Cold Sulphur Spring

Driving from Edmonton into Jasper National Park, an often overlooked (and undersmelt) natural feature of the park is the Cold Sulphur Springs. This feature of the park occurs directly next to the roadway and is worth a quick stop. Braving the somewhat malodorous conditions, I managed to get some incredible last frames of Agfa Scala off to capture this treasure. This print shows the rock wall where the water has eaten through over time.

I would return to this location on a trip the following summer and find that someone had defaced the wall with grafitti, a simple tag with no artistic merit, defacing an interesting natural wonder.

Sadly, Agfa Scala has been removed from production during AgfaPhoto's collapse in 2004/2005. A true loss to the film universe.

Score: 69

Boat Launch in Jasper National Park

On the drive back from a wedding in Prince George, British Columbia, I made a short pit stop in Jasper National Park at one of the many small lakes just shy of the park exit. This particular location has a boat launch and this scene just happened to catch my eye.

The trees visible in the back left-hand side of the picture mark the beginning of a large area of burnt out timber, running the entire length of the valley. This is one of the areas affected by the widespread fires in the park several years ago and has been completely changed by that event.

Score: 74

SaskEverywhere

I found this unusual road marker on a grid road drive just north of Wakaw, Saskatchewan. The original format is a colour slide, but I felt that it was worth developing in black and white for the competition. The title is something of a tongue-in-cheek social comment about the province, where an entire range of services and companies made use of the prefix 'Sask' to indicate that they serve the province. For those not in the know, SaskTel, SaskEnergy, and SaskPower would be premium examples.

Score: 71

The Birch Bandit

YARRR!!! Mighty be the will of the Birch Bandit!

A fun look at birch trees, this particular one stands at Forests for the World park just outside Prince George, British Columbia. A serious infestation of beetles is devastating their lumber industry and changing the landscape there in a dramatic manner. In the year between my two summer trips there in 2005 and 2006, the damage has spread across the hills like a wildfire, leaving behind a wake of dead and dying pine trees.

Score: 74

Crooked Bush

The Crooked Bush (or Crooked Trees) is a marvel of the natural world. Consisting of a very small area, these elm trees have grown in a maner that has greatly stunted and warped their development.