Karstad Biodiversity Paintings: adventures in the colour of Canada

26 December finds me 61 years old, and sitting beside the first step of Lyn Falls to start this year's "birthday painting." Lyn Falls drops in several steps down the nearly vertical edge of the granite escarpment, the edge of the Lyn valley, northwest of Brockville, Ontario. Calm as a farm pond at the top, Golden Creek's black water reflects rocks and snow, approaching the falls on either side of an old Ash tree. Slipping past rocks and beneath their thin collars of ice, the freezing water sculpts wax-like mini-falls in its lacy drop over the first step and then rushes, churning below my snowy perch on the second ledge, to its next fall, and then straight like a misty scarf into the plunge pool 5 metres below. A Hemlock leans from the vertical rock wall which turns the creek to the west, threading among snow-covered boulders out of sight among the trees. Golden Creek originates about 10 km NNW of Brockville and flows southward for about 15 km through wetland ha...

13 December finds us discovering Rideau Falls, Ottawa's best kept secret! This is the mouth of the Rideau River, named in French as "curtain." I moved to Ottawa in 1971 and Fred and I have lived within an hour's drive of Ottawa ever since, without ever having seen the defining feature of this river as it joins the Ottawa River, as well as the strategic reason for the initial location of Canada's capital. We've come to attend an evening meeting in nearby Rockliffe Park, but I wanted to paint the Ottawa River before sunset. Leaving the van at a small park, the closest we can get to the mouth of the Rideau River  according to our city map, I grab my coat and camera and hurry on foot along a chain link fence which dead-ends behind a building which turns out to be the "Canada and the World Pavillion". A path leads me around the front entrance and then to a balcony-like sidewalk above the grey expanse of the Ottawa River, and there were the falls,...