Backyard Larch

I said before that the larch is my favourite fall tree.

This Japanese larch has stood in our backyard, close to our deck (getting closer and closer as it grows taller than the house), for the past twenty-five years.

At this time of the year it is the only colourful tree in sight. All the deciduous leaves are down and collected and, with Eastern Standard Time, the sun sets today at 4:20 pm.

Thank goodness for the larch's bright golden needles and the year-round birds it attracts (Black-capped Chickadees, White and Red-breasted Nuthatchs, Northern Cardinals) as well as the nomadic Finches (Purple Finch, Common Redpoll, Pine Siskin).

Canon 7D, 50mm f/1.8 lens at f/7.1 and 1/320 sec

The larch tree (Larix laricina Tamarack Larch) is my favourite fall tree (slightly ahead of the sugar maple and the red oak). It is our only deciduous conifer and changes to this incredibly rich warm gold colour after most of the other deciduous trees are stripped bare of their leaves. It therefore provides the last hurrah before we must endure the bleak month of November.

These beautiful larch trees stand at the edge of a raised bog along Tilton Lake Road on the way to Clearwater Lake.  I took the picture on October 19 just a day-and-a-half before my father-in-law Jean-Paul Picard died surrounded by his family. 

J-P was a great lover of all things "wood". He built his Manitoulan home of wood and finished the interior with local cedar. He took great pleasure building (and watching) fires in his wood stove and in a large outdoor fire pit; a place where the family gathered in the summer to tell stories, sing songs and drink beer. He also loved being in the woods at Burwash Lake to hunt and fish. In his early days in Temagami he worked in the lumber industry when selective cutting was the norm instead of the exception it is today. He had the old-fashioned value of reusing and recycling. He was reluctant to cut down a living tree and I once witnessed him giving hell to a MacMillan Bloedel employee for their practice of clear cutting old growth forests in British Columbia. 

One of my favourite memories of Jean-Paul dates from 1994 when J-P, Paulette and I took a boat to Meares Island off Tofino on Vancouver Island to walk the Big Tree Trail and see the giant "Mother Earth" Western  Red Cedar. I can still see his big grin and bright eyes as I took his picture dwarfed by this giant in a land of giants. I will miss him.

Parc National de la JACQUES-CARTIER

This has been a fabulous fall to get out into the woods and enjoy the splendor of the autumn colours: shades of orange, gold, scarlet and burgundy.

This is a view north up the Jacques-Cartier River valley taken from the first lookout (256m above the valley floor) along the trail called "Les Loups". I like the way the eye is drawn up the valley and the tapestry of warm colours at the lower altitudes slowly transforming to darker, cooler greens higher up.

To see views from the two other lookouts go to my Picasaweb album.

Springtime in Québec

This spring Pierre Delisle, a very informative guide, helped us see the history behind the scenic beauty of our home city. In five delightful hours we tramped around Old Québec up-and-down the twenty-three staircases that link upper and lower town. The oldest dates back to 1660 (L'escalier Casse-Cou) and the most recent (Le passage du Roi) from a few years ago.  
We admired 

• frescos (La Fresque des québecois seen above), 

• steel sculptures of galloping horses entitled "Do ré mi fa sol la si do", 

• monuments of the fathers of Québec (including Monseigneur de Laval), 

• views of the Château Frontenac from the Plains of Abraham, 

• a Martello Tower built by the English and never used to defend the city, 

We picnicked in the Parc du Chevalier-du-Moulin tucked away on a hill overlooking rue St-Louis and stopped for a drink at the café Krieghoff on Cartier before heading home. A good day!


Go to flickr to see a mini-ablum of 22 photos taken during our walking loop.
Check back to June 2010 for a blog entry headlined with a photo of Québec City. 

Ten Year Anniversary

Ten years ago Michelle wrote:

          An avid nature lover,
          always game for a trip
          or a good time with family or friends,
          André embraced live unconditionally.

April 13, 2002, during an early morning walk with Moka, stilled stunned and numb by André's death, a "V" of snow geese flew low overhead. We interpreted their loud, cheerful honking as a message from our son. The next day more migrating geese appeared as we left La Souvenance with Louise and Claude.

Every year since Paulette and I head to Cap-Tourmente and mingle with the flocks. This time Louise and Press joined us. Without fail we are comforted by the presence of the geese and feel a closeness to our son.

Click here to see the April 12, 2010 blog post on Cap-Tourmente.

Go to flickr for more photos of geese-in-action at Cap-Tourmente.

Pack Ice / La Banquise

The combined influences of the Saint Lawrence River tides, its current and the local weather result in an ever-changing composition of snow and ice.

Each year Paulette and I snowshoe along its north shore with a group of friends and each year I go crazy taking pictures while trying to keep up with the group.

Here are two of my favourite panoramic shots taken under heavy gray clouds and very flat light. In Lightroom, I adjusted the white balance and added a little punch by increasing the overall contrast and darkening the blacks.

For a ten shot photo sequence click this link to my flickr album.

Click here to go to my first posting of Photos Afoot on the same subject.

Winter Carnival For All Ages

Quebec City is enjoying its winter carnival. The young "tubers" and the not-so-young snowshoers find themselves at CFB Valcartier enjoying the clear cold air at the Centre Plein Air Castor.

New snow had fallen the day before and continued on-and-off today (February 2). I like these two panoramic shots as you can see the snow flakes against the dark trees in the background. The colourful winter wear also contrasts with the almost B&W winter tones adding warm elements to the two scenes.

I took both pictures in RAW with the white balance set to automatic. In Adobe Lightroom I corrected the overcast picture of the tubers to 6300K (a cloudy setting) and used 5600K for the snowshoers (close to a daylight setting) as the sun had returned after lunch. Using RAW makes it simple to make adjustments like this.

Click here to see more pictures from this day on picasaweb.