Walking down those ‘chilling’ caves
By Amardeep Khosa

SPELEOLOGY is the scientific study of caves, and I became familiar with the term fairly recently when I heard of these caves called "Bonnechere Caves." The name with its very French spelling intrigued me and when on a warm sultry morning, our hosts in Ottawa, Canada, suggested that we visit these underground caves, one and all lapped up the suggestion. Known as Ontario’s natural underground wonder, these caves are located at the Fourth Chute — the name coming from the fact this location was the fourth log chute on the river in the days of the log drives — on the Bonnechere river, about 6 km downstream from Eganville, 70 km north-west from Ottawa, the capital city of Canada. It took us about one-and-a-half-hours to get there.

An extremely rare sight of an actual working hand pump spewing out cold refreshing water greeted us on reaching there. Imagine our surprise when we were told that the water was drinkable and was full of lots and lots of minerals. All the adults in the party, immediately made a beeline towards that pump and drank to our hearts content despite the rather sceptical looks that our children, including my very Indian-born and brought up teenager gave us.

The story goes that in the winter of 1954 a very brave and daring man with exploring on his mind and adventure in his heart, tied himself to a rope secured at the surface and lowered himself through a hole in the ground. Clutching a camera in one hand and a flashlight in the other he got into a rubber dinghy and set off on the journey of a lifetime. The pitch dark inside was only partially illuminated by the feeble light of his flashlight, and as he was propelled by the rushing waters of the river deep into the dark tunnel without any control whatsoever. At a sharp turn in the tunnel the swirling waters capsized the dinghy, flinging the man onto a rock wall. In a desperate attempt to save himself he grabbed a sharp outcropping of the wall and in doing so dropped the flashlight, plunging himself into blacker than black darkness. Dropping the camera would have been more sensible, but then a sensible man wouldn’t have ventured out on such an adventure. That courageous man was Thomas Purcell Woodward, a native of England and a World War II veteran, who decided to settle in this part of Canada after the war.

Tom Woodward opened up passages that had lain secret for 10,000 years. They were thrown open to the public for tours for the first time in 1955 and since then thousands of people have walked through them, viewing remnants of fossilised coral and tropical sea creatures, which lie buried in the walls of the caves. The caves were owned and operated by Tom Woodward for 40 years. Where other people might have exploited the caves by development around the attraction by commercialising the area, he kept the caves a simple place to visit. Rather than turn the caves into an entertainment centre where he could have made a lot more money, he preferred that they instead become a place where people could visit and learn. He passed away in 1993 and it was just two years before his death that he leased the place to Eganville native Chris Hinsperger, one of many students who worked as a guide during the summer months and shared Woodward’s love and passion for the caves. Chris and his wife, Val now own the caves and are managing them with the same spirit. "I enjoy seeing people fascinated by the caves," says Chris Hinsperger, "How many people can earn a living at something they truly enjoy, at something that sparks so much interest in people?"

Before we could venture underground, our young vivacious guide showed us the caves’ oldest attractions — fossils of corals and other sea creatures that lived long before the dinosaurs. About 500 million years ago, this part of the Ottawa valley was the bottom of a tropical sea and several thousand fossil species of the Palaeozoic era have been found in the province. At last it was time for us to begin our subterranean tour and what a relief it was to step into a cool 12° from a hot 33° Celsius outside. The temperature inside stays constant at 10° to 12°, summers and winters. A series of dams and pumps keep most of the water out in summers although in winters it flows through the caves again. A few electric lights and wooden boardwalk help you to navigate the twisting stone tunnels and keep your feet dry otherwise the caves are untouched. Our guide invited us to venture alone along a narrow side tunnel which joins back with the main passage further down but warned us with her tongue embedded in her cheek to be very careful as she had to take at least 75 per cent of us back up or she won’t be paid her wages. Those of us who dared to go into that narrow passage despite her warning earned the right to be called a spelunker, or a cave explorer.

Walking down those cool caves was something that I’ve never experienced before, as being claustrophobic, I normally avoid closed structures, including elevators. While looking up we could see the cave roof literally dripping with stalactites. These rock icicles form at the rate of one cubic inch every 150 years. On closer inspection we found that the stalactites were actually dripping with water droplets and by sticking out our tongues we could catch some drops falling from the ceiling if we were patient enough to stand for that long in that position. Again we were told that it was fresh, minerals water quite like the expensive bottled one sold in stores. We reached a very sharp turn in the tunnel and our guide told us to wave our fingers in front of our eyes which we promptly started doing and then she switched off the lights, just for a couple of seconds and I understood what pitch dark really means. Then of course she related the famous story of Tom Woodward and informed us that it was at this turn that he had dropped his flashlight and held on to his camera for dear life. What a brave man !

As the river water still flows through the caves in the winters, we came across dams built by beavers complete with pieces of wood, mud and stones. This industrious animal, a rodent, is capable of cutting trees up to 30 cm thick with his bare teeth and build dams which are generally about two metres high but can be several metres long. Wow !

While walking down the tunnels I kept looking at the cave ceiling rather suspiciously which the guide must have noticed. I was trying to pass it off as my natural curiosity for stalactites but the guide interpreted it correctly as my fear of bats. She assured me that at this time of the year i.e. in July, there are no bats in the caves, but if you visit the caves on Thanksgiving weekend, which is the last weekend of November, you would see 100 to 150 of these brown furry mammals clinging to the walls. They come to hibernate in the winters, as the caves are pleasantly warm.

The walk through the caves was a delight, a wonderful experience, but there were more picturesque sights outside. To return to the parking lot we followed another boardwalk through a hidden valley lush green with vegetation. Next to a small stream there was an old flourmill built in the 1850s.

Then there was another signboard with Sinking Hole written on it so we trudged up quite a few stone steps (109 to be precise, we later found out) to see the hole through which Woodward had lowered himself and begun that famous journey which ended in his discovery of the secret caves that have delighted thousands of visitors ever since.