Ferguson Forest, Kemptville, Ontario
I have been walking into forests since I was a small girl in Inuvik, Northwest Territories. There was a forest behind our home there and something in me settled when I entered it. I didn't have a word for it then. The Japanese call it Shinrin-yoku — forest bathing. The meditative act of immersing yourself among the trees and simply being present.
Ferguson Forest is four minutes from my home in Kemptville, Ontario. It is a working demonstration forest managed by the Ontario government — mature plantations of white pine, red pine and cedar that have grown into something quietly cathedral over the decades. I have been walking there since we moved here, with my dogs Marley and Hazel, and sometimes alone.
In late March 2026 I went out alone with my new Fujifilm GFX100RF. I had a choice that morning — go skating, or take the camera into the forest. I chose the forest.
The Maple Trail was familiar. I have walked it many times. But the light was beautiful that morning, the snow still on the branches, the path disappearing into soft winter light between the tall cedars. I stopped and made a photograph. There is a small blue trail marker on one of the trees — I kept it in the frame. It is a tiny human trace in a vast forest. That felt right.
Then I went off trail.
A photography professor once told me that I seem to photograph roads and paths a lot. He was right and I have often wondered about that. Perhaps it is because I grew up in a military family, never more than five years in any one place — always arriving somewhere new, always leaving. Perhaps I am still looking for the path. Or perhaps, as I get older, I am beginning to understand that the path is not something you find. It is something you make by walking.
I found fallen trees and crossed branches — the forest in beautiful disorder. I thought about chaos, about whether it can be beautiful, about how a forest handles destruction. I thought about the boreal forests along Highway 3 near Yellowknife, burned to a crisp and then transformed by hoar frost into something extraordinary. I thought about the morel mushrooms that rise from the ash.
I was thinking about the world too. It has felt chaotic lately. I am hoping, like the forest, it knows what it's doing.
Further along I found the pines — tall and straight, growing confidently toward the light. And then a darker, narrower path where the trees pressed closer and the way through was less obvious. But it was there. It always is.
Four images. One morning. The beginning of a series.
I will be back in every season.
Ferguson Forest, Winter is available as a series of four fine art prints. The Maple Trail, What the Forest Knows, The Way Forward and There is Always a Way are each available in three sizes through the Prints page.
