Across from Temiskamig

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4 x 6 oil on canvas
 Ottawa River looking downstream across from Temiskaming

15 September 2009
18:10  The big paper mill is pluming across the Ottawa River from the boat launch, but I prefer to look downriver at the sky reflection studded with shoreline stones.  I do no dark underpainting for this one - just pink and blue.  The water is so still and mirrorlike, and there are no boats - only Beavers.

17:30  A beaver passes, charting a straight line several metres offshore, and after about fifteen minutes, swims back upstream.  Fred arrives a little while later, reporting that he'd followed the Beaver along the shore, and watched it nibbling an evening meal of Poplar twigs.  These big river Beavers travel long distances for their preferred menus.  There are very few Poplars on this river bank.

21:30  I return to the river with my camera after supper, to photograph the fuming mill and its reflection in the water - a ghostly rorshach pattern on black glass, studded with bright yellow lights.

16 September
08:00  The mornng is foggy, and I walk down to get washing water from the river.  Very few stones show above the surface along the shore, as the level of the river has been raised at least 20 centimetres.

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