Category: Photos

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Quinn sits in airplanes

My granddaughter Quinn sitting in the cockpit of a CF-100 aircraft at the Warplane Museum in Ancaster, Ontario on a recent visit. Quinn’s great-grandfather, my father (more info here) flew CF-100s along with a bunch of other fighter jets in the Royal Canadian Air Force. This plane was made by Avro — maker of the infamous Avro Arrow — and was nicknamed “The Clunk” because of the noise the landing gear made when retracted (it was also affectionately known as the Lead Sled). It was the first straight-winged aircraft to go supersonic.

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A trip to Narnia… er, Calgary

Went out to Calgary for our annual trip to Becky’s company Christmas party, which her company thoughtfully pays for, and found that a winter storm followed by minus 15 Celsius had turned the city into Narnia.

Every inch of every branch on the leafless deciduous trees was outlined in frost, and all of the snow that had fallen was frozen in place. It was quite beautiful. Made me miss the place, even though it was frigid.

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Thanksgiving at Golden Lake 2024

We had Thanksgiving at the lake, as we often do, and it was pretty warm compared to some other Thanksgivings, so we ate at two long tables pushed together out in the screened-in porch, which was nice (prior to screening it in a couple of years ago, we had to bring the picnic table into the kitchen to seat everyone).

In this photo I’m pretty sure Ophelia just said something funny

Unfortunately Caitlin and Wade and Quinn couldn’t make it, because they went to Wade’s cottage. But we had a pretty good time anyway — we did our usual Thanksgiving hike up a trail through the woods nearby to a lookout where you can see most of the big part of the lake.

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A perfect night for Northern Lights

I’ve seen the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis a number of times before — once a long time ago in northern Saskwatchewan, and not long after that on a drive through northern Ontario, and then a couple of times during the intervening forty years or so, but not more than half a dozen. They have always been amazing to watch, but I can safely say that I have never seen a display like we saw at our cottage in the Ottawa Valley just before Thanksgiving. We were told by friends that the ** index — a measure of sunspot electrical activity, which is what creates the Aurora Borealis — was high, so we went out to the local cemetery to try to get a good look at the northern sky, and we were gobsmacked.

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