Eastern Manitoba Forest

As we headed out of Manitoba, I foolishly flew past the Old Woman River. The towering cliffs of its bay shimmered in the afternoon sunlight. “There’s always something more,” I reminded myself as I went on, but in this instance there wasn’t. That perfect combination of light and air was not to be repeated. Instead, the sun bore into our eyes across the flatness of Lake Superior.

In a moment, I was distracted. “Maples!” I shouted. “Eastern hardwoods!”

“What kind of maples?” Mary asked narrowly.

“Not soft ones, but other than that I can’t tell unless I get a good look at an older tree,” I answered. That’s not easy at 60 MPH, when you’re the driver.

“And you call yourself a tree person,” she sniffed.

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In 2016, my daughter Mary and I set off across Alaska and Canada on a Great White North Adventure, which you can read about starting here. We arrived in Anchorage at the beginning of September and got home in mid-October. In between, we visited every province but PEI (been there, done that), and Yukon Territory. In retrospect, it might have made more sense to do this during the summer, since Alaska and Canada threw a mess of strange weather at us.