Photo Journaling: Barrie, Canada, to Maine

 

Even with the distraction of a gull sitting atop the head of a Canadian WWI infantry man, one cannot ignore the soldier's mournful look. His downcast gaze seems to express regret. We ask too much of men during war. In our sorrow for their fate, we glorify them by turning a likeness of one military man of any particular war into stone, an act oddly reminiscent of the plots in grim-ending fairy tales. 

After I entered the United States at Niagara Falls, I wandered east along the Erie Canal through formerly prosperous industrial towns. Most towns hung banners with photos of their "Hometown Heroes" of all who who had fought in American wars from their communities. So many men. A few women. We Americans are good at war.

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I admired centuries of glorious house styles across New York, traveling south down through the Hudson Valley, eventually across Massachusetts, and into coastal Maine. The ingenuity of man was everywhere. 

Women were less in evidence. A muted pink in a garden reminded me of a color known to be favored by the female sex. A "scarlet A"—in actuality a half of a barricade hanging on a wall at Buttermilk Falls Park—made me think of women accused in that earlier time of adultery and where were the men then?

Essence of pink at Cornell Botanical Gardens

A new New England's version of a "scarlet A"

Henry Thoreau's Walden Pond...  reinvented as a swimming hole. 

I walked around Walden pond. I watched swimmers crossing and tykes a playing. Apparently the pond has been a swimming hole for some time. I was told it was once closed due to too much pee in the water. Now a bathing house is under construction at one end. A sensible solution. Still, I was expecting a meditative space. If one walks to the far side of the pond, one can stand by the original location of Thoreau's cabin; it is marked by four upright stones. There, it is quiet.

Men—once prosperous—leave tailings of rust.

Rusted factories in Amsterdam at abandoned Erie Canal mills.

A print of President Garfield hangs in the hallway of a house at Schodack Landing in Hudson Valley. 

This Second Empire or Mansard style house was built by a man running an ice house at Schodack Landing.

The house was built in the year Garfield became President of the United States. Tom, the current owner and caretaker of the house, has thoughtfully filled it with period furniture and memorablia related to President Garfield and his Cabinet. Staying there was a wonderful historical journey. 

 

Isaac Dunham, the first lighthouse keeper at the Pemaquid Lighthouse, was a distant cousin of mine.

I wandered the lighthouse's neighborhood looking for the grave of Isaac's father, Captain Cornelius Dunham. He had sailed the world before dying while visiting his son at the lighthouse. I had sketchy directions to his burial site. Although the lighthouse docents weren't sure where it was, one of them sent me off where he thought it might be located. I was thrilled to find it and returned to let the staff know where the little cemetery could be found.

A painterly-like view from Pemaquid, Maine shoreline. Rosehips and seagulls.

I visited various friends on the Maine coast. Each enthused about living in Maine and took me a wandering or directed me to sights. I could leave my heart in Maine. It tempts one to become an artist.

Shells at Carolyn and Tim's house.

View of lobster boats at sundown from Andi and Parke's couch. 

Ladder descending fishing dock in Stonington.

A Stonington view that would make a good painting.

 

In Gouldsboro, Maine, this lobsterman once held a sardine can.

The Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Museum explained that when sardines had been over-fished on the Maine coast and tuna became popular, the sardine canneries closed and were replaced with lobster fisheries. Although only men worked as sardine fishermen, women worked in the canneries. The museum has a delightful film about how much the women loved their work and the friendships they found in the canneries. 

Another statue of a man:

Quarryman statue in Stonington, Maine. Quarries nearby provided stone for numerous famous buildings.

 There is still a working quarry on an island in the area. A beautiful, strong statue.

And finally a woman's "statue." A scarecrow in a community garden in Milbridge, Maine. It seems fitting it is a female. The garden gives vegetables away for the picking to anyone in need of fresh produce. When women have more sway in the world, nobody will go hungry. 

A beautiful scarecrow.

Canadian Travels

 

This is a Canadian morning: sunny-side-up, dressing of mist, and a lake which is not optional. Crossing Canada west to east, I camped by water most nights. Even the Alberta prairies had cow ponds. On one of the two long days it took to cross those prairies, I moved in tandem with a thundercloud running ahead of me as if it were the gingerbread man calling out, “Catch me if you can.” The vastness of the land under an uncatchable cloud made me meditate on larger things—of men unrestrained by wilderness, of women following, and the courage of both. I camped that night on an island in a lake with the sun dropping red through smoke from fires further north. 

When I prepared for this Pacific coast to Atlantic coast trip, I considered a plethora of hazards and emergencies. I packed foul-weather gear, bought two brands of tick and mosquito repellants, and even purchased a smoke-repellant mask for my dog. But I was most worried about the hazard of not “seeing” the country I was to cross. Of fussing about the miles clicking by on the odometer and of arriving each evening weary and late at a reserved campground. I waylaid this worry by advance study. The Lethbridge train trestle (highest and longest train trestle of its kind in the world) is an example. 

I camped that night on the edge of Lethbridge in a most unremarkable campsite, but with a host, who when I mentioned my interest in the bridge, enthused about the it and how to access it. I might have been tempted to go to bed early and see nothing remarkable, but instead I headed out to find the trestle. 

The trestle’s construction reminded me of those antique Meccano child’s construction sets but upscaled to a giant’s play. The train trestle fit the range of the land and welded with my pondering the willingness of humans to go into difficult terrain and make things happened.  

The endeavor to connect eastern to western Canada with train tracks and a highway were engineering feats. Later in the trip, as I passed rock walls with their evidence of blasting, I wondered how much dynamite built these corridors. And how many lakes they avoided. And how many trees were felled.

Although most of the trip was seen at a large scale, I also looked at the eye and macro level. The wider vistas needed something to ground them. Some days I stopped to hike with Chester and some evenings, I wandered campgrounds and took photo shots. I especially loved the curls of white birch bark. And the bird in the bark.

Short hikes brought me other views. Whispy grasses on the edge of a lake.

Chester’s view of Canada was mostly by smell. His nose led him to a Newfoundland, who was also named Chester. Their connection brought me to a most wonderful Canadian. Hearing him speak of playing hockey, of his cabin near a lake, and his devotion to his now deceased wife—who had endured a long illness, tallied with my image of Canadians—of their tenacity and grace under difficulties.

I am sure this leg of my journey will remain in my mind fondly.