On our way up to the Bruce Peninsula for our second camping trip, my co-explorer and I discovered five abandoned buildings within a short distance of each other. The photographer and architecture-lover within me could not resist stopping; the explorer and archaeologist within my co-explorer couldn’t resist either. The houses were achingly beautiful, each in its own way. I’m not brave when it comes to entering them, so I focussed on capturing the exterior beauty of decay in black and white. I really enjoy shooting in black and white since it allows me to focus on the play of light and shadows.
I’m just back from two lovely days on the Bruch Peninsula. I went camping with a friend at Cyprus Lake, where we explored caves and rock formations along the Georgian Bay coastline. Each new vista was more amazing than the last. The place that blew me away the most was Halfway Log Dump (named from its role in the logging era). The white cobble beach was spectacular: not a speck of sand or soil in sight, just drifts and drifts, meters deep, of rounded white rocks highlighted by the occasional black, blue or pink stone. In places, slabs of flat rocks were exposed, with cracks running through them as straight as a ruler and filled with small stones or water. Giant boulders rested on the beach in places; having been heaved up by the ice, they now rested on tiny rocks. It was far too beautiful to absorb it all.
I spent five gorgeous days in July canoeing through Killarney Provincial Park in semi-northern Ontario. It was my first backcountry adventure and I loved every minute of it. I saw my first black bear and a merganser duck with a dozen or more little ones in tow. Loons and bullfrogs lulled us to sleep, and the loon calls echoing up and down the lake were spine-tingling. We canoed through Bell, Three-Mile, Balsam, David, Crystal, and Johnnie Lakes. There were only a couple of odd cottages, which predated the founding of the park, and one motor boat on Bell and Three-Mile. After the first portage it was just us and nature, with the occasional fellow canoeist passing by. I heard a float plane a few times, but the sky was beautifully free of jet contrails.
Alison Innes 