Where were you in the fall of 1969? Just a couple of months past "the summer of love," at Maple Lake in the Haliburton Highlands in Ontario pictorial evidence suggests that "everything (was) beautiful."*
As I've talked about before, my mom was not the best photographer in the world (nor am I) but she often had her camera at the ready and I'm so very thankful to her that she did. Again Mom, sorry I complained so much about having to stop playing for a few minutes so you could snap a shot that I now realize preserved moments that are ever-increasingly from long ago.
I'm so glad that we can savour these photos in the here and now.
I'm one of nine first cousins that spent our summers when growing up living on Maple Lake. However in the mid-1960's my father's work compelled us to move to the eastern United States, 500 miles from our former home in Toronto. In the early years we traveled home many times a year-- summertime of course, but Easter, Canadian Thanksgiving, and Christmas, too.
The photo here is of 7 of 9 of the cousins in what was called the "back field." What is striking to me now is just how few birch trees remain. I don't know if they simply aged or if a blight took them or a combination or neither. I love the pretty white birches but I'll never forget my grandfather admonishing us to never peel bark from their trunks. Funny thing is I don't recall anyone EVER doing so that we'd need to be warned but to this day my thought process goes like this: Oh, pretty birches -->image of my grandfather --> don't peel the bark off them!
***those who know the family dynamic know better--another story for another day.
This is cross-posted to Maple Lake Ontario.
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