Photo-Finish Friday-- River Home

The Athabasca River  at Fort Assiniboine, looking eastward.

Photo-Finish Friday --A Bit of the Athabasca

This is a deep summer view of the Athabasca River from a lookout in the Sandhills east of Fort Assiniboine. We went there many times when I was growing up.
Back then it was fun to take a run and jump off the edge of the hill into the sand.
The trees have all but take over now all but obscuring the view of the hill, but it you cock you head just right you can still see the river and the riverbottom farmland.

Gratitude Monday -- Now and Then

I've had a camera since sometime in my teens. I've taken photos as often as I thought about it and I am happy I did.
When I went to journalism school I learned how to operate a 35mm SLR and my pictures improved. I took my camera everywhere, as we were told to do, for many years.
I'm glad of it as I have pictures of places and friends and things. I can look back on them as see how much the person place or thing has changed over the years whether it's apparent to the naked eye or not.
Today I have digital cameras and while I don't take them everywhere, I do see that they get out and about fairly often.
I like them, although nothing can take the place of a hard-copy print and the negative from whence it came. They're great to find again and hold in one's hands. I find it easier to go back to the moment when I hold a print rather than when I see it on my computer screen.
Yes, of course I can make prints from digital pics, but I don't. It seems a waste for some reason, mostly because it is easier to play with them on the screen and make several copies at no cost.
All that's great, and I am grateful for it. But it is not today's point.
Photos are a great way to keep track of the passage of time, and growth and change, but more than anything, they are anchors for us. They are reference points from which we can hang a memory, an occasion, a life.

Below are two photos taken nearly a quarter-century apart of a place in the Sandhills near Fort Assiniboine. It is known locally as Horseshoe Bend for the way the Athabasca River bends in the valley. If you wanted to find it today you'd ask for Athabasca Lookout.

This is from an August of about three years ago. In the left hand corner of the picture you can see a bit of the river if you know where to look and you know that it's there.

This photo from October 1985 was taken from about the same spot on the hill. The bend in the river is obvious. The hill is still mostly sand.
In the upper right hand corner I can see where Clearwater Creek, which ran by our farm,  joins the Athabasca River. I am grateful I took these photos then and now for the record of time, and for the memories they bring me.

A View from a Hill

This is the hill above Fort Assiniboine, Alberta. It's been cut down some over the years and the bottom curve's been smoothed out, but those are minor changes.
It's still the hill I rode down every morning when I went to school and the hill we took to get anywhere that requited going through the Fort.

Something about this descent calms me. I look out over the vast green forest, gaze at the sure steady flow of the Athabasca River, and let my eyes rest on the faraway rise to the south and it could be any year, any season.
Time has ceased.
I am any age and every age, but mostly I am young again. As I look out over this scene and into the village I am reminded that anything is possible.

Photo-Finish Friday - Ferry Across The Athabasca

The Klondike Ferry across the Athabasca River east of Fort Assiniboine.

I've crossed the river by ferry here many times. It is one of my fondest memories of growing up. Ferry rides were free in daylight, but I am sure there was a sign that said night crossings were 50 cents.

My dad knew the ferryman well enough to go fishing at the Vega Ferry. It was called that as after you crossed the river you were in the district of Vega. I recall once he borrowed the boat attached to it, though it's been so long most of the details are lost to time. I know we didn't stay out too long as the Athabasca was teeming with whitefish in those days. Catching the limit took only a few minutes.

They are, or at least were, a tasty fish. Dad took care of frying them as mom always said she couldn't cook fish. I never knew if she meant she couldn't do it the way dad liked it, or she simply had sense enough to see a break from cooking and took it.

It didn't matter. Dad caught them, cleaned them, and fried them, and we ate well.

A closer look at the ferry.

Photo-Finish Friday --The Old Home Town Edition

This is Fort Assiniboine, Alberta.

It's where I'm from and this is the sight that greeted me every school day morning of my life. I never tired of it in the 12 years I went to school and I haven't tired of this sight in the 50 years and change I've walked the Earth.
The Athabasca River makes a bend here. It's obscured by the trees on the hillside in the foreground in this photo, but it is there.
The Fort was a hamlet, then it became a village, then it reverted to hamlet in the mid-1990s.
I like that it's a hamlet simply because the title suits the scenery.