Day 118 of a 365-Day Portrait of Canada: Heading to Alberta to Shoot the Rocky Mountains For One Week

Today we flew home to Alberta for a week to shoot a friend’s wedding in the beautiful Rocky Mountains, as well as to see family and friends after logging 118 amazing days on the road. We left Red Deer, Alberta at 4 o’clock on October 1st heading East and to-date have logged over 7500 kms and shot over 35,000 photos! We are holding up well, but life on the road can wear you down and we are looking very forward to sleeping in our own bed.

For interest sake I thought I’d test out Ottawa’s airport security by stashing a nearly full tube of toothpaste in my camera bag. Well, the two camera bodies and four hard drives may have thrown them off because the tube of toothpaste went undetected. Not only that, but I managed to board the plane with not one lighter, but two lighters (to light the camp stove) in my winter coat, even after security went though my coat by hand. I took this photo of them without anyone noticing. I will add that security was friendly and smiled easily.

De-icing in Ottawa

40,000 feet above Canada

Calgary with the Rocky Mountains in the background.

Calgary’s Deerfoot Trail

Keeping the Airport Traffic Moving

Westjet 737 cockpit

Gate 50 in Calgary

The Calgary International airport is one of the nicer airports in Canada with comfort leather chairs and artwork everywhere.

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Day 101 of a 365-Day Portrait of Canada: Peterborough / The Canadian Canoe Museum, Ontario

Peter in his raccoon skin coat

The Canadian Canoe Museum

History of the Museum

Professor Kirk Wipper was the founder of the Kanawa International Museum of Canoes and Kayaks.
The unparalleled collection of over 600 canoes and kayaks that form the nucleus of The Canadian Canoe Museum began in 1957, when a friend presented Kirk Wipper with a dugout canoe made circa 1890.  Professor Kirk Wipper taught at the University of Toronto’s Department of Physical Health, and possessed a keen insight into the power of the canoe to tell the story of Canada’s people.  Wipper’s collection grew, and in late 1960s, with over 150 artifacts, a building was constructed to house the craft at Camp Kandalore, a residential summer camp near Dorset, Ontario.  This collection came to be known as the Kanawa International Museum.

Even with additions to the building, the collection outgrew its space.  A new home was needed, and Peterborough, the centre of canoe manufacturing for more than a century from 1850 – 1960, was a logical site.  A group of people, many of them connected with Trent University, came together to work towards creating a centre of knowledge about the role of the canoe.  In 1989, a board of directors was formed, and in 1994 Wipper transferred control of his historic collection to the organization now called The Canadian Canoe Museum.  This group has worked tirelessly, raising money and resources to build a national museum.  footnote -Information taken from the Canadian Canoe Museum website.

Pierre Trudeau’s buckskin coat

Haida Canoe and Paddles from Masset, Queen Charlotte Islands

Birch Bark Canoes

There were numerous types of Canoes and Kayaks on display at the Museum

Canoe Workshop

Bill Mason was an award-winning Canadian naturalist, author, artist, filmmaker, and conservationist, noted primarily for his popular canoeing books, films, and art. He was born in 1929 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and graduated from the University of Manitoba School of Art in 1951. He developed and refined canoeing strokes and river-running techniques, especially for complex whitewater situations. He canoed all of his adult life, ranging widely over the wilderness areas of Canada and the United States. Called “wilderness artist,” in one book about him, Mason left a legacy that includes books, films and artwork on canoeing and wild nature. He died of cancer in 1988.

Ice-covered Otonobee River

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Day 94 of a 365-Day Portrait of Canada: A Visit to the Royal Ontario Museum

The Royal Ontario Museum is among the world’s leading museums of natural history and world cultures. It is a museum that is best seen over a series of visits, as there are a number of collections and artifacts to explore. There are also a number of children’s activities at the museum, and it would be a great place to take a class on a field trip.

The ROM website explains that It is the ROM’s mission to engage the public in exploration of cultural change and to serve as an advocate for science in the study of nature. The ROM is near completion of a major capital project (Renaissance ROM) that includes the building of 27 new galleries, the liberation of many stranded collections, the addition of valuable public amenities, and the creation of a dramatic new architectural piece for the front entrance in the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, which is designed by Daniel Libeskind.

Although Tim and I found the entrance fee pricy, we discovered that the ROM does what it can to ensure that individuals from all financial backgrounds have access to the exhibits. If you cannot afford the $22 entry fee, then you have a number of other options. The Royal Ontario Museum’s Community Access Network (ROM CAN) provides free tickets to communities and individuals who may not otherwise visit the Museum. As well, admission is free every Wednesday from 4:30 pm to 5:30 pm (except for the Nature of Diamonds exhibition). Half price admission remains on Fridays from 4:30 pm to 9:30 pm. If you are in the area, I would recommend making a visit one of your Toronto stops.

 

The new James and Louise Temerty galleries feature a renowned collection of dinosaur skeletons, along with fascinating fossil birds, mammals, insects and plants of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.

This diverse collection of antlers was in the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal’s staircase on the way down to the Diamond exhibit.  

The Herman Herzog Levy Gallery is the main venue for changing exhibitions on East Asia, showcasing the broad scope and diversity of the ROM’s collection of Chinese, Japanese and Korean artifacts.

Bishop White Gallery of Chinese Temple Art

These exotic insect specimens can be found on the J.F. Driscoll Family Stair of Wonders

Located on the second level, the Gallery of Birds displays hundreds of species of birds in flight, with pull-out drawers containing eggs, feathers, footprints and nests. Mini-dioramas focus on extinct birds and how environmental changes and habitat destruction have put other species in danger.

 

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Day 64 of a 365-Day Portrait of Canada: Cultural Icons represented in Urban Art in Montreal

One of the great things about Montreal is the grafitti that you find around the city. Not only are there tags and random statements like “I love cheese” adorning many surfaces, but there are also beautifully artistic paintings popping up in the oddest of places. These are just two examples of people taking the time to render a bare wall or a run-down and decaying urban space into an expressive canvas. 

Day 11 of a 365-Day Portrait of Canada: Wooden Folk Art in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

These wooden men were amongst a number of wooden sculptures in an old-tyme Western town in Sault Ste. Marie. Unfortunately, all of the shops were closed when we were there, so we didn’t find out much about who had constructed this great little tourist spot.