July 1st 2008 Canada Day

On July 1st, I went to the Old Mission, an historic site just outside of Lac La Biche for Canada Day celebrations.The oblate Missionaries, the Grey Nuns and the Daughters of Jesus established the mission in 1853, and it became an important geographical crossroads and supply depot for the area where Metis, Native, Anglophones and Francophones met and carried out trading. A residential school was established here, as well.

This is the dock, once well used, but now overgrown.

One of the buildings. I was told there is a ghost here, but a friend told me this, I did not hear about it while I was visiting.

The church was destroyed by a tornado in 1921. The altar in this picture and the 7 statues were found undamaged lying on top of the rubble. The church was rebuilt and the wood from the old one taken to another location and used to build a church there. There was squabbling at that location as to which group would use it, another tornado blew through, demolished that church and solved the problem!

The Desjarlais Big Country and Western Band entertained quite a large audience. I sat and listened to them, then listened to the amateur talent contest (amusing!) that followed. The main guitarist introduced each of the local talent. After the contest was finished, I decided I should move around. That is when I took the other pictures of the mission.

Another shot of the band.

A friend and I went to see the fireworks at the dock in town. This is the sunset, taken while we were waiting for it to be dark enough to see the fireworks. (It was taken about 20 minutes earlier than the picture in the Fireworks 2008 section, below.) The show began about 11:00 p.m.

I was using a new camera, and discovered there is a fireworks mode on it, where the shutter speed is slowed down a bit. It makes interesting pictures, as it shows the fireworks trail. It also lets in more light, so that it looks like it is much earlier in the evening than it really was! This is one of my favourite pictures...

... this is another one.

Here is another... although it looks like the horizon and the water is showing through the sparkles, I think it must be cloud formations.