Highway Right of Way

My friends Chris and Connie from Calgary traveled out to Nordegg to spend a recent weekend with us.  On Saturday we took a drive up into the high country of Banff National Park.  It was a pleasant surprise to learn that the expiry date of my National Park Pass had been extended by four months.  This was because the parks were closed for four months during the first wave of the Covid outbreak.

We drove up to the Big Bend arena, near the north park boundary, and hiked a stretch of the old highway right of way.  I had been here briefly back in June with my friend Rob.  Right beside the current highway, the North Saskatchewan River drops into a cleft in the rock and disappears.  At that point there is an old concrete bridge, dated 1938, that crosses the highway.  We followed the old roadway for about half an hour.  It passed a spot where a tributary to the North Saskatchewan cascaded down in cliff in a rather nice waterfall.  We came to a second concrete bridge after about a kilometer or so, and it traversed the North Saskatchewan River as it exited that same extensive cleft in the rock.  This bridge was dated 1939.  A short distance further we can to a third bridge, also dated 1939.  This one was spanning Nigel Creek, just upstream of where it meets the North Saskatchewan.

It was rather cold [about +5C] when we first set out, and was heavily overcast, with a stiff breeze and some snow coming down.  By the time we hiked in to the bridges the skies had begun to break open and the temperature warmed nicely.  We explored for a while, photographing the bridges and the waterfall, before eventually hiking back out.

 

 

Legal

My oldest daughter Hailey turned 18 yesterday.  Its hard to believe how quickly the time has passed.  I still remember the day she was born.  It was a beautiful warm and sunny fall day.  I left the hospital shortly after she was born and thought to myself how much my life would be changing.  It did... and even more so when the next two girls came along...!

We went out for dinner in the evening and Hailey was able to order a cocktail for the first time.  For the time being the restaurants in our area remain open.  They are either limiting table use or erecting barriers so that health requirements during the Covid pandemic can be met.  After dinner we went home and Hailey opened her gifts and we had birthday ice cream cake together.

Service Station

I stopped and photographed this old service station back in August.  It was during my week of vacation, and I was on the way out to Nordegg.  This old station is located in Leduc County, in the town of Sunnybrook.  I stopped here once before, a decade or so ago, and the old lady that owned it came out and talked to me.  She told me that it used to be a B/A station.  She was quite elderly then, and I expect that as another decade has passed, she is probably no longer with us.  No one was around when I photographed it this time and it certainly has deteriorated further.  I took this shot on Kodak T-Max 400 film with my Ebony 4x5 view camera.  It was processed in X-Tol developer.

Rolex Watches

I have been doing a series of photographs of old neon signs.  This has been an ongoing project for the past several years.  Whenever I see an old sign I make a point of getting out and shooting it.  Several that I have photographed in recent years no longer exist.  The little town of Stettler actually has a few of them, including this one.  Interesting that this big sign, obviously for a jewelry store, now sits perched atop a pharmacy.  One of these days I'll get around to putting together a photo essay of all of my "old neon" images.  But, I feel as though the project is not yet complete and I need to get out and shoot a few more.

Limbs

I shot this image back in June, when my friend Rob and I were exploring up at Whirlpool Point along the David Thompson Highway.  This image was shot on Kodak T-Max 400 film, with my large format 4" x 5" view camera.  I used to shoot this film a lot, but have drifted away from it in recent years.  There are a lot of film/developer combinations that I have experimented with and this particular one did not capture my attention as much as it used to.  I have recently circled back to it, and been processing in Kodak X-Tol developer.  The results are good, but I am still undecided if this is one of my best options.  This particular image, of the the fallen Limber Pine, was taken with my Schneider Super Angulon XL 58mm lens.

 

Thomas, beloved son....

Although I was just at the Historic Nordegg Cemetery last weekend, I shot this back in June of this year.  This was when my friend Rob traveled out to the cottage to help me finish up the last of the electrical work.  We spent several days shooting around Nordegg as well as up along the Icefields Parkway.  Shortly after Rob left I ventured over to the Historic Nordegg Cemetery and captured this shot.  Thomas, beloved son, passed away at age ten back in 1922.  I'm sure it was tragic... it always is when parents outlive their children.  No hints as to what happened...   It is common for the headstones of young children and infants to include a lamb on top.

Hockey during Covid

The winter hockey season came to an end last year with the Covid outbreak.  We never got a chance to play the last couple games of the regular season, and there were no playoffs.  Then summer hockey season was cancelled.  I switched my team over to a different league and the current winter season just started tonight.  Hockey is now very weird.

We need to show up at the arena with masks on.  Once we are in the dressing room we can take the masks off.  We have 15 minutes to dress and get on the ice  Everyone has to have their own water bottle.  There are no handshakes after the game.  After the game we return to the dressing room.  The showers are closed and we have 15 minutes to get undressed and leave.  Masks have to be put back on to exit the building.  We are limited to a roster of 16 active players and over a block of three weeks we only play two other teams.  This keeps us in a cohort of less than 50 players.  After that three week block of games we take a two week rest and then start another three week block of games.  We have to maintain the same roster of 16 active players for each block, with no spares allowed.  We can change out some some players after our two week rest period.  This is all very regimented, and very strange.

We played our first game of the new season, which was also our first game in the new league.  We have now moved to the Alberta Men's Hockey League.  The name is a little deceiving as women are also allowed to play.  We have two women on our team, and the team we played against had three.  We had an afternoon game at Argyll Arena today that started at 4:30.  We played a team called the Knights.  We jumped out to an early 5-2 lead, but then they battled back and made it 5-4.  With a couple of minutes left they pulled their goalie but we got an empty net goal to seal the game with a 6-4 victory.  

It felt really good to get back together again with my teammates.  The exercise was wonderful.  It was a bit of a challenge as I have not been on skates for six months, and my stamina was sorely lacking.  But things will get better as the season moves along.  Looking forward to the next game on Monday night.

Darkroom Purge Begins

Over the past 20 years I have accumulated a lot of "stuff" in my darkroom.  I have several different camera systems including Contax 35mm SLR, Hasselblad, Sinar 4x5, Ebony 4x5 and Sinar 8x10.  In addition to this I have all sorts of old cameras that people have given me.  Not to mention tripods, digital cameras, lighting equipment, the list goes on and on and on....  In addition to all this there is the darkroom equipment... enlarger, easels, chemistry, trays, tanks, washers, paper, etc., etc., etc....

Now that I am about to retire I need to move a bunch more "stuff" that I have been storing at the shop.  Much of this needs to come home, though some of it will end up getting moved down to the shop in East Coulee for long term storage.  I have four large shipping crates full of framed prints from my traveling gallery exhibition that will end up down there.  I also have a used 8x10 enlarger, still in crates, that needs to make it to my darkroom at some point.  With only three months left to retirement I decided I'd better get busy.  The first step was to make some space.

I have piles of 4x5 film holders stacked all over my darkroom.  I unloaded all of the exposed film and sorted it into boxes.  There are various types of film that require different development routines.  Then once everything was unloaded, I had to reload them all with fresh film and put them away into my storage cupboard so that they are ready for use.  There was a total of 109 film holders... so 218 sheets of film.  Needless to say this took quite a while and I spent several evenings on it.  I finished up with the last of the reloading on Friday morning, and here is the big pile of all those holders, ready to be put away.

On Saturday morning I went down to the shop.  I tried to boost my old 2004 truck that I've had stored there in the yard.  It has been parked since spring when I bought my new 2020 truck.  Needless to say the batteries were stone dead.  It wouldn't start even with a boost.  I had to pull the batteries out and buy new ones.  Got that all done on Saturday morning and got the truck started and brought it home.  Then I went back to the shop and started sorting out some of my "stuff".  I have a lot of picture framing materials at the shop.  I rounded them all up and loaded them into my truck.  I found that I had over 130 full lengths of metal frame stock, plus some offcuts, plus a bunch of wood moldings.  There are all now temporarily stored at home.  I will keep some of it around the house but most of it will end up in long term storage down in East Coulee.  I also had a bunch of hardwood left over from cabinet building, as well a bunch of tools.  I brought some of this home and will put it in storage out at Nordegg.  Once we get our second cottage built I will need this stuff to finish the interior.

Arturo's Snapshots

Shortly after we returned from our Nordegg weekend with Arturo and Sharon I got these by e-mail.  Arturo sent me a few of his favorite snapshots from the weekend and told me I could put them on my blog.  These are the three that he sent me.  Thanks for sharing Arturo...!

Margarit's Snapshots

Last weekend when we were out at Nordegg with Arturo and Sharon, Margarit took these digital snapshots.  She has a much better eye than she gives herself credit for.  While I was slogging around with my big view camera, she used my Nikon digital SLR and took all of these shots.

Weekend Visit

After our day trip spent out with Sharon and Arturo, we all headed back to our cottage for the evening.  We had a big barbecue together and sat up visiting and having a few drinks in the evening.  The next morning we had yet another leisurely breakfast together.  Eventually we set out for the day and went exploring around the Nordegg area.  Margarit ended up heading back to the city in the afternoon as she needed to be around to get the girls back to school on Monday.  I stayed an extra day, and Sharon and Arturo stayed at their rented cabin as well.  On Monday morning Sharon and Arturo checked out of their rented cottage and came over to have coffee with me.  Afterwards we headed into town and explored for a couple of hours at the old historic cemetery.  That was quite enjoyable and I am always fascinated by the history of the early settlement of the area.  Arturo is one of the Guild members that is taking part in the Historic Coal Project that I am involved in.  Some of the photographs that we took this weekend will likely end up being part of that project.  After we finished up shooting at the cemetery, Sharon and Arturo hit the road for home.  I headed back to the cottage to clean up and pack a few things before hitting the road myself at around 5:00.  All in all it was a very nice weekend and Margarit and I very much enjoyed spending an extended period of time with Sharon and Arturo.  The weather was not fantastic with overcast skies and cool temperatures, but it really didn't rain to speak of, and there was ample opportunity for exploring and photography.

Crescent Falls

Late on Saturday afternoon, after we had stopped at various other locations along the David Thompson Highway, Sharon, Arturo, Margarit and I took a drive up to Crescent Falls.  The 6km drive up the gravel road was very rough and dusty, and very slow.  This was mostly because some fool attempted to drive a classic, restored, 1940's roadster up this road.  He was crawling along at 10 to 20 km per hour and started a long parade of vehicles.  Finally about half way up the road he pulled over and let everyone by.  He must have thought better of his poor judgement as that was the last we saw of him, and I assume he turned back.  It was very busy at the falls and we had to wait for a few minutes until someone left and we could claim their parking spot.  Not only were there people all over the place, but the area was all posted with signs.  

Earlier in the summer a family of three had drowned at the base of the falls.  Apparently they were wading in the big pool down below on a hot summer day.  One of them got too close to the cascade and was pulled into the current at the base of the falls.  Two others went in to help and also got sucked in and drowned.  The government has since put warning signs all over the place.

The hoards of people really turned us off to such a beautiful spot and we took a couple of quick snapshots and left.  Neither Arturo nor myself felt motivated enough to drag out our film cameras.  It would have been a frustrating battle to attempt to photograph anything properly with so many people in the way.

We also stopped briefly on the way back at the viewpoint over Bighorn Canyon.  This was much quieter and we admired the view for bit before heading back to the cottage for our evening barbecue. 

High Water

I understand that the snowpack in the mountains was above average this year.  Coupled with that we had a very wet spring and early summer.  It was very muddy and all the creeks and rivers were very high right through until later in July when things finally dried out.  As a result, the water lever in Abraham Lake is very high this year.  The lakeshore is right up to the road in places and there are locations where entire groves of trees are in standing water.  I have never seen the levels so high before.  We stopped at one location with Arturo and Sharon and took a few photographs of the lake shore.  I was rather disappointed to see that some of the inconsiderate people that have been camping in high numbers this year, left a huge mess.  Tent pegs were left pounded in the ground.  Boxes and wrappers from camping gear was strewn about.  Other garbage was scattered, and there was human waste everywhere.  This was not just isolated to the one location that we stopped at.  There was evidence of multiple campsites that had been used at different times.  This problem was common to all locations throughout the west country this year.  Hopefully when the Covid situation improves the number of campers heading out will decline.  At the very least this current camping season is winding down and winter will bring some peace and quiet.

 

Whirlpool Point

After exploring the burn site for a while Arturo, Sharon, Margarit and I headed back to the east.  We made a stop at Whirlpool Point.  It was cool, overcast and a little breezy, but still reasonable to be out with our cameras.  We explored here for a while and photographed the ancient Limber Pines.  One of the trees at this location is thought to be one of the oldest trees in Alberta.  It can not be accurately dated due to the fact that the center core is dead and rotten.  I am always fascinated by these trees and quite enjoyed the time we spent here.

 

Visitors to Nordegg

Our friends Arturo and Sharon came to visit us out at Nordegg on the weekend of September 12 and 13.  I headed out to the cottage on Friday afternoon as I had Friday and Monday off from work.  Margarit headed out later on Friday evening.  All three of our girls decided to stay home this time.  Arturo and Sharon rented a cottage in the subdivision and we carefully spent a good part of the weekend together.  Covid cases seem to be on the rise again in Canada and we all wanted to be cautious.  On Saturday, after a late leisurely breakfast we headed west towards the high country.  We stopped out at the Spreading Creek burn, at the same spot that Hailey and I visited two months ago.  We explored here for a good part of the afternoon.  I was shooting with my large format camera, and Arturo, a fellow Monochrome Guild member, was out with a couple of medium format cameras.  The two ladies got along nicely together and both wandered around and explored, taking snapshots with digital cameras.  By mid afternoon we packed up and headed back to the east to our next stop.

New One from Red Rock Coulee

Here is a recently processed shot of the concretions at Red Rock Coulee.  This one was taken during our recent trip there back in August.  I shot this one just after sunset on Kodak T-Max 400 large format film.  Development was is X-Tol developer, 1:1 for 11:30 minutes at 20C.  The shot was taken with my Ebony SV45TU view camera and a Fujinon-A 240mm lens.  This is a slightly longer focal length... in the range of a portrait lens.  It was very hot when we were there, with temperatures peaking around +36C.  It was also very hazy from the high humidity, and the dust of the harvest that was just getting underway.  Normally you can see the Sweetgrass Hills across the border in Montana from this vantage point, and in fact they are faintly visible in the background.  But, on this day they were mostly obscured by haze.