Unbelievable display of Northern Lights this past week. I’ve never seen such incredible variety of colours! I shot these with the trusty Nikon D800 and the 16-35 f/4 and a 24mm f/1.8
Latest
Evening HDR
Went for a wee constitutional tonight with the fam. Made a few snaps with Samsung S20. All edited in SnapSeed.
Freedom Convoy
Well finally something of interest happened! How about freedom in the “true north strong and free?” Sounds good to me! There is an absolutely massive convey making its way east to Ottawa. The mission? End all the crazy health mandates that the tyrannical government has imposed on the citizens of Canada. There are hundreds if not thousands of big rigs and trucks converging on Ottawa in the next few days. They swooped passed Moose Jaw today, which actually turned into tonight. There was a nasty batch of icy Saskatchewan roads that slowed things down, but rest assured, nothing is going to stop this convoy.
I grabbed the old Nikon DF and a 24mm f/1.8 lens and we took in the rally. It was heinously cold, approaching -30ºC with the windchill. And, it was really, really dark. I was shooting at ISO 75 billion and trying to make images. It was very challenging conditions. But hey, that’s the price of freedom. Never give in. Never give up!
Support the cause: https://gofund.me/cf5c9fcf
Fall
Sunset
Pine Cree
There are very few “camping” spots left in the camping world. Most have segued into the world of accommodating massive trailers and 5th wheels with all the comforts of home. But what about old timey camping? No power. No flush toilets. Small, private campsites. What about a campground in the middle of a pine forrest with a beautiful stream running right through the campsites??? What if such a place existed in the middle of Saskatchewan farm land? A myth? A fairytale?! Enter: Pine Cree Regional Park
We spent 2 nights at Pine Cree and it didn’t disappoint. It truly is a Saskatchewan hidden gem! It’s close to neighbouring Eastend with their very cool T.rex Discovery Centre, sporting “Scotty” one of the only complete TRex fossils in the world. It is also close to the Frenchman River which supports a glorious scenic drive. Unfortunately for us, it poured rain that day. But the area has lots to do and see and is the gateway to Cypress Hills.
One other detail for future travellers to the park. The river really cools off the campground at night. It was ~35ºC when we were there during the day but it got really cold at night. So make sure you’re well bundled!
Photographically, this trip was shot largely with Samsung S20 and also the iPhone 11 and the FujiFilm XPRO2 (23mm, 35mm, 90mm lenses).
Hiking To Grey Owl’s: A Grand Adventure
At the top of my Sister-in-Law’s bucket list has been hiking to Grey Owl’s cabin. It’s a 40 km round hike in Prince Albert National Park, an enormous federal park in northern Saskatchewan. You can look up all kinds of information about who Grey Owl was and what he was doing up on Ajawaan lake. This blog post will simply chronicle our journey and give suggestions and coordinates for future hikers.
Hiking advice is generally relative, depending on many factors from weather and gear to preparedness and individual athletic ability. However, this advice is absolute:
DON’T DO THIS HIKE IN SUMMER!
Jason Schultz
Unless you like 70 trillion insects swarming and buzzing your face and body non-stop and you love sweating all the time. LOL. We did this trip at the end of June and our temperatures were an unbearable 36-38ºC with absolutely no breeze. Kingsmere lake was absolutely glass the whole time. The insects went from bad to worse with mosquitos, black flies, deer flies and horse flies each taking their turns attacking us non-stop. The greatest challenges this hike provided us would have been remedied by doing it in late September/early October.
That, and ultra-lite gear. We just used stuff we had on hand and that made for a bit of a challenge. Our gear was heavy and we had to camp at the far end of the hike, at Northend – which meant we had to carry the gear pretty much the entire hike. If we could have lessened that load, I predict it would have made the journey 17% more enjoyable.
This map is provided by Parks Canada but it doesn’t include GPS coordinates for the campgrounds. I find it so helpful to have these things marked so that you can tell how far the next stop is going to be. Here are my GPS coordinates for the camp stops and trail heads along the way:
1) Trail Start: N54° 01.565′ W106° 24.933′
2) Westwind: N54° 02.974′ W106° 24.419′
3) Chipewyan Portage: N54° 04.462′ W106° 23.778′
4) Sandy Beach: N54° 07.117′ W106° 24.604′
5) Northend: N54° 08.085′ W106° 27.391′
6) Grey Owl Hike Trailhead: N54° 08.043′ W106° 27.728′
7) Grey Owl Cabin: N54° 08.990′ W106° 27.808′
It truly is a gorgeous hike with lots of spectacular scenery. We had a good but challenging time! The most challenging section was Chipewyan Portage to Sandy Beach, mainly because it’s the most open part of the trail and it was unbelievably hot. We were able to get cooled off swimming at Sandy Beach thankfully. The registration process to hike the backcountry has to be the day you start the hike at 7AM. Then you have to drive the 35km to the trail head, so you don’t actually start hiking until around 8AM or so. It was already sweltering by that time. The park really needs to employ an online registration setup with night-before access so you can start earlier. We started our return trip before 6AM and didn’t regret it at all. Thankfully, we saw no bears either. Elk in the Waskesui campground was about as exotic as it got.
Our Statistics:
Hiking in to the Cabin June 30th – 24.6km, 10:15 hours total (including swimming stops).
Hiking out July 1st – 17.9km, 5:56 hours total.
All photos taken with Samsung S20.
Crazy Sky
Impromptu Portrait
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