Across the old Geddes Bridge at the head of Dalhousie Lake, one wanders slowly past the sheer granite cliffs and high gorges keeping watch over the incoming Mississippi River, past the remains of the old mill and the steep road up to the High Falls Power Station, past the leaning weathered turn-of-the-century cottages and abandoned farms and passes higher into the forested hills, ridges and rocks of the Canadian Shield. The unpaved dirt road to be taken is a narrow dusty ribbon skirting the quiet lake, one which is bounded on one side by cliffs and on the other by deep water.
As I went along a few days ago, an early wispy mist obscured the tops of the rock faces and turned the wandering into a fey and liminal affair. This is one of my favourite potterings, a ramble through rugged terrain which metes out strenuous exercise at any time of the year and requires a special dogged determination in Black Fly season.
In early morning, the air was still and blue, the dreaming lake was calm and as clear as glass. The clan of the Great Northern Diver or Common Loon (nothing common about them whatsoever) graces the lake again this year, and they are often out and about in early morning, but they may have been schooling their young ones by the floating nest hidden beyond the bend of the meandering stream on the north shore. I didn't see a loon or one of the resident otters, but there were Red-breasted Mergansers floating regally in the center of the lake, and there were Mallard Ducks everywhere — there was an Osprey circling overhead, and there were Spotted Sandpipers wading in the shallows near the narrow beach and the stony boat launch area. It was here on the beach that I curled up in the lee of an overturned boat a few weeks ago and photographed a Great Blue Heron at sunset.
The inflowing river was running clear and fast, and it went rushing over the stones and through the cool green cave made by the great rocks and the old trees arching over it. There were patterns and shadows everywhere we looked, Cassie and I. As we stood on the shore, we looked like a couple of old wooden rowboats on the beach, timeworn, creaky and bereft of paint, but still good for a trip or two around the lake on a cool sunny day.
As I went along a few days ago, an early wispy mist obscured the tops of the rock faces and turned the wandering into a fey and liminal affair. This is one of my favourite potterings, a ramble through rugged terrain which metes out strenuous exercise at any time of the year and requires a special dogged determination in Black Fly season.
In early morning, the air was still and blue, the dreaming lake was calm and as clear as glass. The clan of the Great Northern Diver or Common Loon (nothing common about them whatsoever) graces the lake again this year, and they are often out and about in early morning, but they may have been schooling their young ones by the floating nest hidden beyond the bend of the meandering stream on the north shore. I didn't see a loon or one of the resident otters, but there were Red-breasted Mergansers floating regally in the center of the lake, and there were Mallard Ducks everywhere — there was an Osprey circling overhead, and there were Spotted Sandpipers wading in the shallows near the narrow beach and the stony boat launch area. It was here on the beach that I curled up in the lee of an overturned boat a few weeks ago and photographed a Great Blue Heron at sunset.
The inflowing river was running clear and fast, and it went rushing over the stones and through the cool green cave made by the great rocks and the old trees arching over it. There were patterns and shadows everywhere we looked, Cassie and I. As we stood on the shore, we looked like a couple of old wooden rowboats on the beach, timeworn, creaky and bereft of paint, but still good for a trip or two around the lake on a cool sunny day.
2 comments:
I love walking in the morning fog. This is such an enticing photo! To potter in the early wispy mist... how delightful (can leave out the black flys :=)
I can hear the sounds of the river.. Thank you for a lovely trip
Alas, it has been a perfect Spring for breeding black flies here, and there were clouds of them on the day when I took my walk - I tried to focus on the scenery and not on the biting insects.
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