One beautiful, crisp autumn day up in northern Ontario, Canada, I decided to go for a walk behind my friends’ house. Before I left the house, my friends warned me: “Remember, this is bear country. Be prepared when you go outside, and don’t go too far from the house when you’re walking along the trail. If you smell something very foul like something’s rotten, run as fast as you can and come back. It will probably be a bear, and you won’t be safe; we wouldn’t want you to get hurt. Bears are known to frequent this area in search of food. You would be wise not to carry any food or eat anything while you are walking because it would trigger them to attack.”

I hadn’t gone very far from the house when I became enraptured with the fragrance of the forest, the heady aroma of the green lichen moss flowing like a carpet, covering the forest floor and the decaying, old trees.