Outdoor Memories

I remember when I was young, and my parents would entertain. Company would come over for dinner, and after supper the slide show would begin.  Everyone would head to the front room, Dad would turn out the lights, the projector would whir into action and he'd enthrall the audience with the captured images of places he'd been and things he'd done.

Recently, I've been going through those old slides.  Dad was a prolific photographer! I had no idea he had taken so many great pictures in his many years with his 35mm SLR Pentax. I still have years of scanning ahead of me, but it's going to be a labour of love, and I task I am really looking forward to completing.





As I began to scan the first few slides, I started to see pictures of myself in his collection.  Memories started to flood back, I found myself thinking, "Oh, I remember that hiking trip", and "that's when we went winter camping at Sunset Lake" and so on.



I guess I'd been there for a lot of his life too, I'd been adventuring in the wilderness since I was just a little guy. Dad used to joke, that I was an outdoorsman even before I was born, as he would go off with my Mom (who was pregnant with me) to explore the hills, right up until a few weeks before I was born. I'd always just taken it for granted, I grew up in the woods, it is part of me, but seeing these pictures, really put it into perspective.




I've always been so comfortable in the outdoors, even more comfortable than in my own home town, and so much more comfortable than in the city.  It's not surprising now, looking back, I've been experiencing nature for so long, it's part of who I am.  Living in the Okanagan Valley, in BC, so close to the wilderness, every spare evening, every weekend, my father would take me out and show me the things he loved about the mountains and the lakes, the backroads and the bush.  I have the greatest appreciation, now, for all that he did for me then.