Well, just as pride goeth before a fall, so apparently does optimism go before a really dismal show. Just when I was hopeful for this past week’s show/sale in Edmonton on the basis of my artist friends assuring me this was traditionally an “excellent” show for the artists, the management made a lot of ill-considered changes (need I say for the worse) and totally alienated both exhibitors and patrons, with the end result that the kindest thing I can say about my five day experience there was that I met some nice people at the show and got to visit with some old friends (as in long-standing, of course) who live in the area. As sales go, though, it tanked.
In addition to the customers being soaked for parking and entry fees so that they were pretty cross by the time they got in the doors (if they could find them) and not much in the mood for buying, we were also victimized by being set up in what was essentially a construction zone. The art booths were against what will ultimately be an inside dividing wall, but for the moment is acting as an outside wall. My booth area was so cold I had to borrow wool socks, sweaters and long underwear from the friend I was staying with, and even at that it was barely tolerable most of the time, and on a few occasions I thought a hard hat might be a good idea as well. The building that housed the show in previous years was a pile of rubble, having recently been knocked down, but there was no signage or anything to indicate to our customers that the show was actually carrying on in the new building, which was accessible only by following a long and convoluted set of narrow and twisting alleyways. Add that to virtually no local advertising for the show, and it has an impact of customer numbers. All in all, a pretty unfortunate experience.
On the plus side, though, by the end of the show the management representative that was checking in with us did seem to have a very clear idea of the ways things had gone sideways this year, and seemed sincere in his desire to make things fall into place again for next year’s show and sale. A lot would have to change before I’d consider doing this one again, but for the moment I’m not planning on burning any bridges, as the Saturday was actually quite good all round, and apparently that was representative of how the whole show has been in past years, so maybe it’s not too late to turn the clock back and make a recovery. I’m just peeved that the one year I chose to come was the one where it was pretty much a perfect storm of disasters for the exhibitors.
Since I don’t always read the fine print in the information packages, I made a bit of an error in my outward bound timing when heading north to Edmonton. I figured the set-up would be all day Tuesday, and knew we would need to be open for business on Wednesday. I got a good early (for me) start, and also had the advantage of “gaining” an hour during the trip as Alberta’s time zone is one hour later than in Saskatchewan at this time of year. That was all well and good until I made a pit stop when I was about two or so hours from Edmonton, and decided to check the set-up hours. We didn’t get access to our building until 7PM local time, which meant I was going to be arriving about five hours too early. The friend I was staying with wouldn’t be home from work until 5, or so I believed, so I had a few hours in which to do I knew not what. Then I remembered that Elk Island National Park was right en route, and I had always wanted to stop by and check out the bison herds there, but had never before had the time. So when we hit the park I turned off the highway and went in search of buffalo.
There was one good-sized herd off a side road at the south end, and I stopped for a while and got some shots. They weren’t as close as I would have liked, and while I am capable of mildly foolhardy things in pursuit of a good photo op, even I know better than to venture out on foot anywhere near a herd of wild buffalo. They are very fast when they want to be, and can be confrontational.
I decided to carry on farther into the park, reasoning (from the enormous amount of buffalo poop to be seen everywhere I looked) that there must be more than one herd in the area. I couldn’t see any as I tootled slowly along the unpopulated highway, but I did spot a very nicely coloured bush that I wanted to get a shot of. I got out of the van and was happily photographing my bush when a truck pulled up behind my van and just sat there. After a couple of minutes I got a bit nervous, as I thought maybe this was a Canada Parks truck and I was doing something wrong, so I got back in the van and carried on down the road, driving very slowly so they could pass me. They didn’t. They stayed the same distance behind me, also driving very slowly. Now I was getting quite concerned as to what exactly was going on here. After a couple of kilometers, there was another truck in view, this one coming towards me. The driver slowed as he approached me, making vigorous hand gestures and pointing to the south, all of which meant exactly nothing to me. By this time I was quite spooked, so I decided that at the first opportunity I would pull over to the side of the road, get out and ask the truck behind me what exactly was going on. My chance came, and I got onto the shoulder as best I could, then as I was twisting in my seat to undo the seat belt so I could get out, I realized I had parked right beside a small herd of buffalo. Now it all started to make sense.
The truck behind me stopped in the beginning because they thought I was photographing wildlife. The pointing man in the oncoming vehicle was trying to tell me to watch for the bison. Having figured all that out, I now felt quite free to go ahead and get my shots of the new bison herd without worrying that I was infringing on some sort of park rules. By this time the truck behind me had finally gone ahead of me and they had their cameras out too. I spent quite a bit of time with this herd, who stayed close by the side of the highway within a fairly limited area, until eventually they wandered off down the road.
Shot number one today shows the dramatic sky with a “personal” farm grain elevator, somewhere north of North Battleford in Saskatchewan.
Shot two is the nice orange bush that started the whole “truck following behind” incident, and the other shots show the small herd at the side of the road. It was a real treat to be so up close and personal with these guys. I think this is likely a young bull from the looks of him, with his small family which consisted of three or four cows and one baby from this year. He was very watchful over his little herd, and had the good fortune of one of his ladies appearing to be an older and experienced cow who would likely be the “boss cow” and titular herd leader, with the bull providing security service and general back-up. Both close-up shots are of the bull, whose horns are typically more curved and a bit stouter than those of the cows.
These are Plains Bison. Elk Island Park has both Plains Bison and Wood Bison, which are somewhat different from each other. I have learned over the years how to tell them apart by their different characteristics, but there is a local area joke where a nearby resident says to the tourist, “That’s a Wood Bison” and the tourist says “How can you tell them apart?”, to which the local answers, “We’re on the south side of the highway”–the joke here being that the highway divides the park and the Plains Bison live on the north side while the Wood Bison reside on the south side.
©Copyright 2008 by Judy Wood. See original post here.
To learn more about this artist, visit Judy Wood’s website.
but I think I pulled it off. This a Christmas present for a family friend from a daughter to her parents so I don’t mind the rush.
