Rocks and trees and trees and rocks

Canada is a rugged country. Thing's birthplace is located somewhere on the Canadian Shield — it must be so!





This weekend, we travelled from Ottawa to Peterborough to attend my Mom's 75th birthday party. (See previous post.) The distance is 270 kms / 167 miles. The drive takes about three and a half hours, one way.

Canada is vast and sparsely populated. It takes about 45 minutes to leave Ottawa behind. After that, you pass through occasional towns; but mostly, Canada consists of thousands of square miles of uninhabited land.

The trees are colourful since we're well into autumn weather now. (In fact, many trees have lost most of their leaves.) And in this part of Ontario, the highway has been cut through tonnes of rock.


Note the parallel, vertical lines in this photo:

Years ago, when they built this highway, they wanted to make it as straight as possible. So they opted to cut through much of the rock rather than curve the highway around it. The lines resulted when they drilled long holes into the rock. They dropped dynamite into the holes and blasted the rock away. As a child, I sometimes heard the blasts in the distance. ("Mom, I just heard thunder, but it isn't raining.")

If you've never visited Canada, how shall I describe it to you? In the immortal words of the Arrogant Worms:

We've got
rocks and trees and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees and trees and rocks
and rocks and trees and trees and rocks
and water.
Water? I almost forgot:


Brule Lake, Ontario
photo taken by my sister Arlene one week ago