View allAll Photos Tagged canoing
Labor Day weekend, and the canoes at the lake are being brought out of the water, for cleaning and storage over the winter. It'll be fall soon, the temperatures will slowly drop, the trees will turn colors, the lake will be filled with migratory waterfowl, but there won't be any canoes. Oh there will be fishing boats, brought there by avid fishermen. But when the canoes come up, it's a sure sign that fall is coming.
Fall is my favorite time of year. There's camping, weenie roasts, beautiful colors, and frost on the pumpkin (as they say). But it also brings with it a certain melancholy, a wistful remembrance of the past summer with all its life and vitality, and a dreadful looking forward to the bitterness of winter. It is the winter that I dislike the most. Cold and dormant, life buried within bundling layers, it is only good for fireplaces and blankets, reflecting on the past year, making plans for the next, and making sure that the freshness of spring has something to be compared to.
Yes, the canoes mean winter is coming. And so I took their picture, a tribute to summer. It was a great summer. One I'll remember for the rest of my life.
The beauty of canoeing is that you can stop just about anywhere to take a break. These are places that are inaccessible by foot, therefore they are usually quite pristine. The canoe to the far right is the canoe that my friend and I were in. DSC_4231
Canoes from different tribes land in Port Angeles, July 29 2009. The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe welcomes the paddlers each year as part of Tribal Canoe Journey.
Canoeing past a shear basalt cliff on Lake Lenore in Eastern Washington I saw our shadow/reflection projected up onto the basalt cliff we were passing.
Large canoe in the main hall of the Tulalip Tribes Hibulb Cultural Center. Note that the photos on the wall behind the canoe are copyrighted, so this version of the photo should not be reproduced commercially.
Background blurred: www.flickr.com/photos/jmabel/21503687385. Background removed: www.flickr.com/photos/jmabel/21315683730.