Watermark: Cootes Paradise, Natural Urban and the Urban Natural Environment.

I’m in a small cove, a bight, a calligraphic curl in the shoreline, amidst lily pads, floating logs, water striders and the intermittent glurp of surfacing fish. I’m trying to remain as quiet and still as I can. I’m kayaking in Cootes Paradise, a kilometre from where I’ve lived in Hamilton, Ontario for nearly 30 years. 

Lake Ontario Waterkeepers has a project, The Watermark Project where they invite people to write something about a body of water that is important to them. I've written about Cootes Paradise, a marsh that is near to where I live and where I hike and kayak and about in interconnectedness of the urban with the natural world.