Just spoke to my daughter and her MIL . They tell me that 40 or so wild fires are ongoing in Alberta and the Province has declared a state of emergency. The main fires seem to be west of Edmonton, and Jasper is anticipating significant infrastructure damage.
Fortunately at the moment, Canmore and Banff are OK.
Saw that in the news last night, hopefully they can contain it soon. We can certainly sympathise with that and understand the destruction these kind of fires cause. It’s not uncommon for us to send help when asked.
In trying to get back into shape, I’ve started walking/running again. Only problem is the hilly part of the island is er, hilly.
All uphill to the extinct volcanoes at about an average of 9% 
Still, the view on the way down is well worth it.
Enjoy your long weekend (for those that have one).
MC
cant beat The Lakes
That’s a nice bike ride, I’ve done it twice. I lived in Kelowna for 5 years before moving to Calgary in March.
Our Daughter lives in Coldstream, on the east side of Vernon. We have a place up on the Predator Ridge golf course.
One of our other bike rides is around the Myra Canyon on the old Kettle Valley railway.
Never photographed a water skater before … fascinating creatures. These two were feeding on the garden pond. Need to try again with my macro lens - they were quarter cropped on my 400mm lens at its minimum focus distance.
Kenichi Ohno.
A recent awarded entry in a Japanese photographic contest.
Despite appearing to be a composite of images - it is in fact a single image.
The scene before the bird intervention helps.
Still very clever.
That’s incredible! If you hadn’t shown the second image, I wouldn’t have believed it could be real.
Following on from the rainbow shot, here are three others of the same location, taken at different times on the same day; they show the location of Carnmore Lodge and the Fionn Loch causeway on the Letterewe Estate. The lodge is available to hire from the estate but has no mains electricity and can only be accessed via foot/bike, or by estate track (4x4 mandatory) followed by a boat ride along Fionn Loch. Not far from the lodge is the point in the UK, furthest in any direction, from a metaled road; as remote as it gets here.
Cheers,
Ian
