see was a big black bear coming up from the river. Lucky for me, it never looked up from the ground and saw me.

My heart started to pound faster. I slowly backed away, keeping my eyes on the bear until I could no longer see it.

When I turned around to find my mom and grandma, I found my mom first. After I told my grandma about the bear, we left the area and went back to the house.

What I did not know at the time was that this encounter with a black bear would follow by other close encounters with wild animals over the years.

For some reason, I have always liked birch trees. When I was a young girl, my dad made a hanging swing from a birch tree branch for my brother and I at our childhood home.

It is easy to remember because of a picture of me on that swing in that yard.

One of my favorite pastimes as a kid was swinging—the feeling that my legs could carry me higher each time.

Stopping was another matter. At times, I would go so high that I felt a little scared, unsure if I could get off as quickly as I wanted. When I got close enough to the ground, I would jump.

About forty-five years later, walking along a trail in my Northern Ontario community, I notice many birch trees grow here. My spouse told me the birch trees along the driveway at camp were planted by his dad.

Another silver birch on the property caught my attention.

The bark is pale and bright against everything around it, and the tree stands taller than the rest.

It has been there all along.

I just see it differently now.