WHAT THEY LEFT BEHIND

We all live our lives. Many of us try to make our mark as we live that life, through the way that we live it, in the way that we affect others, by our interactions with those around us. For some people, it's our work that speaks for us. And for others it's a legacy. Not so much what we did, but what we left behind.
This past weekend Collette and I went to Pointe Au Baril, to her home and her family's business, Springhaven Lodge to carry out a wish of her parents, Marg and Nick, to have their ashes blended with the waters of Nares Inlet.

Part of Nick and Marg's legacy is the wood and mortar of the lodge itself but really in the long run, that is the least of it. It is more the imprint made on a country, the impression made upon those who have visited there, the memories carried in the mind and the heart for years and for generations.

On a sunny September day, with the wind mild and water unusually calm, the Scale families gathered and took their boats and turned out of Nares Inlet, past the great sleeping rocks and the green trees full of verdant energy and the restless water that never sleeps, that eddies and streams and forms and makes and creates, much like a man from the city whose restlessness helped to define this place

It was a chance to soak in the beauty of this area, where this family was raised, played, made their livings, raised their families. The place that Nick brought them to, all those years ago, and spent a lifetime making their home

It was a time for a few stories, for mostly quietly remembrance, for listening to the sound of the water tickling the boats, the wind in the barbed trees, for inner looks and the feeling of the sun sighing across your skin

Everyone mourns in their way. Everyone remembers in their own way. Even when together, at this time, united by circumstance, connected by blood, joined by memory people were in their own space, some quiet, some vocal, some still and inward viewing, some demonstrative. Surrounded by the wind and the sun and the stone with the sound of the water running through it all, like the susurrus of blood under your skin.

Collette's way to remember is to take pictures and to collect stories about her dad, a project that we hope to have posted in some form on the net soon. My way is take video. I wasn't there for much of Nick and Marg's life. But perhaps by recording this present, I will keep the past living on, sometime into the future.

A Remembrance Weekend from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

UP NORTH PART ONE

Collette, Miss Hayley and I have just returned from a few days off in north-central Ontario and pretty jammed packed those days were. First, we got to spend some time at Collette's family lodge at Nares Inlet, something we have not been able to do for more than a year. Then there was our quest for a "lost" graveyard deep in the bush. And, of course, there was a family wedding to attend. Being us, we have pics and videos of everything so I am going to split the adventures into three separate posts.



We will start with Springhaven Lodge. I have written about the lodge before and how important it is to us. This is Collette's home and the home away from home for Miss Hayley and myself. Now that Collette's father has moved into Parry Sound we haven't made the extra hour or so trip up to Nares Inlet but we made a point this past weekend, to visit her family that live there, to reconnect with this special place and, of course, to allow Collette to play with her new boyfriend (that being the Nikon D-80)















One of the things that has changed at the lodge since our last visit is the giant boulder that lives on the beach. When I first came to the lodge over twenty years ago this huge boulder was partially submerged but as the waters of the Georgian Bay have receded, the entire boulder has become exposed. Collette's brother Garry had a local artist do some carving on the boulder, transforming it from something prosaic, to a work of art.

Besides the beauty of the manufactured art, this part of north central Ontario offers a lot of natural beauty as well. The clarity of the water, the sharp barb images of the trees, the moss dappled rock that form the mass of this muscular land ... all of it gives a welcome reprieve to someone who lives in the middle of pervasive urban sprawl.

The weather was on and off the day and night we were there but the sun came out just enough for us to create some images.

This next one Collette took right around dusk, which as you can see is beautiful, but also prime mosquito/fly feeding time. This is called taking the good with the bad, or paying for your bliss. In this case, we paid with blood.

So here is my little video of our lodge visit. For the geeks, this video combines footage from my Samsung palmcorder and the Sony 3 chip camera I brought up for the wedding. The differences should be obvious. The last few shots of the video were taken in Parry Sound itself. Music is Collin James covering Van Morrison.

Springhaven Lodge, June 2008 from Victor Kellar on Vimeo.

A-WEDDING WE SHALL GO

This is the second version of this post. The first one was a two parter. The first part was a political rant aimed at David Miller, the mayor of my city, and his apparent lack of knowledge around something as trivial as the national gun laws in this country and his insistence that closing legal gun ranges would stop the gun violence here ... But I find political rants boring and mine was no exception.

So I am going to the second part of the original post. This weekend Collette, Miss Hayley and myself are heading up north for a wedding. When we say "up north" we mean the Parry Sound area where Collette's family lives. The wedding is for her nephew Tim and his fiancee Kate. Besides being the aunt and uncle Collette and I will be serving as the A/V tag team; I'm taking the pro video cam and she is bringing her new boyfriend, often referred to as the Nikon D-80. So, there will be a fabulous wedding DVD and some exquisite wedding still pictures ... and we will get to celebrate the marriage of these two and get to hang out with Collette's family.

The wedding is on Sunday but we are sneaking up tomorrow (Friday). Collette is finished teaching for the year and since she is now not teaching summer school (don't ask, it entails a different kind of political rant) we decided to go up early. The wedding is in Parry Sound itself, the town where Collette's dad lives, the place we normally stay. But tomorrow we are heading straight up past Parry Sound to Pointe au Baril and Springhaven Lodge, the business owned and operated by Collette's family. We plan on staying overnight then going to Parry Sound on Saturday.

It has been a while since we've been to lodge, pretty much since Collette's parents moved "into town" (Parry Sound). We love the lodge. Miss Hayley loves the lodge. Springhaven is located on Nares Inlet which, in turn, opens up onto the Georgian Bay, a body of water attached to Lake Huron but in itself, almost as big as Lake Ontario. We are talking around 15,000 square kilometers here. Deep deep, water, wind shaped pine trees, ancient moss coated rocks .... this is a party in Vic and Collette's world.

The lodge features a gentle sand beach leading into some of the cleanest water you will find anywhere; I don't suspect that Miss Hayley will be dry for any long period of time. And I strongly suspect that the next blog I post will have some gorgeous photos compliments of Collette and her new auto focusing boyfriend. And sure, probably some video as well.

So it's a win win kind of weekend; a wedding for people for whom we have a great deal of affection, a gathering of the family, and a day or two at one of our favorite places on the planet. There will be still pics, there will be video and ..oh yeah .. there's gonna be beer. And everything goes better with beer.

MISS HAYLEY AT SPRINGHAVEN LODGE

This is a strong country. The great rocks push up out of the earth, rounded and hard and powerful, made smooth by moss and lichens, they are like the muscles of the earth, like the core of the planet, pushed up out of the ground. Sun comes hard off the water, cutting diamond shapes on the waves, flaring off to get caught in the smokey dark barbs of the trees, dropping like shards down into the deep tangles of the bush.


The wind comes hard into this part of the Canadian Shield. It comes from out of the immense expanse of Lake Huron, ripping into the Georgian Bay, funneling into the bays and inlets and channels that punctuate the ancient grammar of this land. It is a hard wind, often cold, and it touches you, you feel the vastness of it, like it leaves its origin in your hair and on your face; a scent of snow and open water, even in the summer.


The trees bend against the wind, curving but not breaking, carrying their strength in their shapes, the branches blown back by the wind but still growing, still stretching out into the huge, overpowering sky.

Only three hours away from Toronto, the Georgian Bay seems another world sometimes. You can breathe here, feel that great wind and you can stand up on high on a rock or on a dock or in a canoe and you can hear .... The wind in the trees, brushing the pine needles like a conversation; the sussurus of waves on the sand beach; the call of loons that vibrates up your spine like an electrical current; the lapping of waves against a wooden dock, a gentle sound that seems so loud, as loud as music, as quiet as the movement of blood under your skin.

Springhaven Lodge, in Pointe au Baril Ontario, is a very special place for my family unit. This is Collette's home. Her father started the lodge 40 odd years ago and his sons run it to this day. This is where Collette grew up; a little blond haired kid and her yellow lab pretty much living in the water.

This is also a special place for Miss Hayley. She has been coming here her entire life. Playing in the water, racing through the bush, discovering snails on the beach, racing up to the road to Uncle Dennis' house for some goodies from Aunt Kay in her kitchen. I've cut a little video compilation of some of Miss Hayley's early moments at the lodge. This video spans a couple of years; you can see the progress of her coat as she ages.

Things have changed at the Lodge, our lives have changed but it will always be a special place for us and no matter what the future brings we will have the memory of this land and when we need to, we will be able to close our eyes and feel the great wind against our face.