Edgelands, a term coined by geographer Marion Shoard can be defined as: “the variety of landscapes on our doorstep, in our built environment.” These landscapes exist in urban and suburban settings, but also can be found in rural settings. Specifically, they are swaths of land that seemingly no one and yet everyone owns. Situated between functional and private cultivated spaces edgelands can be considered feral in the sense that at one time tamped down by human settlement, these swaths of land through natural forces have or are in the process of returning to a wild, uncultivated state.

To be geographically specific, edgelands can be considered the many wooded and shrub filled tracks of land that border creeks and streams, and the Ontario lakeshore. In southern Ontario certain of these spaces have been designated conservation areas, through which manmade paths (either sanctioned or unsanctioned) have been cut and are maintained through human activities. Some are relatively large and can be pinpointed on a map. Many others are inconspicuous and are known only to local inhabitants of a particular neighborhood.

Often edgelands have been created between planned suburban communities to allow space for drainage ditches on land deemed unsuitable and unable to sustain permanent dwellings. Notably, edgelands are not parks or parkland. In urban settings, edgelands can be considered back lanes, alleyways, and patches of ground where scratchy shrubs and grasses have grown up between the cracks in the cement. These mostly empty spaces lie in-between buildings wherein products are manufactured and can be purchased along with all variety of services.

During a global pandemic, taking a walk regardless the weather conditions has taken on new significance. Under lockdown orders and mostly confined to our homes and living spaces, the need to exercise outdoors has never been more important to our physical health and mental well-being. Anecdotally, it can be said more people than ever can be seen outside engaging in the most human of human activities: walking and strolling along the paved paths of our neighborhoods, and along rugged paths in the many edgelands prevalent in our urban, suburban, and rural environments.