OldPlaidCamper

Lesser Slave Lake

Lesser? There’s a bigger one?! Yup – maybe we’ll get there in a few weeks…

Lesser Slave Lake is about 100km long east to west, and the widest point is about 15km across, north to south. We’ve had a mix of wildfire smoky days and clear blue sky days. On even the clear days, we were unable to see the far shore, so it feels more like being at the sea rather than on a lake.

Perhaps due to the fairly remote mid Alberta location, the lake and surrounding area is quiet in terms of visitors. The sandy beaches are pleasant, quiet, and the perfect place to sit and spot bird life. I’m not good at identifying birds, but the bald eagle was easy, along with the loons. We’ve seen other ducks – mergansers? – and a hawk or two, as well as terns, crows and those small birds that refuse to slow down so we can identify them! If you’re into bird life, then this is the place!

Mixed boreal forest kept us well shaded on the hot days, and the mosquitoes knew where to find us. Bug bite count? It’s gone up from two…

If you’re ever looking for quiet camping in a rugged location, and you don’t mind a bug or two, then Lesser Slave Lake might be perfect for you. We love it here!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Crimson Lake, AB

Tall trees, a large lake, big blue skies, a mysterious creature, and a few bugs – zero complaints!

Mysterious creature, surprisingly approachable

Enjoying the slow trip north, and, at the time of writing, only two mosquito bites. Will that number go up? No…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Off the grid

Stampede is almost over – so much fun and yahoo! Time now for a change. We’ll be off the grid and on the road for the rest of July, all of August and most of September. We’re heading north, then a bit more north, as well as slightly east, all in our little teardrop. All being well, we’ll be visiting new (to us) places, and taking our time as we go. To all the hungry mosquitoes waiting out there, just pretend you never saw us, ok?

I’ll post something about somewhere as and when it is possible, but we’ve (deliberately) chosen stops that promise to be off the grid, particularly in relation to wifi and internet. But that doesn’t mean there are no coffee shops and breweries along the way, so perhaps a photo or two of beer, mosquito bites and careless sun burns will turn up, and I’ll be able to read and catch up with your blogs!

On the road and off the grid? Saddle up!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful next couple of months!

Summer in (and out of) the city! Cheers!

Slips, trips and falls

Or did I? Perhaps this is a health and safety advisory? No, all clear here. Goodness, I don’t miss doing the safety assessments for field trips with students. Of course slips, trips and falls – otherwise, why be a child? All part of the fun…

A few photographs this week of our short out and back again hike to Margaret Falls, a lovely spot in Herald Provincial Park, BC.

A narrow trail, criss-crossed with tangled tree roots, follows the Reinecker Creek into a deep canyon as you head up stream. Not too much sunlight gets in, so the tough trees growing in here cling to the steep sides and reach for the light. Tenacious growth! Some have grown too large and heavy to cling on and have tumbled down, falling across the narrow creek, left partially held up by one side of the gorge or other.

The conditions are cool, damp and mossy, increasingly so as you approach the falls, and a welcome break, if you’re looking for it, from the warmer temperatures at the nearby lake. When you reach the falls – it is hidden from sight almost all the way by the twists and turns of the stream – it is a noisy and spectacular water force!

If you’re ever in the Shuswap region, a quick side trip to visit these falls is a pleasant diversion! It’s worth the slight risk of a slip, trip or fall…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Canada Day (soon!)

It’s Canada Day next week (Wednesday) and, as always, I’m so happy this is my home. I’ve said it before, and that won’t stop me from saying it again: Canada is not perfect, but my sense is, as a nation, we are mostly trying to paddle in the right direction (it would need a large canoe, but that’s ok and all are welcome to climb in)…

The photos chosen this week are one for each month of 2026 so far, in an attempt to share something of the flavour of western Canada. (If you add maple syrup from the eastern side, the flavour improves even more! Maybe throw in a TimBit or two…)

So, if you’re Canadian and choose to celebrate, have visited Canada, maybe would like to visit one day, or simply like maple syrup and the big outdoors, Happy Canada Day!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Sneak preview for July – Stampede starts next Friday!

Mountain spring!

We mostly had a spring in our step, enjoying the fresh greens as we hiked in the foothills through stands of aspen and spruce.

Most days started sunny and finished cloudy, with temperatures below seasonal. Cooler conditions, fewer bugs! The big show was on our last night, featuring several thunderstorms with heavy rain and some hail, rolling through one after the other. We don’t mind that weather, but Scout isn’t a fan, trembling more than those aspens.

One morning, at second coffee o’ clock, a bear wandered by, just a few metres from where we were sitting. Scout, who always lets the deer and squirrels know who’s boss (don’t tell her, but they are) didn’t even look up. All that time she spends playing at being a wolf, and she couldn’t be bothered with as little as a token growl.

The bear wasn’t bothered, not by Scout, nor by us, and off it went in search of more wildflowers, perhaps hoping to be a step ahead of the many deer in the area. We finished our coffee and enjoyed a short loop hike above the Sheep River, close to our campsite, where we saw the clouds building up over the mountains nearby. We just made it back before getting a soaking. Phew!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Contrasts

As I wrote previously, we were fortunate to enjoy mostly blue skies on our trip to the western edge of Vancouver Island. But, it being largely a temperate rainforest location in the PNW, it wasn’t always wall to wall sunshine. There were a couple of almost foggy/definitely misty mornings, times that contrasted pleasantly with the overall brightness.

I’ve included a few photographs this week highlighting those coastal contrasts. What a wonderful spring delight it was to be in the greens and blues of western BC.

We’re back in landlocked AB now, where spring is in the ascendant at last, a time of rising (to near normal) seasonal temperatures, with more than a few rain showers to encourage the emerging plant life to get with being green – or what passes for luxuriant greenery in the space between the mountains and the prairies!

We’re hoping to spend a few days out in the foothills next week, see for ourselves the long awaited switch from chilly late winter (friends in Canmore have – they hope – finally put away snow shovels) to proper mountain spring. It’s a fifteen minute season before full summer…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Safe harbour

Wandering around the boat basin on a sunny morning seemed a pleasant way to spend an hour. It helped that the bright blue skies and warm sunshine made the scenes even more colourful. Very cheerful!

The previous day had been very blustery, and the clanging and clanking of masts, as well as the singing lines as the wind blew through the rigging made for a haunting song of sorts.

The eagles appeared to love the weather, sun or rain, blustery or not, and their piercing cries and shrill calls could be heard each day, even over the constant wind.

One morning, just before sun up, several eagles flew up into the trees to the left and right of our campsite. There they perched, offering an occasional cry, for a few minutes, almost if as if they were waiting with me for the sun to appear over nearby Mt. Ozzard.

Fanciful, I know, but they flew off mere moments after the sun’s first rays started to warm the harbour. I raised my coffee cup in acknowledgment, but they were gone, no doubt looking for something more interesting than the robust dark roast.

Rain or shine, wind or calm, Ucluelet Harbour is rarely a dull place!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Head west

Leaving the mountains behind us, our task was to find spring, or at least a place with no recent snow on the ground.

So we headed west across mountains, and more mountains, emerging onto the flatland delta, continuing until the road stopped. There, we got on a ferry to cross the Salish Sea to Vancouver Island, disembarked, and headed west once again until the road stopped again.

The end of the road (the end of a rutted and muddy track)

We have found spring (almost summer by west coast standards) in one of our happy places, and, even better, have been catching up with old friends. Hard to imagine we were cooling beer in the snow a week ago.

It feels as if winter has finally let go for real, spring has arrived for sure, and summer isn’t too far around the corner. Camping days ahead!

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Alberta cooler

We’re back on the road for the next little while, in fact we have been the past week. We trundled through the prairies for a few days, before heading into Kananaskis at the end of the long weekend. As we ventured in, we saw quite a number of campers leaving early. We wondered why?

It grew distinctly cool as the weekend progressed – more snow anyone? Yup, that happened. Thank goodness we didn’t have to worry about keeping our evening beer chilled. Who needs ice or a cooler?!

By the time this is posted we should be somewhere in BC, searching for some warmth and a little less snow…

Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

	Maria on Lesser Slave Lake
	Miriam on Lesser Slave Lake
	Jane's Heartsong on Canada Day (soon!)
	plaidcamper on Crimson Lake, AB
	Jane's Heartsong on Crimson Lake, AB