Utah - Dead Horse Point

A while back I made a number of trips to the red rock country around Moab in southeast Utah. It all started out as a one-off trip to check out Arches National Park. The area is actually the north end of the Grand Canyon, somewhat less travelled, but no less spectacular.

From these trips I've curated a small collection of photographs from some pretty amazing locations in the Moab area. The photographs included in this series are shot on digital, it's time for another trip to the red rock country I think, I can see a film project to complement these photographs.

The first instalment in the Moab series is Dead Horse Point which is a Utah state park. According to legend, the park is named because of its use as a natural corral by cowboys in the 19th century, where horses often died of exposure. Dead Horse Point features a dramatic overlook of the Colorado River and Canyonlands National Park. A small piece of trivia, the area around Dead Horse Point was used in the Grand Canyon scene in the finale of the 1991 film Thelma & Louise.

It's a great place to hang out. There are also campgrounds with electricity, tent pads and yurts. Yes yurts, how cool is that? There is also a coffee shop if you run out of supplies. It's about an hour to Moab from Dead Horse Point. It's smokin' hot in the summer, somewhat more comfortable in the spring and fall.

There is a ton of hiking and biking in the park. Dead Horse Point State Park features a 13 km hiking trail along the East and West Rim. There is also a mountain bike trail system with about 30m of loops of single-track trails of varying levels of difficulty.

Here's some shots of Dead Horse Point. Enjoy!
Dean.

World Class Sporting Events

Between Mount Robson and McBride in British Columbia the highway runs in the Robson Valley, beautiful farmland with mountains on both sides of the valley which the Fraser River runs through. Not much else going on except a few cows, some horses, billboards and the like. I spotted a billboard I had not seen before, normally they are for hotels or tourist sites and the like. What the heck is that??

History in central BC isn't as long as in Eastern Canada the history in this part of Canada really only picks up in the early 1800s with the start of the fur trade, the Northwest Company first then around 1820 they were taken over by the Hudson’s Bay Company. 

Starting in the early 1800s there were a series of fur trading posts all over western Canada, a few of note still exist, and still may have a Bay store, but none of them trade furs anymore. You may know a few, Fort McLeod (AB), Fort McMurray(AB), Fort St John, Fort Nelson, Prince George (Fort George) and Fort St James.

Fort St James is a National Historic Site, It’s very authentic,  most of the buildings are original, so 1805ish, and in summer they hire actors to play period characters and give the place some life. It is about a 90 minute drive from Prince George in kind of the wrong direction so it's never right up there on the "hey let's go to Ft St James for lunch" list of things to do on a lazy summer afternoon.

So. Here we are back at the billboard we encountered between Mount Robson and McBride, from way back in paragraph 1. There is this billboard with HUGE chickens running across the bottom of the billboard and in HUGE letters across the top: FT ST JAMES.

Just below the Fort St James in a much smaller font size:

"World Class Chicken Racing"

Exactly. There was no way we could miss the World Class Chicken Races (WCCR).

So, we went, and it was amazing, and it was everything that you could ever imagine it to be, maybe more. They allowed betting on who the winner would be, I managed to pick the winner in the first of 2 races held on the day. I won a button that says I won at the chicken races. So, World Champion I guess? I think the second race may have been rigged, a duck seemed to have pulled off the victory in that race.

After the chicken races we visited the rest of the of the historic site, (which is where the WCCR are held) and had lunch, the setting is very nice. The parks staff do a great job, but none of the rest of it matched the excitement of the WCCR. 

So after lunch and visiting the gift shop for commemorative t-shirts we headed back to Prince George content in the knowledge that we had witnessed a world class sporting event, 90 minutes from Prince George, even if it was in the wrong direction to be considered fashionable.

Enjoy!
Dean

2020 Exposure Photography Festival

It's February again so that means the Exposure Photography Festival time in southern Alberta.
I usually take in a number of exhibits, although it seems I have less time this year than in the past, so the number for me this year is a little less. Most are free, some ask for a nominal donation to support the venue, it's all totally worth it.

One venue I always visit during the festival is in Banff at the Whyte Museum, it's always amazing. This year they are featuring the photography of Danny Singer, who is also featured at the Trepanier Baer gallery in Calgary. If you can't make it out to see Danny's work be sure to check out his website. https://www.dannysinger.net/

Also at the Whyte this year, although not featured in the Exposure guide was a presentation of the photography of Harry Rowed made by his son Scott Rowed. I made the trip out to Banff to see the presentation on February 20th, the weather was perfect for the drive and I took a little extra time to do some night photography from around Banff on the digital camera which you can see below.

It was an amazing presentation, showing photographs from the 1930s to the 1970s taken by his father. Mainly black and white, but a few Kodachrome photographs were presented as well. The archival quality of the old Kodachrome slides was evident and amazing. During the Q&A following Scott mentioned that he would love to put a book together with his fathers collection. I hope that happens , it’s such an amazing collection of photographs from another time.

The Whyte Museum has a brief summary of Harry Rowed on their website, I've included it here for reference. https://www.whyte.org/

With his outgoing personality and photographic expertise, Harry Rowed was equally at ease photographing Inuit whale hunters, skiers in the Rockies, or world leaders. Through his magazine articles, commercial assignments, and a few years as Director of Photo Services for the NFB, he told the stories of Canadian people from the mid-1930s through the 1970s. This slideshow will cover Harry’s photography through the Canadian West and North, with special emphasis on the Rockies.

Harry was one of the iconic Canadian photographers of his generation. From his roots as a newspaper reporter and photographer in Saskatchewan, he covered the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the Quebec Conference in 1944 with Churchill, Roosevelt and Mackenzie King, the formation of the UN, and the everyday lives of coal miners, ranchers, bush pilots and oil workers.

If you can, try and get out to check some of the amazing photography happening in southern Alberta, the Exposure website is a great resource. http://www.exposurephotofestival.com/2020-exhibitions

Dean.