A Walkabout In The Woods

The Mackenzie King Estate was another stop I made during my visit to the Gatineau Hills. The shuttle service stopped in the parking lot on my way up to my first destination, and when I came back, I thought I'd go to the estate through another route. The Waterfall Trail leads to the estate via a couple of routes, and I took one of them that wound up leading me to the drive into the estate. Another route emerges onto the estate around the ruins. I headed off from the parking lot along this trail in the woods.

The waterfall would have been on the other route. I've only been on this trail once before, and the previous time was on the other path. I imagine the waterfall might well be close to dry this time of year, but I crossed what looked suspiciously like it might be the route of a stream coming downhill here. There was a bit of water to be seen, but not as much as you might see in the spring.

I carried on along the path. Seeing the Gatineau Hills this time of year reminds me of Malak Karsh. The Karsh family immigrated out of Armenia one by one into Canada in the first part of the 20th century. Two of them became renowned photographers in Ottawa. Yousuf Karsh was the portrait photographer whose work over the years made him arguably the preeminent photographer of his speciality of the century. His brother Malak, who followed him to Canada in 1937, chose nature and the landscape for his subject and spent decades photographing them and publishing coffee table books with his work. It was a decision largely based on his first visit to the Hills, brought here by his brother on a fall day not unlike this one. In a 1997 interview he recalled, "When I saw the beautiful autumn colours, I said, 'this is what I am going to be. I am going to be a photographer.' If Canada is all as beautiful as the Gatineaus, I am going to travel all over Canada." Today he is buried in the Gatineau Hills, at the cemetery in Wakefield.

The path emerged on the roadway leading to the estate. From here I followed it.

And here we have the main entrance for the parking lot- the way in is at the right, while the way out comes from the left. I'll be back here on November 3rd to continue this autumn series from Gatineau Park.