Sorting and editing of vacation photos proceeds apace and I will slowly catch up the blog with images from the trip from Alberta to British Columbia and back this past week. In the meantime, I hadn’t been on water with my paddle board since Sunday morning and I was in withdrawal. The daughter and I decided to head to Johnson’s Island at Wyndham Carseland Provincial Park. This is about a 20 minute drive from Strathmore and crowding is never an issue there.
There is a reason for the lack of crowding. Pulling into the sketchy parking area at Johnson’s Island is a real “what the hell?” moment if you haven’t been there before.
AB, 2024-07-17
AB, 2024-07-17
The parking lot is just fugly. The garbage was overflowing with a cheap vinyl watercraft that obviously failed during use and was stuffed into the nearest trash can rather than being recycled properly. I have no idea why these idiots think a flimsy floatation device intended for a swimming pool is appropriate for use on a river, albeit a slow flowing portion of one.
The “launch” we used was no screaming heck, either. It’s a muddy bank you go down into the water through slimy weeds on the bottom. I could hear my daughter going “ugh, ick, gross” as she put her craft on the water. I was so grateful for my water shoes that kept the worst of it off of my feet. Even better, you need to run a gauntlet of mosquitoes from tall grass on either side as you paddle out to the river proper. Our boards themselves are a bit muddy and gross now and need a rinse today before being packed back into their bags.
The water in the Johnson’s Island loop was calm and pleasant. You almost don’t realize it’s flowing until you stop paddling for a moment to take a picture and then suddenly discover you are traveling backwards. It wasn’t much of a problem for me as I am setup as a hybrid kayak with my paddle board. You can make good progress against the current with a dual blade kayak paddle. My daughter was behind me on her SUP with a single canoe style paddle and having to work twice as hard to try and keep up.
I did learn something new last night as I was able to get closer than usual to the pelicans. Apparently I am less of a threat on the water than I am on land. Did you know that they can reach the size of a golden retriever? I do now. Those are some honkin’ big birds.
I didn’t get a lot of pictures, unfortunately. I stuck a fresh battery into my camera, but I must have had it in the charger backwards. I got a battery error when I tried to switch on the GPS tracking because of insufficient battery, which was down to one bar and flashing. That means it is critically low. I got a total of nine shots and that was with me carefully rationing myself by not taking any backup shots. I obviously didn’t get the GPS track I wanted from last night, either.
Oh well, we still enjoyed being on the water, which was the main reason for being there. I got the batteries into the charger properly last night and checked them when they were done. I’ll be in better shape the next time I hit the water. There was a beautiful sunset while we were deflating and stowing our paddle boards and I got a slice of it with my phone as it was handy. It was a nice end to the day and I was grateful for it.
All images made with a battery-challenged OM System (why they can’t just keep calling it Olympus) Tough TG-7 except for the last picture of the sunset from my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra.
