Bridge Demolition

Fun fact:  I took pictures of the Broadway Bridge (pictured below) in Saskatoon Saskatchewan this summer.  I just found out today that it was demolished yesterday (link to video).

So much for any plans to return to reshoot, eh?

The Great Canadian Road Trip: The Sudden But Inevitable Conclusion

The Great Canadian Road Trip is rapidly coming to an end. In fact, after we finished exploring the real life fictional town of Dog River, and taking some shots of Saskatchewan At Night, we crossed the border into the US, thereby officially ending the Canadian part of the road trip.

If that seems sudden... thats because it is.  Really once we crossed the border into North Dakota (at a town called Portal, which is likely the coolest name for a border crossing I have ever heard of - the cake is a lie), I sort of kinda forgot I had a camera or a blog, for 4 days.

To distract you from this blatant and suspicious hole in the story, let me fill you in on some of the details.

We spent the first day driving across North Dakota. It is a nice state, but it didn't have what I want (which is, I expect, a common phrase that is the bane of the overworked and under-paid North Dakota Tourist Board).

The Day after that we drove to West Bend Wisconsin (along the way we said farewell to our plucky road trip conspirator, Liz).

In West Bend my charming wife and I spent a couple days attending the West Bend Cache Ba$h.  Two days of geocaching and the ilk.

After that we took a ferry ride across Lake Michigan.  It was actually surprisingly expensive to take this ferry across the lake - almost as much as the ferry to Newfoundland - but it had two benefits: We've never spent any time on the water on Lake Michigan, and we avoided driving thru the toll booth happy and traffic jam-y state of Illinois.

The ferry, being early in the morning, offered some nice sunrise shots.

Once we hit the Michigan side of the lake, we had breakfast with yet another Scavenger couple, the Schemeers.  They turned out to be the last in a long line of Scavengers we met on this trip (total: 11)

We then proceeded to drive back to Ontario. (Wait!  Isn't that back in Canada?!?) Oh look, a harbour!

 So yeah, we went back to Ontario for 36 hours to retrieve our kids, who if you recall stayed at their grandparents farm while we were on the road.  Then we drove the 12.5 hours home to North Carolina.
Thus the cricle of road trip life was completed.

This was a heck of a trip.  By far the farthest we've ever gone on a single trip.  We put over 6000 miles on the round trip across Canada, and over 7400 miles from the time we left home to the time we arrived back.  Along the way we added four new provinces and one new state to my geocaching map.  I also went the farthest north I have ever been (Bon Accord), and the farthest west in Canada I have ever been (Golden BC).

All in all this is going down as one of the greatest adventures of our lives, and thats a pretty good way to spend a vacation, don'tcha think?

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Saskatchewan At Night

After we left Dog River, we were on our way back to Moose Jaw for the evening. As we drove the 37 klicks down Highway 39, we, the plucky group of photographers inhabiting the Geovan Of Destiny noticed the sky was a mix of happy sunset and ominous storm clouds.  So, being a plucky group of photographers, we stopped for photos.

I have proof (in the form of +Liz Kaetterhenry taking a shot of some silos):

One of the cool things was this old church, just hanging out in a small town of Drinkwater (by small I mean 4 houses and a ruin).

Aside from the church there was not much to shoot, except farm stuff (this is, after all, the middle of the prairies).

I stopped at the side of the road in order to take this shot, simply because it was asserted that "there are not shots here."  I think there is, what do you think?

Eventually we pulled over at a scene that obviously had some things to shoot.  I shot this as HDR, which is why its not all blurry and noisy like the other shots in this post.

As we were driving to Dog River, and then on the way back, Liz noticed these silos, and commented that they would make a nice photograph.  On the way in we thought it would be too light out.  On the way back we figured it would be too dark.  After the success with the the above HDR shots, we decided it was likely still light enough to get a good shot, so we pulled a u-turn and headed back.

I think she was right about the silos (tho I was wrong about shooting this freehand)

After the silo shoot we decided to call it a night.  Our luck had held out so far - despite of the storm clouds looming we stayed quite dry.  However as we headed off back to Moose Jaw the skies opened up and we practically rowed our way back to the hotel.

Still, a successful nighttime shoot was had by all.

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Dog River

If you are Canadian you likely do not need to be told that Corner Gas is a hugely popular Canadian sitcom set in the fictional town of Dog River Saskatchewan.

Corner Gas remains one of my most favourite shows of all time, partly because it is full of pithy sarcastic humour, and an amazing amount of Canadian references and guest stars.

What you may not know is that the show was shot in a real life town called Rouleau SK. Many of the buildings, including the main set, exists as real places in that town.

This means, of course, that one can actually go and visit Dog River (squee!).

Checking out Dog River is literally one of the items on my non-actually-recorded anywhere figurative bucket list. So, naturally, I put "visting Dog River" at the very top of the "must see" places for our Great Canadian Road Trip.  So come along with me and join in the adventure of the real life fictional town of Dog River.

Note: The rest of this post is all about Corner Gas the show, so if you are not familiar you may want to bone up on it before continuing (pro tip: many episodes exist on YouTube)

The show centers on the towns only gas station, Corner Gas, and the attached cafe, The Ruby.  This building was built as a set for the show, but it still exists.  It is the first thing one sees when entering Rouleau SK from the west.

A lot of the exterior details have been removed, but it is quite obvious that this is the real Corner Gas. My lovely wife, Debbie, is playing the part of Lacy, the owner of The Ruby (I suppose that makes me Brent, the gas station owner, in this little play.)

If you look to the left of the building you will see that the horizon is really flat. This is a running joke in the show. ("First you tell me that my dog ran away, then you tell me that it took three days.")  The first thing that became quickly apparent - they ain't kidding about the flatness.  I have never been to a place that was flatter than this part of Saskatchewan - the horizons were a *long* way away.  

The Ruby is also home to a geocache, so of course I stopped to sign the log. I couldn't resist leaving my mark to say I visited The Ruby (I would have preferred that mark being the signature on the credit card slip when I paid for a meal served by Lacy, but alas my trip to the real life fictional world of Dog River has significant and annoying limitations - beggars can't be choosers).

One of the centerpieces of Dog River, like most small prairie towns, is the grain elevator.  Normally the town's name is on the elevator, but in Rouleau's case they adopted the name that has made them famous, Dog River.

This shot was taken with the Corner Gas parking lot.  I had to wait a good 15 minutes before the right truck drove by.  It was worth it.

Once we finished checking out the set, we went exploring in the town (it didn't take long - it is a very very small town).  There are geocaches on the grain elevator, the Surveillance Bush, the hockey rink (this *is* Canada after all), and in a random spot along a dirt road. 

Fans of the show may recognize the place as the location where Oscar (Brent's bumbling father) found a pair of pants (Holy hell! A perfectly good pair of pants!").  (Remember that episode? It was a good episode.  If you don't remember, go look it up, jackass! (just kidding, I didn't remember the location either))  If you really don't remember, I am standing in that spot (-ish) here signing a cache log.

Most of the exterior locations used in the show still exist (unfortunately the Foo Mar T burned down a few years ago).  Some even have the signs from the show on them. Most of them are along main street in town. I took a tour of a bunch of them:

These locations are, starting at the top left, The Howler (local newspaper), Hoff Insurance (insurance and liquor store - note that the business that actually owns that building also sells insurance *and* liqour... the meta-nature of this fact really butters my parsnips).  The police station.  The Dog River Hotel. Oscar and Emma's house, and an analog for Hank Yarbo's pick-up truck (yes I know his is blue, and this is red - no I don't care. I am sticking to it, I saw Hanks truck. Deal with it).

The Dog River Hotel is actually a bar and grill, and I believe the only place to buy food in town.  In the show it is known as The Bar - nice to know it lives up to the name.  I was forced by the rules of uber-fandom to delve as deeply as possible into this real life fictional world, which means I was required to grab supper at The Bar.

So we did.

I was all prepared to order a chili cheese dog (Brents favourite food), until my wife reminded me that I dislike chili, so I got the next best thing:  bacon hot dog.

It was yummy.

Before we left Dog River, we filled up the Geovan of Destiny at the only gas station in town.  By the rules of real life fictional locations, this is the proper analog for Corner Gas.

So I got gas at the original Dog River gas station... excellent!  One more thing checked off my bucket list.

Everyone should come visit Dog River.  Even if you are not a fan of the show (which you should become one. All the cool kids are.  You wanna be cool right?), it is a nice picturesque town. It is also easy access - just an hour north of North Dakota - so (if my knowledge of US geography is as good as the average Americans knowledge of Canadian geography) my Yankee friends should be able to make it within a couple hours drive.

So that was Dog River.  This is actually the last stop we made in Canada during our road trip.  We did some night photography on the way back to the hotel, which I will cover in the next post, but after this we head back stateside for the remaining few days of the trip.

Stay tuned!  It's getting dangerously close to conclusive now.

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Lake Louise

Lake Louise is likely one of the most famous lake in the Canadian Rockies.  Odds are, if you have ever seen a photograph of a lake in the Rockies, it was a photograph of Lake Louise.

So, naturally, when we were planning our Great Canadian Road Trip we added a stop at the lake.

The lake was named The Lake Of The Fishes by the Stoney Nakota First Nations people back in the day.  It is a brilliant turquoise lake surrounded by towering mountains.

The day we arrived happened to be a civic holiday weekend, so the place was absolutely packed with damned dirty tourists.  So we had to wade thru crowds to get to the shore line.  When we did, we got the amazing view that has made Lake Louise famous.

Spread along the shoreline are two virtual caches, and an earth cache.  On the northern shore is a flat hard-packed trail, that is about a mile and a half in length.  So we walked this trail to the far side of the lake.

When we got there we were standing at the base of one of the mountains that line the lake.  Some rock climbers were living up to their name.

From the back end of the lake one gets a great view of the Fairmont Chateau.

When we got back to the Chateau side of the lake, we put our feet into the water.   It is at this point that my mother-in-law would point out that the water is full of sediment called rock flour that is so fine it gets deep into your skin and can take a week to wash out (however I never noticed any issues)

We ate lunch at one of the many restaurants at the Chateau. After words, we continued on our way,  Our goal was to spend the night in Calgary, but before we got there we still had some very pretty mountains to drive thru.

Just as we pulled into Calgary we stopped for a geocache. When we got out of the car and looked behind us (we were headed east), we saw this spectacular sky.

That proved to be a wonderful end to a great day of exploring the Rockies.

We are finally heading back east, but there are a few more stops to be made, including a pilgrimage to the beloved fictional Canadian town of Dog River, Saskatchewan.

Stay tuned - it is going to be an action packed visit to a place where there is not a lot going on.  Trust me.

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Stalking The Spiral Tunnels

The railway holds a special place in Canadian history.   The building of a single uninterrupted line that went from the Atlantic to the Pacific is credited as being one of the major factors that brought all of the various colonies and territories, especially the western ones, together to form the country (ya know, back in the day - today it stays together due to NHL rivalries).

Mountains and railways tend not to mix very well as one prefers flat terrain, and the other is by definition very bumpy.  The Rockies are some of the bumpiest ones around.  As a result some pretty cool engineering has occurred during the building of the railways through the mountains.  One of these is the spiral tunnels.

The tunnels exist in an area known as the Kicking Horse Pass (so named because one of the surveyers was kicked off his horse there - sometimes place names are as obvious as they sound :). The pass had one area where they could not avoid a steep grade for the tracks.  Steep is bad in the rail world, and as a result there were a lot of accidents.  An engineer by the name of J.E. Schwitzer came up with an alternate solution, based on ideas used in Switzerland.  The idea was to make two tunnels in the mountains that were literal circles.  Each one was almost a kilometer in length, and had an elevation gain of  ~20m, thus trading distance for elevation, making the whole thing flatter and safer.

Parks Canada has some handy descriptions and pictures here.

So when we were driving thru on our Great Canadian Road Trip we stopped by an overlook to check out the tunnels for ourselves.  The tunnels are still actively used  today, however there is no posted schedule of trains, so they come at random times, but the Internet says on average trains come every 30 minutes or so. So we decided to wait and get some pictures.

Still waited.  No train.

Yet more waiting... nothing.

An hour passed by and there was no sign of the trains.

We had places to be that day, so we decided to lick our emotional wounds of train defficiency, and move on.

We drove about 30 klicks down the highway when we passed a train going the other way, towards the tunnels.  I made a command decision, pulled a U-turn at the next safest spot, and beat the train back to the tunnel (turns out I had plenty of time as we still had a wait of 30 minutes before the train arrived, but at least we knew one was coming).

We took some photos. Notice how the train is going one direction at the top of the frame, and another at the bottom.  That is the same train.

Cool right?

We could actually see the same train going in three different directions at once, all spiraling in on itself, however the third section was not very photogenic due to a lot of tree cover.

Once the train left, we moved on with the next stop.  However this experience remains one of the cooler man-made things I experienced during this trip.

Trains are cool.

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Rocky Mountain High

Day eleven of our epic Great Canadian Road Trip has brought us to the amazing picturesque province of Alberta; east of the Rockies and west of the rest.

Since we've come from the rest, it was time to check out the Rockies.

We got a late start today, but around noon we pointed the Geovan of Destiny westward.

Tonight we would sleep in the cool mountain air (as filtered by the crappy air conditioning of an Econolodge).

We started in Red Deer, so the pathway to the mountains was thru a town with the awesome name of Rocky Mountain House.

Today was going to be mostly a driving day, but we didn't mind so much because: Rockies.

Pretty soon we had the towering rocky formations in our windshield.

We soon arrived at one of the most awesome roads I have ever driven on: the Ice Field Highway.  It runs from Jasper to Banff, and reminded me a great deal of the Blue Ridge Parkway (except instead of pine tree covered Appalachians, there was glacier covered Rockies).

As mentioned it was a day of mostly driving, but we did have time to stop for an earth cache at Peyto Lake, a glacier fed lake in Banff National Park.

The fates of time put us in the area during a holiday long weekend, so the crowds were crazy. It was impossible to get a picture without people in it, so when this lady sat in front of my camera, I decided to make her the foreground interest.

It also shows off something cool about this lake.  Notice the colour? It is a brilliant turquoise.  That is not a camera thing - it really is that colour in real life.  Several of the lakes I saw had the same amazing colour. Thanks to that earth cache I did, I know why.  As the glacier melts and the water flows down the mountains to the lake, the water erodes the rock. When it mixes with river and lake water, it forms a fine suspended dust called rock flour.  That rock flour causes the water to refract light as turquoise.

Cool, right?

Oh, and those glaciers that are feeding the lake?  They are easily visible on the south side of the lake.

After this we drove a few more hours to Golden, BC.  Along the way I found my first British Columbian cache,  and a cool inuksuk.

We were not planning on spending long in BC.  In fact we were heading back to Alberta first thing the next morning.  However it did set us up to be in position to explore some more amazing scenery, and some crackin' good railway engineering.

Stay tuned.

The Great Canadian Road Trip: The Red Deer Sessions (Part Two)

This is the second of two parts from the Red Deer Sessions. If you haven't yet, checked this post out to catch up.

When we last left off, I was in an photo studio/auto-body shop on a weekend hanging out with a bunch of photographer friends, doing a model shoot.

We didn't have any real goals in mind, so we were just shooting and posing as the creative spirit led us.  No one was immune from being pulled in front of the lights and being ask to model (myself included, tho sometimes I had to photobomb other peoples shoots - a Diva's work is never done).

Shooting models is hungry work, so it was fortunate we had a craft table to get refreshments between shoots.

Back to the models for a bit.  I like the soft light on her face here.

Lest you think black backgrounds are my only medium, let me confound all expectations and go with a grey one.

Like I said above, no one was immune from being pulled in front of the lights and cameras and put into action.  Here is the owner of the studio, and fellow Scavenger, Paul Howard.

Also, someone who seems more comfortable behind the camera, but still pulls off an glowing enigmatic smile in front of one, Ms Chrysta Rae. (Ah, geez!)

Even Willow, the plucky and fluffy hound, got into the spirit of things.

And finally, one last group shot of my wife, Paul, Liz, and Ron, who make up the posse of Scavengers who have driven across the country to get to this point, and one of the reasons (hey Paul) why we drove all this way.

Thus ends the tales from the Red Deer Sessions.  However we're still not done heading west.  Stay tuned for further details from the Trans Canada Highway. Up next is the Rockies. She's gonna be a beauty, eh?  

Stay tuned!

The Great Canadian Road Trip: The Red Deer Sessions (Part One)

The Great Canadian Road Trip has certainly given my wife and I some new experiences as we explore our beloved homeland. We have driven from eastern Ontario to Alberta, hanging out with many members of a photography group that call themselves Scavengers.

This morning we arrived at the studio of one of these Scavengers, Paul Howard.  A bunch of us Scavengers (some local, some who have followed us across the country), had gathered for a model shoot.

The models were all friends and associates of Paul who agreed to do a model shoot with us.

I have never shot models in a studio before, but I was relishing the chance to learn from the master photographers I was currently surrounded by, and try something new.

The following are some of the shots of the Red Deer Sessions.

First some behind the scenes stuff.  The Paul Howard Studios doubles as an auto body shop as its day job.  It seems a bit odd for a studio, but it actually works out amazingly well - there is lots of power and stands around, a ton of floor space, high ceilings, and one is not overly worried about damaging the paint on the walls or floor when one is putting up lights and backdrops.

Since this happened on the weekend, and the mechanics were not working, we pushed the cars out, put up some lights and backgrounds, and did ourselves some shootin'.

Paul's daughter, a budding make-up artist, did the models hair and make-up.  It was actually amazing how well everything was set up considering it was just a bunch of amateur models and a bunch of photography friends just hanging out for the day (aka: bravo Paul!)

So lets get down to the model shoots.  The lady at the top of this post holds the honour (and/or suffers the fate of) the first proper model I have ever shot. 

This lady here is the second.

And the third:

Shooting models is actually surprisingly hard.  Aside from the technical details of getting lighting and focusing correct (an art form unto itself), the photographer also has to direct the model to get posed properly. Even posing is not enough - its not just stance and position, but what emotion should she display? Ever try to get someone to give you the exact smile you want with the exact gaze, all at the same time?

Yeah.

It was especially hard for me as I don't relate to new people very well, so I had to overcome my own social anxieties before I could even begin to get comfortable directing a model.

The models themselves were really good. They were nice, and did their best to help me, and were very patient with my fumbling directions.  However I still found it very awkward and stressful.

At one time I pointed to my wife and exclaimed, quite truthfully, that she was the only model I ever really needed.

This was the reaction I got from her:

However to prove my point:

See what I mean? (seriously, looking at this photo makes my heart bounce).

No body was immune from being a model tho, including the person who started the whole Scavenger thing in the first place, Ms. Chrysta Rae:

(... to be continued.)

The Great Canadian Road Trip: Bison In The Mist

When last we spoke of the Great Canadian Road Trip, Liz and I were off in search of bison.

We had awoken at 5am that morning in a vain attempt at a sunrise, but were thwarted by rain. So we made a retrograde maneuver, jumped into the Geovan Of Destiny and headed off in search of bison.

If you haven't guessed yet, this is the post about the bison.

Elk Island National Park is home to a wild heard of wood bison. Note that the proper term is bison, not buffalo as is commonly thought. Despite the fact that this misnomer has been going on since the 1500s, and for reasons too complicated to get into here, I will stick to the name bison to refer to these magnificent creatures as there is a small but vocal minority who will feel the need to point out the inaccuracies of the buffalo thing (one of which is my wife, and I don't need that sort of domestic drama at present, thanks!)

Anyhoo, we arrived at the aptly named Bison Loop Road, and sure enough there were bison hanging out (this was not a sure lock as we had driven this loop twice already on previous days and had not seen anything). Thrilled at victory, we armed ourselves with the big glass, and set off around the loop to photograph the herd.

One of the first things we saw, actually, was a coyote hanging out midst the herds. He quickly scampered off into the woods, never to be seen again.

The herd was distributed over a wide series of fields, and consisted of a large number of animals (a scientific estimate ranges from "quite a few", to "a whole mess of 'em").

Since these are wood bison, it was not unexpected to find some bison in the woods. They seem to rut against the trees.  This one is calling out as he didn't like our presence. Their noises are more like constipated grunts than mooing, which is a little off-putting (if you get a mental image of a drunken scotsman trying to angrily yodel, you'll get the rough idea of what they sound like).

This one looks like he's ready to charge (spoiler alert: he didn't).

Some of the bison liked to paw out (hoof out?) a bare spot of mud and wallow in it.

These are magnificent and rather daunting creatures. With those horns, I certainly would not want to tangle with one.  They really demand ones respect. (I call this one "Sir.") (please refrain from any "buffalo wing jokes". For one they've already heard them, and two, please see the fourth paragraph above.)

A couple of males fighting for dominance.  They butted heads several times before one backed down.

Of course it would not be a proper herd story without some pics of the calves.

One last shot of a baby bison before we head off down the road. D'awww.

We ended up spending a couple hours watching the bison. After the first time around the loop we headed back to the camp to pick up my wife so she could see the bison as well.

So thats the bison.  After this we packed up camp and headed to Red Deer for a different kind of photography all together, which was a new experience for myself.

Stay tuned!