Winter at Bark Lake

Bark Lake

This past week, I was up at Bark Lake teaching Wildlife Population and supervising 30 grade 10 students from St. John’s-Kilmarnock School. SJK is an independent school near Maryhill, Ontario between Guelph and Kitchener-Waterloo with wonderful students and staff to work with. Most days during the Bark Lake week are quite full with classes indoors and out from 9am through to 10pm. Amazingly, the students are engaged and energetic throughout it all, which leaves only a few hours of downtime for the teachers. However, I did manage to take advantage of the few hours of sunlight we had Sunday afternoon and at dawn Monday morning.

I’ve been to Bark Lake Leadership Centre three times now with SJK, once in Autumn and twice in Winter. The staff there are very knowledgeable and the meals very good – more than enough to eat with lots of fresh fruit and salads. They have very comfortable accommodations in a beautiful setting surrounded by white pines, beech, maple and a beaver pond “out back”. I am considering teaming up with Bark Lake to offer weekend nature photography workshops in Spring, Autumn and Winter – if you’re interested, send me an email.

I’ve been quite pleased with the opportunities that exist for photography without straying too far from the Centre (spare time is at a premium when one is supervising high school students!). That being said there are kilometres of hiking and nordic ski trails that I’ve not had an opportunity to fully explore. As well, there are a number of rivers and lakes that provide a myriad of opportunities.

Here is a gallery of photos from the past week – not too many, but enough to give you a sense of how beautiful winter can be when there is some decent snow and lighting!