New Prints!

Knocking out some prints from May's residency and Lake Louise. I may have already eliminated the paintbrush but the rest are final prints for the autobiography in water series.

Still thinking about these...

Camden's Rock: One For Each Province

British Columbia: Near Vermillion Pass en route to Banff

Alberta: Moraine Lake

Saskatchewan: Lake Mead

Manitoba: Winnepeg (St. Boniface)

Ontario: Old Woman's Bay, Lake Superior National Park

Jasper National Park: It's Like Visiting New Zealand All Over Again

On the Ice Explorer at the Columbia Icefield Glacier moments after seeing baby bighorn sheep alongside the road.

Columbia Icefield during a snowstorm

Ill-prepared for winter in June but I stood on a glacier!

Athabasca Falls

Canadian camper in downtown Jasper

Whistler's Mountain

Whistler's Mountain

Ashes in a broken make-shift coffin on Whistler's Mountain with Jasper and my favorite lake in the distance - Lac Beauvert.

Lac Beauvert - best turquoise colored lake in the entire Canadian park system. Canoes at the Fairmount Jasper Park Lodge.

Lac Beauvert

Lac Beauvert

Lac Beauvert

Mountains at Maligne Lake

Maligne Lake in the evening

Lake Louise and Victoria Glacier: Three Visits

Day 1 - Late afternoon, 4th June 2014: Clouds

We did not anticipate the sheer amount of snow and ice that had not yet melted. It was cold (highly reminiscent of the awful Midwest winter) but undeniably beautiful. I did not break out the camera (other than the iPhone photo above) until the next day when I hoped for sunshine.

Day 2 - Early morning 5 June 2014: Frigid Water (particularly if one is collecting samples and floating paper)

Clear water samples for my wooden box and some for those that requested them when I announced on twitter my excess of specimen bottles.

Victoria Glacier: wishing I could see an avalanche (from far, far away).

This is what 9 AM looks like (I have to remind myself because I seldom know).

Day 3 - Late Afternoon Saturday 7 June 2014: Ice

My quintessential Canadian photograph (and the scene I will long to return to for the rest of my life).

Canoe as Ice Breaker

Ice in the Sun

Ice and water reflection in the shade

Misconception #3: The Opacity of Meltwater

The third startling misconception of my life presented itself in Banff and Jasper National Parks earlier this month. Every photograph I have ever seen of meltwater indicated that it was opaque, like liquid minty toothpaste flowing through river beds and lapping onto lake shores. It is not and my quick phrase/drawing above floating in Lake Louise shows this inaccuracy. [For those dying to know, the other misconceptions were: 1) snowshoes don't allow you to walk on top of snow and 2) swim caps do not prevent hair from getting wet.]

Lake Louise was the first body of water on my list that I had never visited. It is significant due to the photographs my aunt and uncle sent of their family's summer vacation approximately twenty-five years ago. In the clouds and mist, it was an enchanting location for a teenager growing up in the high desert landscape. It became a place of longing and this months three visits did not disappoint.

I write this with the images of Lake Louise on my Canon CF card sixty miles away with the hopes of posting the highlights this weekend. Life has been frantic since the end of April - apologies for my irregular blog posts. Soon I will be well enough to post on a regular basis as there is so much to complete during the remaining half of summer.

Five Photographs of Mountains and One of Water (Eventually)

Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel

Mt. Rundle from the Trans Canada Highway (my new favorite mountain)

View from Sulphur Mountain, Banff National Park

View of Banff from Sulphur Mountain (now I understand what Albert Bierstadt was thinking when painting his seemingly unrealistic landscapes of the American West).

 Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise Parking Lot

Columbia Icefield, Jasper National Park

Binoculars: Canadian Edition

Castle Mountain, Banff National Park

Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park

Eagles Nesting on Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park

Canadian Rockies, Medicine Lake, Jasper National Park

Between Maligne and Medicine Lakes, Jasper National Park

Columbia Icefield, Jasper National Park

Lake Superior, Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario

Lake Superior, Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario

Lake Superior, Pukaskwa National Park, Ontario

Oh Canada

Good-bye Idaho.

Hello Canada (and summer vacation with artwork sprinkled here and there).

Water of the Past, Water of the Present

Malad Gorge, c. 1970s

I stopped here, collected my first sagebrush, and stared at the canyon in the mid afternoon sun earlier this month after crossing the Idaho border. It was the first revisited location this summer, a spot near the interstate to stretch weary legs. There is more graffiti on the bridge now but there is a paved path on the other side which brought me to this vista below. I did not see a dead calf in the rapids - an event that was seared into my retina at the age of fifteen - however, I did search for anything out of the ordinary (and did not find it).

  

Malad Gorge, Idaho, 3 May 2014

Boise River, c. 1970s

Every photograph taken on my phone or DSLR in the past month of the Boise River along the Greenbelt, evokes memories of the slide shows my brother and I saw of our hometown as a child. In May, there is no evidence of ice, only the high, quick moving waters of melted snow from the mountains as depicted in previous blog posts.

The following four photographs are of the next destinations: Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho and Alberta, Canada. Every summer, often multiple times with the other parent, we journeyed to Northern Idaho. It is a place my parents love, passed down to the next generation. My brother and I do not travel there as much as we used to (hm... eight years ago for me and who knows for Javy) but its prominence in our youth defines much of what we love about the Western landscape today. Speaking of adoration, I appreciate age turning these slides cyan given the context of this current series. I may be disappointed when the water isn't this "blue" in real life.

Sunnyside, Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, c. 1978

Cape Horn Road, Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, c. 1970s

Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho, c. 1974

Jasper National Park, c. 1968

This year marks my first excursion into Alberta, Canada. I have desired to visit glacier melt for decades and it is my mother's photograph above that introduced me to this phenomenon. Little did we know about global warning at the time, while snacking on popcorn looking at my family's history with water on slide shows in the dark. This may be one of the most meaningful locations of the series, particularly since it is one of three locations on my list that I have never seen. I have no history of this location, only its image.