Day Trip with Jeff and Kiera and Anna

Earlier this spring I had been corresponding with another photographer from here in the Edmonton area.  Jeff Wallace had a bunch of his images on Flickr and I quite like a lot of them.  There were a few old buildings that I did not recognize, and they were of interest to me.  I reached out to Jeff and asked him about the location of the some of them.  Here is a link to Jeff's Flickr account for anyone that is interested in checking out his work.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/wherezjeff/

On April 10th we decided to get together and go out for a day trip.  I brought my middle daughter Anna along, and Jeff brought his daughter Kiera.  The girls were a little shy at first but by the end of the day they had really hit if off.  We brought cameras along for both of them... film for Anna and digital for Kiera... and they seemed to really enjoy the day.

Our first stop was an old abandoned farm yard.  The house was probably about 1940's vintage and we took a couple shots of it.  The girls found a dead cow in the barn, pretty rotten and stinking, and it kind of grossed them out.  Later we continued on to the town of Hairy Hill.  This is not really a ghost town as there are still a number of residents there, but many of the buildings are abandoned and boarded up.  We shot here for a while and explored some of the old stuff.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around, visiting and looking for cool old junk to explore.  We stopped for a while at an old abandoned Church.  I had been here a decade before and at that time the keys to the church were hanging in the adjacent bell tower.  This time around the keys were still there so we let ourselves in, looked around, and then locked everything up again.  We continued on and found an old car, a Hudson Jet, forgotten in an old farm yard.  Still further on we found an old house and barn out in the middle of a grain field.  We explored these for a while before eventually making our way back into the city.  It was a great day and it was good to meet Jeff and his daughter.  I'm sure we'll get out together again soon, and hopefully the girls have a chance to connect again as well.

Summer Hockey

Winter Hockey for the Renegades didn't finish up the way that we hoped.  We finished the regular season near the bottom of our division, and then got knocked out of the first round of the playoffs.  The team that knocked us out went on to win the championship in our division, and then the city championship.  If only.....

Not much rest for the wicked.... summer hockey got underway in early May...

We started out with pre-season games at the beginning of May.  On Wednesday May 4th we beat a team called the Bullet Bills at Kinsmen Arena by a score of 11-4.  Then on Sunday May 8th, back at Kinsmen Arena, we beat the Turnkey Studios Penguins in a close one by a 7-6 score.  To close out the pre-season we defeated the Crestwood Rockets at Knight of Columbus Arena on May 11th by a 5-3 score.

Earlier tonight, at Callingwood Arena, we played our first game of the regular season.  We defeated the Benders by a score of 7-2.  So far so good... we'll have to hope that we can carry some momentum into the rest of the regular season.  We play four more games between now and the beginning of June.  At that point the league will review divisional alignments and set the schedule the remaining ten game of the summer season, which will take us through June and July.  Lots of hockey to be played the next little while....!!!

Then and Now....

My friend Chris... writer of the "Off the Beaten Path" website, in collaboration with his wife Connie... sent me a link to an archive of over 800 color images taken in Saskatchewan, mostly in the 1940's, 1950's and early 1960's.  Most of these seem to be scans of Kodachrome color slides.  They have that obvious color palette of the now defunct Kodachrome process... gosh I miss those days....

As I was looking through all of these fantastic images I recognized an old store called Islands.  This was located in Scotsgard, Saskatchewan.  This color image was taken in June of 1955.  Margarit and I were exploring in the area back in 2000 and I took a 4x5 negative of the old store, with the vandalized and cannibalized old gas pump out front.  A print of this negative is included in my Procession West exhibition, currently on tour throughout western Canada.  I drove through the area about three years ago when I was down to Estevan for a skylight project.  By that time the store and the gas pump were gone.  This is reminiscent of some of the "Then and Now" projects that Chris and Connie include on their website.  Here is my version of that concept...

Check out some of Chris and Connie's projects and adventures at   www.bigdoer.com

T-Max 100 in 510 Pyro

I've been having issues with spots on my sheet film negatives following processing.  Originally I thought is was related to a batch of Blazinal developer, a replacement for the original Agfa Rodinal formula.  But, then I had the same issue with other developers.  Then I thought there might be issues with my water supply, but soon ruled this out.  I began to narrow down possibilities... thinking it might be some contamination in my film washer and my developing tanks I cleaned those with an acid cleaning solution.  The problem was diminished, but did not completely go away.  I thought it might be dust that was settling on the film during drying so I vacuumed out my drying cabinet and replaced the intake filter.  I discovered that the spots could be removed by rewashing the film, so any good images affected by this can be salvaged.  Here is a sample of what those spots looked like....

At one point, when I thought my problem was related to a long term buildup of residue on the stainless steel film hangers and plastic developing tanks that I had been using, I switched to some new tanks.  I tried some Mod54 racks that fit into Paterson Super System 4 tanks.  These are daylight tanks, meaning that once the film has been loaded into the rack and placed in the tank, with the lid properly in locked in, the room lights can be turned on.  Processing can take place including filling and draining of chemistry without having to turn off the lights.  A bit of a mixed blessing as the daylight processing wiht the tanks is convenient, but the racks only hold six sheets of film, and are very cumbersome to properly load.

On April 7th, anxious to see some of the film that I had shot on Vancouver Island, and also curious to try out these new tanks, I processed two batches, a total of 12 sheets, of Kodak T-Max 100 4" x 5" film in Jay DeFehr's 510 Pyro formula.  This time around the film came out pretty clean, but in hindsight I realized that I let the film air dry in my cabinet without turning on the heater or the fan.  I believe that the spot problem is mostly related to contamination of my drying cabinet.  I will continue to work for the next few weeks and see if now that the cabinet has been vacuumed out, and the filter changed, if the problem really goes away.

This batch of film included several sheets taken during the recent trip out to Vancouver Island.  It also included couple from the early spring trip down to Crowsnest Pass.  I have scanned and included a few of the stronger images here.

End of the Spring Break Trip

April Fool's Day brought us to the end of our time on Vancouver Island.  We had one full day left to act like tourists and check out a few things before packing up and heading for home.

The girls wanted to check out a market called Goats on the Roof, located in Coombs.  We headed up there for a while and checked out all the shops.  There was a woodworking gallery nearby that had some fabulous custom furniture and native carvings.  None of it was in our price range but we admired it all the same.  The lady at the gallery recommended that we take the girls over to a nearby wildlife rehabilitation center.  Mostly they had eagles and other raptors, but there were also bears.  The girls we really thrilled with a pond that had turtles in it, as well as some geese and some fish...

Afterwards we headed over to Parksville and back to Rathtrevor Beach Provincial Park.  When we stopped here at the beginning of the week it was really windy and raining and the walk on the beach was not particularly enjoyable.  This time around the weather was considerably better.  It was low tide and at this place the shallows are extensive and the tide goes way out.  We wandered around for a while and took a few snapshots.  The big camera never made it out of the truck, here, or at any other location on this day.  

Late in the day we made our way back up to Courtenay and our rental house.  As this was the last full day of our time on Vancouver Island we had to spend the evening tidying up and packing up all of our stuff.  It was with some sadness and regret that we found ourselves having to prepare for our departure.  The girls splashed about and enjoyed the hot tub one last time as we made our preparations.

The next morning we loaded all of our stuff in the truck, locked up the house, and hit the road.  This time around our arrival at the ferry terminal was not quite as lucky.  We just missed the ferry and had to wait nearly two hours for the next one.  Eventually we were finally able to board and get going.  By coincidence we ended up on the very same ship that had brought us across a week ago, the Queen of Oak Bay.  Once we hit the mainland we started driving, hoping to get as far as we could on our first day of driving.  The girls had all been sick and in various stages of a bad cold.  This was eventually passed on to me and by this time I was fully consumed by the virus.  Tired and cold and coughing with sore aching muscles all over, and in generally poor spirits.  Margarit managed to fight it off and refused to allow the cold to take hold.  As a result she took on a significant part of the driving duties.  We pushed through Vancouver and the lower mainland, and then on over the Coquihalla.  We stopped for a crappy supper of fast food in Kamloops and then decided to push on a little further.  This time we decided to continue on the Trans-Canada Highway, rather than the Yellowhead route.  We were a little gun shy of the traffic jams and congestion that we had experienced on the Yellowhead on our way out to the coast.  Not that the return trip was without incident for we got stuck in traffic, the result of a motorcycle accident near Langley, for nearly an hour.  We pushed on past Kamloops for a while and drove into the dark but eventually ran out of ambition and stopped for the night in Salmon Arm.

The next morning, after the typical hotel breakfast we hit the road for home.  We made it over the Rogers and Kicking Horse Passes without incident.  We rolled up the Icefields Parkway to Saskatchewan Crossing and then took the Thompson Highway out of the mountains, eventually making our way back home.  It was around 8:00PM when we rolled up to the house, tired but content with the experiences of our week on the coast.

Back to Denman Island

On Thursday March 31st the girls and I headed back across to Denman Island.  Our first stop was at Fillongley Provincial Park.  There was a nice little campsite here, and a small creek drained into the ocean nearby.  Lots of shorebirds around, particularly at the mouth of the creek.  

We wandered around for a while and eventually continued on to Morning Beach.  This was the beach that we had spent the afternoon at yesterday, and we were returning for more.  Unfortunately low tide was going to be a little later in the day, so we did not have quite as much beach to display.  After climbing down the steep staircase over the face of the sand bluffs we found ourselves down on the beach.  The girls began exploring amongst the rock and tide pools while I set off for a walk down the beach with my cameras.  Eventually I reached a bit of a point and was amazed to see that there were eagles all over the place; down on the rocks, up in the trees and circling in the air.  I soon discovered why... a sea lion carcass had been washed up on the shore.  There was also quite a bit of driftwood washed up on the point and I spent a little time here photographing.  From here I could see the spit that by low tide would permit access out to Tree Island.  I didn't hang around waiting for that but made my way back towards the girls.  We spent the better part of the afternoon here watching the herons and the eagles, checking out the maring life, and making photographs.  At one point Helena found what I think was a shipsworm... a centipede-like creature about half an inch in diameter and at least a foot long.  She wasn't the slightest bit squeamish and wandered around with it for quite some time before releasing it.  We also found crabs and star fish and lots of other marine life.  As the afternoon slipped away we soon had to make our way back to the truck so we could get back to the ferry terminal in time to catch the last one back to Vancouver Island.

Denman Island

On Wednesday March 30th the girls and I headed over to Denman Island.  We never really get an early start in a house full of girls.  After breakfast we drove down the coast from our rental home in Courtenay, to Buckley Bay.  Here we took the cable ferry across to Denman Island.  We drove the short distance across to the east end of the Island and Boyle Point Provincial Park.  Here we parked the truck and headed off on a trail through the forest.  Most people hike all the way to the tip of the island where there is an overlook onto the lighthouse on Chrome Island.  We took the side trail to Eagle Point.  Here there is kind of an unmarked trail, rather steep in places, that descends a cliff down to the beach below.  It is quite a spectacular spot with a large cluster of big boulders in the water.  At low tide there are tide pools with all sorts of marine life exposed between the boulders.  We timed it right as the tide was on the way out as we descended the cliff.  We spent a couple of hours here just exploring along the beach.

After exploring here for a while we climbed back up the cliff trail, and hiked back out to the truck.  We then drove up to the northwest tip of Denman Island.  We were trying to get to the sand spit at Longbeak Point and hike out to Tree Island.  But we got distracted by a wonderful spot called Morning Beach.  There was a short trail from the road to the edge of some sandy bluffs overlooking the ocean.  From there we climbed down a rather steep staircase that took us safely over the unstable sand cliffs.  By this time the tide was all the way out and we had lots of beach to explore.  Rocks covered with mops of seaweed, a few big boulders out in the shallow waters, sand banks, and lots of marine life.  The girls really liked it here and we stayed as long we could.  But, on the gulf islands you always have to keep one eye on your watch and the other on the ferry schedule.  By late afternoon we had to climb back up to the truck and make sure that we were back at the ferry terminal in time to get the second last ferry.  You can miss the second last one, but you can't miss the last one or you will be faced with a very uncomfortable sleep in your vehicle.  We didn't want to tempt fate and have to try and sleep all five of us in the cab of the truck so we made sure that we were able to catch the second last ferry back to Vancouver Island.  From there we drove the 20 minutes back north to the rental house at Courtenay, very tired from our day's adventures.  Like all the other nights here the girls hit the hot tub while Margarit and I put something together for a late supper.