Hallelujah

Hallelujah

I paired this photo with the song, Hallelujah. I hope you like my rendition of it. I took the photo on the shores of Lake Simcoe where I grew up.

Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada is one of the most beautiful lakes anywhere on this ball we call earth. My family ended up moving to a tiny place called Lagoon City, on the shores of Lake Simcoe when I was 10 years old.

The lake gave everything that my friends and I needed in each of the four seasons. In the summertime, swimming was a dream in temperate waters. In winter we would snowmobile and ice skate on the lagoon out back of the house where we tied up our canoe and motorboat in the summer. I worked a couple of winters ice fishing for the local town alcoholic, and I had a blast. I was only 14 or 15 maybe but I got to run a snowmachine and fish for free. I seemed to have the knack for ice fishing and kept my mom pretty busy with perch, bass, whitefish and some kind of thing we just called a dogfish. Maybe it’s a ling cod. Either way, my mom cooked that ugly fish like a champ.

But more than that, there is a place called The Steps. Finally named so, after locals had called it that for 30 years or more. The steps is a tiny, public beach with parking for about 5 vehicles max. But what a beach.

The sandbars are a swimmer’s dream and a boater’s nightmare. We would always laugh when we would hear some speedster’s boat motor whine into a high sound like a jet engine. Usually an indication that the propeller had dug into a sandbar at high speed and popped the propeller right out of the water where it screamed in naked protest. But I wax eloquent, let’s move on.

Ah yes, the sandbars. As you wade into the water it gets deeper up to maybe midway between knees and hips when you reach the first sandbar. Then it is shallow again below your knees and deeper again to the next one. This pattern continues with the distance between each sandbar increasing, and the depth of the water increasing until you have to swim between the sandbars, but can still reach another one that might be up to your chest. At this point, the depth in between sandbars is about 12 feet. It is an astounding wonder that would be near the top of my list if we had 7 wonders for each of Canada’s provinces.

I took this photo two summers ago when I was reunited with a childhood friend whose cottage sits exactly right beside The Steps. It was on a glorious summer’s day that reminded me so strongly of the many summers I swam there as a carefree boy.

https://soundcloud.com/michaelarthurtremblay/hallelujah

Remix of Hallelujah by TheBugIQ
Vocals by TheBugIQ
©TheBugIQ Photography