Autumn Colours
Snaps from a fleeting season
Autumn has always been my favourite season, though perhaps the most fleeting one in Canada. I don’t want to complain about the unseasonably warm weather we’ve had this fall—well maybe I do. My photo buddy Ross and I decided to spend a few days around Huntsville, perched between Algonquin Park, made famous by the paintings of Tom Thomson and the Group of Seven, and the Muskoka cottage country. It hit 29 Celsius the day we left Ottawa and was minus two when we were out for a boat ride in the park three days later. It felt like we had gone straight from high summer to early winter.
One good thing about the warm fall we’ve had is that the “peak” of forest colours was late this year, so the week before Canadian Thanksgiving was perfect timing for our photo trip.
Orange is very much this year’s dominant autumn colour in Ontario by far. The colours vary in intensity and variety each year, according to environmental conditions, I suppose. But amid the orange and the evergreen, there were also splashes of red and yellow.
It’s not hard to see why this area has been so compelling to painters.
We found beautiful scenes in Algonquin Park, though because it is dominated by pine trees, the colours are not quite as spectacular as they are to the west. There were some foreign tourists obviously a little disappointed by the excess of green, as it seemed to them. I loved Spruce Bog, not far from the park visitors’ centre on Hwy. 60, but the landscape is definitely more subdued.
There were some exceptions, like the tree below, which we came across still inside the park but a little closer to Huntsville.
But some of the most vivid colours we saw were in Huntsville itself—visible from a mountain outlook—and in Arrowhead Provincial Park which is straight north of the town about twenty minutes’ drive and is dominated by deciduous trees.
We were lucky, though, that our AirBnb on the outskirts of Huntsville overlooked Peninsula Lake, where one morning we were treated to a spectacular sunrise over a mist-enshrouded lake. This photograph was taken from the balcony of my bedroom.
Ready for winter, everyone?
Thanks for giving us a tantalizing taste of the fall colours we’ve missed by being in Spain for the last two weeks. (We’re not complaining but there are some tradeoffs). Beautiful photos!
Incredible photos & writing, as always, Paul. Very much enjoyed your post🍁🍂