Port McNicoll woman shares gratitude, love of nature (5 photos)

‘To live a joyful life, you must become an expert in gratitude.’

While a family friend often signs off her emails with this important lesson for living, a Port McNicoll woman has taken it to the next level.

Nadine Woods, who owns the Port McNicoll Barbership, has created three nature gratitude boxes and placed them in secret spots around the community for people to find and leave a simple note about why they’re grateful.

“We've had a great response,” says Woods, noting that like her others enjoy sharing their feelings of gratitude for the area in which they live, the places they’re able to go and the important things in their lives.

But it was a bit of happenstance that helped lead Woods to creating the boxes in the first place.

During a Mother’s Day hike off Rosemount Road with her daughter Olivia two years ago, the pair came across a similar box and were quickly taken with the idea.

“We found it in the middle of a forest on our hike and thought it was a really cute idea and thought our town needed something like that,” Woods says. “People need to show a little more gratitude.”

So, they went home and created three boxes, one of which she placed on the Tay walking trail and the other two on Port McNicoll’s side trails.

“They’re on popular trails, but are still hidden,” says Woods, who declined to give the boxes' precise locations since that takes away some of the fun of finding them.

“We have a favourite place that we like to go within town, and a couple of other favourite places. You have to be out walking and on a little bit of adventure to be able to find them. When you do, it’s a nice surprise."

Woods, who enjoys regular hikes with her Boxer pup Jaxon, says that while she’ll often give hints, she doesn’t spell out where the boxes are located. She also requests that those who find them don’t publicly share the locations “because that's the joy of  finding it and experiencing it on your own.”

But the venture hasn’t been without running into those who Woods describes as lacking a certain amount of gratitude. Last summer, the three boxes were smashed and discarded.

At the time, Woods wasn’t sure she would put up new boxes. But as luck would have it, a few individuals found the broken boxes and returned them to her.

She says the actions of those people made her decide to start again and fix up the boxes. She reinstalled them and there haven’t been any more issues.

And since some might not be physically able to get to the boxes, Woods visits them every couple of weeks and takes pictures of the entries that she shares on a Facebook link called Gratitude Boxes & Letters (Port McNicoll, Ontario).

"I am grateful for this beautiful nature and enjoying it with the company of amazing friends," one note left in a box reads. "Thank God, thank Mother Nature."

There are also notes left by people touring the area from other locales, including a Brazilian visitor who left a note in Portuguese.

Stella from Penetanguishene writes in her note: "Grateful for: Every day that I wake up in the morning happy and healthy, for nature, good friends and family."