Not a bushfire, but dawn at Algonquin National Park. Photo copyright: DAVID McMAHON
THERE'S a bear in there. And I'm not keen to meet him. But this is a mental balancing act.I want to photograph this Muskoka dawn that is raking across the sky like a bushfire. But this being Algonquin National Park in northern Ontario, Canada, it is home to all creatures great and small.
Bear. Moose. The others I can cope with. But conventional wisdom in this part of the world is that you should employ shrill blasts on a whistle to keep the bears away.
I don't have a whistle. And in a few minutes the photo opportunity will have vanished for good.
What to do? I whistle `Waltzing Matilda’ as loud as I can.
You think that's daft? It obviously worked a treat, because it kept the bears away. Go figure.
Late the night before, I had decided, against my better judgment ‑ ignoring the sound of persistent rain ‑ to drive from Huntsville to Algonquin National Park.
The hotel receptionist provided me with a map and told me I should never turn my back on a bear. And I had already been told to be wary of moose because they tend to stand by the side of the highway, blending into the background.
If there was no way to avoid hitting a moose at 100km/h, I was told to try and manoeuvre my car so as to hit the animal's hindquarters.
Why? Because moose are so tall that they would topple over, crushing the hood and windscreen, and making a terrible mess of me in the bargain. I'm pleased to announce I didn't hit a moose.
Nor was I confronted by a bear. But as we all know, that's simply because I was whistling incessantly.
The still surface of Smoke Creek is a spectacular mirror for the brilliant hues splashed across the northern sky.
By the time I get to Tea Lake the breeze has all but banished the clouds and the sky is clear as the first rays of the sun change the landscape dramatically. Now I can see the russet and brown and gold of the trees that fringe the lake.
As the sun rises, warming the still water, I am treated to the sight of the first tendrils of mist snaking up from the cold lake. Rapidly, this becomes an opaque blanket that looks for all the world as though some invisible Impressionist painter has dropped by and coated the lake's surface.
But the startling beauty is all too much for a city slicker like me. As I juggle cameras, memory cards and spare films, I am concentrating too hard to look elsewhere.
So, when I suddenly get the overpowering whiff of moose dung I look around, expecting to photograph the big animal at point-blank range.
No such luck. I've stepped into a steaming pile of it and it's all over my sturdy boots like a rash.
That's when I realise the truth in the old adage - what's dung cannot be undung.
I travelled to Canada courtesy of the Canadian Tourism Commission and Air Canada. For more details on Muskoka, visit http://www.discovermuskoka.ca/
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