Hello everyone on this beautiful July day.  Beautiful in some ways.  Not so beautiful in other ways.  This morning smoke rolled into our town.  Heavy, thick smoke, like a thick fog.  From forest fires.  There are 28 fires burning, 12 are not under control.  They are not close to us however.  But that can change.  Quickly.  One year some careless people were not watching their campfire.  What damage can a small campfire do?  It was a windy day.  In one week that small campfire destroyed 50,000 hectares of forest.  That’s a lot of damage from a small campfire.

I better stop. I could write an entire post on that subject.  But today we are finishing the river walk.  Too bad it took so long to find out about this beautiful spot.  But I’m glad to find out at least.  After my little incident with the slipping rock, I decided to find a nice spot to sit and relax for a while and just enjoy the remarkable scenery around me.  Once I found a good spot to sit I noticed my friendly pelican had moved away from shore a bit so I took a couple more pictures of it.  Looked so nice and bright white bobbing along on the water.

The water here is sometimes much higher than it is now.  You can see the high water mark on the rock along the shore.  It could be another 8 feet higher with water.  That’s a lot of water.  That would be at times in the spring when they have to let a lot of water through the dam.  That would be quite interesting to see from this vantage point.  Right now it looks so calm.  A person’s cares could easily float away downstream on a day like this.

The merganser family is staying around too.  Just amazing how those little critters can so easily swim around in that terrible current.  Those little legs and feet are moving incredibly fast.  No wonder they want turns on the mother’s back.  Must be tiring for them.

This is a large and beautiful river.  This is the Winnipeg River which winds its way to Lake Winnipeg which is Canada’s 6th largest lake.  The Winnipeg River can be up to 2km wide in places and has many islands of various sizes along the way.  But right here it is very nice.  It would be a wonderful spot for a picnic and enjoy the amazing scenery while eating.  The many species of birds in the area produce a constant chorus of song for everyone’s listening pleasure. 

Plus all the fantastic variety of wild flowers.  From the tiny wood sorrel to the larger ladyslippers and wood lilies.  Plus wild roses which have such a wonderful scent.  It would take a whole post to list all the flowers that can be found here.  But I guess it’s time to leave once again.  So I pick up my camera and start on the trail back to the beginning.

But I shall return again with camera in hand to hopefully capture some more wildlife in this beautiful spot.  Perhaps even that eagle.  Until then, I hope you all enjoy your weekend and God bless!

Steve and Muffin.

© 2019 Steve McLeod.