Ferguson's Lake at dusk

© August '09   photo by smck

Driving back from L'Archeveque the setting sun over Ferguson's Lake was so lovely that I had to stop and take a picture from Barren Hill Road.   As always the feeling of the fading day was ghosting over me like a pleasing shiver down my spine - no cars, no planes, no man-mad sounds just the breeze that ruffled the lake and sighed through the spruce and the tiny sound of wave-lets gently lapping on the stoney beach.  I waited while the sky above darkened into early evening and the old memories of Christopher Ferguson  and others that I had been lucky enough to know in the Barren Hill community ran through my mind - and how in the brief span of my later life it has reverted to a vast background of forest and lakes with only about two inhabited homes - one in which I know the family the other an unknown to me - the rest empty, fading away, or gone, the great arboreal forest  absorbing them back into its bosom, with this rural community like many others only a bit more alive by the influx of summer-from-aways like myself.  It was on Barren Hill Road that the best friend of my life was born and raised and he and his house is gone.  As much as I love rural living, this world of the future is steadily drawing most of the rural youth to its cities so that slowly, one by one, the small communities dwindle away or become summer colonies and the loss is profound - even if it is not of interest to the nation at large.  I drive on back toward Grand River appreciating the lonely street lights as I crest the hill at the highway garage.  Maybe Stewart and Sue are still up and I can stop and have tea and chase away my colly-wobbles, talking and laughing with my old friend's legacy, of son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren, to the future.  And it works, the great embracing feature of the rural life, rarely discerned in the city, the embracing of your neighbor, the looking the stranger in the eye, the easy hello, the sincere interest in what you are doing and how you are going, even when you might be estranged because of some imagined slight the urge to embrace breaks forth at someone's misfortune and old wounds are healed, at least for awhile.  It is like a large and scattered family that spends threads of communication through-out their scattering.  I love it and miss it.

 

Reynard came up the bank and paused

© August '09   photo by smck

Driving through Grand River I could scarcely believe it when this fox came up the bank from the river, crossed the road in front of my truck then turned toward Lola's house and paused on the verge of the road giving me his best profile shot.  Later I heard that he had been prowling this neighborhood for a couple weeks looking for handouts bold-as-you-please,  I got several nice photos but was never lucky enough to see him again.

Estuary and Sun

© August 09   photo by smck

The shore bar is to the left and the deep lake water stretching back toward Framboise is to the far right - but this is the shallows - soft mushy muddy bottom deposited over many years and teeming with all kinds of small water life.  Sea birds of all sorts stalk the exposed mud bars snacking away.  And I am laid back in the seat of the kayak, paddle shelved across the thwarts, as I try to take in the grandeur of this day, this day that the mystery of life has given me along with the companionship of my son.  I am in awe.

Old Farm at L'Archeveque

© August '09  photo by smck

Heading toward Sydney from Grand River this lovingly maintained old home, captured here as the setting sun casts long shadows, still looks out across the fields that were so labouriously cleared by the settlers of the 19th century.  And the spruce and fir still wait patiently for their eventual reclaiming of the land to return it to the arboreal forest of old.  The cities and towns grow larger in these years but the back roads of vigorous early days give way to neglect and nature.

Woodland Waterfalls

© July '06 ctmck

A good friend of ours told us about this falls and where to hike in a mile or so to find it.  A great hike indeed, as we were swept away by the ethereal streams plunging in myriad paths down the steep face of the rocky pitch. (well there's figuratively and then there is literally, eh?).  My younger son and his girl-friend did this hike-in later and none of us have been back since.  I better do the trek back in this summer for my own ethereal path seems to have quietly grown long of late.  The location is known to a few and I think I will leave it so.  No guide books here.