Oh Canada!

Canada is a beautiful and big country! We will never be able to see all of it. But in honour of Canada Day here are a few images of some of the places we have seen:

Tombstone Territorial Park, Yukon

Vancouver, British Columbia

Porcupine Caribou, Northwest Territories

Mount Edith Cavell, Alberta

Grasslands National Park, Saskatchewan

Polar Bear at Hudson Bay, Manitoba

Killarney Provincial Park, Ontario

Perce, Quebec

Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick

Balancing Rock, Nova Scotia

French River, Prince Edward Island

Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador

Happy Canada Day!!

A Little of This and That

We stayed up in the L'Anse aux Meadows area of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland for a few days waiting for the clouds to part at the same time that the ice came in. We had one day of reasonable light but found it hard to get close enough to any icebergs to get the shots we wanted. So instead Ron shot what he found.

Low-tide Reflection - Click for larger

If this is your house in Quirpon, NL we need to talk.

My Fantasy place - Click for larger

I want your house! When we first found this house back in 2007 there was an iceberg stuck in the bay in front of it then too. It's a view I could look at all day long.

But we didn't. Instead we drove over to Ship Cove via Raleigh

Clothesline and poppies - Click for larger

in hopes of finding a better vantage point for the icebergs. The view in Ship Cove of icebergs in the Strait of Belle Isle was actually better than it was at L'Anse aux Meadows but still not quite what we were looking for.

Iceberg - Click for larger

See "Don't Be Shy" for Ron's take on our pursuit of icebergs in Iceberg Alley.

My Mom asked why I was wearing a glove in the picture on his blog "Because it was cold!", I answered.

So after Ship Cove we decided to see if we could find some caribou. We did. Two in fact. Two very ragged looking ones hanging out on the parking lot of the St. Anthony airport. They seemed to not appreciate us looking at them and wandered off.

Caribou - Click for larger

With that we gave up and went back to shooting the iceberg in front of my favourite house at last light.

Iceberg - Click for larger

There was actually nice light on it.

The next day we stopped to shoot icebergs one last time from shore on our way back to Gros Morne National Park. And if you read Ron's blog listed above you'll know that we finally found someone with a boat willing to take us out!

Iceberg - Click for larger

The light wasn't great but we were really close to those icebergs.

Back in Gros Morne National Park we once again faced rain and no light - especially at first or last light - the times of the day when it is usually good for taking pictures. Instead we got some sleep, played some cribbage, and even laid on a pebbly beach during full noon sun. So what if we still had on long pants and sweaters. The middle of the day was the only time of the day it seems when we would really see sunshine in Gros Morne National Park. Oh well. But here is a picture of the mountain that gave the park its name:

Gros Morne - Click for larger

Sanctuary

It's a place you feel safe. That is indeed how I feel when I climb into bed in our van when camping. Safe. I close the sliding side door and kind of sigh, shutting out the noisy nearby campers, the smoky campfires, the rain, the bugs, and the bears...
(see our blog postings from last summer re building a bed in the van: Ron's and mine)
Last year when we camped in grizzly country it was nice to get up close to a grizzly during the day yet not worry about them being around while sleeping.

Grizzly - Click for larger

But sleeping in the van is actually more than sanctuary to me. It is cozy. And warm. Somehow that double air mattress advertised as queen-sized actually feels more spacious and comfortable with the two of us in it than most motels’ double beds that are really physically wider. In a motel we are closed off from the outside world. We can't see a moose walk past;

Moose - Click for larger

tell when the light is good; or, if it is our van's alarm going off. But inside the van its tinted windows offer great 360-degree views of our surroundings. And we see lots of beautiful views in our travels.

Tombstone Viewpoint - Click for larger

Sure sleeping in the van has some drawbacks. I still can't get dressed standing up; I still have to go outside to walk to the dining tent or the bathroom; the windows need to be open a little for ventilation; and so we have to attach screens. If it is raining we either need to close the windows or put up a tarp covering them. Yet still we would rather sleep in our van if there is a nice scene or something else we want to photograph nearby.

Piping Plover - Click for larger

Already on our travels this year we've seen some beautiful scenery. In Gros Morne National Park the Long Range Mountains, The Tablelands, the forests, the bays on the Atlantic and inland freshwater fjords and ponds (lakes to us from ‘away’) all make for stunning vistas.

The Tablelands - Click for larger

We camped quite comfortably for a couple of days at Lomond with views of the mountains across Bonne Bay. The weather was sunny and pleasant on the first day. The second day was cloudy and muggy and not great for photographing scenery. About 9:30 in the evening it started to lightly rain - no problem we had a brand new tarp that we hung over the van that was so big we could stand outside the doors and not get wet. The rain became heavier but still we stayed dry and cozy in our van. As dawn approached a little after 4am the wind picked up and the occasional big gust violently whipped the tarp around on its ropes startling us in and out of sleep. At 6:30 another angry gust tore the grommet right off one corner of the tarp and broke a peg holding down another. That's when we knew it was time to get up and take it down before the wind blew the tarp or our dining tent away. The winds can be fierce in Newfoundland! So we moved on. Unfortunately there isn’t always a campground near where we want to be. Or like today not only is it raining but the temperature has dropped so low that would make hanging out in the dining tent during the day quite miserable. So we found a motel and hunkered down for a couple of days. Our bodies never quite appreciate motel beds though – they always are either too soft or too hard. The air mattress in the van? It’s always just right!

Iceberg Alley - Click for larger