Concession Road

Jan 20 2020

Concession road

is what we locals call these rural routes.

A geometric grid

of ruled lines, strict right angles

overlaid on the land

as if to subdue it;

as if the rocks and trees and glacial til

would so easily concede

to their domestication.

The settlers, who ventured west

determined to reproduce

the pastoral landscape of home,

its arcadian fields, rolling hills,

tidy hedgerows

and dry stone walls.

Its country roads

and pleasant Sunday drives,

an ocean away

from this rock-ribbed wilderness.

But even the most determined of men

could not bulldoze perfect lines,

defeated by deep ravines, impervious rock

run-off rivers and bottomless bogs

dense stands of trees.

Roads with steep grades

and ever tightening turns;

as if the best laid plans

of man and machine

were forced to concede,

as if the colonists

who came armed with illusions of conquest

had in the end deferred to the land.

Wending our way home

along concession roads

through blind turns

hard climbs

and sharp descents,

dark impenetrable forest

looming on either side.

Travel to any jurisdiction other than Ontario or Quebec, and no one will understand what you mean. “Concession Road” is particular to here, an artifact of the original surveyors: imposing order on a lawless land.

I like the ambiguity of the term. I have no idea of its origin, but I can just see those early settlers tipping their hats to an unconquerable landscape, conceding that the best laid plans of engineers could not be translated from paper to the actual landscape. The powers that be could decree an easement here and a township line there; but topography gets the last word!