Canada Galleries

Lakes of the Northern Wilderness, Ontario and Manitoba, July 2007 : Western Ontario and eastern Manitoba are covered with thousands of lakes, most of them completely uninhabited and surrounded entirely by wilderness. While travelling north by floatplane to Hudson Bay I had the opportunity to take some pictures of these beautiful lakes, both from the air and the shore.

Lakes of the Northern Wilderness, Ontario and Manitoba, July 2007

Western Ontario and eastern Manitoba are covered with thousands of lak ...

Updated: Jul 29, 2007 2:54pm PST

York Factory, July 2007 : York Factory is one of the most important historic sites in North America, and also one of the least known and hardest to visit. It is located at the mouth of the Hayes River, just to the south of the mightly Nelson River's mouth, and was founded in the late 1600s. Until the 1950s, for more than two centuries, it was the North American headquarters of the Hudson Bay Company and the central transfer depot for all furs leaving North America and all goods being shipped into western Canada. From York Factory, barge-like boats were pushed south and west up the rivers carrying people and supplies all the way to the Rockies. At one point there were more than 50 buildings on the site, including warehouses and offices and an Anglican mission. There were also carefully cultivated English gardens in front of the main building, barely hanging on for part of the year in the climate. Only the main building has survived, and at present the site is staffed by a superintendent from Parcs Canada who lives in the little house to the side. As some of the pictures make clear, this site is located in the wilderness, many miles from any other significant human habitation (it is quite odd to fly over so much nothing and then come to this gleaming white building in the middle of nowhere!). They get 50-60 visitors a year, some of them canoeists or kayakers coming down the Hayes River, and a few arriving by floatplane, the only ways to get there. They have a little dock that can handle one plane, and that is only accessible at high tide due to huge tidal fluctuations in the river. One nice thing about visiting this site is that you get a free personal guided tour by the park superintendent, just for showing up. Because of the polar bears, he has to carry a shotgun at all times. A very interesting place to visit.

York Factory, July 2007

York Factory is one of the most important historic sites in North Amer ...

Updated: Jul 30, 2007 9:43am PST

Wapusk National Park, July 2007 : "Wapusk" is an Inuit word for "white bear," and white bears are what this park is all about! It is one of the least accessible parks in Canada, as there are no roads or development of any kind. It is simply tundra. The park sits about halfway up the west shore of Hudson Bay, from the mouth of the Nelson River to Cape Churchill. We flew along the shoreline over the beach, with the tundra to the left and the Bay to the right, and saw dozens of polar bears. These photos mostly show the animals, but there are also a few of the unusual landscapes.

Wapusk National Park, July 2007

"Wapusk" is an Inuit word for "white bear," and white bears are what t ...

Updated: Jul 30, 2007 10:23am PST

Churchill, Manitoba, July 2007 : Churchill is a very unusual place, one of the farthest north towns in Canada and certainly one of the farthest north with a rail connection to the main North American traffic networks (but no road connection). As these pictures illustrate, it is a very small place, anchored by its grain port - grain is shipped across the Canadian planes by rail to Churchill, then from this port across Hudson Bay and around Labrador. Yet it also has a thriving ecotourism business, because it has some of the highest concentrations of polar bears and beluga whales in the world. It has has some very important historic sites, as it was founded in the 1600s by the Hudson Bay Company as an important center for the fur trade, and it features the massive Fort Prince of Wales from the 18th century as well as the Cape Merry Battery. A very interesting place to visit.

Churchill, Manitoba, July 2007

Churchill is a very unusual place, one of the farthest north towns in ...

Updated: Jul 29, 2007 7:32pm PST

Kenora, Ontario, July 2007 : Kenora is located at the north end of the Lake of the Woods, an unbelievably large and beautiful lake on the Canadian/US border. It is a thriving city along the Trans-Canada Highway, and as such is the central traffic hub for the wilderness to the north. There is a very large seaplane base right on the lakeshore of downtown. We stopped in for lunch while travelling south. I have a number of floatplane pictures from here, which I lumped together into my Canadian bush aircraft gallery.

Kenora, Ontario, July 2007

Kenora is located at the north end of the Lake of the Woods, an unbeli ...

Updated: Jul 29, 2007 7:48pm PST

Banff, January 2005 : These photos were taken from the Town of Banff, from the road up to Banff Hot Springs, and from the summit of Sulphur Mountain/Sanson's Peak.

Banff, January 2005

These photos were taken from the Town of Banff, from the road up to Ba ...

Updated: Feb 10, 2005 9:01pm PST

Quebec, July 2004 :

Quebec, July 2004

Updated: Aug 30, 2004 5:36pm PST

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Brian E. Coggins, Ph.D., Durham, North Carolina.
Copyright (c) 2003-2009 Brian E. Coggins. All rights reserved.

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