Bittersweet Memories

The 4th of November, 2019, was the hardest day of my life. After a battle with lung cancer, my father passed away surrounded by his family. I don't know if it will ever hurt less, but every day I learn to live with it a little better. Last month, I was given my dad's old digital camera (A Canon PowerShot SX50HS) and I've spent some time uploading the roughly 900 photos it contained to my PC for safekeeping and for sending out to my family.

And, as I've gone through them I realized I should share some here and talk about them. They are, in my opinion, some pretty great photos.

This is one of the few remaining wooden Wheat Pool grain handling elevators in my home province of Saskatchewan. Before the Wheat Pool closed down in 2007, many of these elevators were rebuilt with brick and other sturdier materials. Dad grew up on a farm and also worked on the farm for a good chunk of time, and the old wooden Pool elevators always were a reminder of home I think.

He was also an amateur birdwatcher, and for years when I was young he'd never leave the house without a pair of binoculars just in case he could catch an interesting bird in his daily travels. Unsurprisingly, a number of the photos on his camera were of birds.

And there are a lot of nature shots in here as well as shots of old farm equipment or old vehicles. He was a bit of a mechanic (as any farmer in the 80s and 90s was) and spent his fair share of time under the hood.

There were also a number of shots of an old campground that we used to stay at as a family when I was a kid, which was particularly cool to see. My sister and I would spend hours playing in this stream, racing boats down it, building small dams, trying to catch the tiny fish, and just generally being kids.

But my favorite of all the nature photos are probably these three - we are known as the 'Land of Living Skies' here in Saskatchewan, and it's something that dad loved about this province... and I think these capture our gorgeous Saskatchewan sunsets wonderfully.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you've enjoyed these pictures!