The Winner of: "What's Your Favourite Canadian Landscape Spot!"
We asked our Facebook fans: "What is your Favourite Canadian Landscape Spot and why?"
One of our Facebook followers Lisa Mercer posted a link to a photo of beautiful Lake O'hara. We awarded her a signed copy of George Brybycin's book The Essence of The Rockies. Stay tuned for more contests!
This is Lisa's story on why she loves Lake O'hara:
"I am an environmental consultant by day, a wife and mother, a "people/pet photographer for hire" and last but not least a "nature-every-chance-I-get photographer". I'm a born and raised Albertan and currently live in Balzac. I work mostly in Southern and Eastern Alberta, and my first love is the prairies, but when I am able to get to the mountains there is just something so special about the Rockies - I always leave rejuvenated, refreshed, recharged, and feeling grounded and tired and "small" but in a nature-is-truly-awesome kind of way.
I belong to the Foothills Camera Club, and each year that we are lucky enough to be selected, about 20 club members get to hike in and stay at the Alpine Club Huts at Lake O'Hara in Yoho National Park. The park only allows 42 people in to the area per day, and you have to get on a waiting list for the Huts, which are assigned per year by a luck of the draw lottery system.
2009 was my first trip to Lake O'Hara and I fell in love immediately with the area! The lake is absolutely breathtaking, and there are so many places to hike and a huge variety of subject matter, you can go back again and again and again and never see the same thing twice. In two days there was snow, rain, sun, warm, and cold, and I had the privilege of photographing an incredible range of subjects including hoary marmots in the snow, a wonderful meadow sparking with melting snow droplets, and a gorgeous waterfall in the sun. There was a fantastic fog all over the area for a while, and while the landscape shooters were bummed, my little shooting group took to the ground and had hours of fun shooting macro mushrooms and lichens along the trails. When we came down off the mountain, we hiked back along the lake edge, and that is where I captured this image - it was a fleeting, magical moment - the huge wet snowflakes we'd had off and on all day began again within seconds of this scene, and then we hurried back to the Hut for a warm supper and a hot fire!
Two other notables about my Favourite Canadian Landscape Spot: there is a really interesting history about this area, and the carrot cake at Le Relais Day Shelter is A-MA-ZING!!! Oh, and no matter how nice it is in Calgary, DON'T forget your gloves!!! It can be cold in the mountains any time of year!"
