Algonquin

My apologies for the lack of posts in the last week; things have been busy these days.  Don't worry, I am back on track, and the two weeks ahead are going to be full of passionate writing, as we head here:

Cedar Lake, Algonquin Provincial Park, Ontario.  I am pretty sure I have taken quite a few photos of this same vantage point and weather conditions, but credit here goes to Lady Junop.  Why yes, those are 130 foot Eastern White Pines sticking up from the slope across the lake!

In 16 days I am going to be heading to what is without a doubt, in my opinion anyway, the most beautiful and serene land on the entire planet.  I say this having been to amazing places like the Grand Canyon, the Scottish Highlands, the cloud forests of Costa Rica, and the giant forests of the Sierras.  Nothing compares to the rugged, "scaled back" atmospheric wonders of northern Ontario and western Quebec, and then nothing compares to the Ottawa and Petawawa valleys.  I am a bit biased, as those are the best thing I can call anything resembling a true homeland.

Now, why is this?  In these last 16 days, I intend to post every day about my reasons, and why everyone who is able to make the journey in a lifetime should head to the lakes, rivers, mountains, and bogs of L'Algonquin.  I will be making extensive use of some photographs from Bob and Diana McElroy, and as usual, will be citing their photos as I use them.  Their main website can be found here:

http://www.mcelroy.ca/

I highly recommend browsing through their stuff, as they really capture the essence of the land in their pictures.

I do have a lot of my own pictures that I am in the process of scanning into digital format, so have no fear, you still get original content in the weeks to come.

So where are we going to be exploring?

The green box!  80 miles inland from Lake Huron, 350 miles south of James Bay, 380 miles from the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 400 miles from the Atlantic Ocean in Maine, and worlds apart from even the surrounding areas.  For an area so close to the historical cores of both Canadian and American European settlement, Algonquin still remains rather pristine and wild.  Things could have turned out very differently though, at least without the birth of the Canadian conservation movement which got underway in the 1880's, coinciding with the foundation of the American conservation movement.  Algonquin, along with Banff in the Canadian Rockies, was the first sacred ground fought for and saved by the movement.  Ken Burns meant to say that the National Park is North America's best idea, but I digress.  Tomorrow we will start by looking at the human history of Algonquin, a battle to save the natural history of the region.

Mes amis français, je vais vous traduire chaque page si je reçois suffisamment de demandes pour.