We got a bit obsessed today with both Larch trees (also called tamarack) and lakes. Why you might ask. Well the larch trees are abundant along the side of the highway, some green and others various shades of yellow. We spent a good deal of time photographing them in the hope of capturing the color and structure of these beautiful trees. Also later we discovered from google that they are the only deciduous conifer, dropping their needles in the winer after turning yellow. There was also a touch of nostalgia for us in these trees as we drove through many Larch forests in Mongolia in 2013.

Lakes! Well in this part of Canada one cannot fail to observe that the land is abundant with lakes. In fact there are times when it feels like the road is simply a causeway through one huge continuous lake. They are also captivating as, in good weather, their bright blue surface is a perpetual attraction to the photographer in us. We eventually got curious about how many there were. So from google we got the following, somewhat astounding facts.

  • There may be as many as 2 million lakes in Canada. The exact number is not known but whatever it is Canada has more than the rest of the world combined. Finland claims to have 3 million but there is a difference in the size of a body of water that is considered a lake.

  • Canada has nearly 14% of the worlds lakes over 500 square km in area

  • Fresh water covers over 10,000,000 square km of Canada, approximately 9% of its total land area. Enough to flood the entire country to a depth of 2 meters

  • There are 31,752 lakes with an area of 3 square km or more.

We eventually spent the night at a small informal camping area on the shores of Hanson Lake not far from a now closed silicon sand mine. We learned from a local that the mine was producing sand for the fracking industry but with the downturn in fracking the mine is now closed.