What to do with a camera when you’re in the grips of the late February winter blaws? Especially the winter blaws of 2014 in Southern Ontario when the cold and snow just will not go away. Snow and ice are beautiful but they’re not my bag when it comes to photography. I’ve just never been able to capture them well – too much damn white!
My mother is nearing 90 years of age and has lived a very healthy and eventful life. That is, until recently. Her mind has been slipping – it’s just what happens. However, in the last little while, her legs have developed problems and she had to enter the hospital. With that, her mind seems to have fully left her. She won’t be going home, instead they will take her to a home mercifully close by so my Dad can easily visit her.
She is in London, Ontario. I live about a two hour drive away. At the start of the week, I packed up the toddler and we went down for a visit. I wanted to couple the visit with a photo opportunity but the cold and windchill were too much to drag a 20 month old child out into the open air for too long. I had the brilliant idea to have the camera ready in the passenger seat by my side.
Afterall, what better way to capture a bit of colour in February than road signs?
So, what you get today is a bit of a tour down highway 401 between Cambridge and London. This is the busiest corridor in Canada and rivals any paved roadway in North America for traffic. Officially, the 401 starts in Windsor, Ontario, just over the border from Detroit, Michigan. The 401 ends at the eastern end at the Quebec border where it becomes highway 20.
If you use a bit of imagination, the 401 is an extension of Interstate 75 which travels south through the United States to the bottom of Florida.
The first image shows the overhead sign on the eastbound 401 at Woodstock, Ontario. The 403 is a major highway that just southeast to Hamilton, Ontario before joining with the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way). The QEW ends at Fort Erie, Ontario, just across the Peace Bridge from Buffalo, New York. This creates a great shortcut for Americans not wanting to drop down around Lake Erie and pass through Cleveland, Ohio.
The second image is a distance sign at the point 205km away from Toronto, Ontario. There was a long period of time after Canada switched to the Metric System in the 1970’s that distance and speed limit signs had to include the km and km/h. Without much fanfare, these details were dropped and metric is just assumed.
The image directly above was taken entering Kitchener, Ontario. The city is fast growing, along with the connecting cities of Waterloo and Cambridge. Because of the 401 and the area’s close proximity to the Greater Toronto Area, this has not only become a huge bedroom community but a home to much industry. Kitchener has a lot of German roots and I can’t help to compare the region to the sprawl in Germany that is Essen, Duisburg and Dusseldorf.
The above image is at the western end of Kitchener, heading westbound toward London. Not ten minutes later, I was in such a blizzard that you cardly see the vehicle directly in front. This section of highway between Kitchener and London is infamous for this irratic winter weather caused by snow squalls off the Great Lakes. That day, we were slowed to a crawl and the east bound lanes were completely closed due to a tractor-trailer losing control and slamming through the concrete barrier (the same as the one to the left in the image above).
Passing through London from the west in the eastbound lanes. I always have mixed feelings when I have to leave my hometown but I love the way I captured, then manipulated this image.
One last look. The highway 2 turnoff at Woodstock used to be much busier, way back before the 403 was constructed. It used to be the main route from points west to Hamilton, Niagara Falls and Buffalo.
The intersection has gotten much busier in recent years with the construction of a Toyota manufacturing plant just to the left of the image.
The video below was taken in the summer of 2013 and shows downtown London, Ontario in much more pleasant weather.
