vaneramos | Guelph Lake

Elm tree

Having swum every summer of my life in Lake Fletcher, which is practically drinkable, not to mention growing up overlooking a scenic Lake Erie shore, I've become a water snob. I love beaches, but shun the ones strewn with scorched human bodies in favour of those where sandpipers outnumber people and the only sound is the surf and laughter of gulls. I adore swimming, but neither in chlorine nor algae. Give me instead a cool, dark northern lake that smells alive and tastes sweet.

I rarely visit Guelph Lake and have never photographed it until today. A brilliant morning sky beckoned me to explore new paths. The breeze off the water smelt murky, but I couldn't resist the murmur in the trees, or rhythm of waves lapping the shore, all underscored by a tense shrill of crickets in goldenrod thickets.

It's a manmade reservoir with stony beaches, where abandoned sideroads slide down hillsides and disappear mysteriously. On the edge of an island, legions of white gulls and black cormorants stand silent. The shoreline is eerily deserted. I meet only one burly cyclist. And a black cat that pauses, regarding me from the path between cedars for two motionless, astonished minutes.