I recommend leaving the world behind for a while. Taking along light canoes and heavy packs and paddling to a new campsite every day. A campsite with a warm lake and a crackling fire.
I recommend sleeping in a tent under the stars, watching the fireflies light up the velvet night and then waking to early morning birdsong you can’t identify.
I recommend morning coffee, evening tea, and daily swims.
I recommend traveling with a diverse group of people and having a (borrowed) 6-year-old in your canoe at all times. One that tells jokes and sings songs and just might be smarter than you.
I recommend changing pace.
The pace of a paddle, a canoe, and some wilderness.
[All these images were made this past week at Killarney Provincial Park in Ontario.]
*Note: I also recommend bug spray and short portages!
© Karen McRae, 2013
draw and shoot 
Gorgeous, soft, dreamy – I’d love to go off in a canoe and camp under the mountains. It’s been too long,. This summer I’m citybound and will have to live vicariously through these images.
All very fine recommendations. I’m going to add one more-bring a camera:) Beautiful dreamy places. Beautiful images.
I like your recommendations… Have enjoyed such adventures many a time… though I haven’t gone out with a 6 year old for about 30 years, and I don’t know whether I’d have the patience for that anymore… especially the jokes. But glad to know you had such a beautiful time.
Tremendous photos! Each one of them made me want to clip my wings on and run off to the wilderness 🙂
Your words are very inspiring too! I think the 7th photo is something you could easily put on canvas but all of them transports the viewer to a different dimension.
Very good post. Thanks for sharing.
Those are fantastic images! I can almost see myself there, along for the change of pace. Canoeing is something I want to experience yet; you’ve made that even more compelling. Cheers!
I’m with you, Karen. xx
so fantastic…. thank you for sharing and showing
Great post Karen, the photographs and the sentiment. Hoping we get to see more from this trip…
that looks like a very good recommendation.
Beautiful pictures.
Love to hear those Ontario names – Killarney. I think my Dad used to go fishing there. Lovely photos of what summer can bring.
The blues in the first three…inky and rich and marvelous. Glad you are enjoying summer!
Wow, that looks like some trip. Love the way you treat the people in your shots. Beautiful as ever.
Great post Karen !
I take your recommendation, even though I have no idea abut canoing 😉
Air, fire, earth, and water 🙂 Those canoes really do look light! Lovely silhouette shots too.
Definitely short portages!!!!
Great recommendations and inspiring shots – I am there remembering teenage walking and camping week-ends and thankful that there is still some wilderness left for retreats. Thanks for sharing.
Wonderful words and pictures, wistful, enigmatic. Nice
Jim
Nice dreamy images and words, Karen. Cheers!
A fine selection.
Karen, these are all beautiful photos. And your recommendations are spot on. Maybe you’ve inspired some of us to follow them…
Beautiful, I’m definitely a camper nothing beats sleeping in a swag dozing off to desert skies but I’m afraid my six year old was always a city dweller and hated camping but hopefully one day she’ll revert, otherwise I could be paddling the grandkids.
Now that sounds and looks like a good recommendation! What a contrast to the icebound photographs you posted not very long ago. Just as beautiful!
I think I saw some Shadow Men. :O
I recommend we become best friends, so I can join you next time.
I have the 6 year old, all I need now is a canoe and time to go to the wilderness! Lovely, glad you could make it!
Some sound advice, Karen. I may just have to take it… Thanks!
Oh, so beautiful Karen. I felt like I was there 🙂
That sounds lovely 🙂
Great connection with nature and great pictures : )
Such a lovely post Karen. The photographs speak for themselves but I particularly liked the canoes and the simplicity of the reeds. Gorgeous! 🙂
Oh yes, great recomendations. And photos. The quiet adventures of nature.
Whole-heartedly concurring!!
You’re right about the short port ages. What a sense of relief when you come to a short one!
Good pictures, Karen, and what you say certainly resonates with me! In particular I like “I recommend leaving the world behind for a while.” and also “I recommend changing pace.”, both very, very true and worthwhile. Adrian
It feels incredibly peaceful. Your images and words are stunning as always
Poetic and very beautiful view of the world, Karen! I can relate to borrowing the 6 year old too!
Excellent recommendations, Karen! I love the realization of them too!!
🙂
The beauty of camping and a few little bugs, first you take the 6 year olds then, years later, they take you to revisit these place you know so well. Don’t have that Avon bug off anymore but what the hell. That sunset’s still there and semi solitary beauty everywhere. Love the photography, especially the reeds and reflection. And, oh yes, I used to carry equipment. Now it is a camera, one lens has to do, and an extra battery. Oh, you’ve got me inspired for something I was not totally sure about this year.
I’m happy for you! And I love the first 3 photos together. And they’re all wonderful.
I agree with your recommendations, especially “I recommend changing pace.”
And of all the pictures, I choose pickerelweedpontederia-cordata5 as my favourite, really impressive!
This is a perfect post Karen. From photos to words, I cannot pick a favourite. As a whole, this is beautiful.
aw. you make me jealous. the canoe layout/crop is visually perfect
Looks absolutely fantastic! 🙂
I always leave the world behind when I am photographing it.. 😉 Great bottom shot Karen..
Sounds (and looks) absolutely perfect!!
This post makes me impatient to get away – later in the year we will be going to the Flinders ranges in central Australia, very different from canoeing, but still so much the same. Enjoying the change of pace, the smell of the air, the freshness, the quiet, the wildlife and freedom from bustle. Campfires too … your words are as beautiful as your photos.
What good recommendations Karen!! Sounds like a great idea!!! Love this post!! Great photos!! 🙂 **
Love this post… GREAT GREAT GREAT!!
Signing up for your recommendations . . . . I wish!
I could really do with immersion in those recommendations. Even the borrowed 6 year old. Your photos really capture the mood for me – especially the blue silhouette near the bottom.
Yes, the borrowed 6 year old worked out better than I could have ever imagined. Do you like canoeing? It really was the perfect get away.
I like canoeing, but have not done it for many many years. There is a family cabin a days drive away, but I have not been for years as my leave has been dedicated to other things. I like rowing too, watching the world that I have just passed by recede, but then I grew up rowing rather than paddling.