Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Canada Day Morning, 2007


Ruth took this photo of me in the early morning fog, near the mouth of a drowned coulee along the east shore of the Alameda Reservoir, south of the Moose Creek boat launch. Even after the fog lifted, it was a beautiful place, with native grassland cloaking the banks almost to the water's edge.

Who says you have to drive halfway across a province (or a country) before you can enjoy a spirit-lifting paddle?

6 comments:

Madcap said...

Ruth is an artist with that camera! What a gorgeous photo!

Deb said...

That is beautiful- so peaceful looking.

arcolaura said...

Madcap - she is an artist in many ways. We watch and wonder.

Deb - very peaceful. Apart from our two kayaks, I would guess there were only two or three boats on the entire reservoir, scattered to the best fishing spots and trolling quietly. It helps to get up early! In fact we got up so early we didn't want to drive out of the campground, so we carried our kayaks the quarter mile or so to the water.

Tim Hodgens said...

Spirit-lifting...yes!

I remember approaching a great blue heron early one morning in my kayak years ago. I stopped paddling and continued to glide closer. When the invisible border was broached, he (she?) started moving his wings. Unhurried, powerful strokes. I could hear the "thwwwww" of it all...

Majestic and spirit-lifting these many years later.

arcolaura said...

Tim - amazing how they can fly with such languid motion. I recall one October morning with just the first light in the eastern sky, in the Souris River valley in SW Manitoba. I had camped in a tiny isolated municipal campground, and I had the whole place to myself - or so I thought. As I made my way to the outhouse, using the feel of the ground to keep to the path in the dark, there came a slow beat of wings, slow beating but rushing towards me, and the heron swept directly over my head. I can still see its silhouette against the brightening sky. That long angular form, seen so close, struck me as something mysterious and ancient, like a pterodactyl soaring out of some timeless depth of the dark.

Tim Hodgens said...

Wowwww!

And she's a poet too!

Thwwww, thwwww, thwwww