Before my family and I moved to Canada’s West Coast, our foothold on the planet was property I had bought in Halton County, southern Ontario, in 1959. I loved those ten sloping acres nestled in the Niagara escarpment and the house I later designed and built there. In the 1960s the Escarpment was already the only rough country that remained in the environs of metropolitan Toronto, which is why I moved there. From my studio window I had a splendid view of one of the Escarpment’s more impressive eminences, Rattlesnake Point. I contemplated that view in every weather and every season, by day and by night. But probably my favorite time was during those golden days of autumn when the eastern hardwood forest is at its most exuberant. My daily hike through our woods and meadow is like a feast for the senses. I reveled in the rich dank smell of decay and the incredible variety of form and color - the jewelweed and goldenrod that often grow as high as my chin and the intricate tracery of wild grapes, whose leaves, stems and tendrils remind me of Tiffany lamps. - Robert Bateman