Happy Birthday to Me!

All the usual suspects were present on Wahbahmimi for the first weekend following ice out. This weekend also coincided with my 50th birthday, and so Barb, Rick and Heather Rigby arrived for dinner bearing balloons, cake, champagne, decorations and a very royal crown to join Carolyn, Jamie and I in celebrating my 50th birthday and the beginning of my 51st summer in the park.

Celebrating 50 Years

We had a hearty dinner of barbecued lamb chops and assorted vegetables and capped it off with a delicious and very PINK birthday cake. Of course an auspicious occasion such as this demanded both a speech and a letter from the Queen (via a BOND-ed messenger!)

Signs of Spring - A Bug's Life

This critter might not be considered pretty right now, but in a few weeks time a dragonfly will emerge from this shell and after spending 15 or 20 minutes drying it’s newly unfolded wings, it will fly off across the lake.

Spring Run-Off

This time of year there is alwatys water pouring over the damn and swelling the river. We took a walk along part of the Track and Tower Trail and found wonderful views of rushing water along the way. For more pictures of our weekend, click here.

Waiting for Spring

Things are melting around Montreal where we live, so on Sunday we took a ride into the Park just to see how things were moving along. All the rivers leading into and in the Park are completely open and only the still water still has ice. The ice is soft and grey and it doesn't look like it would take a whole lot to move it all out. You never can tell just by looking, but I'm going to be bold and guess the ice will be out by the 23rd.

Ready and Waiting

The boats are lined up on the shoreline at the Rec Hall - ready to go. The ice has only pulled out a few inches around the beach, but it's fairly soft. We threw a big rock off the end of the dock to see how thick the ice really was. It didn't go through, but it didn't bounce or skid either - so the ice appears to be very mushy.

Open Water

The largest open water we saw was behind Hepburn's island. There was also water under the little bridge between Cache and the back bay, and smaller spots along the shoreline and around the docks at mainland and the Rec Hall

The Black Holes of Cache Lake

The lake is now full of these black spots. They're not actually holes yet, but from what we saw on other lakes on the way in, the holes develop pinwheel cracks around them and water seeps through, turning the ice black until it finally goes out.

Doing our part

Carolyn pulls out some chunks of ice by hand, and I break up ice next to the dock with a stick. Now that we've helped, I'm sure the ice will go out much faster!