#0347 "Rocks"

On a canoe trip with my buddy Paul in late July 1991. All you see is the reflection of a granite shoreline in the rippled water. That stretch of granite shore can be found along the creek leading downstream from Bass to Shoal Lakes in Restoule Provincial Park.

The numbers are locations of most of the Restoule paintings

Life is all about making memories. Recording your experiences in your brain is a good thing but I use art to refresh those graying cells. Looking again at those rocks and the reflections in the water brings back memories of paddling gently with the flow leaving nothing but some ripples in the surface of the water.

There is much more to recall than just the shoreline I painted. There was the pile of fresh bear dung on the portage path. It is a fallacy that bears "shit in the woods". Bears much prefer open spaces to do their business such a trails and country lanes. I remember a curious white tailed doe on the edge of the forest. The sweat of carrying the Kevlar canoe up and down over the kilometre or so carry. It seemed farther. Finding the scene that I would later paint as #523 Paradise at the end of the portage. The large northern pike I caught and released in the shallows of Shoal Lake. So much to remember. Now I also use portable hard drives and the web to store those memories.

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