Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

29 May finds us driving narrow, winding highway 56 along the north shore of Echo Lake, one of the chain named "Fishing Lakes" on the Qu'Apelle River in Saskatchewan.  We have just left the town of Fort Qu'Apelle where we crossed the small Qu'Apelle River on a rather insignificant bridge, and followed Hwy 56 up along the side of the steep valley in the rain.  The lake was so grey with rain that we could hardly see the distant south shore.  Below us on the south side the roofs of houses peek from among the tops of trees on the steep slope down to the lake, and above us on the north side the pleated hills rise up against the clouds with patches of willows and aspens in their pockets and bushes in their creases.  A few homesteads nestle in the upper valley folds, luxuriating in the rampant growth of bright green grass, fed by the generous rains of the past week, and before that, from two heavy spring snowfalls. We have pulled into the access lane of a property that

28 May finds us at Dad's favorite parking spot - Hansman Lake near Provost, Alberta - a little to the south and west of New Battleford, Saskatchewan.  This part of the lake curves in a semi-circle, and from the access road, you can choose any of three views.  I chose this one, in the teeth of a rainy wind - or is it a windy rain... and paint from the window at the table. I take a quick foray to the waters edge when the rain lightens a bit, but still must clutch my journal to my chest and shield the lens of the camera with my hand, as "not very much rain" iss still pretty wet and windy.  A pair of Avocets are feeding, swishing their elegantly upcurved bills through the water to sift out tiny invertebrates. The rain becomes heavy again, and I retire to the motorhome to continue my painting.  On the slope of the grassy bank I step past large flowered purple Violets with narrow spade-shaped leaves.

27 May finds us pulled over to the edge of a gravel sideroad just off Highway 509 in the rolling Alberta landscape just east of Red Deer.  They use hedges of the fast-growing, vigorously twiggy legume Caragana as windbreaks, and it gives the countryside a quaint pastoral touch.  As we searched for a view for a painting, slowing my parents' big RV at every rise watching for both a pull-off that offered an open view of the distant hills, so often one of these big Caragana windbreaks would be in the way.  This one is about 4 metres tall, and just coming into bloom with large yellow pea flowers. There are Magppies everywhere, swooping across the road in black and white elegance - such an extravagant bird!  We see Blacktail Deer grazing on the roadside grass and blending into fields of stubble, still in their grey-brown winter coats.  The sloughs and dugouts are brim full from recent rains, and swarming with ducks and terns.  I look forward to more prairie as I finish this painting i

26 May found me heading west, high above my favorite part of Ontario - the Bruce Peninsula.  There, to my delight, lies the Bruce - like a living map of itself, as familiar to me as the back of my hand.  I can even see the tiny sliver of white that is the ferry docked in Little Tub Harbour at the tip of the peninsula.  Cove Island stretches out beyond the tip, and the other islands are there too.  I name each of them like picking out tiny familiar faces in a group photo. Manitoulin Island lies in the distance, with a beautiful cloud formation stretching along the northern shore of Lake Huron.  I can see the slight curvature of the earth, and the setting sun makes a coppery sheen on the water far below and to the west, under the nose of the jet. Thin scarves of cloud stream past not far below us, and as we fly farther west, thick carpets of crenulated cloud are brushed with rosy light.  Where they are torn the shadowy landscape can be seen far below, with lakes and rivers dully refle

24 May finds me back out along the path behind our house in Bishops Mills, to finish the painting of the twin Ashes that I started yesterday.  Setting up to finish it from my photos, I realized that it is impossible to see the richness of colour in the contrast of light and dark that speaks of the evening along the path "Out Back." But  more importantly, the photos could never transmit the joy that I share here and now with the dragonflies.  I am glad that I have returned! After a scorching day of 34C, the evening is warmer than yesterday, and the very earth seems relieved, exhaling the warm scents of tender growing leaves and spring flowers.  I paused with brush raised, soaking in this scene as the nearly full moon rises into a sky just beginning to blush behind the woods. The dragonflies course back and forth like miniature helicopters, tails slightly tilted and wings ablur.  I can see them dart and swoop, though I can't quite see what they're catching.  I susp

22 May  finds Fred and me in Ottawa on International Biodiversity Day, and the 100th birthday of the Victoria Memorial Museum Building, now the home of the Canadian Museum of Nature. This is the grand reopening of the exhibits, a new glass "lantern" in the form of the building's original stone tower, and of walls newly reinforced against the foretold Ottawa Valley Earthquake. Admission to the Museum is free for today and tomorrow, and the halls are filled with people.  We are in the Salon on the third floor, with the Alliance of Natural History Museums of Canada exhibit tables.  There has been a lot of interest in my plein air paintings, in the 30 Years Later Expedition, and in the specimens we displayed from this spring's travels. It has been nice to connect with the provincial museums that we will be visiting on our travels across Canada. I have finished my Thursday painting (the Buckthorn in Bloom) but did not have time to do one on Friday, with all the preparati

20 May finds me "Out Back" of our house in Bishops Mills, to see what Buckthorn flowers look like - tiny yellow stars where each bunch of oval leaves emerge on the twigs. Buckthorn is the most widespread invasive alien shrub, displaying amazing variation in leaf and branch shape and texture, depending on where it is growing.  Some bushes have long thorns, and some have none at all.  On our land this variability is mostly the result of how recently Fred has cut it down, as the thorns grow more on older branches, especially the shrubs that are out in the out in the open.  We have a campaign of suppression, cutting and feeding to caged Rabbits and Goats in an attempt to mimic the natural herbivory that Buckthorn lacks in our North American landscape.  Elsewhere it grows rampant, filling fencerows and replacing the natural understory in some forests. It is a day of changing weather, and I risk losing the afternoon sunshine and having my painting rained on - but I set my st

18 May finds me rejoicing in Lilacs in Bishops Mills.  I am struck by the contrast of the weathered branches of the old dead Sugar Maple and the cascading billows of sweet fresh Lilac bloom.  The scent is exhilarating, especially at night, when it sweetens the soft spring darkness to the tune of whining Mosquitoes.  Every spring I feel a little sad at Lilac time, because it passes so quickly, but at least this year I am commemorating it with a painting. Some day the old dead Maple will be taken down and cut up for firewood, so I feel satisfied to have painted that too, at its most picturesque, glorious with Lilacs. All across eastern Ontario the landscape is now illuminated by blooming Lilac bushes - where they have been planted by people in towns and villages and around farm houses, and also where they have been propagated in bird droppings.  In the wild these lovely introductions from Europe persist in shallow soil over bedrock where there is not too much competition from other b

17 May finds me at the "Long Reach", the longest stretch on the Rideau River without any locks.  The old Highway 16 north of Kemptville, Ontario, crosses the Rideau at Becketts Landing, and I'm at the north end of the bridge, backed into a vehicle track beside the guardrail on the east (downstream) side, painting the reflected sunset as the western sky behind me glows in even more vivid pink and orange. I'm laying down the colours of the sky and river, having taken photos to paint the Basswood tree and its vines of Wild Grape, which join two trees like a necklace.  The river bank is lined with Basswoods here, with Honeysuckle and some other shrub with small white flowers at their feet - and more Grape vine of course. A Great Blue Heron flies westward over its reflection, and suddenly the tail of a huge Carp lifts lazily out of the water and wags back and forth as its owner grubs the bottom, as unconcerned as a dabbling duck.

15 May finds us on Highway 101, north of Temiskaming, Quebec.  Fred has just marked the waypoint # 248 on the GPS, and Adam glances at me in the rear view mirror.  I am actually doing this painting in the back seat as we drive, knowing that there will be no time to stop to paint today - we're on our way home. I have to raise my brush when the road gets too bumpy, but for the most part I've developed a technique of bracing the corner of the canvas on my lap board and one of the fingers of my painting hand on the edge of the canvas while holding the back of the stretcher firmly with my left hand - and applying paint between the bumps!  I am referring both to the real scene and to a photo I've downloaded to my laptop. We have been making regular stops, however, to take specimens and mark the locations of stands of the tall reed Phragmites whenever we see them along the roadsides.  Fred hits the "mark" button, Adam stops the van, Fred gets out to collect a sample

13 May finds me again painting a little spruce tree, but this one is not young like yesterday's sapling in the woods.  It is a Black Spruce, and no younger than the tall club-tipped Black Spruces at the edges of the bog.  We've known this bog for many years, and I'm pleased to be able to paint in it again. From the highway, you can tell it's a bog by the way the trees are shorter toward the centre, and spaced out by moss and shrubs.  The pillow of moss that is growing up around the base of this little tree is Sphagnum, the acid-producing environment of everything that grows in the bog.  Growth here is very slow, as organic decomposition almost doesn't happen.  The living and dead Sphagnum, and the water that it holds, is antiseptic.  Nutrients are available to the roots of plants mainly through the action of micorhyzal fungi. Most bog plants retain their leaves through the winter, as it is expensive to grow new ones. Many of my old bog friends are here.  Leat

12 May finds me sitting in the woods near Highway 11, not far from the rest area at Long Lake, south of Cochrane, Ontario.  Attracted by glimpses of sun-splashed moss under conifers, I crossed a narrow ditch from the grassy field of clay mounds left by bulldozers that had constructed the new highway forty years ago.  Stepping over fallen Aspen branches I came into a foresty feeling place - at least moss and rotting logs means forest to me.  A little White Spruce, glowing in a patch of sunlight, stands in the middle of a thick patch of soft tufty moss, lending itself as a subject for painting. Having settled myself down with stool and easel and decided on the orientation of the canvas, I find myself noticing how this and the other moss patches are obviously in the process of expanding to cover bare clay littered with poplar leaves and twigs.  At first I thought that the lumpy surface with crumbly spots showing among the dry leaves must be the work of earthworms, invading the forest e

11 May finds us exploring a logging road north from Opasatika Ontario, in search of the freshly burned area that we explored while I was writing Canadian Nature Notebook.  We spent an exciting afternoon of seeing bears (total count of 5), a Bald Eagle, and a Sand Hill Crane, and photographing Moose and Wolf tracks, we found an area of fallen trees with some old weathered charring, pieces of charcoal under dense, rusty-green moss, and fire hollowed roots where the fire had burned down into the duff, to mineral soil. The area is approximately 24 kilometres north on the Waxatike Road.  As we drove south again, we investigated a small entrance road and walked in, looking for the place we had camped to explore the fresh burn back in 1977.  We followed the track alongside a cattail-filled ditch up to an impressive, freshly maintained beaver dam.  We were astonished to see the dam turn at right angles and continue in the direction of the track, snaking along the whole side of what opened

10 May finds us revisiting our old camping spot on the unused loop of highway at Long Lake,  15 km south of Cochrane, Ontario.  Behind the roadside park is a track that goes down to the east end of the lake, and this is where it becomes a path descending to the water.  I like the way the view is framed by the licheny branches of the old White Spruce, so am painting from the driver's seat, just where the track ends and the path begins.   At first we tried the one on the south east loop of old highway, but the place where it usually flooded was increased and we could go no farther.  Fred found water draining down through a hole in the pavement, with no evidence of its source.  Farther along the narrow old asphalt road ia the hydro right of way, yellow with Carex and boggy with Leatherleaf and Cotton Grass. I used to use it as an approach to the "fairyland forest" of of stunted spruces, mushrooms, and mysterious little bog pools in the Sphagnum. Now we are back at the L

8 May finds us enjoying poutine in the cafe of the Empire Theatre in Cochrane, Ontario.  This is an old fashioned big screen theatre built in the 1950s and still in operation.  Owned and managed by our friends the Brissons, who have expanded its service to include a cafe with a full menu and a movie library, the Empire now draws its clientele from as far afield as Smooth Rock Falls, Matheson, Iroquois Falls, and Kapuskasing.   While all other theatres in the region have closed down except in the large city of Timmins, the Empire thrives as a diversified family business in the little town of Cochrane. The scene I have chosen is Cochrane's main downtown street, 6th Avenue, looking south toward the railway tracks.  The wide thoroughfare with its wide sidewalks gives me the impression of a wide, flat prairie town - but beyond the tracks rises the boreal forest, and behind the theatre one residential block slopes dramatically down to Commando Lake, where Loons dive for fish in front

7 May finds us at a boat launch on the Blanche River, north of New Liskeard, Ontario.  This is the clay belt, extensively cleared and farmed, but there are still enough licheny granite to feel like boreal forest.  Fred found the mussel Leptodea fragilis in the river behind me as I sit at the side of the boat launch entrance road, gazing up at the glacier carved Canadian Shield, painted, carpeted, and tufted with lichens of many kinds.  Now he is clambering around up there, collecting samples to identify. I feel so content here, where very little seems to change.  The water is clean and so is the air, and lichens feed from the rain with the assistance of the cells of green algae within their bodies.  Here the White Spruce grow in so many shapes that it's hard sometimes to tell whether we're in Ontario or British Columbia. This original oil painting is available for $275. For information on purchase and shipping, please contact me at karstad@pinicola.ca

May 6 finds us well and truly "in the field", revisiting the Shaw Woods after 35 years!  This old growth forest north of Eaganville, Ontario, is a protected area, but apparently not from ecology-altering forces that operate underground... As we duck under the branches of  trees by the road and step through the bordering stand of Equisetum hyemale , the leafless horsetail that is "put together" like drinking straws inserted end to end, the forest is still there - the old Maples, Beeches, and Basswoods standing tall, older ones lying all over, and young ones growing up around them.  But the forest floor is an even sea of Trout Lily leaves.  My first thought is "Where's the diversity?"  I expected to see all of my old friends the forest floor herbs, bloming or sprouting - Wild Ginger, Squirrel Corn, Twin Flower, Bunchberry, Star Flower, Cohosh, and Wild Ginger.  Trilliums Bloom here and there, mostly white in small groups of 4 or 5, and some single Red

Today we pulled into a municipal park at Lake Dore, in Renfrew County, west of Cobden, Ontario, and as I was setting aside my laptop and preparing to open the door, large shadows of slender insects fell on me - from the centimetre-long midges that had suddenly landed all over the van! It's the annual Chironomid Festival at Lake Dore, and we're included!  I tried to photograph one of over one hundred that were using my side door window as their staging ground, but my camera preferred to focus on the background rather than on the insect - so I sketched it instead! Adam also did a sketch in his journal, including the vehicle from the position of the besieged. In places the air was positively thick with dancing, whining, fluffy-antennaed males, bobbing up and down in columns.  It was a windy day, and as I walked back from the lake the midges gathered in my lee, gradually including me in a swarm.  I could feel them brushing against me, but they didn't land because they were busy

3 May finds me on the phone, noting a contact about trailer hitches, and munching an apple.  This will be a full day of multitasking in preparation for the departure of the 30 Years Later Expedition in the direction of Cochrane Ontario.  We hope to be on the road sometime during the day on Tuesday, and if all goes well, I'll do the first of this week's paintings on Tuesday evening.

1 May finds me at the Lester Road wetland on the south side of Ottawa.  We parked by the tracks, and Cheryl said "Come see!!"  She led me along the road shoulder flanking the wetland.  The air is full of traffic noise and Redwing Blackbird song.  The shrubby gray barked willows are all breaking out in misty green leaf.  Scanning the edge of the marsh and looking for something like a Redwing Blackbird nest, I suddenly saw the Canada Goose, head down, hiding...  enthroned atop a huge mound of cattail leaves, piled up within a willow clump.  The weight of what must be several years' accumulation of dry yellow blades has spread the willows' stems into more of a splayed shape than those of its neighbours.  The straw texture transitions to a fluffy layer of goose down at the top, and atop that, the Goose herself, matching perfectly!  Cheryl says that the male's cheek patches meet at the top of his head, and she figures that this is the female because she's on the n

30 April finds me waiting for a trailer hitch to be installed on our van at The Sports Car Factory in Hallville, Ontario.  This place is a veritable Jaguar museum, indoors and out.  I was fascinated by the engine crank on this ancient Triumph convertible sitting on the side of the car retirement lot (in most places called a scrap yard) behind the old factory building. Standing at the back of the lot and gazing into the shallow valley of Maples and Ashes, I hear the soft call of a Flicker and catch a movement on an Ash branch.  There is a pair of Flickers, flirting.  Bobbing heads and playing hide and seek around trunks.  They stay still for several seconds, and then surprise each other by leaping up and flashing their yellow underwings.  When one flies off, the other follows, and when one lands, it says softly "whicka, whicka, whicka". I lose sight of them often as they move about their territory, but it is not hard to sight them again as their play continues.  I hear a he