musings, nature, Photography

Weather Change

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I took a long walk today along one of the shores of Great Slave Lake. There was a very fresh breeze blowing and it was a comfortable temperature, but I could see the autumn weather on the lake’s horizon.

And there was something very fall-like in the air; the smell of the wind, the changes in the foliage, the angle of the sun.

When I came across a couple of very fresh black bear footprints, I decided to walk efficiently back to my truck – I didn’t stop to take a photo of them.

Autumn is coming, but if the bears are still about we may have a while to go yet.

23 thoughts on “Weather Change”

    1. Thank you very much. 🙂 Great Slave Lake is the tenth largest lake in the world, so it often behaves like an ocean and can also have quite an effect on the weather. For example, our November snow is quite wet as it is the result of cloud systems that are produced by the lake.

      Hahaha. 🙂 Same here. I got a move on. Bears around here will often run away, but some do like to stand and stare, and I didn’t want this one potentially following through on his curiosity! I wanted to take a photo of the prints, but I thought that speed might be the better part of valour. 🙂

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      1. Smart to get out of there. It seems that the interior black bears are more predatory than the coastal ones. Here they just stand in the rivers and wait for fish to jump into their mouths, but in the interior they have to go hunting for small animals and so they tend to be more of a “hunter” than a “gatherer.” If you look at the cases of black bear attacks, the statistics seem to “bear” this out. The Liard case, the Suncor case (Fort McMurray), the case in 2013 near Tatlayoko Lake, and on and on. Be careful.

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        1. I’ve never thought of the differences between interior and coastal bears, but I’ve always been cautious about any kind of bear. Good point, though. I always carry bear spray and I had it out and ready as I scooted back to my vehicle (I was a km away)!

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          1. Oh no! That’s a bit far from your vehicle. I remember the Captain once telling me about finding a pile of bear poop as he explored a hillside looking for grouse. It looked kind of fresh so he touched it (so gross) and it wasn’t just lukewarm, but hot! At that point the swivel-necking started as he skedaddled back towards his truck.

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          2. Yikes, not just warm but hot! I would have been swivel-necking too – in fact, yesterday I was! I am quite a wanderer when walking and I get distracted by plants, views, playing with my camera, and all sorts of other things. The bear spray is good thing to have along!

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  4. Has it been a good year for berries? Thinking of bears hopefully concentrating on those rather than investigating human food sources.

    I can feel the slight autumnal edge in your photos! It’s still mild in England but even down here, the trees are starting to turn.

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    1. Not as good as last year. At this time last year I realised we were going to get a hard winter as there was a bumper crop of rose hips, cranberries, raspberries and cloudberries. I was quite far from any human habitation but I had my bear spray along.

      It’s funny how we can note the slightest changes, even if the trees haven’t started to turn.

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  6. Summer’s kinda hung on here this month…. but we’ll be getting some of that autumn feel just in time for the equinox. Oddly enough, the first springlike day of this year happened on its first day too!

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    1. We had a really hot summer as well, with two separate heat waves that were enough to cook your brains. 46C (that’s about 115F) is just so hot, but at least we didn’t have any humidity. Open window weather is a very good thing!

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      1. The humidity is a big part of why it’s been so miserable here (and usually is), but normally we see the temps starting to cool when September hits, but we just kept chugging along with peak summer temps and humidity and it’s been miserable. We FINALLY had a cold front move in and my windows got open last night. Today is absolutely gorgeous.

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  8. yes, the angle of the sun — I saw a wonderful poem written on a Toronto sidewalk years ago, round about winter solstice time, which contained the splendid line “sun slant low” – it has stayed with me, and enriched how I view a winter sun…

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