The Smell of Roasting Chicken

The cooler weather means it's time to turn on the oven again. Find a couple of farm-raised chickens, some fresh veggies and a good handful of garlic and supper is done.

Riding Mountain Cuisine Tour

Making beautiful pictures is a walk in the park—provided it's fall time and you're in Riding Mountain National Park.

This fence is one of the few in the park. It keeps the resident herd of about 40 bison inside park boundaries. If left to follow their natural instincts, the bison would roam in search of grasses and end up causing big problems for landowners and motorists.

As part of a pre-conference tour for the Cuisine Canada function being held in Winnipeg, a few lucky souls were treated to a four-course meal inside this picnic shelter at Whirlpool Lake in the park. Needless to say, a white tablecloth and bountiful sunflowers can transform even the most humble of surroundings.

Picnic shelters are not wired for electricity so chef assembles the desserts by lantern light.

Exploring Black Island

Black Island sits to the west and north of Hecla Island between the south and north basins of mightly Lake Winnipeg. It's accessible only by boat (or snowshoe, snowmobile, Bombardier, airplane or foot in winter). Black is a huge chunk of land with a robust history as a sacred place for our First Peoples. The shoreline holds several bays with white sand beaches that quickly give way to the towering evergreens that sprout from the Canadian Sheild.

One bay included a beaver dam just slighly inland. The tracks leading in and out of the watering hole were almost too numerous to decifer. In a spot nearly, I saw timber wolf prints as big as my hand and moose tracks as big as my foot.

How big is Lake Winnipeg? If you look on the Manitoba highway map, the distance to travel from our spot on Black Island to Punk Island (just off the north tip of Hecla) is about four millimetres. It took us a full 30 minutes in calm water with the 55 Evinrude at full throttle to reach Punk.

Sunset On Hecla

I've always been a sucker for a sunset. This is the mainland side of the causeway to Hecla Island. Back in the day, a ferry transported visitors from this dock to the island.

You Are Cut Off

Sometimes things get out of hand when photo shoots involve too much booze.

Hold Yer Breath

This is not some controversial form of swimming lessons. Brad simply did a nose dive while attempting to give Bodhi a wake board ride. The little guy didn't mind too much. He was back up and riding within minutes.