The weather for the week ending May looked excellent so Charlotte and I loaded the “Igloo” and headed north to the Narrows in Prince Albert National Park. Of all the campgrounds in the National Park this one has the least services including sketchy cell service. Washrooms with cold water are the only luxury, but the secluded campsites for some make it worthwhile. The marina has boat launching and a few amenities but with covid even that has been reduced. Boat and canoe/kayak rentals are available as well. While we had young children, we found Beaver Glen near the main beach, playground, shopping and ice cream stores made that site our go to as it was much easier to keep them occupied and maintain some sanity. The Narrows is a quieter place for those not requiring services to entertain themselves or children so it is now our go to place for over 35 years, at least once a month for days or months.
Playground of the NOFS, an elite group formed by summer resident Johnny consists mainly of, to put it nicely, experienced campers and regulars to the Narrows for many years. (See previous article on the NOFS.) For those of us who appreciate the beauty and quiet of these campsites we guard the privilege of being there and keeping it as pristine as possible. We are proud to be members of this group and this trip allowed us to reconnect with many camping friends and met a few more.
It was hard to get anywhere in the campground as visiting was breaking out all over and appeared contagious as we shared our locked up experiences of last year. It was great to see Donna and Jim, Jan and Norm, Denise and Ernest, marina Jim and of course Mr. Narrows our leader John. As we were early in the season some regulars were not up yet and I know I missed some. We also met a fine young lady Cara and her daughter. Cara just recently took early retirement and left her sticks and bricks dwelling for the free life living in her neat little Class C camper. She plans on travelling where the weather is good and where ever the road leads her, doing what many of us nomads dream of full time. We hope to see them again down the road perhaps in Arizona this winter or on the coast.
We also met Kathy (I think I got that right) and Blaine who, like us, spend a great deal of their year in their Northern Lite Truck camper and Ford F350 6.2 gas. We had much in common and had a chance to compare many notes, upgrades and problem areas but both agreed we were totally happy with our choices of travel and living accommodations and would not change a thing. Both of us have had every RV imaginable except a Class A rig. We like the truck camper as we park anywhere a vehicle can and with 4×4 go where we feel like when we want to, our only restriction sometimes is height but nothing is perfect.
A great week, warm weather not too windy, lots of canoeing, hiking, visiting and photography all in the company of experienced campers and RVers. Generator rules were followed with minimum of use, no garbage and food left around to attract bears who live there and the quiet as campfires died around 9 pm at most sites.
Unfortunately one of the regulars, Morton the Fox was not present this year, we noticed signs everywhere with his photo asking us not to feed the wild life. I hope the park did not have to put him down or relocate him because some fool camper fed him and may have been bitten. When around us they become fairly unafraid of humans (we are thought to be the intelligent ones) and they feed them, but wild is wild and if they feel threatened they will defend themselves. Please do not feed wild life or leave you junk food around so wild animals and birds can get into it, they are no different than us and are always looking for a free easy meal. God gave them a natural diet on which to survive and they do not do well on our processed junk food. Want to kill a wild animal feed it what you eat, so please use your head and allow our wild life to be wild life.
I do this site mainly to share the beauty of nature and light that God has given us to enjoy if we stop to see it as well as interesting places to see. I try my best to capture this beauty in a photograph without retouching any of them but quite frankly nothing beats seeing it in real time. I even took the time to use my Hasselblad medium format film camera and a light meter used by my father to try and capture the moment and will have to share those results later, as the film is out for processing…yep have to wait for it and hope I remembered what photography is all about, light and timing and setting the camera manually to capture what I see. Hopefully you will enjoy some of the images and subscribe. It’s free and your address is not shared, but it’s what keeps me wanting to do this. You can feel good that you have kept a senior off the streets and out in nature taking photographs.
Hope we see you down the road. Look for studiowest.ca and the igloo. Would like to meet you – until then love one another, be kind to each other and respect our natural resources and wild animals.
Next week I will share our photos from our trip in northern Saskatchewan.
As always you can reach me at gerry@studiowest.ca