If you recognize the landmark rock in this photo, you are among the very lucky humans who have found ... Harris Bay.
How many kayaks, canoes, bass boats long for this perfect place?
For some of us it is a cove, an amazing landscape, that begins adventures.
It is the backdrop to laughter, friends, lovers, wading sheepdogs. It is Ontario summer. Maps, backpacks and beer. It arcs over decades.
When I remember a writer's line about "that high late summer sunshine, the lap of cool water on a hot rock and a perfect curve of time" ... this is the rock that always materializes in my imagination.
The rock rules over a lake at which there is always a wildly beautiful, rocky campsite ... waiting.
Nothing I have seen or photographed in the last five days prepared me for my visit to Harris Bay today.
I went there to photograph the landmark rock for a friend I hoped to take there. He likes rocks. It is ... or was ... a perfect place.
It was eaten by a tornado five days ago.
Can nature devour your past in a snap second?
A tree fell in this forest.
Damn.
4 comments:
A cold beer for all of you.
Harris Bay is the southernmost access point to Bark Lake, the largely undeveloped hydro "control" lake above Kamaniskeg on the Madawaska River drainage out of Algonquin Park.
The photos were taken near the half dozen cottages and boat launch.
My dad and my sister are still in the area, and without telco until Thursday at Dad's, it was hard to find out realities except for here.. Thanks Dunf :-) Seeing the South K road was a walk back in time... last time something interesting happened there for me was when the Aerostar made a leap into the lake :-)
Thank you for your eloquent words. I just wanted to add a link to more photos from Waxwing lane.....
http://kasiacubed.blogspot.com
Two years later- For some of us who cherished Kamaniskeg from way back just after the big war it was heartbreaking to hear and now to stumble on these pictures. Thought I recognized the rock but it was never called Harris Rock in my day- but then the islands were just Green and Gull too. A very long time ago and it's still my favorite place in all the world.
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