A great weekend

This weekend I had a fantastic time out camping with Mel and our good friends Dave and Ben. We spent Saturday canoeing to Tartan Rapids, just outside of yellowknife, and kayaking in and around the rapids. As a first time riding in one of the stubby white water kayaks, I was a bit tippy, but had an awesome time. We practiced ferrying across the rapids, surfing in the smaller waves and our rolling. I even nailed a roll! Special thanks to the Somba K'e Paddling Club for the kayaks and coming out to visit. That night we stayed up late around the campfire and were treated to a breathtaking show of Aurora Borealis. As this year is the first year of Aurora Max, I've already started to notice a difference in the Aurora. They're much faster moving–jumping from one side of the sky to the other in only a few minutes. Also, there seems to be more texture in the lights, regardless of shutter time. Usually with a 30 second exposure the lights would be a smoother blur, rather than the texture shown below.

All during the trip we had an extra guest hanging about... a large black bear! We spotted him the in the evening, munching on some berries, while we were eating our dinner. The next morning we woke up to the sound of him crunching in the woods about 10 feet from our tent. As scary as it sounds that we camped with a bear so close by, he was perfectly intent on eating berries and ignored us every time we tried to get his attention or ward him off.

Big thanks to Dave, for letting me shoot with his camera a bit out there (I didn't bring along my zoom lens) and for using some of his shots.

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