Beaverdam

On April 29th I took an afternoon drive over to an area called Beaverdam.  It is here, just east of the town of Nordegg, that Shunda Creek widens out into a small lake.  There is a Provincial campsite here, that is very busy in the summer months.  Today there was only one other vehicle there.  

First I parked along the side of the highway and wandered down through the trees to the upper reaches of the lake.  There was a secluded pond here, beside the lake, that was created by a now abandoned beaverdam  There were some interesting trees here and some nice views so I spent an hour or two and took some photographs with my view camera.  It was a beautiful day and it felt almost summer-like.  But, along with the high temperatures came another reminder of summer... mosquitos.  There were lots of them, big ones, that were really aggressive.  Several days later I discovered all the places on my hands and face that I had been bitten, as I developed a lot of really itchy welts.

A short time later I drove down, near the campsite, to an area just downstream from the lake.  Here there was yet another pond and yet another abandoned beaverdam.  This one was kind of cool because there were a bunch of dead, flooded trees standing in the pond.  I set up my camera and took a couple more shots here. 

Late in the afternoon when I got back to the cottage I did a staged shot of some deer antlers in the woods.  These were actually shed Mule Deer antlers that I found down in the badlands of southern Alberta several years back.  But they made a good photo prop, and eventually will become decor in the cottage.