This is one of my favourite Eastern Ontario photos, even though I’m not entirely sure why. On the surface, it’s a pretty simple photo of a mailbox on a quiet country road on Wolfe Island, a short ferry ride from Kingston.
So why do I like it? It might be the bright colours. It might be because I’ve always had an affinity for cardinals. Perhaps it relates to my fond memories of biking that road on a gorgeous summer day to the village of Marysville, where I nibbled on a fresh scone. After Marysville, I cycled across Wolfe Island to another ferry jetty and what must be one of Canada’s tiniest customs posts, where an official checked my passport before I boarded a three-dollar ferry to Cape Vincent, New York.
The whole day had a timeless, peaceful quality to it; this photo seems to embody some of that, somehow.
Or maybe it’s just the cardinals.
P.S.: I wrote a story about that trip for the Ottawa Citizen in 2015.
Throughout July and August 2017, I’ll be posting one photo a day that I’ve taken somewhere across Canada, in celebration of Canada’s 150th anniversary. Want to see more photos in this series? Click the “Canada 150 photo” text in bold near the top of this post.
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