Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/456199
from this building and pass out on the 18th hole of the local golf course, but also how he trained beaver kittens and enchanted locals with his storytelling. A montage of Grey Owl's prairie life running through my mind, I pull Mark's nose out of a book and we head to the Grey Owl Trail – a 17.8-km round-trip hike to his cabin. It's a long journey (about four hours walking, shorter for cycling and, come winter, cross-country ski- ing), but true to the prairies, there's little elevation, making it a moderate trail. Along the way we pass beneath aspen, spruce, poplar and pine, and by wild flowers, mushrooms and rasp- berries. Makeshift bridges span babbling brooks. Frogs jump across our path as we follow deer tracks left in the mud after a thunderstorm the night before. e trail is quiet and mostly untouched. A golden retriever lopes up to us midway to the cabin, and his owners – a couple and their tween son – quickly follow. ere's a short dialogue to determine how far still to the cabin. It's the only sign of civilization we see the whole afternoon. Around a bend, sitting in a small meadow, Grey Owl's two-room cabin pops up like an unexpected rainstorm on a hot summer ⊲ Grey Owl's sparse two-room cabin; (below) deer tracks along the trail.