Forks of the Credit Provincial Park and me are like Alec Baldwin and Saturday Night Live. It’s my go to location when I’m short on time and money but need to flex my photographic muscles.
Southern Ontario went into a deep freeze this past week with temperatures falling below -20 celcius (below 0 American). Although we didn’t get a lot of snow out of it, the effects on the waterways was pretty cool.
For a few of the days, the windchill was unbearable. However, by Friday, January 25, the temps had risen to a comfortable -15 and the winds had all but died off. The following images were taken with the Canon Rebel T3i with a variable Neutral Density filter to allow for some long exposure water blur.
The conditions were a bit shit with dull light and snow fall. You’ll see my old friend ‘Blackie’ in some of the images. I thought I had the black spot cleaned off but it still keeps appearing. It shows as a black spot in the bottom right quadrant.
For a video from that day, go to the bottom of this article.
This bridge over the Credit River is just a bit upstream from the series of waterfalls that keeps people coming to Forks of the Credit.
This unfreezable hole appears just upstream from the first waterfall. The ice was pretty solid near the shore but there’s no way I was going to chance walking across the Credit River. The depth here is only a few feet.
This is the first waterfall along the Credit River at Forks of the Credit Provincial Park. This is what the waterfall looks like during the summer. The following pictures are of the same waterfall in much colder times.
The main waterfall is close down stream from here. In the summer, you can get to the base of that waterfall, but even then the journey can be quite daunting. Once the temps fall below freezing, it becomes nearly impossible without ice picks. In the same manner as Niagara Falls, there is a constant cloud of drizzle in the air, splashed up from the impact of the cascade. In winter, this results in a constant freezing rain which coats everything with ice.
Another result of the quick freeze on the Credit River is the flowing water is constricted. So, even though the volumes are reduced, the river floods and the frozen area is wider than the normal flow of the river.
This, and the following two, are taken from beneath the remains of an old dam at the left side of the waterfall. Normally, water would be flowing beneath the old concrete structure but at this time of year, I was able to crawl under to get these closeups of the side of the waterfall.
I feel as though I’ve paid my respects to Mother Nature by getting out in the cold before heading to Florida and the Caribbean, next week.
This is an HD video from Forks of the Credit, taken the same day as the above images:
