Leaving Pictou, we headed north west to Caribou Provincial Park, named so after the Woodland Caribou was hunted to extinction by the European settlers in 19th century. Naming and murder are intricately connected in civilisation: as Tawd explained to Ljuba, when we arrived in Memphis and were looking for Poplar Avenue, that it was the same as with Cedar Lane or Pine Heights, or other places named after trees, because all the poplars, cedars and pine have been cut down and their space has been occupied by plastic houses. The residents of these plastic boxes and naked spaces, I added, are highly dedicated to mowing grass and cutting down anything that might grow taller than 3 inches. Sadly, the caribou is facing the same fate elsewhere in Canada as well. Their abundance two centuries ago and extinction now confirms Petr Kropotkin’s study that species and individuals flourish through mutual aid and cooperation, whereas the capitalist notion of competition, private property, and the survival of the fittest introduced by European intrusion, annihilated most of the animate species and inanimate “resources” of the world.

Along the road, I noticed a man indulging in a peculiar activity: he chose one tree and was trimming it into a rounded shape. How much time of his life must he spend on battling nature and its desire to grow out to reach the skies? Why does a round tree appeal to him or his master more than the magnificence of the widely spread majestic branches of an old tree that whispers of timeless existence to the wind?

Finally, on day 7 of our trip, in Caribou Park, we see a bird:





And, another bird:

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