This Torontonian led nature walks almost until the day he died

Miles Hearn’s passion for playing music was matched only by his love of guiding nature walks.

“Because he was a trained musician,” his friend Louise Lore remembers, “he had the most amazing ear. He didn’t even bring binoculars because he could hear the birds.”

Hearn, who died on Feb. 25, was a Toronto native who contributed to our knowledge of birds every year by working with the Ministry of Natural Resources. He developed his ear as a professional French horn player in the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. And he spent his last 15 years as a nature guide, taking people through a network of Toronto ravines and trails.

His love of music began early. Growing up in Scarborough in the 1950s, he bonded with his mother over classical music. His grandmother bought him his first French horn in high school, and he was hooked.

In the mid ’60s, he studied music and education at the University of Toronto, where he met his closest friend, Alan Carter, with whom he also shared a fondness for nature walks and birdwatching. Hearn’s grandfather had introduced him to birding on his property in Pickering, which was also a conservation area, as well as on bird-breeding trips to Northern Ontario. Hearn continued those trips into his adulthood, conducting bird censuses for the Ministry of Naural Resources.

Carter joined Hearn on many of these trips. “They were important highlights in our friendship, because we were enjoying the birds and being together.”

Though Carter left the city and stopped playing music, Hearn went on to perform with the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra and Toronto Symphony Orchestra for many years.

When not rehearsing in Hamilton, Hearn would wander through the Royal Botanical Gardens, walk the Bruce Trail and read books on lichens and insects. “He never wasted time,” says his widow, Marie Boisvert. “He was always doing something.”

They met at the National Ballet of Canada Orchestra, when Hearn came in as a substitute horn player for “The Nutcracker.” “He told me how much he enjoyed listening to me playing the harp during one of the concerts I was performing at,” Marie remembers.

They married on New Year’s Day in 1989 and spent their honeymoon at the Briars on Lake Simcoe. It was the only time they both had four days off.

The father of four (Alexander, Kathleen, Sophie and Evelyne) and a grandfather of five, Hearn “took the kids as much as he could to wherever he was going,” Boisvert says. “He taught all the kids how to drive on standard and took them on adventures by the ravine in the Don Valley.”

As music gigs became less frequent in the late ’90s, Hearn decided to become a French teacher. “When Miles first met me, he took French lessons in secret and took me to dinner and started speaking French,” Boisvert says. “Isn’t that the cutest thing?”

“My dad was really great at making nature interesting for everyone,” Kathleen says. “He took my kids out and he always found something that would interest them — like a huge plant — and didn’t just lecture.”

Hearn kept up with music by singing in the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and participating in community theatre. (Boisvert says his tall, lanky build helped land him roles in musicals like “My Fair Lady.”)

“He loved theatre — pretty much any theatre,” Kathleen says. “Even weird theatre.”

“Miles loved whatever he was doing at that moment,” Boisvert says.

After retiring in 2002, Hearn noticed that the TDSB’s Learn4Life adult general-interest program was looking for a Saturday morning instructor to lead nature walks. The first year, he couldn’t fill up the class, but great word-of-mouth led to more classes. “He always had a love for nature and loved to nurture it,” Boisvert says.

“Miles was a passionately curious Renaissance man,” says his friend Lore, who first met him at one of his nature walks 20 years ago. “Everything was a challenge for him, and everything he did, he mastered.”

He led walks all over Toronto, from Humber River to Lambton Woods. Regardless of the weather or how many people showed up, he never cancelled. When walks became less frequent during the pandemic, Hearn often drove to provincial parks alone or spent time at Scarborough Bluffs and Ashbridges Bay.

Hearn put together his own Nature Walk Reports that he would post on his website every day with photos of birds, plants, trees and people he met on his trek.

His website also documented the different trails, animals and ferns he encountered.

Whether Hearn was playing the French horn, teaching French or guiding nature walks, he always did it with a sense of humour.

“He loved to make us laugh,” daughter Sophie says. “When I think of him, that’s how I see him — goofing around, being silly and laughing.”

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