Ottertail Country

Ottertail Country
Ottertail South

September 20, 2009

Canada -- #5--Final

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Lake of the Woods was made with sunsets in mind........







And now for the 'natural wonder' part of things.

I was amazed by the number of pelicans that kept visiting us. They really like fish cleanings....
They are great flyers, they would come in circling the boat with their heads pulled back over their bodies, cruising motionlessly on set wings. They looked so 'in control' and cool......




We saw this big old snapping turtle right next to our boat. It was pretty big and all covered with mossy looking green stuff. I suppose it's quite old.





Even when the weather was not the best, the sky was awesome over that lake.





There were a lot of eagles in the area, they spent hours just sitting atop a dead white pine or cruising high over head, riding the thermals.





As I was watching the eagle have a snack, a pelican flotilla came drifting by. When fishing is good, you get a lot of visitors......











One evening there must have been 50 or 60 of these birds in sight near the boat and out in the bay.





If you look back over these photos, you will notice that the shoreline is mainly rock. Part of that old Canadian Shield. Here is a good example of a tree growing out of solid rock. How they do it is unknown to me. This particular example is about half way through 'Dangerous Channel'.





Check these two. You can see the outline of a fish carcass in each of their pouched bills, and each one also has the attached skin of the carcass hanging out the right side of their bills..... I swear I did not set this photo up!





More trees on rocks. This is very much a normal shoreline in the areas we frequented.





Speaking of rocks, enlarge this photo to see me in my kayak pointing up to this bus-sized rock. A few yards to the left and the island ended. This thing looked big as I was paddling up to it, and it just kept getting bigger looking the closer I got.





Big, white boids.

















This was how it looked on our last day as we were heading back to the houseboat base. Note the three fishing boats that followed us everywhere we went in that houseboat. It was hard to choose which photos to use for this story, I think I had more than a thousand and Ivan had a couple hundred as well. I know there are better 'rock shore' pictures, but I'm tired of looking.

Here's your last view of Lake of the Woods. If you get the chance to go on a house boat adventure, I recommend it highly......
















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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, what a wonderful bird is the pelican!!!! Again, great pictures and a trip one can savor over the years.

Lucy

yram said...

I can't believe how much that shoreline looks like lake superior's shoreline. Is Lake of the Woods volcano born?
Aren't pelicans the best. you are right...a superb flyer and the uniformity is amazing. i used to love to watch the brown pelicans flying over the Pacific. Just the same calmness and stateliness as the whites. We have white pelicans here but no so many.
John and I took a quick zodiac trip to Grand Island on the weekend. Will try to work up a blog about it but right now trying to disinfect my computer. May have to take it to the computer doctor. bummer.

Carlo said...

I don't recall any mention of volcanic action.... just the scraping clean of the bedrock by the last glaciers. And the Canadian Shield, as it's called, does extend down into the US a ways. The Lake Superior North shore is just about as wild, isn't it?

Will be waiting for Grand Island info......

yram said...

there are many areas of the gitch that look like the shots from Lake of the Woods. I was surprised to see that lake is so far west. What an interesting place.
my computer is in the computer hospital so will wait for that to get well before doing the Grand Island post. I do have my Mac but it might be hard to share documents plus i have never figured out the iPhoto program.

yram said...

happy birthday!

Carlo said...

Thanks for the birthday greeting!

I'm excited to be awaiting a post from someone other than me!!

I gotta go, Carlo

Anonymous said...

wonderful pictures.
I wish I could have been there.
Reminds me of the trips I used to make to canada.
Boo

Greg said...

Hey, Carlo, I finally got an identity..... thanks for blogging, I read you all the time.

The Barrster