split

All photos taken along Maskwa Road, Rm of East St. Georges. May 12, 2009.

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Though I was born/raised in Winnipeg, I spent long chunks of my summers at our cabin in NW Ontario. Which is to say that I left childhood with two landscapes: Winnipeg's trimmed municipal parks and Canadian shield.

Over the last decade, I've been cramming Assiniboine Forest's aspen parkland into my head, so now Canadian shield now seems...strange.

And so, while M and I strolled down a 'trail' to Rapid Five (ATV people and hikers do NOT mean the same thing when they say trail...), I looked at the pine and birch, the moss and lichen suspiciously.

When M suggested that we go through the trees to the return path, both of us wanting to take a breath of forest instead of jumping from rut to rut, automatically cataloging the garbage to either side, I agreed.

We found a few mushrooms and M only thought he heard a bear snorting once. (I leapt up from the ground when he casually asked me to come stand next to him...)

Today it gusted and rained. One or the other we could have handled, but both together made for a wretched day. But we tried, driving soupy back roads to the edge of the Gull Lake Wetland but giving it up when we saw how deep the puddles were. Then we drove to Patricia Beach, hoping to walk the dunes, but were nearly blown off our feet.

Finally, we attempted the North Star Trail in the Belair Provincial Forest. Which was more successful, even if I tripped on clearcut the one time we stopped and pitched over.

And I suppose M did look very manly when he gunned the truck over that washout.

(Really.)