Lost among 30,000 islands and never wanting to come home!
Recently back from a week's vacation with my family in Canada's Georgian Bay, cottaging in Pointe au Baril.
And to think, it all began in the early 1900s when my great-grandparents traveled North by steamer and came across the most majestic cluster of islands, smooth and rough granite rocks popping up across Lake Huron's glass surface. Each island dotting the skyline silhouetted in windblown pine trees as far as the eye could see. Immediately they fell in love, an island was claimed and generations later, family members still travel many miles north just for a brief encounter with paradise.
Pointe au Baril was named after the barrel on the point that originally (1870s) marked the treacherous entry to the main channel from the open water of Georgian Bay. As the story goes, early fur traders from Penetanguishene lost a canoe near the point. Their canoe included a barrel of whiskey that was found by stranded traders the next spring. After a drinking spree the barrel was left on the point as a beacon. French mariners were soon calling it Pointe au Baril.
(http://www.thepaintedmemory.com)
My parents have continued this vacation tradition with my sister, brother and me. And this year after crossing the Ambassador Bridge, we were dowsed by a rainstorm revealing a vibrant rainbow reaching across the sky, hugging what seemed to be opposite ends of the globe.
Yahoo Answers indicates: Rainbows are formed because of the process of bending light known as Refraction. Different colors of light bend at different angles when they refract. When light from the sun enters a droplet of rain, it refracts a tiny bit causing the colors of light to spread apart, the light then bounces, or reflects, off of the back of the droplet and refracts once again as it leave the droplet on the same side it entered. By the time the light reaches your eyes the refraction is so noticeable that you see all the colors of sunlight spread apart - creating a Rainbow
Source(s):
http://eo.ucar.edu/rainbows/
http://science.howstuffworks.com/rainbow1.htm
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=1005120300016
Every time I see a rainbow in the sky, I'm reminded of God's tenderness and love. Genesis chapters 6-9 document the story of the great flood and Noah's faith in God and obedience to build an ark. God was saddened because the earth was corrupt and filled with violence. He opened the floodgates of the sky for forty days and forty nights. After the earth was cleansed and the waters receded, God painted a rainbow in the sky as an everlasting covenant with man and every single living creature that never again should there be a flood to destroy the earth.
The beauty of a rainbow and the Georgian Bay setting is like no other. Every August, I am still amazed by the peaceful glory of Ontario's untouched natural wonder. The boating, swimming, kayaking, fishing, and exploration from island to island (what we like to call "Island Hopping") are the adventure and renewal I work all year-round to experience!
Nature's color pallets are absolutely stunning, the perfectly refreshing getaway for an artist, and stimulation for the wedding maps section of The Painted Memory. http://www.thepaintedmemory.com/Wedding-and-Honeymoon/Wedding-Maps/
The countdown has already begun till next summer arrives and daydreaming of Pointe au Baril begins!
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