Memories of Snowshoeing

 After cross-country skiing, snowshoeing was my favourite winter activity when we lived in the valley.  It's such a neat way to walk in deeper snow.  If nothing else it keeps the snow away from the top of your boots.  It also leaves a really neat track behind you.

On this occasion I was using my traditional 40-year old 'Huron' snowshoes, large and wide with a tail at the back.  I bought these on our way to a trip in Algonquin Park, where we snowshoed in loose fluffy snow 4 feet deep!  We still sank in a foot even with these.  As you can see, the harness has been replaced, at least twice I think.

It was a glorious day in the woods, probably not deep enough to really require these large snowshoes, but deep enough to have fun using them.

It was a couple of days since a nice snowfall, so there was at least 6-8 inches of fresh powder.

It makes fascinating patterns clinging to the branches.

And it was definitely clinging to those branches!

I always wore mukluks to use snowshoes, particularly these older ones made with real gut rather than plastic!  The hard edges of heavier boots can damage the webbing.

Have You Ever Seen Hoarfrost Up Close?

 I love the distant views of hoarfrost in the treetops, but once I photographed it up close it was incredible!  And another idea is to aim directly at the sun, but position it behind a tree so you enhance the real sparkly effect.  What do you think?

These are three of my best sparkly photos.

And these my best close-ups.  Aren't those flat ice crystals amazing?

 

Hoarfrost!

 I can only remember three times over the past couple of decades when I saw hoarfrost in the trees.  It`s magical, turning all those branches bright white with sparkling frost crystals.  You have to get out there for any pictures, because it will melt in the sun by lunch or earlier.

The view out our back window at the last house.

Such frost requires specific atmospheric conditions to occur.  Still cold nights mean that the surface of tree and shrub twigs is below the freezing point, and high water vapour condenses and freezes immediately, building up ice crystals that grow as the temperature drops..

You also need bright sunny days to see it.  A few more tomorrow.

Remembering William

 Our oldest son William would have turned 48 today.  I can't believe it!  It's 10 years since his water bomber went down while fighting a forest fire in northern Alberta.  He was described as a hero at his three memorials, and I believe it.  He was looked up to by his crew as a leader.

Will decided to become a pilot and nothing stood in his way.  After college he flew out of Kenora, on Fiji, out of Prince Rupert, for Wasaya Airways in northern Ontario (the big twin engine freight planes), and finally for Conair, the fire-fighting company out of Abbotsford, B.C.  I've just finished reading the 96 tributes to him on the Forever Missed website, and he's uniformly described as a kind, compassionate friend.  He always put safety first, and he had a dry sense of humour.

This is my favourite photo of William as a pilot, because it shows him 'living his dream'.  After we passed a large forest fire on our way to the Yukon, complete with water bombers, his dream became to be a water bomber pilot himself, and after 10 years of flying he made it.  His passing so young was tragic, but knowing that he had followed his dream somehow makes it a little easier.

Ten years later I think of his brother and sister and how much they have lost.  I hope their memories serve them well.  Here are three pictures illustrating those memories.

William and his sister Katherine, out of Twillingate, Newfoundland, 1992.

Yes, that's an iceberg in the background.

William and his brother Matt, in the meadow on Manitoulin about 1988.

It was just teeming with Monarch butterflies.

The whole family on our first trip west, at Lake Agnes in Banff National Park, 1986.

So many wonderful memories.

More Winter Shadows

 It wasn't just along roads that I noticed winter shadows, fences sometimes also created striking patterns,. And sometimes when I was snowshoeing along a trail through the woods I would come across an interesting pattern of shadows.   

On a big cattle farm, this was a pretty serious fence to maintain, but it casts neat shadows .

Another fence, just down the road from our previous home.  This fence looked like it could use some maintenance!

Not exactly a fence, but there's an old fence buried in there somewhere, overgrown with shrubs that are creating these beautifully curved drifts.

Some interesting patterns in shallow drifting snow.

And sometimes it's just a beautiful scene in the woods.  Winter shadows were always a striking part of the world around me.  Today they're limited to the occasional shots of the tree shadows out behind our home, on the open golf course.

 

 

Winter Shadows

Back in those good old days when I was driving, one of the things I really noticed was the shadows across some of the roads I drove down, usually quiet side roads .  These were the east-west roads of course and there was no traffic so I could just stop in the middle of the road and get a picture..  These were years with normal snowfall, much less than we're getting this year.  On bright sunny days the patterns were striking.

Sometimes the snow was sticky and outlined all the tree trunks in white.  Hope you enjoy these.

These are for Rosalea, who featured a similar photo in her post of Feb. 2nd on her blog Chronicles from the Hill.  Hope you all enjoyed them!

I could keep posting pictures of our snow - yes, it's snowing again today - but I don't want to overdo it, even though the snow is certainly overdoing it this year!  I don't remember seeing snow outside like this - ever!

Guess What!?

If you guessed right we got another snowstorm!  It never stops, and just builds up and up and up!  I watched the guys who came to shovel our front sidewalk, the snow was a foot deep again!  We're missing a lot of care-giving shifts because of the poor visibility for driving caused by the blowing snow.

Yes the snowstick is buried deeply down below that drift in the lower left!

When I look out the front window all I see is snow, I'm guessing 3-5 feet deep over our entire front yard and 7 feet deep beside the driveway.  This morning the fire hydrant finally disappeared from view.

Now I'm going to go back 10 years and see what other interesting photos I can find from past winters for your amusement.

Flag Day in Canada

Today is National Flag of Canada Day.  The familiar red and white Canadian flag was introduced in 1965 after contentious debate in the House of Commons.  It replaced the Red Ensign, a flag featuring the British Union Jack in the corner, and the coat of arms of Canada.  It's a widely recognized flag today.

This was taken at Big Bay, on one of our excursions ten years ago.  I just really liked the flag flapping in the wind over Georgian Bay.  It was at the end of the Big Bay dock, on the famous Big Bay beach.

Yes, Big Bay is indeed the stone skipping capital of Canada.  That beach is not sand, but shingle, all round flat stones, perfect for skipping, which of course we did.

It's hard to be unaware of how directly Donald Trump is insulting Canada with his threats of tariffs and making us the 51st state.  Trump has pissed off so many Canadians that there are more patriotic flag posts on Facebook here than anything else.  I fear that many Canadians will no longer feel friendly to the U.S., which is a shame.

But the unintended result has been a wave of patriotism sweeping the country.  Like most other Canadians I'm proud of our great country and a little frightened that Trump will not in fact back off.

As If That Wasn't Enough!

As if we haven't had enough snow yet, we had another foot on Wednesday night.  It has really piled up now and the forecast shows no warmer temperatures for the next two weeks.  The street didn't get plowed out until late morning, long after our caregiver would have been here if she could get down the street!

How the snow goes over that planter and hangs down like it does I have no idea, but it does.  However, the drift below has grown as well so from my vantage point the gap between them has shrunk to very little.  Compare that to the last photo of my last post.

Mrs. F.G. took the camera and tried to get a picture of the giant snow cap on our planter, to show how it curves over toward the east.  Our prevailing breezes are from the west, so it pushes the snow to the east forming this giant one-sided mushroom cap..

The town plow and our own snowblower guy got here in late morning and blew out the drive.  The two plows timed it well, for the town plow came by a few moments after the other, leaving a big ridge across the front of our driveway, but this guy was still on the street, so he came back and blew that away too.

The pile beside the drive has crept above six feet now, and our small Tulip tree on the far left is half-buried!  I hibernate from first snow til it melts in March, except for getting out in a vehicle to physio, lunch and sometimes church. 

Winter Continues Here!

Winter continues here without letting up.  It just snows and snows and snows.  It never melts, so it just piles up here.  I don't remember so much snow in recent decades!  The snowbanks are 4-5 feet high, though I'm sure out in the country where it drifts the plows have cut 10 foot walls of snow.  There's even a four foot pile right outside my window just from having the front sidewalk shoveled.

We haven't had many sunny days, though we certainly have longer daylight.  I wish for the return of the sun even more than the disappearance of the snow.

Look at the sky in that photo!

It's mostly dry snow that just piles up, but every now and then we get a day of wetter snow that sticks to all the twigs of the birch out front.  At any rate, THERE IS LOTS OF SNOW!

Here's a view from our front sidewalk where it's been shoveled to across the street.  
A person pretty well disappears briefly behind that snowbank when they're walking past.

And I made reference to our snowstick earlier this winter; I even posted a picture or two.  Well, it's been out of sight beneath this drift for at least six weeks now.  We hope he returns soon!

Imbolc/St. Brigid's Day/Candlemas/Groundhog Day - All at Once!

Ten days ago ago we hit Feb. 1st on the calendar.   The first few days of February are dates worth remembering, for we are now halfway between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, some would call it the first day of spring.  This is one of the ancient 'cross-quarter' days in Celtic culture, dividing each of the four seasons at their mid-points and celebrated as the first day of spring, at least in Ireland.

The four cross-quarter days all had agricultural significance, representing the days when cattle were driven out to summer pastures, when harvest began, and when harvest was finished for the winter.  This awareness of the seasons and their implications for local communities was important in all ancient civilizations.

The name Imbolc dates from that ancient Celtic tradition and refers to the beginning of lambing season (picture those rolling green hills of Ireland dotted with sheep).  The coming of spring has always been a very important time, following the months of darkness and sometimes starvation.  Plans for planting were made, and for some it was about the return of longer days and more light.

Here on the shores of Georgian bay, buried in 2 feet of snow this year, it's hard to relate!  But we are definitely getting more light as the days get longer.

At some point Imbolc got tied to the ancient goddess Brigid, and as Ireland was Christianized in the 5th century by St. Patrick, the ancient goddess morphed into a saint, St. Brigid.  In turn St. Brigid's cross became a widely used symbol in Ireland.

Imbolc coincides with Candlemas in the Christian church, the Festival of the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple.  This is also a celebration of the return of the light and the final end of the Christmas season.

An ancient tradition in Europe was that if the weather was cloudy on Candlemas, there would be an early spring, while if the weather was sunny there would be six more weeks of winter.  In the European context this superstition became linked to hibernating mammals like the bear or badger.  It's easy to see how this was transferred to the groundhog in North America.

Today there are numerous groundhogs (and a lobster) that are said to have mythical weather-forecasting abilities.  The most famous is Punxsutawney Phil in Pennsylvania, followed by Wiarton Willie and Shubenacadie Sam in Nova Scotia.  Not wanting to be left out of the game we can add Fred la Marmotte in Quebec, Balzac Billy in Alberta, and don't forget Lucy the Lobster!

I doubt that many people in the audiences waiting for these groundhogs to appear and make their prognostications realize the ancient religious origins of the celebration.  The 4th century tradition of Candlemas has led us directly to the modern festival of light as spring returns.  If you can't treat the groundhog seriously, at least watch the date and celebrate the first day of spring as the light returns.

One More Special Waterfall!

They're not many people who have a waterfall named after themselves, but I do - by accident!  A little more than 10 years ago the Bruce Trail Conservancy purchased a large property where the trail went past a trickling stream and up over a high lookout.  It was my job as a volunteer to check out the property and find the corner stakes (easier said than done!).

Thus it was me who donned snowshoes one winter and clambered down a VERY steep slope to see this small waterfall.  I was blown away by what I found, a beautiful curtain of ice.  This is the first picture I originally took of the falls.  Credit to my sister for the remaining pictures below, except for the last one.

In contrast, this is the tiny trickle that you find in the summer.  But it's the slow trickle that builds up the beautiful ice curtain in the winter.  You can also see the geology here.  The top half of the waterfall is the Manitoulin Formation, thin layers of dolostone; the bottom half is the reddish or bluish Queenston shale.

Eventually I recommended and flagged a side trail, because the main trail did not give you a view of the falls, going on up the slope above.  I have to give credit to Cathy Little who suggested the idea, and Bob Hann who suggested the name.  Then I ended up in the hospital for half a year and when I returned they had built the side trail.  And they named the side trail after me!

This is the surprisingly large group that gathered to declare the side trail open.  I'm gratified that many of these were friends who really came to be there for me.  That's me in the centre of the picture in my wheelchair with my favourite brown hat on at the opening ceremony.

The trail goes through a beautiful hardwood forest before coming to the waterfall.  Though I had designed the trail originally, I of course could not go on the hike to see the waterfalls in my wheelchair.

My sister went for me, and here she is posing beside the new sign for the 'Stew Hilts Side Trail'.  Maybe I should have persuaded them to name it the 'Furry Gnome Side Trail', but now you know who I am.

At any rate, people started hiking this new side trail, and posting pictures of the waterfalls on Facebook.  The regional tourist brochure on waterfalls added it to their list.  And in all this, since it was at the end of the Stew Hilts Side Trail, it became known by default as Hilts Falls.  There you go, my very own waterfalls, best visited in winter if you want to see the curtain of ice.