Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 12, 1946

The morning sun up full and strong - a robin in the poplar tree just outside the window.

B & I to Gowanda to get maple syrup. Pleasant to be out-a fine March day.

Stop at Taylor’s sugar camp - but no syrup for us. (“Many people had orders in for weeks, or even months, and it is to be a short run from all signs, etc.). The glory of their “bush” a knoll, dense covered with fine trees, the sunlight pouring in, an excitement and beauty that makes my heart ache with longing.-

On to Gowanda. Park in center of town & for short walk - the old Victorian houses. Lunch at “Main Diner” – a smelly busy place but the food very good. For short walk again afterwards then up to the Quaker Road. Park by a power station. I wish to show B my find of a couple of summers ago, a messy spot on the edge of cliff, with a fine view S.W. down the Canyon.

After a climb thru sumac tangle, enter the pine & hemlock woods. A fine place – the rich damp smell coming up from rooting needles, just melted, and a soft roar of the wind thru the feathery hemlock boughs; the pale cobwebby glint of sunlight as it sifted in here & there, on the satiny hemlock needles. How good it was to have Bertha by my side.

Countless walnuts, gnawed by squirrels – I overshot the mark & we reach the canyon to the west of where I had intended - Great masses of ice on the north walls of the canyon - A strong wind - Wintergreen berries, a trailing arbutus plant which I dug up for B - wandering thru the woods. Coming out into an open place, protected from the wind, we find it is almost too warm for comfort —

Home by the way of Quaker Road & northward - not coming back to Route 62 until near Eden.

Charles E. Burchfield, March 12, 1946