What is it about the lure of fall colours?

Google “fall colours” at this time of year, and you’ll find — as I did — more than 450,000,000 results (almost as many as “Thanksgiving,” and way more than the “Easter Bunny” or “Santa Claus”)! The first several result pages link to articles about where to go to see the best ones, with the majority of those located in either BC or Ontario. Fall colour tourism is obviously a very popular pastime for some Canadians. I think it always has been.

I’m not immune to its appeal. I grew up near Lake Simcoe in Southern Ontario, and have fond memories of a regular family outing that had us all piling into our pickup truck to drive “up north to see the colours.” We four kids, given that only one could sit up front and actually see those leaves go by, may have had mixed feelings about this excursion. I can’t recall those, nor can I remember the method used to decide who got that one plum seat with our parents. It was probably rotated regularly, and bitterly contested. Perhaps my siblings remember, but I wouldn’t want to reopen old wounds by asking.

The back of our truck had a plywood box cover on it, purpose-built by my dad, and three of us would roll around in there as we drove the 200 or so kilometres to get to the best leaves (generally somewhere near Algonquin Park). That cover certainly sheltered us from the wind but, having no windows, rather obstructed any view of fall colours. See below for my very rough approximation of what the truck looked like (or rather, how I remember it).

My clearest memory of these outings were the long-awaited stops, when we’d all roll out, likely bickering, with stiff legs, and go our separate ways at the side of the highway to hunt for rocks, fossils, or leaves for our collections. To this day, I can still differentiate mica or quartz from other kinds of rocks, and identify a number of trees without having to look them up. An integral part of my all-round education. But I no longer have any collections.

Now there’s a pastime you don’t hear much about anymore; do kids still collect things or do their social media obligations leave them with insufficient time? I recall the Fluffster offspring collecting bits of fluff as a child (more than 20 years ago). His fluffball attained very impressive proportions before he gave up the practice of hoarding every bit of fluff that crossed our threshold. Of course, he never engaged with social media, so perhaps he’s not representative.

Now that I always ride up front, I appreciate fall colours far more than I did as a child. There’s a lot more colour in the Lower Mainland (top of this post and below) than there was on Hornby Island. Not sure if that’s because we just didn’t find the right places or there really was less of it there. I’ll give the island the benefit of the doubt, and enjoy what’s close to home.

And then there’s indoor or manufactured colour. It may be just my imagination, but it seems like more individuals (and businesses) are decorating for fall/Halloween than usual this year. Or perhaps I’m paying more attention now. Just before I took the photo directly above, we had our afternoon coffee at a patisserie that was marvellously decked out for autumn (below).

They also had the most amazing super-rich gluten-free dessert — Mount Coffee Cake. The lattes were great, the music was jazzy, melodious, and at just the right volume (sounded like Pink Martini). We didn’t want to leave, but eventually we had to waddle out of there and head home again. Melo Patisserie, we will return. Next time, it’ll be Lovely Lemon Cake for me.