Saturday Drive

After a couple of days of just hanging around the cottage, Margarit and Hank and I ventured out on Saturday November 7th.  The temperature only made it up to about +8C, and it was rather breezy, making it feel colder than it really was.  On the plus side, we did get a mostly sunny day.

We drove all the way up to the Banff National Park boundary and took a walk along the Owen Creek Trail.  Later we stopped in a burned area near the Landslide Lake trailhead.  Later still, we stopped at the Wildhorse Creek camping area and took a walk down to the river valley.  I took a bunch of phone snapshots, some of which are included here.  I also got the view camera out twice for a couple of more serious compositions.  Hank wore himself out running around in the bush.

Early on we stopped at Preachers Point to check out the ice conditions.  The ice is starting to form in the calm shallows, where the North Saskatchewan River enters the upper reaches of Abraham Lake.  There are some bubbles visible, but the ice is way too unstable to venture out onto.  I imagine that over the next couple of weeks, once we have some colder temperatures, the ice will become solid and the bubbles will be able to be experienced.

When we got back to the cottage in the late afternoon, Margarit did the accumulated dishes from the last couple of days, and I started a prime rib roast.  Last night I made some shredded beef enchiladas, and the night before that we had some pork tenderloin chops.  We always eat pretty well out here in the mountains.

The wind was really strong the past couple of days which forced us to stay inside.  Today it was a lot lighter.  We are hoping to get out again on Sunday, before we have to head back to the city on Monday.  I've decided that I need a much longer stay out here, so the next time I visit, it will be for ten days to two weeks.

Hank

Hank has become so much a part of our family.  He is a really cool dog, but he is also extremely weird.  Any time that we attempt to leave the house, he gets all excited, and wants to come along.  But then, once he gets into a vehicle, he is really nervous and uptight.  I think he is slowly coming to learn that most drives, except for visits to the vet, lead to something good.  He is certainly a big part of our family, and everyone loves to have him around.  Some times it ends up being a bit of a competition between the girls as to who gets to spend time with him.

Some of the snapshots included here were taken back home in the city.  These were all in recent days, since Halloween.  Margarit and I headed out to Nordegg on November 4th, and brought Hank along with us.  A couple of days later, Helena and Hailey came out for some sister time in the guest cottage.  They poach Henry from time to time, but have mostly left him with Margarit and I.

On Saturday November 7th Margarit and I went out for a drive to the west, and took Hank along.  We ended up out at the Banff Park boundary and went out for a number of short walks at Preachers Point, Owen Creek, the Spreading Creek Burn, and Wildhorse Creek.  By the time we got back to the cottage and made a big dinner for ourselves, Hank was exhausted and just crashed for the night.

Evening Badlands

This is another negative from the batch of film that I processed on October 28th.  A sheet of Kodak T-Max 100, rated at 80iso, and given development for normal contrast, in 510 Pyro.  Development was at 1:100, for 8:00 minutes, at 24C.

I shot this last spring, when Margarit and I were touring around the badlands, and staying in the trailer in East Coulee.  These badlands are near Cambria, along the Raymond Hill Road.

I took this photograph on June 13th at about 6:15 in the evening.  I used my Ebony SV45TU view camera and a Schneider 110mm lens.  A #8 Yellow filter was added to increase contrast and create some separation in the sky.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F25.0.

 

 

Mine Site Panorama

This image is from a scan of one of my recently processed negatives.  I shot this last summer on one of my many tours up to the Nordegg Historic Site.  The site can only be accessed by guided tour and I regularly photograph there with permission.  I took this shot with my 4x5 view camera, with the intention of cropping it to panoramic proportions.

This is a scan of a sheet of Kodak T-Max 100.  The film was rated at 80iso and processed for normal contrast.  It was developed on October 28th in 510 Pyro, 1:100, for 8:00 minutes, at 24C.  I shot this on August 6th at about 12:00 noon.  I used my Ebony SV45Ti view camera and a wide Schneider Super Angulon 90mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F18.0. 

Blackstone Avens

This is a scan of one of my recently processed negatives.  This is from the batch that I developed on October 28th.  This is a sheet of Kodak T-Max 100, rated at 80iso, and processed for normal contrast.  Development was in 510 Pyro developer, 1:100, for 8:00 minutes, at 24C.

I took this photograph earlier this year.  These are mountain avens that have gone to seed.  There are a lot of them all over the west country, but they are particularly prevalent along the gravel bars of the Blackstone River.  This is one of our favorite places, and it is along the Forestry Trunk Road, north of our place in Nordegg.  The girls and I love to come here to go hiking and exploring, collecting rocks, doing a little photography, and sometime fly fishing.

I shot this on September 2nd of 2026 at about 3:10 in the afternoon.  Margarit and I were out for a walk along the river, with Hank.  I used my Ebony SV45Ti view camera and a wide Nikkor 65mm lens.  A #8 Yellow filter increased contrast a little, and created a bit of separation in the sky.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F20.0.

 

Winch House

This is a scan of one of my recently processed sheets of film.  This is a 4"x 5" sheet of Kodak T-Max 100.  It is from the batch that I developed on October 28th.  I rated the film at 80iso and gave normal development.  This was 510 Pyro Developer, 1:100, for 8:00 minutes at 24C.

This is the interior of one of the Winch Houses at the Nordegg Historic Site.  I shot this while on one of my many tours of the Mine Site.  The site is only open to guided tours and is not accessible to the general public.  The carvings in the wall are initials of the men that worked on the site back when the mine was open.  It closed over 70 years ago, back in 1955, so no doubt none of these workers are still alive.  I believe that the numbers that they recorded were their mine tag numbers.  Everyone had a number and a tag, and when you went down into the mine, your tag was retained in the lamphouse.  This way, if anyone didn't come up above ground after their shift, they knew who was missing.

I took this photograph on April 28th of 2026, at about 2:30 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony SV45Ti view camera and a Fujinon 125mm lens.  The exposure was for 30 seconds at F20.0.

 

Halloween

For what I think is the first time in my adult life, I got dressed up for Halloween.  Margarit and I joined Shawn and Lisa at a pub near their place, on the north side of the city.  My gorgeous bride dressed up as a flapper, and I tried to look reasonable as her date.  She certainly knocked it out of the park... me... not so much.  I'm just grateful she lets me hang around her.

 

November Image - 2026 David Thompson Country Calendar

This is the image I selected for the November page of my 2026 David Thompson Country calendar.  I am currently working on the 2027 version, and I'm a little behind schedule.  This photo was taken along the Forestry Trunk Road, after an overnight snow.  This location is not far from my cottage.

I managed to finish up the layout of the new 2027 calendar on November 3rd and got them on order with the printer.  Sadly they will probably arrive too late for the upcoming Christmas Market in Nordegg.  But at least they will be ready before the holiday season. 

 

 

BP45.0 - Beer Parlour Project - Colinton Hotel

When I got back home from the badlands, I not only got back to work on the flooring installation, I also got busy in the darkroom.  I ran two batches [21sheets each] of Kodak T-Max 100, and one batch [also 21 sheets] of Ilford HP5.  I needed some of those images for the 2027 David Thompson Country calendar that I was working on.  I managed to get all the film washed, dried and scanned, and finished up the design and layout of my calendar.  Margarit and I headed out to Nordegg on November 4th but sadly I dropped the ball and didn't have the calendar ready to bring with me.

This scan is a shot of the Colinton Hotel and it was taken during our Beer Parlour Project outing last summer.  This is a sheet of Kodak T-Max 100, rated at 80iso, and given normal development.  Development was in 510 Pyro developer, 1:100, for 8:00 minutes at 24C.  This was from the second batch that I ran, on October 28th.

I took this shot on August 13th of 2026, at about 3:45 in the afternoon.  I used my Ebony SV45TE view camera and a Nikkor 210mm lens.  The exposure was for 1/15 second at F25.0.

 

 

Flooring Installation Continues

When I got home from Drumheller and East Coulee, I went back to work on the basement floor.  I now have the rumpus room essentially finished, except for one little corner by the bar, and the re-installation of the baseboards.  I also changed out the old fluorescent light fixtures to new LED ones.  Those old ones never worked, and it was always really dark down there.  Now there is finally some decent light.  Ryan and Braeden have started moving all of their stuff back in and setting up their living space.

 

 

November Calendar Image

This is the image I selected for the November page of my 2026 Fine Art Monochrome calendar.  It is a shot of the boulders along the shore of Medicine Lake, in Jasper National Park.  At this late point in the season the lake has drained away to just a channel of water in the middle.  The lake is the result of an ancient rockslide off of the Colin Range, that dammed the Maligne River.  In the summer months, when waterflow is high, a lake forms behind the rock dam.  In the fall, when the waterflow slows, the water drains away through the rocks faster than the lake can fill, and the lake bed empties.  It is fascinating to experience and there are spots in the rocks where you can hear the water draining like a bathtub.  This photograph was taken several years ago, on the Monochrome Guild Fall Photo Weekend, before the big fire in Jasper.

 

 

The Last of Them

These are the last of my phone snapshots from the recent trip down to East Coulee.  After our visit to the Royal Tyrrell Museum, Helena and I picked up a couple of pizzas from our favorite place, Pizza 249.  We headed back out to the trailer in East Coulee with them.  We met up with Frank and Chris and the shop and they shared some pizza with us, and we stayed up late visiting.

The next day it is still rather cold and wet from all the rain and snow.  So we went out for a little drive and toured around the area.  We ended up back at the Newcastle to play pool a second time.  The owners of the establishment are East Indian, and their attached restaurant specializes in East Indian food.  We never tried the food, but both times we played pool they served us a plate of what I believe are nan chips.  I really liked them, though Helena thought they were nothing special.

Later we went back to the Vintage pub so that Helena could get a second dose of her Mac and Cheese.  When we got back out to the trailer in East Coulee, Helena wanted to go out for a night walk around town.  I was freezing, and in the midst of fighting off a bad cold, that I still have to this day.  I didn't really want to go, but I humored her and went along.  We wandered over to the playground by the school, and down by the river, before eventually returning to the trailer.  This was the last night of our five night stay in the valley.  The next morning we packed up and tidied the trailer and hit the road for home.  We did remember to make a stop at the self serve vegetable shack and picked up a few things for back home.

 

 

Billiards

After we finished up at the Museum, Helena and I headed over to the old Newcastle Hotel, now called the Dinosaur Hotel.  It was the middle of the afternoon on a weekday, so we were the only ones in the place.  I had a couple of beers, and Helena got into the rum and coke, after finding a Strongbow cider not to her liking.  We got some change from the bartender and I attempted to teach Helena how to play eight ball.  She did alright, for a first try.  At one point I bounced the cue ball off of the table and into the ladies room.  She made me go in and get it.  It's a good thing there was no one else around.  We really enjoyed the afternoon and ever since, Helena is anxious to go and play pool again.  I guess I'll have to drag her out to some more dive bars in the future.  Dad of the year candidate...!!

 

 

Change in the Weather

On October 23rd Helena and I awoke in the trailer and looked outside to find the overnight rain was turning to snow.  It got fairly white before the snow eventually quit around noon. 

We headed into town and Helena checked out some of the shops in downtown Drumheller.  She went to Tugs, a collectibles place downtown, and picked up a T-shirt and a couple things.  Then we went to the Rockin' Cowboy and I bought her a cowboy hat.

After we finished checking everything out in town we headed over to the Royal Tyrrell Museum and wandered through all the paleontology exhibits.  It had been at least a dozen years since I last toured the museum, though Helena had visited earlier this year.  It is always spectacular to see all the exhibits and a great way to spend an afternoon when the weather is less than ideal.