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A rainbow and two wolves
Jul. 10th, 2004 12:58 amUsually I feel impatient waiting for my camera to transfer all the images from my camera. On this week's canoe trip I took 210, and after an hour only 58 have made it to my hard drive. It can also be annoying that they load in reverse order.
This time I don't mind. Thursday evening I took photos over a course of at least 90 minutes as thin clouds passed over Rock Lake where Marian and I were camped for our third and last night in Algonquin Park. Soft drizzle gave way to a sunset in shades of purplish-grey and soft pink. It was one of many episodes during the week from which I'll have trouble choosing which photos to post.
But this, taken at 7:22 p.m., will probably be one of my favourites from the summer. It captured precisely the quality of lake, rain and evening sun interacting on the smooth granite slope below our site. Rarely do I post an image without any electronic adjustments. At the very least I tend to crop them to the right format for wallpaper, but this one resisted manipulation of any kind.
The evening made a fitting denouement to our trip: more rain than we might have wished for, and too many bugs. The portage was a challenge, and we had some hard paddling against stiff breezes, but nothing we couldn't handle or that we won't remember with pleasure. We ended literally with a rainbow over Rock Lake and a portfolio of memories shared together.
The most sacred moment for me came Wednesday morning at 6:30. We were camped on an island connected to the mainland by a sandy spit and some marsh. I had slept through a thunderstorm but woke to the glow of sunrise on the tent. I got up and walked to a rock from which Marian and I had watched distant forks of lightning the previous evening. About 50 metres (55 yards) across the marshy bay I watched a merganser settle her ducklings on a bit of sand beach for a rest. I decided to go back to bed. Barely having turned to walk back into the woods, I heard the mother quack once. We have these ducks around our own cottage all summer, so I recognized the hushed warning and turned carelessly to look once more.
The family had set off from the beach. A few metres along the shore stood two red wolves, their ears cocked, regarding me thoughtfully across the water. I have never seen them like this in the wild. They were close enough for me to see in detail through my binoculars, but too far to photograph. Apparently these wolves of Eastern Ontario have been reclassified as Canis lycaon, a separate species smaller than the grey wolf. They had come for a morning drink, and seemed uninterested in the merganser and her brood. We watched one another for half a minute, then they turned, picking their way gingerly among marsh plants, and vanished like ghosts into the forest.
This time I don't mind. Thursday evening I took photos over a course of at least 90 minutes as thin clouds passed over Rock Lake where Marian and I were camped for our third and last night in Algonquin Park. Soft drizzle gave way to a sunset in shades of purplish-grey and soft pink. It was one of many episodes during the week from which I'll have trouble choosing which photos to post.
But this, taken at 7:22 p.m., will probably be one of my favourites from the summer. It captured precisely the quality of lake, rain and evening sun interacting on the smooth granite slope below our site. Rarely do I post an image without any electronic adjustments. At the very least I tend to crop them to the right format for wallpaper, but this one resisted manipulation of any kind.
The evening made a fitting denouement to our trip: more rain than we might have wished for, and too many bugs. The portage was a challenge, and we had some hard paddling against stiff breezes, but nothing we couldn't handle or that we won't remember with pleasure. We ended literally with a rainbow over Rock Lake and a portfolio of memories shared together.
The most sacred moment for me came Wednesday morning at 6:30. We were camped on an island connected to the mainland by a sandy spit and some marsh. I had slept through a thunderstorm but woke to the glow of sunrise on the tent. I got up and walked to a rock from which Marian and I had watched distant forks of lightning the previous evening. About 50 metres (55 yards) across the marshy bay I watched a merganser settle her ducklings on a bit of sand beach for a rest. I decided to go back to bed. Barely having turned to walk back into the woods, I heard the mother quack once. We have these ducks around our own cottage all summer, so I recognized the hushed warning and turned carelessly to look once more.
The family had set off from the beach. A few metres along the shore stood two red wolves, their ears cocked, regarding me thoughtfully across the water. I have never seen them like this in the wild. They were close enough for me to see in detail through my binoculars, but too far to photograph. Apparently these wolves of Eastern Ontario have been reclassified as Canis lycaon, a separate species smaller than the grey wolf. They had come for a morning drink, and seemed uninterested in the merganser and her brood. We watched one another for half a minute, then they turned, picking their way gingerly among marsh plants, and vanished like ghosts into the forest.
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