The Chinese Temple Murals And Statues of Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum

Posted on 2017-11-30 by true_north

Last updated: August 1, 2022.

Table of Contents:

The ROM’s Bishop White Gallery – Some Background History

  1. The Taoist Temple Frescoes

2. Wooden Buddhist Temple Figures

3. The Paradise of Maitreya Fresco

Other Chinese Temple Murals in North America

  1. New York City: The Metropolitan Museum
  2. Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
  3. Philadelphia: The University Museum of the U. of Pennsylvania

If You Want to Know More

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The ROM’s Bishop White Gallery – Some Background History

The Royal Ontario Museum’s Bishop White Gallery is one section of the museum that I have visited often over the past forty years. It houses a world-renowned collection of Chinese temple murals and Buddhist and Taoist statuary,  most of which date back to the Yuan Dynasty (1271–1368).

Below is an overview of what there is to see – the three great murals and a collection of wooden Buddhist temple statues on the island in the center.  While I miss the temple-like atmosphere of the pre-2007 gallery, it is still nice to visit old friends. Unfortunately, the new space (see below)  has all the charm of a warehouse; it’s like visiting someone you love in a long-term care facility!

bishop-white-gallery-royal-ontario-museum-overview

Information plaque at the Bishop White Gallery at the ROM

Taoist murals, bodhisattva-statues, and The Paradise of Maitreya fresco at the ROM

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shanxi_locationThe Taoist Temple Frescos:

First up are a pair of Yuan Dynasty Taoist murals from Longmen Monastery in Shanxi Province.  From stylistic similarities with similar murals from a nearby monastery, a date of composition around 1325 C.E. is likely.   Together the pair is referred to as Homage To The First Principle (i.e. the Tao).

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The Lord of the Southern Dipper Fresco

They depict a procession of celestial beings of the Taoist pantheon. For outsiders with no idea who the figures are, the sheer majesty, sense of order in the scene, and the colour make the biggest impact.  What is lacking is a story to pull the viewer in – this would be something that a Chinese peasant eight hundred years ago would have had no problem providing!

Homage To The Highest Power – the Lord of the Southern Dipper fresco

The main figures in one of the murals include Lao Tzu, the Jade Emperor, and the Empress of Heaven. The Lord of the Southern Dipper is among the figures in the right-hand group.  The line drawing below provides a key to various figures present in the fresco:

 

A detailed examination of the fresco and its individual figures can be found in a Royal Ontario Museum bulletin from January 1946.  Access a pdf file (6.7 Mb) of the publication here.

 

 

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The Lord of the Northern Dipper Fresco:

On the other mural – the Lord of the Northern Dipper – one can identify the Yellow Emperor, the Emperor of Heaven, the Empress of Earth, as well as other deities.

The Lord of the Northern Dipper -one of two Taoist frescoes at the ROM

The following ROM publication – the source of the sketches above – has a detailed examination of the fresco –

Bulletin of the Royal Ontario Museum December 1945 The Lord of the Northern Dipper Fresco

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Wooden Buddhist Temple Figures:

From the two Taoist murals, I turned my attention to the statues arranged around a central column in the middle of the space.

bodhisattva-figures-at-the-royal-ontario-museum

In the images above and below is a gilded wooden statue of a seated Dhritarashtra (Chinese: Chiguo Tianwang), the Guardian King of the East.  It comes from a temple in Jiang Xian and dates to the Yuan Dynasty like many of the other statues.  The “air guitar” placing of his hands is a clue that the statue originally included a lute.

seated-bodhisattva-figure-bishop-white-gallery-rom.jpg

Behind the statue of the Guardian King, we see the sides of the single largest statue in the collection –  probably of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara – and the pair of wooden statues (one of Dashizhi and one of Kuan Yin) flanking him.  I say “him”  and admit I am a bit confused!  The Chinese name for the Sanskrit Avalokiteshvara is Kuan Yin, who is usually represented in female form.

Below is Dashizhi, identified by the crown, which has in it what is said to be a vase.

Dashizhi (Mahasthamaprapta in Sanskrit) = Bodhisattva of Mighty Power. Linfen, Shanxi Province, c. 1195 Jin Dynasty

I didn’t get a great shot of the complete central statue of the large Kuan Yin figure but here it is from the waist up.  Like the two flanking it,  the wooden statue is painted and gilded.  Usually, Kuan Yin figures include a small image of Amitabha in the crown; this one lacks that detail.  However, his sheer size makes experts say he is “probably” Kuan Yin!   The statue comes from Daning, where it stood in the Great Buddha Hall. I think on my next visit, I’ll make a point of getting a better shot!

Bodhisattva (probably Avalokiteshvara – Kuan Yin in Chinese). Daning. Shanxi Prov. c. 1300

The companion statue to the Dashizhi to the left of the large Bodhisattva figure – also from Linfen in Shanxi Province and dated 1195.  It does have a figure of Amitabha in its crown, which identifies it as a Kuan Yin.   The information board notes that this statue “has been painted at least four times, most recently in the 19th century.”  Along with the companion statue to the left, it originally flanked a large central statue of Amitabha.

Kuan Yin figure with a large bodhisattva figure to the left

a close-up of the Linfen Kuan Yin

Yet more statues as I walk around the column …

Kuan-yin – Avalokiteshvara-Yuan dynasty-from-zezhoufu-Shanxi province

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The Paradise of Maitreya Mural:

And finally, my favourite stop on the tour!  I am standing to the side of the mural titled The Paradise of Maitreya.  Unlike the two Taoist murals, this one has a narrative that helps me understand what I am looking at. First, I learned that Buddhism,  as the Mahayana form developed from the original austere form of its first few centuries,  has many Buddhas and celestial beings  – and not just the historical Buddha known as Siddhartha Gautama, who lived north of the Ganges River, around 500 B.C.E.

the-royal-ontario-museums-paradise-of-maitreya

 

drawing of  Maitreya Buddha at the ROM

The Buddha known as Maitreya – the Buddha To Come – is the focal point of the above 36′ x 16.5′ mural. He first appears in Buddhist literature in the Theravada scriptures of the Digha Nikaya’s Sutta 26 (The Lion’s Roar On the Turning Of The Wheel).  As you read through, you’ll meet some of the key figures of the mural’s story –

  • Ketumati – aka Varanasi – the royal capital of the kingdom of Jambudipa
  • Sankha – the king of this realm who renounces his power for the monastic life
  • Metteyya – the Pali equivalent of Maitreya, the Buddha in this future world

The sutra has the Buddha we know – the Sakyamuni Buddha born as Siddhartha Gautama – make this prophetic pronouncement:

I’ve often wondered if this future saviour figure’s entry into Buddhism resulted from spreading the Christian myth of the Returning Saviour into Asia.  Closer to our own time, various people – L. Ron Hubbard and the Raelian cult leader are two of them – have claimed to be Maitreya.  Krishnamurti was groomed from an early age for the position by the Theosophist movement. (He would later reject the title.)  If nothing else, we have proof of the power of hope in a better future, a truth that goes right back to the story of Pandora’s box!

The seated Maitreya is the central figure.  He is in Tusita, the Buddhist Heaven where Bodhisattvas reside before they return to earth to become Buddhas.  On each side are bodhisattvas, the fully realized beings who, in Mahayana Buddhism, have postponed their entry into nirvana to help others achieve it. Behind him are monastic disciples  – the shaved heads are a sign of this.  Had it been the historical Buddha, we might know their names as Ananda and Kashyap.  While Ananda remembered and recited all of the Buddha sermons with the “Thus have I heard…” introduction, it was Kashyap who called and directed the first Buddhist Council after Gautama Buddha’s death to ensure the movement continued.  So too, does Maitreya have his attendant monk and right-hand monk. Other celestial attendants flank him symmetrically on either side.

Trying to make sense of all of this will get your head spinning – especially if, like me,  you think of the Buddha as just a man who stripped away all the mythology and metaphysical mumbo-jumbo of the religion of his day to present a practical approach to living a meaningful life!  I’ve come to realize that the Buddhism I created in my head only exists there and not in the Buddhist societies I have visited.

The Paradise of Maitreya – the central part of the mural

And even though it is the Maitreya and not the historical Gautama Buddha, he still exhibits some of the features we associate with the latter – i.e. the elongated earlobes ( a sign of royalty) and the ushnisha or bump on the top of his head – originally a topknot or man bun which evolved into a cranial bump! However, he is seated “western style” as opposed to the cross-legged lotus position we associate with the Buddha.  His hand gestures- a mudra in Sanskrit – are known as the Abhaya mudra and symbolize “Have no fear; all is good.”

maitreya-the-buddha-to-come-in-his-paradise1

 

On the bottom left of the mural – we are in the earthy domain now and not in Tusita Heaven – we see the Queen of the Kingdom of Jambudipa – her name is Brahmavati, and her hair is being shorn as a sign of her renunciation of the material world and her position as Queen. A pilgrim standing in front of this mural would have been moved by the knowledge that the Queen would become the future Maitreya’s mother.

Her husband, King Sankha, is undergoing the same haircut on the other side of the mural.   Not clear is who Maitreya’s father was – or whether, like the Zoroastrian Saöshyánt or the Christian Jeshua – he was born of a virgin.  More than just trade goods were carried along the ancient trade routes!

paradise-of-maitreya-left-side-of-mural-the-queen-is-sheered-of-her-hair

 

One of my favourite details of the mural is on the right-hand side.  On the seated king’s left a servant is ready to catch his hair with a gold plate.  And on his right – his young son wipes a tear from his eyes, knowing he is about to lose his father.

the-paradise-of-maitreya-right-hand-side-of-the-mural

For a detailed examination of the fresco, see the following ROM publication –

ROM Bulletin July 1937 Chinese Temple Fresco No. 1 -The Paradise of Maitreya

The Museum has also uploaded to YouTube an informative five-minute look at the painting and the story of how it got to Toronto.

last-look-at-the-bishop-white-gallery-at-the-royal-ontario-museum

 

See the Wikipedia entry on the Bishop White Gallery for more. Thewrite-up ends with a very polite assessment of the space it finds itself in post-early-2000s renovation.

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Other Chinese Temple Murals in North America:

1. New York City: The Metropolitan Museum

The R.O.M. is not the only North American museum with a rare Chinese temple mural on display.  I remember a mid-1990s visit to NYC and the morning we spent with a small part of the Metropolitan Museum’s incredible collection.  One room that drew me in had a mural from the same Chinese province of Shanxi as the ROM Maitreya mural. It had been donated to the MET in 1966 by a private donor whose father had acquired it in the mid-1920s.

At that time, the mural was still thought to be of the historical Sakyamuni Buddha. Here, for example, is a page from the Met’s Guide in 1994 –

 However, a paper by Anning Jing had already appeared in the Metropolitan Museum Journal in 1991 and made the case that the mural had been misinterpreted. The Yuan Buddhist Mural of The Paradise of Bhaishajyaguru (click on the article title to access) makes for an enlightening tour of the monumental mural and the identity of its many figures.

The Met’s YouTube video is another excellent five-minute excursion into history and context:

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2. Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

More than just the MET mural popped up in looking for information about the ROM murals.  Look at this mural from The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

The_Assembly of Tejaprabha – Kansas City

By the way, the Nelson-Atkins is also where a stunning statue of Kuan Yin resides. Having seen images of it before, I had always wondered where it was.  Now I know!

Kuan Yin Statue at the Nelson-Atkins Museum Kansas City.

But wait –  there’s more!

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3. Philadelphia: The University Museum of the U. of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania’s Museum has two murals also procured in the mid-1920s.  Here is an overview image of the murals in the dramatic space where they are installed –

Chinese murals on display at the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania

And here are the two murals closer up.

Mural showing Tejaprabha, the Buddha of Blazing Light.

Mural showing Bhaisajyaguru, the Medicine Buddha.

Until I wrote this post, I had no idea all this existed.  It’s amazing what you uncover when you start researching just one thing on the internet!   Thirty minutes and a dozen clicks later, you wonder, “How did I end up here?”   That’s got to be the curse – and the marvel – of surfing the ‘net!

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If You Want to Know More:

Homage to Heaven, Homage to Earth: Chinese Treasures of the Royal Ontario Museum. 1991. The book introduces the museum’s collection of Chinese art and artifacts, one of the world’s finest. A brief examination of some of the wooden statuary and the Taoist and Buddhist murals is included.

The Toronto Public Library has a couple of book copies available for online reservation.  See here.

Amazon lists some used copies from various vendors with $30. being the low price when I looked. See here.

Wikipedia articles on various topics, all thoughtfully written and with links to yet more information and images –

Sometimes things go wrong, and images get mixed up. A Google page ( here) has an example! I think I’ll send them a note!

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Related Post: Buddhist Baroque: Colombo’s Gangaramaya Temple

 

Posted in Buddhism, Toronto | 5 Comments

Anishinaabeg Beadwork & Painting Exhibit At The Royal Ontario Museum

Posted on 2017-11-21 by true_north

I should have gone in June or July!  The Royal Ontario Museum hosted an exhibit (June 17 to November 19, 2017) titled Anishinaabeg: Art and Power which recently closed.  Sad to say,  I forgot all about it until the day before the show closed.  That morning a Toronto  Star article on the return of Indigenous artifacts was what prompted my memory.

I was feeling very low-energy thanks to the onset of a cold but knew I only had two days. Grabbing my camera bag and a couple of half-charged batteries, I headed over to the museum within the hour on the TTC.  At the ticket counter –  $32. for general admission and a special ticket to see the new Viking exhibit.  I was hoping I wouldn’t run out of gas before seeing all I wanted to –

  • the Anishinaabeg exhibit
  • the Viking exhibit
  • my long-time favourites – the Chinese temple murals and bodhisattvas and
  • the Chinese general’s tomb complex

The first stop was the third-floor room which housed the Ojibwe exhibit.  There were a couple of entrances to the room; one of them featured the following map showing the locations of present-day Algonquian peoples spread across the boreal forests in the Shield country of Canada and the northern U.S. – e.g. from the Algonquins in Quebec to the Mississauga, Ojibwe, Ottawa and Oji-Cree in Ontario, all the way to the Blackfoot and Cheyenne out west.

map showing current locations of Anishnaabek communities

map showing current locations of Anishnaabek communities

I wasn’t sure what to expect as I started my journey through the exhibit but this panel provided an explanation of what the three co-curators of the exhibit had hoped to achieve with their assemblage of paintings and beadwork. (See here for the ROM write-up of the exhibit and info on its three curators.)

The ROM Anishnaabeg exhibit's rationale

The ROM Anishnaabeg exhibit’s rationale

So –  beadwork dating from the 1870’s to 1925 and paintings mostly from the 1970’s by Morrisseau and those he inspired.  It was a narrower focus than I had been expecting and left me wondering about the word “power” in the title of the exhibit.  “Adaptation” seemed to fit the rationale better.

Above and below – details from the beadwork and painting on display. Except for a Saul Williams’ painting, the two art forms did not converge!

detail from Norval Morrisseau’s Thunderbird Woman. 1965

The exhibit was set up with the paintings – about thirty of them – on the periphery of the room.  The beadwork was highlighted in the vertical showcases, like the one in the image below, containing headless mannequins draped with sashes and bandoliers or wearing heavily beaded jackets.

Anishinaabe display-set-up: paintings on the walls and beadwork in vertical display cases.

In the center of the room was a horizontal display case area with various objects – carved dolls, a ceremonial club, among other items.

The paintings were grouped by themes but I didn’t really focus on that while I did my tour around the room.  The curators arranged the ones in the image below with “Ceremony” as the unifying theme. “Hurt”, “Creation” and a few other titles had images grouped under them.

Occasionally objects in the central display area would echo in the paintings on the wall. The display of ceremonial drums made me look again at John Lafort’s painting Drummer.

drums with painted skins

the back sides of the two above drums

Drummer-John Laford-1977.

Along with different themes connected with various painting groups, there were a number of panels like the one below.  Each was divided into four parts with an iconic pictograph on the top left (perhaps one of the many sketches taken from the ROM’s Selwyn Dewdney files) and an explanation of traditional Ojibwe culture or spirituality in English, Ojibwe, and French.

Thunderbird Man by Daphne Odjig. 1974.

Untitled. John E. Laford, 1973.

Sometimes the explanatory text sounded like simple parables written for ten-year-olds. And perhaps it was. Reaching out to indigenous students and providing them with an affirmative vision of themselves and of their past and future must have been one of the goals of the exhibit, even if not explicitly stated.

Frog image. E.Kanasawe

Flying Geese. Francis Kagige. 1973

Sacred Trout. Richard Bedwash. 1988.

Mother Nature and Woman. Roy Thomas. 1970.

Human Mother and Bear Offspring.Norval Morrisseau. 1970

Memekweshik. Norval Morrisseau. 1974.

Fisher With A Broken Tail. Jackson Beardy. 1972

another explanatory panel with pictograph image

One Who Lives Underwater. Blake Debassige. 1978.

‘

meditations-on-red-nadia-myre-2013

Meditations on Red. Nadia. Myre. 2013.

Woman In White Buckskin.Blake Debassig. 1976.

Of the various paintings, the ones I was most drawn to were those by Norval Morrisseau. While the exhibit’s mission statement used the term “artistic evolution” it seems rather mild to describe Morrisseau’s explosive impact.  How about “revolution”!  He created something unique from the rudimentary pictographs he saw and used it to infuse new life into the traditional myths and legends of his people, the Ojibwe.

He drew on the stories he heard his grandfather tell on the shores of Lake Nipigon when he was a boy.  Had he listened to the elders he would have put the paints away.  It was the encouragement of non-Indigenous people (settlers is the current politically correct term)  like the Weinsteins in Cochenour and Selwyn Dewdney in London who kept him expressing his vision on canvas and whatever else he could find to paint on.

Thunderbird Woman. Norval Morrisseau. 1965.

Shaman. Norval Morrisseau. 1964

Drummer. John Laford. 1977.

If there was one painting in the exhibit that tied together the Morrisseau-style paintings with the floral beadwork of Anishinaabeg women it was Saul Williams’.  It has the iconic Morrisseau circle overlooking the scene – I almost expected to see the cosmic lines connecting it to the plants and the woman!   And while it has some of that x-ray view of reality found in Morrisseau paintings,  the look takes more from the floral beadwork.  It even shares the same more muted colour palette as many of the examples of beadwork in the room.

White Women and Their Plants.Saul Williams.1978.

Something I did not think about while I was there was what preceded the use of European glass beads.  Since the aim of the exhibit was to take me ” on a journey through the artistic evolution of one of the most populous and diverse Indigenous communities in North America”  I missed seeing examples of the traditional pre-contact porcupine (and occasionally feather) quillwork.

There may have one or two examples that I did not focus on.  Perhaps I just have an easier time with the artwork on the periphery of the room than with the examples of beadwork which dressed a number of headless mannequins in glass display cases, as skillfully and creatively as they were done.  This may have been a great time to have a guide who could point out stuff and connections that I would never see or understand on my own!

detail from a friendship bag

While most of the paintings and other artwork on the walls drew inspiration in some way from Anishinaabe myth and the spirit world – especially Morrisseau’s paintings – the beadwork was marked by an all but complete absence of representation of mythic beings.  I did see one beaded image of what I take to be Animikii – the Thunderbird –

thunderbird motif in beadwork

thunderbird motif in beadwork

– but other than that it was mostly either geometric or floral (and sometimes florid and overly busy in a Victorian kind of way) patterns.  By the late 1800’s some Anishinaabeg girls would have been in residential schools set up to teach them the basic skills thought necessary to live in the new Dominion.  I wondered if this had an impact on Métis and Anishinaabe beading style.

There were a number of objects in the horizontal display cases in the center of the room – like those shown in the images to the left and below – but I, unfortunately, left them for last and then found it difficult to get decent glare-free photos of the ones I stopped to look at.  A return visit would have given me a chance to spend more time considering their place in the exhibit.

And (just kidding!) where were the dream catchers? If there is an Anishinaabeg artifact – other than the canoe – that is known the world over, it has to be the dream catcher. In fact, New Age spirituality seems to have appropriated it as one of their cultic objects. I’ve seen them hanging in mountain huts in Patagonia, a surf shop on the east coast of Tasmania …

the end of a ceremonial club

From afar I spotted the display below and my mind said “a young girl’s fancy dress”!  I had a duh moment as I read the identification card and learned that it was a man’s ceremonial hood.  That explained the bumps coming out of the black front of the dress!

man’s hood from Moose Factory area – collected between 1833-1845

And nearby were a couple of child cradles.  However, the Algonquian word for “child” is papoos and that is the word that many will use!

And finally this image – to me the most moving and intense moment of my visit as I stared into the eyes of the various members of this Ojibwe family – the two sons standing straight and proud with their beaded bandoliers, the two daughters dressed in the manner of those people from afar who came into their home and native land, and the mother and father, she with an elaborate bead necklace and he with a long-stemmed pipe.

I realize that 150 years ago to get one’s portrait taken was a deadly serious affair and no smiles were allowed as the subjects froze for fifteen seconds and the photographer did his thing.  I am sure a family portrait in Toronto taken at the same time – whether of a well-to-do family or first-generation Irish refugees of the Great Famine  – would have that same no-smiling look.

But I felt something else here. Perhaps I was reading more into it than is there? Perhaps it is all the current talk about reconciliation?  It is almost as if they were saying – “Now that you’ve come, what can we do together to make things right?”  I am left wondering how their lives unfolded, and if they were able to live fulfilling and happy lives relatively free of the prejudice and discrimination that comes from being a minority or the loser of a struggle for land and power. I think I know the answer.

an Anishinaabe family posing for a formal portrait

And it made me think back to a day three years ago when I stood in a museum in La Paz, Bolivia, looking at a collection of images much like the one above. Engaging, unsettling, provoking wonder…an Anishinaabe family in Canada, an Aymara family in La Paz…both adapting to new realities. Admittedly the situations which these two Indigenous Peoples find themselves is not the same. While the Anishinaabeg make up maybe 2% of Canada’s population, the Aymara and the Quechua together make up 90% of Bolivia’s population and in Evo Morales they have had an indigenous President since 2006.

 

My one hour with the Anishinaabeg exhibit was too short and in writing this I am left wishing I could go back to fill in some of the blanks.  Unfortunately, the exhibit is over.  I wonder if the Royal Ontario Museum will send the collection to other museums or if all the exhibit items will just be put back on their storage shelves in the basement.

As limited a look of Anishinaabe culture as it was, it also provided me with yet another lesson on what happens when cultures meet …  intersect … collide.

Related Posts:

Selwyn Dewdney, Norval Morrisseau and the Ojibwe Pictograph Tradition

Photos of  Photos – A Visit To La Paz’s Museo Nacional de Etnografia y Folklore

 

Posted in Anishinaabek World | 3 Comments

The Temples of Lalitpur (Patan) Before & After The Quakes

Posted on 2017-11-20 by true_north

Table of Contents:

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Patan & Kathmandu Valley’s UNESCO Sites

Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley does not lack dazzling religious and royal palace architecture.  The map below shows some of the seven sites that have made the UNESCO World Heritage list for their enduring cultural value –

  • Swayambhunath,
  • the Boudha Stupa,
  • Pashupatinath Temple,
  • Durbar Square in Kathmandu itself, and a little to the south,
  • Patan (aka known as Lalitpur)

Related Post: The Kathmandu Valley and Its UNESCO World Heritage Sites

The Kathmandu Valley & Its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

 

Kathmandu:Patan:Pashupatinath:Bodhnath

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The Kathmandu Valley’s Deadly Air

I set off early one morning on a four-kilometre walk from the Thamel district of Kathmandu to see Patan’s Durbar Square and its collection of buildings dating back to the 1600s.  Back then it was the capital of one of the three kingdoms which controlled the valley. These days Kantipur (i.e. Kathmandu)  has expanded to such an extent that urban sprawl has all but swallowed up Patan.  Only the Bagmati River creates a sense of separation from Kathmandu on the north side.

Given how bad the pollution in the valley has gotten since I was there last, on my visit in April 2018, I took a fifteen-minute tuk-tuk ride instead.  I wanted to get there without subjecting my lungs to an hour of filtering the deadly smog.  Unfortunately, my tuk-tuk ride ended up contributing to the problem!

Kathmandu pollution - Himalayan Times photo

See here for the photo source

Since my first visit in 1996, Kathmandu has become one of the world’s most polluted cities! Part of the problem is the massive increase in population. In the past twenty years, it has more than doubled to 1.3 million.  Add to that the exhaust of twice as many poorly maintained vehicles and the burning of coal and wood in the brick kilns.  (See here for how Kathmandu ranks globally in 2017.)   I came prepared with a half-dozen of the 3M 95 disposable masks to eliminate breathing in most of the harmful particulates during my stay in the valley after my three-week Mustang trek with the highlight being the crossing of Saribung La.

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The Patan Tourist Entrance Ticket

Patan tourist entrance ticket for Durbar Square

 

There is a 1000 rupee foreign visitors’ entrance fee to the square. I could feel the different vibe as I walked around.  Patan is not as frantic and touristy as the tourist ghetto of Thamel or Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. I remember thinking –  maybe I should find a place to stay here while I explore the valley!  Around the square and down the back alleys are several craft shops producing quality metalwork; I would spend some time looking for that perfect Buddha statue after my ramble around Durbar Square.

The 2024 fee schedule has not changed from the one above from 2016:

Kathmandu Valley site fees – see here for the complete list

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Patan Durbar Square Map

My last visit to Patan was in 2006; yesterday as I looked again at these images I wondered how many of the buildings were still standing after the 2015 earthquakes and aftershocks.

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The Vishwanath (or Vishveshvar) Temple

Below is an early morning view from the north end of Lalitpur’s Durbar Square. The Vishwanath (or Vishveshvar) Temple is on the right with its riders on elephants. The temple was erected in 1627 and the name it was given is one of the epithets of Shiva, that aspect of Brahman representing destruction. How fitting given the recurring earthquakes that have rattled the valley over the centuries and destroyed its buildings!

Some of the temples in the above image did not survive the 2015 quakes. To the left of the Vishvanath Temple (or Mandir) is the Krishna Mandir,  definitely one of the more exquisite pieces of architecture in the square; it still stands.

A column with a golden Garuda figure and the Vishvanath temple at the right of the image complete the scene. Like the Vishvanath to the right, it was built during the rule of Siddhi Narasingh and completed ten years later in 1637.

For Hindu pilgrims from outside the city, who come from all over Nepal and India, the Krishna temple is the most important and famous temple of Lalitpur…According to local chronicles, the king had a dream in which Krishna and Radha appeared in front of his palace, and he had a temple built on the spot. (Michael Hutt. Nepal.p. 146)

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Char Narayan Before & After The Quakes

However,  the temple on the left of the above image – the Char Narayan (also named  Jagan Narayan) with its two stone lions guarding the entrance – was destroyed in the 2015 quakes and other than the plinth nothing remains. Here are two more pre-quake views of the north end of the square.

 

The Char Narayan temple dates back to 1566 and was one of the older temples on the square. See below for a couple of internet-sourced images – the first one before and the second one after the 2015 Quakes.

Char Narayan  before 2015. See here for the image source

 

Char Narayan after the 2015 Quakes. See here for the image source

A German group – the South Asian Institute – has initiated a fund-raising project to help rebuild the temple. Their website provides excellent background on the temple’s significance as well as architectural drawings – check it out here.

Lalitpur Durbar Square

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Elevated South End View of the Square

I eventually ended up in a restaurant/café at the south end of the square, mostly chosen because of its third-floor view! As you can see, the square is a fairly compact collection of structures. In the center of the image is the three-story domed Krishna Temple (Chyasin Dewal), the eight-sided shikhara-style mandir. It was erected in 1723.  Next to it, the Taleju Bell is suspended between two stone pillars on top of a raised platform and to the right of the bell is the three-storeyed Hari (Shiva) Shankar (Vishnu) or  Shankar Narayan Mandir erected in 1706.

Here is another shot of the Taleju Bell and the Hari Shankar or Shankar Narayan Mandir and an internet-sourced image of the Hari Shankar by itself.  What really stands out is the wooden strut work with the carvings on them.

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2025 Earthquake Damage – Overview

Unfortunately, the Shankar Narayan Mandir did not survive the 2015 quakes. In fact, looking at the drone images below (accessed from YouTube videos) you wonder about the point of visiting at all, both in terms of time that could be spent elsewhere and the unchanged 1000 rupee entrance fee.

Lalitpur Durbar Square after the 2015 Earthquake

Perhaps the way to rationalize it is to see it as a donation to a reconstruction that you can see going on very slowly. The Patan Durbar Square of my memory – and of my 2006 photos – it will certainly not be.

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East Side Royal Palace Complex 

On the east side of the square is the royal palace with its series of chowks. Originally built in the 1300s,  the palace complex pre-dates those in Kathmandu and Bhaktapur. My shot from the patio of the restaurant shows the palace stretching the entire east side of the square.  To the north end of the palace complex, you can see the three-storeyed Taleju Mandir and to the right the smaller Degu Taleju and Taleju Bhavani Mandirs.   I would later spend some time in the museum, especially rich with fine metalwork sculptures.

Mul Chowk and Sundari Chowk on Lalitpur’s Durbar Square

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Looking For The Perfect Buddha

The following photos come from my ramble through the various lanes and alleys of the town in search of that perfect Buddha statue!  Below is the Vajrasattva figure I ended up buying after some shop-to-shop visits.

Vajrasattva (Dorje Sempa) with thunderbolt and bell in our backyard

In retrospect, it is funny to think of the energy I spent on a hunt that seemed so important at the time – a silly obsession that would have had the Buddha rolling his eyes!  Combine that with a concern of being over-charged and you have a decidedly un-Buddhist way to spend your time!

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People and Things That Caught My Eye

Patan – sculpture above a doorway

Eventually, I found the Hiranyavarna Mahavihara Newari Buddhist monastery – aka the Golden Temple – on one of the streets away from Durbar Square. It was “shoes off” at the entrance and then down into the courtyard with its large bell. To the side a row of candles and prayer bells. I spent some time in this very atmospheric little temple complex and taking more than a few photos.  However, transferring files from one computer to another and a few hard drive crashes over the past eleven years have taken their toll!  Where are those jpgs?

 

Patan – monastery bell

I eventually returned for lunch at the cafe I had been at in mid-morning and watched as the street life whirled by below me.

Lalitpur – school children in the square

Patan was the last of my Kathmandu valley visits and it may be that I was flagging a bit after four days of temples and stupas.  But there is more to see and perhaps next year I will!

Until then I have my Vajrasattva figure seated on a lotus holding his thunderbolt (Sanskrit vajra or Tibetan dorje ) in his right hand and a bell in his left.  I contemplate the wisdom and compassion he offers and my mind drifts to the impact of the earthquake on the lives of close to two million residents of the Kathmandu Valley as well as their cherished temples.  I think of the increasingly unbreathable air they have to breathe every day and the inability of the well-fed political class to do anything to improve the lives of the citizens they are supposed to serve.

————

Patan Update After My 2018 Visit

The Kathmandu Valley’s Patan April 2018: Part 1 – Durbar Square

The Kathmandu Valley’s Patan April 2018: Part 1 – Durbar Square

The Kathmandu Valley’s Patan May 2018: Part 2 – The Golden Temple and Vicinity

Related Kathmandu Valley Posts:

Kathmandu Valley Overview:

Temple and Street Shrines of Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley 

Temples & Street Shrines of Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley

The Kathmandu Valley And Its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

The Kathmandu Valley & Its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

1. Kathmandu (Kantipur)

Kathmandu’s Durbar Square After the 2015 Quakes – Worth the $10. Ticket?

Kathmandu’s Durbar Square After the 2015 Earthquakes – Is It Worth US$10/1000 NRP?

2. Boudhnath (Bodhnath)

The Boudhanath Stupa – The Heart Of Nepal’s Tibetan Community

Boudhanath Stupa – The Heart Of Nepal’s Tibetan Community

3. Pashupatinath

Pashupatinath: Shiva’s Kathmandu Valley Temple 

Pashupatinath: Shiva’s Kathmandu Valley Temple

4. Swayambhunath

 Swayambhunath: Buddha Eyes Over The Kathmandu Valley

Swayambhu – Buddha Eyes Over The Kathmandu Valley

5. Bhaktapur (Bhatgaon)

Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley: The Temples of Bhaktapur

Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley: The Temples of Bhaktapur

 

Bhaktapur Three Years After The 2015 Quakes – Part 1: Durbar Square

Bhaktapur After The 2015 Quakes – Part 1: Durbar Square

Bhaktapur Three Years After the 2015 Quakes v- Part 2: Taumadhi, Potters’, Tachapol Tols

Bhaktapur After The 2015 Quakes – Part 2: Taumadhi Sq., Potters’ Sq., and Tachapal

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Easy Travelling, Nepal | 1 Comment

Cycling Around Tasmania – Zeehan To Queenstown Via Strahan

Posted on 2017-11-15 by true_north
zeehan-to-strahan-elevation-chart

zeehan-to-strahan-elevation-chart

In the morning the rain was significant enough that the hotel staff had to place buckets in a couple of strategic places rot catch the drops! In the foyer my bags were already waiting for me to finish breakfast. And me? I was waiting for the rain to finish what it was doing! It was just after nine and since the ride down to Strahan wouldn’t take more than three hours, there was no point in heading out in a deluge.  More coffee, a couple more emails sent, another look at the elevation chart for the day to cheer me up – and the time passed.

Zeehan – Cecil Hotel lobby and a corner of the dining room

Zeehan – Hotel Cecil’s restaurant – aka Maud’s

By 9:30 the rain had stopped and I left the Hotel Cecil, pedalling up Main Street past the Heemskirk Motel to the junction with B27 Highway.  It would be an exhilarating downhill ride to Strahan; the chance that I was just cycling in an interlude in the rain meant I did not stop to take any pix.  Traffic was very light and I had the road almost to myself.

Zeehan’s Hotel Cecil after the rain

B27 took me right into Strahan. a small tourist community with an undeniably beautiful setting and some tortured history, thanks to its proximity to early 1800’s British penal colonies like the one on Sarah Island in Macquarie Harbour and the one up the Gordon River.

Note: These days Strahan seems to be made up mostly of rental cottages and other types of not-inexpensive accommodation;  my reserved  room at the Strahan Backpackers YHA on Harvey Street was one of the cheapest options available.

The Lonely Planet writer approvingly quotes from a Chicago Tribune piece on Strahan that it is “the best little town in the world”.  In the three days I spent there I never did get that feeling!  I was expecting this –

“the restored pioneer buildings – the cutesy shops, hotels and cottages crowding up the slope from the compact waterfront – and you’ve got a scene that could work as a Disney film set.”       Lonely Planet Tasmania (238)

While the waterfront setting is undeniably striking, there really is no “town” there!

What it does have is:

  • an 800 meter stretch down Harvey Street, with almost a dozen rental accommodation choices and the Strahan IGA.  It is not especially charming.
  • a one-kilometer walk along the Esplanade, running along the waterfront with nice views of the Long Bay that leads into Macquarie Harbour.

And that is about it. It reminded me of Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island. It too is a small community with an undeniable grand setting and like Strahan, it offers visitors all sorts of possible things to do nearby.  Like Tofino, there is really not a lot to do in Strahan itself.  Both small communities serve as bases from which to explore the natural beatury of the area.  For Aussies it perhaps represents their “end of the road and you can’t go any further” moment?  As for the locals,  I had the feeling that many people drove in from their homes in Queenstown for the day to work in the restaurants and tourist services.

At the top of the list of things to do would be the following –

  1. the Gordon River Cruise, a trip up the Gordon River after a visit to some sites in Macquarie Harbour (Hell’s Gates; Sarah island).
  2. Another attraction is the West Coast Wilderness Railway ride to Queenstown, as well as a couple of other ride options that feature spectacular scenery.  It rained two of the three days I was there but I did get in the boat ride up the Gordon to the site of the penal colony.
  3. There is also a long-running play The Ship That Never Was that seems to be on the visitors’ to-do list.

After dropping off my bags at the hostel I cycled down Esplanade to check out

Strahan waterfront Info Board

On the Esplanade is the outdoor theatre which has been putting on performances of The Ship That Never Was for years.

The Ship That Never Was – entrance

The Ship That Never Was – Stage and seating area

 

Strahan, Tasmania – downtown junction

The Gordon River Cruise:

 

 

 

 

Strahan to Queenstown:

Posted in bicycle touring, Tasmania | Leave a comment

Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley: The Temples of Bhaktapur

Posted on 2017-11-02 by true_north

Five hundred years ago the Kathmandu Valley had three major towns, each the capital of a kingdom:

  • Kantipur (aka today’s Kathmandu)
  • Lalitpur (aka Patan)
  • Bhaktapur (aka Bhadgaon)

When Nepal opened its borders in 1951, the tidal wave of modern ways swamped the traditional culture of the Valley. The city (pur) of devotees (bhakti) has fared the best in hanging on to its traditions.

Bhaktapur is located on the east side of the fertile 240 sq. km. Valley, which was Nepal until the military conquests of the Gorkha ruler Prithvi Narayan Khan in the late 1700s created the larger political space we know today as Nepal.

Related Post: The Kathmandu Valley & its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

The Kathmandu Valley & Its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

Both geology and local myth tell that the valley was once a lake bed.  Some 10 kilometers to the west of Bhaktapur is Lalitpur (aka Patan), and then it is another 3 to Kantipur. Five hundred years ago, each of these cities was the capital of a kingdom based on its share of the agricultural wealth of this valley.

Bhaktapur was also a stop on the major trading route from the Ganges River valley to the Tibetan plateau beyond the mountains.  These two factors helped create the most impressive Himalayan kingdoms, rich in architecture, crafts and artistic expression.

Bhaktapur’s brick and wood temple architecture and the sculptural works scattered around the old town wowed my wife Laila, and on our first visit in 1996; we overnighted at the Shiva Guesthouse at the end of a morning’s walk from Nagarkot on the valley’s eastern rim and enjoyed the almost-tourist-free hours in the evening and morning as we wandered down the narrow alleys and across the squares of the city.

The Shiva Guesthouse at the east end of Durbar Square with the Pashupati Mandir in the foreground

In 2006 I returned again to experience the traffic-free old town.  And soon –  in April of 2018 – another visit to Nepal!   After 21 days spent in Upper Mustang and a traverse via the high pass of Saribung La to the Phu Valley,  I will spend a week revisiting the various cultural sites in the Kathmandu Valley.

I plan to spend two nights at a guesthouse in Bhaktapur.

from the 2012 (7th Ed.) of The Rough Guide To Nepal – already on order is the Feb. 2018 edition!

Yesterday in a nostalgic moment, I thought I’d take a look at some of the images I took in 1996 and 2006 – and then dumped onto the hard drive of the computer I had at the time while I moved on to other trips and then stored yet more images.  Unfortunately, three newer computers and the occasional hard drive crash have taken their toll!  I found very few pictures that I figured were there somewhere – and barely enough to recreate some of what we saw on our previous visits.

Meanwhile, the Gorkha Earthquake of April 2015 also had a significant impact on the Kathmandu Valley, destroying thousands of homes and a significant number of temples.  It left me wondering which of my images were still an accurate depiction of what I would find in Bhaktapur a few months from now.

Most of the images I did find on my hard drive were of two main city squares on the Bhaktapur tourist trail – Durbar Square and Taumadhi Square;  both are inside the center square on the above map!

1. Durbar Square: 

Most visitors coming from Kathmandu will go into the city from the west end of Durbar Square.  A quick stop at the ticket booth for a tourist entry ticket ($15. U.S.) and the walk begins.  What you see will not be a total surprise since you have already visited Kathmandu’s Durbar Square. But as the vendors in the streets of Thamel say – “Same, same…but different!”.  Quieter, less chaotic, fewer signs in English – somehow more authentic.

Gopi Nath Temple (aka Jagannath) at the western entrance to Durbar Square

It also has helped Bhaktapur that a German-government-funded Development Project has, since the mid-1970s, invested heavily in infrastructure (roads and sewage) and urban renewal projects as well as temple rebuilding and maintenance.

Like the rest of the valley, major earthquakes have rattled the city, most recently in 1634, 1833, and 1934.  The Gorkha-centred 7.8 earthquake of April 2015 was just the latest natural disaster endured by the people of the valley. (See this article for a list of some of the effects.)

Durbar Square is in what was the royal district on the western edge of old Bhaktapur. It was not always as free of buildings as it is today. After some of the previous earthquakes, the rulers decided not to rebuild the destroyed temples or pavilions.

the east end of Durbar Square after the 1934 Quake

And now, after the 2015 quake, town administrators are left with the same question – let go or rebuild?

the east end of Bhaktapur’s Durbar Square

The above photo (source of the image – here) provides an example.  On the left is the Golden Gate, the entrance to the Royal Palace compound. To its right is the Palace of the Fifty-Five Windows.  They survived the earthquake with only minor damage.  In the middle stand the Bhupatindra Malla column and the Taleju Bell – they also survived.  On the right is the Vastala Durga Mandir (temple). It did not survive.

What to do? Focus on rebuilding a million homes for those Nepalis who lost theirs or rebuilding the temples so that tourists will want to return and see the wonderful Bhaktapur that they’ve read about.

The Golden Gate – Bhaktapur Royal Palace Durbar Square

The Golden Gate – also known as The Sun Dhoka and dating to the 1750s –  is actually made of brass or gilded copper.  Considered the finest single piece of artwork in the Kathmandu valley, the richly decorated doorway has panels of various gods on either side;. (Below are images of a couple that caught my eye thanks to the devotees who left daubs of colour and flower offerings.)

Ganesha, the elephant-headed son of Shiva

an image of Durga with a string of skulls dangling from her waist

Above the lintel is an elaborate tilted torana.  The ten-armed, four-headed goddess Taleju Bhawani is the focal point; above her, a garuda figure looks down from the top center and is flanked by coiled nagas or snakes and other figures.

the torana above the Sun Dhoka’s lintel

Taleju brass figure above Bhaktapur’s Golden Gate

Looking across from the Royal Palace and the Golden Gate, I can see the Shiva  Guesthouse and the shop where I bought the mandala painting on the ground floor.

The three-storeyed Pashupati Temple (also named Yaksheshvara Mandir) sits in front of the Shiva Guesthouse.

To the left is the corner of the Vastala Durga Mandir, the slender elevated white temple pictured above to the right of the Golden Gate. Note: the temple was a favourite location of the Little Buddha film crew for those scenes depicting the young Siddhartha (played by Keanu Reeves!) in his father’s capital of Kapilavastu.

the Pashupati temple – Bhaktapur Durbar Square

The Buddha teaches us that nothing that is is permanent!  The Vastala Durga temple collapsed in the 2015 Earthquake. The young men in the image below contemplate the Bhupatindra Malla column and the Taleju bell – both of steel-reinforced concrete, which replaces the previous brick and wood construction.   Behind the Taleju Bell is the Chyaslin Pavilion, a two-storey wooden structure which had been destroyed in the 1934 quake.

The octagonal building was then rebuilt by German engineers in the 1980s as a gift to the people of Nepal.  They somewhat controversially used steel for additional support, and some traditionalists were not pleased. It survived the 2015 quake with no damage.  (See here for a very readable article by the two German architects involved in the recreation of the pre-1934 Chyaslin Pavilion.)

the ruins of the Vastala Temple – Durbar Square 2015

Below is another image of the foundation of the Vastala temple before the 2015 earthquake.

From Durbar Square, it is a short walk to Taumadhi Square. As you exit the square, you pass by the already-mentioned Chyasin Mandap and, to the left, the Siddhi Lakshmi Mandir and Fasidega Mandir – as shown in the image below.

Siddhi Lakshmi Mandir and Fasidega Mandir in the background

Just as in ancient Athens, temples in the Hindu world essentially house the representation of the deity being honoured.  Here both temples sit on elevated platforms and have figures lining the steps on the way up.  On the Siddhi Lakshmi Temple, the steps are flanked – from bottom to top – by human figures with dogs at their side, horses, rhinoceros, lion/humans and camels.  They lead up to the inner sanctum.

Siddhi Lakshmi Mandir (Lohan Dega) suffered minor damage in 2015

In the photos above the white top of the Fasidega Mandir (aka Silu Mahadev or Fasi Dega) is visible on the right-hand side.  The net-sourced image below captures it in full from the south side. The temple had been rebuilt after the 1934 earthquake and given a neo-classical look. It was an unremarkable structure that should not be difficult to replace with something more expressive.

Now, seventy years later, it has collapsed again! Nothing remains except for the mandir’s five-stepped plinth. From the internet-sourced image below, it looks like the cleanup has been done.

Fasidega Mandir after the 2015 earthquake – the clean up has begun

Down a narrow street, passing by some shops selling items that either locals or tourists might be wanting, visitors soon find their way to Taumadhi Square.

2. Taumadhi Square:

After I toured Durbar Square, I headed for the south end of Taumadhi Square for some lunch.  I picked the rooftop café for its incredible views of the square.

the view from a rooftop Café at the south end of Taumadhi Square

I am always relieved when I arrive at a spot recommended by Lonely Planet and do not find a half-dozen other tourists sitting there, with their copies of the guidebook sitting on their table!  While the LP series of guidebooks has encouraged hesitant travellers to boldly follow in its footsteps, unfortunately, it can become a crutch and a limiting factor in your experience of new places. The thought was –  If it doesn’t get a Lonely Planet mention, it can’t be any good!  However, it may be that in the past decade, we’ve moved on to trip advisor and other web-based apps to tell us where to eat and sleep and what to see.

a view of Taumadhi Square and the Nyatapola Mandir and Bairabnath Mandir

Taumadhi Square is notable for the two temples seen in the shot above –

  • on the left, the five-storeyed Nyatapola Temple
  • on the right, the three-storeyed Bairabnath Temple

[Watercolour paintings by Henry Ambrose Oldfield from 1852. See here for the source.]

Bhaktapur – Taumadhi Tole – street vendors

I would go down into the square, make my way through the day market, and past the vendors with their sundry items – clothing, shoes, and plastic household goods.

another view of Taumadhi Square’s two main temples

The Nyatapola (built in the early 1700s and still standing after the various earthquakes)  is the tallest temple in the Kathmandu valley,  given a good head start by the five levels of the brick foundation that it sits on.

Again, as in Durbar Square, the steps up to the top are flanked by parallel figures, beginning with two human male figures.  Each successive set of figures supposedly represents a tenfold increase in strength.  The Lonely Planet write-up identifies the figures this way –

At the bottom are the legendary Rajput wrestlers Jayamel and Phattu, depicted kneeling with hefty maces. Subsequent levels are guarded by elephants with floral saddles, lions adorned with bells, beaked griffons with rams’ horns and finally two goddesses – Baghini and Singhini. Lonely Planet. “Nepal Travel Guide.”

Bhaktapur – top of Nyatapola Temple

The door to the inner chamber (it contains a statue of Siddhi Laxmi) was closed when I got there. Not that I could have entered anyway – it is reserved for priests and perhaps practising locals.  Above the door is a torana with the same arrangement as the one at the Golden Gate. On both, the Garuda figure hovers over the central image of the goddess.

the door to the inner sanctum of the Nyatapola Temple

I looked down from the vantage point on the Nyatapola’s top platform and surveyed the Square. This square, not Durbar Square, is considered the real heart of old Bhaktapur.

3.  Dattatreya Square  (Tachupal Tol) 

An-aerialview of Tachupal Tol with Dattatraya Temple in the center

A 1970’s aerial view of Tachupal Tol with Dattatreya Temple in the center – photo found at the Digital Archaeology Foundation website – see below for link

On previous visits, we did not get up to Tachupal Square, the city’s original main square,  with the Dattatreya and the Bhimsen Temples. There are now a couple of museums, one highlighting woodcarving and the other brass and bronze metalwork.  I will take the time – and perhaps even find a guesthouse on the square to stay overnight.  The Peacock Guesthouse gets excellent reviews and might be my choice.  Check back in a few months for some images!

4. Potters’ Square

The last of the major squares of Bhaktapur that tourists wander through is Potters’ Square. Besides the clay pots drying in the sun in the middle of the square, there are many handicraft stores and a few cafés.  Time to sit down and take a break from the multi-storeyed temples and stone sculptures of Hindu gods and goddesses!

In fact, Bhaktapur has dozens of smaller squares with a more workaday feel to them. Come to think of it, maybe two nights in Bhaktapur would give me more time to wander around and decompress after the manic activity of the Thamel district in Kathmandu.

The Impact of the 2015 Earthquakes:

Bhaktapur was severely rattled in April 2015 and then again a few days later.  Thousands of inhabitants lost their homes since they collapsed entirely or were unsafe to live in because of damage to the foundation or walls. Often the damage is not visible from the street – you could be looking at an intact and untouched front facade of a house, but the interior may well have collapsed. It makes the loss of a couple of temples on Durbar Square seem inconsequential.

I was moved by Amrit Sharma’s post on the situation in Bhaktapur written a couple of weeks after the first major quake. He includes bits of the conversation he had with a number of the locals. Click on the title to access – Exclusive, In-depth look at Bhaktapur — the town that everyone loves.

The Atlantic‘s website has a photo essay that looks at the situation a year after the earthquake.

When I visit in April of 2018, it will have been three years since the quakes.  I expect the worst after reading articles like this from April of 2017 – Nepal’s earthquake disaster: Two years and $4.1bn later.   In fact,  I still wonder if I should be visiting Nepal at all.

Sources to check out:

Dave Ways’ Longest Way Home website has well-researched and up-to-date information.  He has packaged his Kathmandu Valley material into one ebook bargain. It is also one of the most thorough guides to all that the various UNESCO World Heritage sites, including Bhaktapur, have to offer.  It is in the obvious and essential category of things to check out and bring along.   See here for more info.

If you’re going to Nepal, the best deal would be to buy the entire Nepal ebook instead of just the Kathmandu Valley one I did!

An interesting collection of historical images of Bhaktapur can be found on the Digital Archaeology Foundation website.  I have learned that it is another Dave Ways project, whose Kathmandu Valley ebook I downloaded!

The above author Dave Ways has also written the best summary of the state of the three Durbar Squares in the Kathmandu Valley post-2015 Earthquake and its aftershocks. What he writes makes me feel that Bhaktapur is the right choice for my last couple of nights in Nepal before I head for Tribhuvan International Airport and the flight back home to YYZ (Toronto).  Check out this Dave Ways’ blog post from September 14th, 2017 –

Which of Nepal’s Durbar Squares Is Better?

I found a Government of Nepal (Archaeology Department) report from February 2017 at the UNESCO World Heritage site. (See here for the UNESCO web page where I found it under the heading SOC Report by the State Party. It is labelled 2017).

The report has a few pages (pp. 24-31) on the state of various temples in Bhaktapur.  You can also download the entire 1.4 Mb pdf file from my website here.   I am hoping to see visible progress from last February when I visit.

I’ve already booked two nights at the positively reviewed Peacock Guest House in Dhattatreya Tol.  After almost three weeks in a tent, a bit of luxury will be my reward!

April 2018 – A Traverse Of Upper Mustang To The Phu Valley Via Saribung La

The Peacock (reviews here!) will be my base camp as I spend two days wandering the streets and alleys of my favourite urban corner of the Kathmandu valley with my cameras.  The classic Newari house dates back 700 years and was initially used as a pilgrims’ rest house.  It will be a photo op in itself!

 Related Posts:

Boudhnath Stupa from Stupa View Terrace and Restaurant

Swayambhunath – Dorje with Stupa in background

Related Posts: 

The Kathmandu Valley And Its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

The Kathmandu Valley & Its UNESCO Cultural Heritage Sites

 Swayambhunath: Buddha Eyes Over The Kathmandu Valley

Swayambhu – Buddha Eyes Over The Kathmandu Valley

The Boudhanath Stupa – The Heart Of Nepal’s Tibetan Community

Boudhanath Stupa – The Heart Of Nepal’s Tibetan Community

Nepal’s Kathmandu Valley – The Temples of Lalitpur (Patan)

The Temples of Lalitpur (Patan) Before & After The Quakes

Kathmandu Valley - UNESCO Sites

Kathmandu Valley – UNESCO World Heritage Sites

Posted in Easy Travelling, Nepal | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 7 – From Pickerel Bay To Hartley Bay To Recollet Falls and Home

Posted on 2017-10-11 by true_north

Previous Post: Day 6 – From N of Dead Island To Pickerel Bay 

Day 7 – Pickerel Bay to Hartley Bay Marina To Recollet Falls and Home

    • distance: 8.6 km
    • time:  8:10 a.m. start –  9:30 a.m. finish
    • portages/rapids: 0 – the grand portage home
    • weather: windy, overcast and a couple drops of rain
    • campsite: home sweet home


It had rained a bit overnight and it felt like a new front was moving in and chasing out with it the one week of incredible July-like weather we had in late September. There would be a few raindrops and some wind to paddle into as we made our way to Hartley Bay, less than nine kilometers away.

We could have exited the afternoon before but we had luckily slowed down. The reward had been an afternoon and evening of stunning views from CS 633 hilltop as the sun sank below the line of the trees to the west.

The other guys sharing the campsite with us – Hugo, Ian, Jacquelin, and Yannik – were staying for another night before their ride back to la belle province. As we paddled away I yelled up to them “A la prochaine!” This was not their first visit and we figure it won’t be our only one either!

Across Ox Bay and through the Canoe Bay Channel past a “For Sale” property with a lodge with a number of cabins on it and then north up Wannapitei Bay.  As we approached the entrance to Hartley Bay I wondered if the woman who was sitting on the sofa when we passed by at the beginning of the trip would be there.  Well, given the weather probably not!  She had said, “Everybody coming from the marina  knows to turn left after the dock with  the sofa!”  As we passed by the dock we saw the Muskoka chairs. As for the sofa, it was wrapped in a blue tarp to keep it dry until their return.

A bit further along the south side of Hartley Bay, we passed another property with a “For Sale” sign on it.  We wondered how much the owners were asking; when I got home I googled the answer  –  $249,000. See here for the listing.

Nearing the Hartley Bay Marina dock we noticed a lot of activity.  Above the dock was a trailer with eight canoes on it; people were carrying bags and gear down to the dock.  As our canoe came out of the water their red Nova Crafts were going in.  We were looking at a group of high school students from Sudbury at the start of their canoe trip to Georgian Bay and back. I complimented the teachers in charge for making the trip happen. The responsibility – and the paperwork – to organize a trip like this these days can be daunting.  They were pros who had done this a dozen times and appeared to have everything under control!

We got the Hooligan canoe packs and duffel bags and paddles into the car and then strapped down the canoe. Finally, we grabbed the bags with the clothes and shoes we had worn on the way up and did a quick change. Gone were the Tilleys!  We were back in street clothes and set for the Grand Portage home!

But first – a bill to settle.  We had already paid the park permit fees on our arrival at Hartley Bay Marina. Now we settled the parking and launch fee – 6 days x $10. + $10. + HST.  While free is always better, the marina makes for the most convenient entry point and safest place to leave your vehicle sitting for a week.  It really is a minor expense given the memorable trip you end up having.

French River- Dry Pine Bay To Wannapitei Bay

We did the 14-kilometer drive back to Highway 69 and headed south.  We had one more stop to make before we headed south to Parry Sound.  As we drove across the French River bridge we took the exit to the French River Park Visitor Center.  A visit to the displays in the Visitors’ Center itself and then a walk down to Recollet Falls were on tap.

As we walked from the parking lot to the Center we passed a collection of historical plaques celebrating various aspects of the French River story.

Canadian Heritage Rivers plaque – French River Visitors’ Center off Highway 69

Canoe Route To the West – historical plaque in the French River Visitor Center Parking Lot

Pierre Esprit Radisson plaque at the French River Visitors’ Center

Unfortunately, the center is closed on Wednesdays in September so no visit! We turned around for the trailhead to Recollet Falls. A pleasant twenty-five minute walk on a path that occasionally got a bit rough and we were standing at the top end of the falls and looking at the short portage trail on river left that would have taken the voyageurs and their precious cargo around.

 

 

 

 

Above the falls on river right was a long stretch of vertical rock.  I had learned that one of the French River’s four pictograph sites was somewhere over there but without getting much closer and taking the time to really look we would not be seeing it. Apparently, it is a painting of a single standing human figure with a couple of ochre slash marks next to it.  Maybe some other time we’ll paddle down from the other side of Highway 69, first checking out the other site just above the highway before floating down to the one above Recollet Falls.

vertical rock face just above Recollet Falls on the French River

In the early 1820’s John Elliott Woolford, an English landscape painter,  had come down the river in the service of British North America’s then-Governor-General, the Earl of Dalhousie.  What he eventually put on a canvas titled “Above Recollet Falls” elevated the rock face along the river banks to a whole new level!

Above Recollet Falls – Woolford. 1820’s

The French River travels straight down to the Ox Bay that we had paddled earlier this morning. Having crossed the Highway 69 bridge in a car a hundred times it was neat to stand at the falls and experience it in a way that was easier to connect to the voyageurs of old and the Recollet and Jesuit missionaries and Radisson, one of my childhood heroes. They had all come this way and the scene still looked much like the one they paddled into.

And then there is that other Woolford painting, “Fall of the Grand Recollet”, which presents the French River and Recollet Falls from below.  It too shows that some artistic license has been taken!

“The Falls of Grand Recollet” – John Elliott Woolford 1820s

We followed the 1.5 km. trail and the blue markers back to the visitor center but before we headed to the car we walked behind the visitors’ center.  The view of the center from there perhaps explains what people are getting at when they praise the structure for its architectural style because from the unimpressive front it looks like a rather ordinary shoebox. The all-glass back allows fine views of the nearby woods and the French River and the bridges crossing it.  We were heading to one of those bridges – billed as a Snowmobile Bridge!

the Visitors’ Center at French River – a view from the rear



The bridge may have cost as much as the Visitors’ Center to build!  I sure hope the snowmobilers get enough snow each year – and enough donations – to make the thing worthwhile.  Sure enough, when I checked Youtube there was an iPhone upload of someone who had taken the sign as a prompt and jumped off the bridge into the river!

Standing in the middle of the snowmobile bridge we got a classic view of the French as it completes its 110-kilometer run to Georgian Bay.  The photo above brought to mind a beautiful painting done by Sudbury-born (but now living in Killarney) artist Pierre AJ Sabourin. From his painting spot on the bridge, he has zoomed in somewhat and added a bit of vertical rock to river left and given it an updated Group of Seven “feel”. See Sabourin’s  Wordpress website here for more about the artist and a sample of his work.

Pierre Sabourin. Land of the Voyageur

We looked north to the Highway 69 bridge from the snowmobile bridge.  And then it was time to hit the road! We left around noon. By 3:20 p.m. we were negotiating the express lanes of the 401 and then zipping down the Don Valley Expressway at the end of a fantastic one-week paddle.

The French River Delta and the islands offshore make for a great place to go paddling during the off-season when there are few people in the Park. And to think it is only a 3 1/2 hour drive from T.O. to Hartley Bay! It’s a ride we’ll be doing again!

overview of our 110-kilometer French River Delta ramble

Logistics, Maps  & Day 1 (Hartley Bay To the French River’s “The Elbow”)

Day 2 – From the Elbow to the Bustards

Day 3 – From the Bustards To Eagle Next Point (West boundary of Park)

Day 4 – From Eagle Nest Point to East of the Fingerboard

Day 5 – To Bass Creek And The Park’s East Side

Day 6 – From the Georgian Bay Coast Up To Pickerel Bay (The Elephants)

Posted in Georgian Bay, wilderness canoe tripping | 2 Comments

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Days 6 – To Pickerel Bay (The Elephants)

Posted on 2017-10-10 by true_north

Previous Post: Day 5 – From CS 804 To Bass Creek to FR Park East Side

 Day 6 – From CS 712 (old #913)  North of Dead Island to Pickerel Bay (CS634; old #633)

  • distance: 18.2 km (and some hill scrambling)
  • time: 8:30 a.m.; finish 2:20 p.m.
  • portages/rapids:  1 – 150 m
  • weather: sunny and very hot; some wind;
  • campsite: CS 634 Pickerel Bay (The Elephants)

early morning – getting breakfast ready at CS 913

Note: the CS#s are the old ones; they were replaced in the summer of 2021 by Park managers with new ones! See here for the list of old and new #s.

The Day  6 program?  Leaving the G’Bay coast and heading up north!  While we could easily have paddled out to the car, we decided to spend one more night in the park, going up the Pickerel River and finding a campsite in the Pickerel Bay area.  There are several indicated on the official Park map. We liked the southern exposure of CS 634 and its location right on Pickerel Bay and figured it would be the likely spot. Time would tell!

Note: In July of 2018 a massive fire that began on Henvey Inlet First Nation land reached as far west as the Pickerel River – and in some places went beyond to Fox Creek. Here is a map of the extent of the fire –

Parry Sound 33 Fire of 2018

In June of 2019, we paddled down from Pickerel Bay to Georgian Bay via the Fox Creek route.  This post will give you an idea of what it looked like.  Scroll down to Day 7 –

Canoeing The French River From Top To Bottom: Days 6 & 7 – To Pickerel Bay and Down Fox Creek to Georgian Bay

As melancholy as it was – it was also raining that morning – it made for a memorable morning’s paddle.  While the campsites along the Pickerel River have been shut down because of the possible danger of burnt trees falling, the journey up or down the river is still worth making.  It can easily be done in a day’s paddle with some excellent campsites at either end  – in Pickerel Bay or in Fox Bay.

looking up the Pickerel River from a hilltop

To no surprise, the trip up the Pickerel was more of the same totally scenic vistas that we had paddled into on the previous five days in the French River delta.  I cannot remember a trip with as much of a “wow” factor as this one!

There was only one portage to do, a  150-meter scramble up and across a mostly rock outcrop with a bit of bush to dodge around. (The official park map has the portage at 90 meters.)  We were unsure initially about where the trail was but think we got it right. After the carry, we did go back and mark the beginning and end of the trail and gave the bush a bit of a trim.

A two canoe/four-person party – the first we had seen in days – came in just as we were finishing off.  They landed below the hut and improvised their own trail across to the put-in.  I remember thinking – “Well, so much for marking the trail more clearly!” We noticed that one of the other guys did it in bare feet. Later we found out that the rest of his group had nicknamed him “Tarzan”!

Just north of the portage, we paddled through a narrow and reedy channel. The notation on the park map reads “low water, dry area” but we did not experience that.  The two feet higher than before water levels help!  Even if it was a bit lower, the stretch is not all that long and a bit of walking the canoe up the channel would deal with it.  It is certainly not a reason to avoid coming up the Pickerel River from the Bay.

Pickerel Bay CS 634 – landing and tent spot

When we got to CS 634 (old #633) shortly after 2:00 p.m. we were ambivalent about the site. On the one hand, it had a stupendous view of Pickerel Bay thanks to the 10-meter high rock outcrop that had a few campsites on top, as well as a few closer to the landing area down below.

However, we were not convinced that any of them would be a good choice in a possible storm;  we were especially concerned about water streaming under our tent thanks to the slope of the various possible spots.  We decided to check  CS 635 (old #632) tucked inside the bay just 100 meters to the north to see if there was anything better. We did.  CS 635 is a dud!

Back to CS 634 we headed and decided to make do with an imperfect spot at the bottom of the rock face.  During the night it did rain but only briefly; We found a bit of moisture under one side of the groundsheet when we put away the tent in the morning.

.sitting in the shade on top of CS 634‘s scenic rock top – Pickerel Bay below

As for those hilltop views? They make the campsite a fantastic one.  We got to share the view with the canoe party we had chatted with at the portage. They were four guys from Quebec who were, like us, finishing off their one-week visit to French River.  One of them asked as they approached the landing –

  • “Would you mind sharing the campsite with us?”
  • “Not at all. Come on in; there’s lots of room!”

For a couple of them, it was a repeat visit and they already knew CS 634 having camped there last year.  They also had smaller tents and seemed to be less fussy than we can be.

Soon their three tents were up and six people got to enjoy the sunset from the top of CS 634, definitely one of the top 3 campsites of our six days out in the French River delta. The other two just as nice sites?

  • the one in the Bustards on Day 2 CS 900 (old #735)
  • the one at Eagle Nest Point on Day 3. CS 832 (old #816)

And, for the record, the remaining three sites in declining order were CS 712, CS 804, and CS 672.

Note: I’ve updated all the campsite numbers to reflect the changes made by the Park managers in the summer of 2021. I’ve included the old numbers since many paddlers will have now out-of-date Unlostify or Friends of FRPP maps as their guides. See  here for the official list of old and new #s.

Hugo’s tent on the cliff edge at CS634 Pickerel Bay

Max gets a shot looking up to CS 634‘s hilltop

night falls over Pickerel Bay – a quarter moon in the sky

As we sat up there on top of the rock with our cameras and our double shot of maple whiskey, we agreed that the trip had turned out even better than expected and talked about a return visit.  There were still more channels to paddle up and down and other great campsites to discover.  Late May or June, September or early October – all we’d need is the exceptional weather we had for the past week! And the best thing – it is all so close to Toronto – and yet a world away!

Day 7 - Pickerel Bay (CS 633) To Hartley Bay Marina -

Update:  

We did this trip in September of 2017.  The next summer a massive fire (Parry Sound 33) which began on the Henvey First Nation spread just beyond the Pickerel River before it was contained.  As a result,  the campsites up the Pickerel corridor are closed in 2019.  It would still make for a very interesting half-day paddle.  In June 2019 we came down the Fox Creek route from Pickerel Bay to G’Bay. See the following post – scroll down to Day 7 – for some pix. New growth is already visible.

Day 7 – From Pickerel Bay To Georgian Bay Via Fox Creek

Henvey Inlet Fire 2018 – and east end of French River Provincial Park

 

Next Post:  Day 7 – Pickerel Bay to Hartley Bay to Recollet Falls to Toronto

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 7 – From Pickerel Bay To Hartley Bay To Recollet Falls and Home

Previous Posts:

Logistics, Maps  & Day 1 (Hartley Bay To the French River’s “The Elbow”)

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Logistics, Maps, & Day 1

Day 2 – From the Elbow to the Bustards

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 2 – Down The Main Outlet From The Elbow to The Bustards

Day 3 – From the Bustards To Eagle Next Point (West boundary of Park)

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta:: Day 3 -The Bustards To Eagle Nest Point

Day 4 – From Eagle Nest Point to East of the Fingerboard

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 4 – From West to East – Up, Down and Across the French River Delta

Day 5 – To Bass Creek And The Park’s East Side

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 5 – To Bass Creek and the Park’s East Side

 

 

 

Posted in Georgian Bay, wilderness canoe tripping | 5 Comments

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 5 – To Bass Creek and the Park’s East Side

Posted on 2017-10-09 by true_north

Previous Post: Day 4 – From West to East – Up, Down and Across the FR Delta

Day 5 – To Bass Creek and F. R. P. P.’s  East Side

  • distance: 19.4 km (includes a side trip to Bass Lake and some hill scrambling)
  • time:   8:30 a.m.; finish 2:15 p.m.
  • portages/rapids:  1 / 1
  • P1 – 105m – side trip up to Bass Lake and then back again later
  • L/O – high water paddle/lining job or low water lift-over
  •  weather: sunny and hot; some wind;
  • campsite: CS 712 (old #913) in the delta; multiple 2 or 4-person tents, 1 nicely sheltered spot

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Table of Contents

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Checking Out The Bass Creek Portages

By 8:35, we were on the water for another day of paddling through the maze of rocks and islands along the Georgian Bay coast.  We had as our target the east end of French River Provincial Park and maybe – if we could find a good one –  a campsite on one of the Outer Fox Islands.  If not, there were some designated campsites nearby that we could check out.

But first – a reconnaissance mission!  We wanted to see the Bass Creek portages and the route up to Bass Lake.  Once there had been a tramway; then, there was a boardwalk.  We wanted to see what was there now!

NB.  All maps and images enlarge with a tap or a click or two.

looking west towards our last night’s G’Bay campsite

On the way, we did stop on Macoun Rock to stretch our legs and fuel up on Gatorade and a Clif Bar.  It was just after nine, and we were already feeling the heat!  To the north of us was Hershel Island, whose east side we paddled along a few minutes later.

Break time on Macoun Rock just S of Hershel I.

canoe beached at Macoun Rock

By 10:00, we were past Flat Island and nearing  Bass Creek.  After a 400-meter  paddle up the Creek from its mouth,  we came to the floating dock.  It is the take-out for the 115-meter portage.  (See the image below.)  Stashing our bags in the bush at the start of the portage trail,  we carried the canoe and paddles – and camera bag –  to the other end.  We’d be coming back in about an hour.

the dock and portage take-out spot on Bass Creek

As we paddled away from the put-in at the south end of a narrow lake, we looked back and noted the portage signs.  They were just two of perhaps eight or nine signs indicating a portage we would see on our visit!  Some – like the ones in the photo above – look like official park signs; others were probably put there by the landowners at the other end who are tired of paddlers tramping across their property looking for a boardwalk that no longer exists!

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The Used-To-Be Tramway and Boardwalk

Kas Stone’s Paddling And Hiking the Georgian Bay Coast provides some history to make sense of what was once there and what is there now.  Of the original tramway, complete with rail tracks and a flatbed car, she notes this –

The line was built in 1912 by the Pine Lake Lumber Company, which had just purchased the abandoned sawmills at French River Village and wanted to move them upstream to a new location on the Pickerel River.  Subsequently the tramway was maintained by the provincial Department of Lands and Forests for transporting firefighting equipment back and forth and also used by local cottagers and fishing camps to move their boats, building materials, and even their guests between the French River and Georgian Bay. Indeed, Rainbow Camp was built in the early 1920’s at the top end of the tramway to allow its guests easy access to fishing in both the bay and the river. (Stone, 71)

Eventually (no date was given), the tramway was taken apart, and the rails were removed.  It was replaced by a 240-meter-long boardwalk.  Stone’s book was published in 2008.  At that time, the boardwalk was still in use.  She writes –

Although the land around Rainbow Camp is privately owned,  the tramway [i.e. the boardwalk!] itself is available for anyone to use.

1990’s Federal Govt topo with the boardwalk portage indicated – NB no longer in use!  Use the signed portages instead.

However, some time since 2008, the boardwalk has been dismantled after falling into disrepair.  The apparent reason: the owner of the land it crossed was afraid of getting sued by someone who hurt themselves using it.  How that fits with Stone’s above comment, I am not sure!  Googling “Rainbow Camp Bass Creek” turns up no information!  There is a Rainbow Camp on the French River, but it is near Noelville on the North Channel on the east side of Highway 69.  The Bass Creek property has likely been turned into a private cottage.

I was surprised to see the boardwalk recommended as part of a route in Kevin Callan’s recent (May 3, 2017) article on the Explore website – 6 Northeastern Ontario Paddle Trips to Get Stoked On.   In the section on The French River, he gives canoe trippers some outdated-by-a-decade information.  Of the Bass Creek Tramway, he writes –

The return trip to the access at Hartley Bay Marina is by way of the Eastern Outlet and the Bass Creek Tramway. This 240-metre boardwalk, originally constructed of rails mounted on large timbers, was first established as a way for the lumber companies to move their mills off Georgian Bay and move them more inland.

There is no boardwalk anymore.  There is one easy portage at the south end and a lift-over at the north end!

the portage markers on the east side of the Bass Creek Portage

After our carry from the dock, we did the short paddle up the narrow lake to the second “portage.”  The official park map has it marked as “10 meters”.  We found a shallow and narrow channel – and maybe the beginnings of a beaver dam! –  that we pulled our way up.  We may have stepped out of the canoe to move it along.  According to locals, the higher water levels in 2017 – two feet higher – explain the missing mini-portage!

The 5-meter lift-over into Bass Creek – we paddled up and back down.

We were now in Bass Creek again, looking at a collection of signs pointing to the five-meter “lift-over” we had just negotiated.  Whoever put them there wants you to head for the narrow channel we had just come up rather than looking for a no-longer operational boardwalk!  The broken-line trail indicated on that 1990’s vintage Natural Resources Canada topo map above does not help matters!  The image below shows the remains of some of that boardwalk in front of the cottage.

private property on the east side of Bass Creek

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Bass Creek Scenic Lookout

We paddled south on Bass Creek past the property.  We should have stepped ashore and checked out the remains of the boardwalk and snapped some photos, but we did not want to annoy the owners.  In retrospect, we realize they probably weren’t there anyway!  We paddled down the Creek, soon beached the canoe, and scampered up that hilltop on the west side of the Creek you see in the photo below.

Max on top of Viewpoint Rock on Bass Creek – stupendous spot!

bass-creek-aerial-view

looking north up Bass Creek from the hilltop

Bass Creek – looking north and east

a grand view of Bass Creek – looking south

looking northeast up Bass Creek

a view from the top of Bass Creek

looking down Bass Creek

We spent a half-hour enjoying the views from our hilltop viewpoint and expressed the “wow” concept several times in different ways!  This was an unexpected bonus thrown in on top of what was already a fantastic scenic paddling trip.  I’m glad we took the time to get out of the canoe and scamper up the rock.  Sometimes my brother and I can get too focused on getting those kilometers in!

paddling back to the portage from our visit to upper Bass Creek

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Bass Creek – the #1 Easiest Way to Georgian Bay from Hartley or Ox Bay

Then it was back the way we came – down the narrow lake through the reedy part at the north end, over the portage trail and back to our canoe packs and duffels we had left behind – and finally, back down Bass Creek to the Georgian Bay coast.

If there is an “easiest” route from Hartley Bay to the Georgian Bay coast, one involving the least portaging, this route down Bass Lake and Bass Creek must be it.  Easy for canoers, it would not be that bad for kayakers either.  As a bonus, it leads you to Cantin Point and the shortest crossing over to the Bustard Islands.

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The Piece of Dock At Dock Island

As we headed east, we paddled along the south side of Dock Island and wondered about the dock pictured in the image below and if it was the reason for the island’s name.

We looked south and saw the buildings of the Georgian Bay Fishing Camp, a full-service lodge that looks a lot grander than its name!

 

Update: A reader – see his comment below – provided the explanation for the dock.  He writes:

The old dock in your one photo actually drifted over from the fishing camp. The camp has been unused since 2016. Lack of maintenace plus higher water levels allowed it to be set adrift.

Dock on the south shore of Dock Island across from Georgian Bay Fishing Camp

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Looking For a Campsite 

We soon stopped for lunch in Beacon Rock Bay.  Not far away were the Outer Fox Islands.  In the image below, Max is examining the map for the best way of getting over there for a tour of the small archipelago.  We thought we might find a possible campsite on one of the islands if it had some tree shelter and a flat spot for a four-person tent.  If not, as the map below shows, there were several designated French River Provincial Park campsites that we could check out.

Our visit to the Outer Foxes provided yet more great views and scenic small channel paddling – but, after checking out a few likely spots,  we did not find our campsite for the night.  We decided to aim for CS 913 (new #712), given its location and proximity to Genessee Bay since we’d be paddling up the Pickerel River the next day.

Note:  campsite #s are the old ones.  See this FRPP CS # list for the new #s issued mid-2021.

CS 712 (old #913) just above Dead IslandChannel

The site proved to be a good choice.  It had a sheltered and flat spot for the tent, with the earth floor being a bonus.  A dozen tents could be pitched nearby, depending on how fussy you were!  The rock outcrop running along the shore up the bay also meant we could explore later.

looking up the bay to where a couple of other campsites are located

CS712  seen from CS 711 (old #914)

We did walk up the shore of the bay to the next campsite – CS 711.  It was not as nice a site, and at first, I could not even see its marker.  The blue sign finally caught my eye as I looked over at the fallen tree trunks in the photo below.  The wind or a beaver – or maybe both – had done the job!

CS 914 marker

There is a boaters’ channel that runs along the coast.  As we sat there and looked out into Georgian Bay, we saw two boats make their way between Dead Island and the point we were camping on.  It was a Sunday afternoon, and we thought it might be busier, especially given our proximity to Key Harbour.  However, since it was late September, it was much more tranquil than during prime summer.  As for fellow paddlers, we had only seen one party of four kayaks and four canoes during our first five days out.  We basically had the park to ourselves!

the view of the boaters’ passage from our CS 712 

one of the fire rings at CS712

At the end of the day, we packed up the food bag and took it for a 70-meter walk down the shore.  It has been a few years since we did the nightly “dangling the food bag from the branch of a tall enough tree” ritual.  Partly it was because the terrain we were paddling in often did not have the trees required to hoist our forty-pound bag up.  These days – no more bear piñata!  Now, we slip the food bag – one of our two rugged nylon Hooligan Canoe Packs – inside a large garbage bag, put a log over it, and walk back to the tent.  Never an issue since 2012!

On tap for the next day was our trip back towards Hartley Bay and our vehicle.  While we could easily have done the entire distance in one day, we had decided to stop for the day just a bit short of the endpoint.  Given the number of campsites in Pickerel Bay, we were aiming for that.

Note: CS #s are the pre-2021 ones.  See this FRPP list for the revised numbers.

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Update: the Impact of The 2018 Henvey Inlet Fire.

Henvey Inlet Fire 2018 – and east end of French River Provincial Park

The 2018 wildfire was caused by construction crews working on the Henvey First Nation windmill project.  It spread as far west as the Fox Creek corridor and impacted the lower Pickerel River.  The campsites on the Pickerel – including 913/712 we made use of –  were closed in July 2018 as a result.

It should still be possible to paddle up or down the half-day stretch of the Pickerel from G’Bay to Pickerel Bay, but from a reader’s comment, it seems that CS913/712 is still closed.  She wrote (August 2022) –

We went to site 913 / 712 last week and it is closed- burned in a forest fire. We ended up on the same shore, closer to the point, as we couldn’t battle more wind that day to get to another official campsite. The spot we ended up at was nice, protected from wind, sleeping on flat granite. Posting this to help others plan.

 

The 2021 edition of the official Park map should indicate which campsites are still closed due to the 2018 fire. If you stop off at the Visitors’ Center to get your backcountry permits and a copy of the map, you might also ask the park staff at the info desk about closed campsites.

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Next Post: From N of Dead Island to Pickerel Bay (The Elephants)

Posted in Georgian Bay, wilderness canoe tripping | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 4 – From West to East – Up, Down and Across the French River Delta

Posted on 2017-10-08 by true_north

Table of Contents:

Previous Post: Day 3 – Bustard Islands Camp To Eagle Nest Point 

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta:: Day 3 -The Bustards To Eagle Nest Point

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The Day’s Basic Data and Map

  • distance: 18.2 km
  • time:   8:35 a.m.; finish 4:15 p.m.
  • portages/rapids:  3 + a few lift-overs and a bit of lining
    • L/O – 30 m – lifted and tracked
    • P1 – 120m
    • P2 – 20m Old Voyageur Channel
    • L/O – cross-channel – lift and track sections
    • P3 – Devil’s Door Rapids – 30 m up the hill, 30 m down the hill in two minutes!
    • L/O – 10m – perhaps a portage in low water
    • L/O – 5m beaver dam type structure
  •  weather: sunny and hot; some wind;
  • campsite: CS 689 (old #723) on the delta; multiple 2 or 4-person tents, 1 nicely sheltered spot

Day 4 – From Eagle Nest Point To CS 723 East of The Fingerboards Islands

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Heading To The Voyageur Channel

Another clear sky day was on tap as we went through the usual routine after crawling out of our sleeping bags and stuffing them back into their compression sacks. Intent on not missing the rising sun,  I  snapped a shot of the islands of Green Island Bay to the northwest and another of White Rock some 400 meters offshore from Eagle Nest Point.

looking south from Eagle Nest Point To White Rock in Georgian Bay

We were on the water before 9 and headed north. After a day of coastal paddling, we had something else in mind for this day. We were going to check out the French River’s two so-called Voyageur Channels, paddling up one and then coming down the other.

Visions of  Indigenous traders and guides, Canadien voyageurs and North West Company canoes came to mind as we made our way. No wonder when the newly established Canadian Heritage Rivers program began in 1986, the French River was the first river chosen!

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Checking Out Campsite #834 (old #818)

CS 834 (old #818) in Batt Bay/Green Island Bay

On our way, we stopped to check out CS 834, a site on the north end of an island a kilometer north of the one at Eagle Nest Point. It is one of seven designated sites in the Green Island Bay/Batt Bay area.

Eagle Nest Point and Surrounding Area

While it is a good site, it does not have the superb location of the one we stopped at. Note that the CS numbers on the map above are the old, pre-2021 ones.)

The CS # is now 834!

CS 834 tent spot on Batt Bay island – see Day 3 post for a map of the bay and campsites

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La Prairie –  Voyageurs’ Stopping Place

Update (2020): At the top of Batt Bay and the west end of the Voyageur Channel is a site identified by Toni Harting as a favourite stopping place of the fur trade brigades after their descent of the French River from Lake Nipissing. They usually did the French River in one or two days and then met at this spot – called  La Prairie – before continuing on to Georgian Bay and the journey along the Lake Huron coast to Sault Ste. Marie and beyond.

I only learned about La Prairie a couple of years after this trip by reading Toni Harting’s book. A recent post from last year’s trip down the French River from Lake Nipissing – click here –  has the details.

But more than that, it told me that my understanding that the voyageurs used the Voyageur Channel was incorrect! I had assumed the name given to this channel corresponded to the reality of their route choice. Not so! Harting writes:

On maps, the Voyageur Channel looks tempting as a possible canoe route as it is shorter than the others. However, this channel is very hard to access at low water levels, especially using large canoes. It seems, therefore, somewhat out of place to call this the Voyageur Channel since it is unlikely that fur-trade freight canoes would have used this channel on a regular basis given the great difficluties that would have been encountered. [Toni Harting, 32]

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Up Black Bay To The Top of the Voyageur Channel

Paddling east on the Voyageur Channel we turned north into Black Bay. We planned to follow it up to the top and then take the channel which runs parallel to it on the east – the Old Voyageur Channel – back down to Balis Point before turning east on the Cross-Channel all the way to Devil’s Door Rapids.

Even though we had the official Park Map, we had no idea of any complications along the way; the Park map does not show any rapids or portages.

The annotated map below shows what we found out over the next few hours!

The canoes (10 meters in length and about 1.5 meters wide) were the freighters of the fur trade, carrying the trade goods from Montreal to the far end of Lake Superior and then returning with the furs. The portaging necessary on the Voyageur Channel would undoubtedly have been more time-consuming and awkward than what was required on either

  • the Main Outlet’s Dalles Rapids or
  • the channel now called Old Voyageur Channel.

10:45 a.m.- at the top of a section

On our way up the Voyageur Channel, we first dealt with Washerwoman Rapids. An awkward tracking job – lousy footing! – it got done in fifteen minutes, and then it was on to the short portage at the channel’s top.

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Lunch At The Top of  Voyageur Channel

Twenty minutes later, we rounded the corner for the Old Voyageur Channel, where we stopped for lunch. Then we started to make our way down. the channel is certainly narrower than the Black Bay we had come up in the morning. We were struck yet again by what a sustained scenic marvel this trip was!

Having done canoe trips all over the boreal forest area of the Canadian Shield, we figure the French River area is not only one of the most accessible but also has the most day-after-day beautiful scenery. A bonus is that very little portaging is needed as you paddle around. The campsites are mostly terrific. This is where you bring a newbie to introduce them to the pleasures of canoe tripping – but in June or September when it is less busy than it gets in the prime summer months.

Hopkins. Canoes manned by voyageurs passing a waterfall. 1869.

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We Meet Two Paddlers Whose Trip Had Started In Alberta

Just before we came to the one set of rapids on the Old Voyageur Channel, we approached a canoe coming upriver. I was initially struck by the paddling technique of the couple in the canoe. They were alternating sides every four strokes. I remember thinking they were total novices out for a day paddle. Their response to my first question – “Where are you guys coming from?” – was yet another reminder of the danger of making rash judgments! Their response – “We started off in Alberta in May.”  Whoa!

We had paddled into Cas and Michael Wild, a newlywed couple from Scotland, on the last leg of their epic canoe trip, starting at Rocky Mountain House in mid-May. It was now late September, and they were on the home stretch to Montreal! We chatted for a while and then headed in opposite directions, they up to Lake Nipissing and the Mattawa River. You can check out their website for more on their epic canoe trip at The Doctors Wild WordPress website.

Chatting with the Doctors Wild on the Old Voyageur Channel

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Paul Kane and La Petite Faucille

Up next – that set of rapids around the corner! To the voyageurs, it was known as Petite Faucille, an abrupt one-meter drop in the river.   Given the length and depth of their canoes, a 20-meter portage was the norm.

Until recently, it was thought that Paul Kane’s painting “French River Rapids” depicted this very spot, turning the sketch he did at the scene in May of 1846 into a painting some years after returning to Toronto.

Paul Kane. French River Rapids. 1850’s

As I sat there on the rock, I looked for the rock face on the other side of the river. It wasn’t there! The assumption over the years has been that Kane took a bit of artistic license to heighten the scene’s drama at Petite Faucille.

La Petitie Faucille – Old Voyageur Channel rapids

I have since learned that there is a better explanation, one that was not found until 2006, when Ken Lister set off with his canoe, Kane’s journal, and a collection of Kane’s sketches. It turns out that Kane never came down the French River into Georgian Bay so he would not have had a drawing of any of the rapids! [See here for a map of his route to Lake Superior.]

In an impressive piece of detective work, Lister found the location of the mislabeled “French River Rapids” painting. It is referred to in Kane’s journal as “the French Portage.” Lister found it in northwestern Ontario!   As Lister writes –

The French Portage—part of the Kaministiquia River–Dog Lake fur trade route between Lake Superior and Rainy Lake—was known to fur-traders as the Grand Portage des Français and was used to bypass a long section of the French River that was shallow and winding.

See Lister’s account of his quest and how it all fell into place.

checking out the flow of the one set of rapids on the Old Voyageur Channel

Petite Faucille on the Old Voyageur Channel

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Down La Dalle And East On the Cross Channel To Devil’s Door Rapids

We continued down the narrow channel. Some swifts (known as La Dalle) as you approach Balis Point will speed things up a bit for about three hundred meters.

The cross-channel from Balis Point to Devil’s Door Rapids is a leisurely paddle with only one set of rapids to deal with. We lined our canoe past them and continued on to Devil’s Door, indeed a dramatic name. We got there just as some kayakers were cautiously going over the ledge of the rapids – though “Falls” is a better word to describe the 1.5-meter plunge. They went over, disappeared from sight for a moment, and reappeared as their kayak came close to smashing into the left-side rock wall. We needed to take a closer look before we did anything!

kayakers taking the plunge down Devil’s Door Rapids

The Friends Park map does not show the portage around the rapids. [Why not?]  We headed to a small bay on river left, beached the canoe, and scrambled up the rock to the top for fantastic neighbourhood views.

  • A look down at the rapids,
  • a look up the channel to where we had come from –

and then decision time. We were going to portage.

a view from above the Devil’s Door Rapids

Max checking out Devil’s Door Rapids

looking up the West Cross Channel from above Devil’s Door Rapids/Falls

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The Devil’s Door Portage

But where to portage? Our scramble up to the top of the cliff told us that this was not the way.

Once back down to the canoe, the answer became obvious. In our rush to get to that hilltop view of Devil’s Door, we had not noticed the 30-meter “path” littered with boulders going up to a ridge. We walked up to the top and looked down another 30 meters to the shoreline and a tranquil bit of water below the rapids. This was going to be much easier than expected!

 

looking back at our canoe from the top of the Devil’s Door portage trail

The bags – the two Hooligan Packs and the two duffels – and the four paddles went over first. Then I went back for the canoe. Max decided this portage would be captured in video and stood on the top of the path as I carried it up and over. Since the front of the canoe was at the rear, the first thing I had to do once the canoe was up on my shoulders was whirl the thing around. As for the carry –  total time? Two minutes! No big deal!

However, if you are looking for a bit more drama to go along with the name of the rapids, check out the account of the portage in this YouTube video – Devil’s Door Rapids – uploaded by a solo paddler earlier this year. The Devil’s Door Rapids section begins at 10:00 and lasts four minutes. It gives viewers a false impression and seriously over-hypes the 60-meter carry.

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Down The Cross Channel’s East Section

from Devil’s Door Rapids to CS 804 (old #723) E of the Fingerboards

Crossing Bad River Channel, we headed for the continuation of the cross-channel and easier and totally enjoyable paddling down a narrow channel past lots of vertical rock faces. Only two obstacles along the way, both of which we dealt with in a few minutes.

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Our Campsite On Georgian Bay

We were heading back to the coast and CS 804 (old # 723) on an island accessed from the interior side. A 50-meter walk, and you are on the Georgian Bay side. The collections of rocks on various flat surfaces are evidence of yet more tenting choices when tent pegs do not work.

CS 804 –  home for the night with a Georgian Bay view

The tent spot we chose was a flat spot nicely tucked inside a stand of cedars and pines with enough earth to use those tent pegs. After we set up a line to hang our down sleeping bags on for a bit of wind and sun, we set up the canoe as a tabletop and got supper ready. That done, we wandered over to the Bay side where, later that evening, we returned for some sunset views of the big water. We also got to see some old friends again – but from a different angle!

About four kilometers away from CS 804 are the Bustard Rocks lighthouses. We had approached them from the east on Day 3, and now we were looking at them from the north!

A few minutes later, with my back to the setting sun, I framed a photo on the other side of the island campsite. A different look for sure!

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Day 5 Preview

Day 4 had been an excellent paddling day; Day 5 would be a day we played tourist – paddling up Bass Creek to see what the portages were like – before heading back to the G’Bay coastline and a possible campsite in the Outer Fox Islands. None were indicated on the official map, but we hoped to find something suitable.

Day 5- From CS 723 To CS 913 Above Dead island

Next Post: Day 5 – from CS 804 to CS 712 With A Side Trip Up Bass Creek

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta: Day 5 – To Bass Creek and the Park’s East Side

Posted in Georgian Bay, wilderness canoe tripping | 2 Comments

Canoeing Georgian Bay’s French River Delta:: Day 3 -The Bustards To Eagle Nest Point

Posted on 2017-10-07 by true_north

Previous Post: Day 2 – From the Elbow  To The Bustard islands

Day 3 – From The Bustards To Eagle Nest Point

  • distance: 17.9 km
  • time:   8:35 a.m.; finish 2:20 p.m.
  • portages/rapids:  1  (75 m – Tanvat I.)
  • weather: sunny and hot; some SW wind; overnight rain showers;
  • campsite: CS 832 (old #816) on Eagle Nest Point; multiple 2-person & two  4-person tent spots

It was 6:45  and we were up with the sun. Given our east side of the Bustards location,  we took a few shots of the brightening horizon before we turned to the tasks at hand – packing away the tent and everything that was inside it and getting breakfast going.

This day we were headed to the west end of French River Provincial Park and figured on about twenty kilometers of paddling. A few would be over fairly open water but, if it was really windy and the waves were up,  there was always the shelter provided by some of the 30,000 islands that Georgian Bay is known for.

The good weather would continue and we got to spend the day without a worry. Paddling around the south end of the Bustards and towards the Bustard Rocks lighthouses? No problem!

note: in mid-2021 campsite # were changed. 735 is now 900!

However, we had something else in mind! We decided to check out the reported Bustard Islands Portage. Just SW of our campsite there is a narrow land bridge which connects the two halves of Tanvat Island.  When we got to the take-out we found a cairn at the start of a 75-meter “path” over and on the south side of the rock outcrop. At the far end was another cairn.  Now we know! Different weather conditions would make it quite useful.

the east end of the Tanvat Island Portage

looking east over the Tanvat Island Portage

We put our canoe into the water pictured below and continued on through the Bustards,  made up of some 600 islands and rocks of various sizes.   After two days of very scenic paddling we just had to say it again – “Man, this is so incredibly scenic!”  It would not be the last time we verbalized some version of this thought! For pure sustained “eye candy” I don’t think anywhere we’ve paddled in the Canadian Shield rivals what is here!

Tanvat Island Portage – west side

paddling through the Bustards to the lighthouse

We were heading for the Bustard Rocks from the east!  A month before Rick, Ken, and I had approached them by kayak from Point Grondine with water conditions much like we were facing this morning.

From the south end of Gooseberry Island, we got a nice view of the three lighthouses, the main one in the middle and the two smaller by a third ones.

approaching the Bustard Rocks light towers from the east

beaching our canoe near the main Bustard Rocks light tower

We pulled our canoe up on some flat rock just south of the main tower and hopped out to pay our respects! Out came the cameras as we walked around looking for interesting angles to frame.

the Bustard Light towers – a view from the South

the top of the main Bustard lighthouse

Bustard Rocks – the concrete foundation of the light keeper’s cottage

The lichen-covered concrete foundation just north of the main light tower once had the keeper’s hut sitting on it.  When the lights were automated in 1951, the keeper left and the hut deteriorated badly until it was finally demolished in the mid-1960s.

A bit of googling did turn up an undated image – perhaps from the 1930s or 40’s –  of what was once there. In the photo, a boardwalk to the small south beacon is visible, as are the keeper’s cottage and another building to the north of it.  Apparently, the keeper Tom Flynn and his wife, who manned the lighthouse from 1928 to their retirement in 1951, brought bucket loads of earth to the rock and created a productive vegetable garden. None of this is evident today – there is only the stark beauty of the three light towers with some knee-high bush on the Bustard Rock.

looking at the main Bustard Lighthouse from the keeper’s hut foundation

Bustard Rocks view to the south-west

If you want to see a few more shots of the Bustard Rock lighthouses, check out this post from our kayak trip down the coast the month before.

Kayaking the Georgian Bay Coast: Days 3 & 4 – Point Grondine To The Bustards

one last close-up of the Bustard light towers from the west

One last look at the lighthouses as we paddled away on the west side and then it was a half-hour – from 10:30 to 11 – to do the slightly more than three kilometers over to the collection of small islands and rocks known as the Fingerboards.  A bit more dreamscape paddling through a maze of rocks and islands and we started looking for a shady spot for an early lunch.  The image below shows what we found.

Out came our Helinox camp chairs – the ultimate luxury for two canoe trippers who obsess about the weight of everything! – and out came the lunch bag. On the day’s menu was the usual Thai soup and Wasa bread with – well, it is usually peanut butter but this day it would be mushroom paté. We enjoyed the reprieve from the sun as we took in the scenery.

our shaded lunch spot on an island in the Lodge Channel

looking over the rocks in Georgian Bay’s Lodge Channel

the Bay side of our Lodge Channel island lunch spot

We took no more photos until we got to our campsite for the day at the west end of the Park boundary.  There are a number of designated campsites available but we liked the sound – and the location – of “Eagle Nest Point” so that was our target.

When we got there we found – no, not the eagle’s nest! – but a fantastic site (CS 832 – old #816) with great views out towards White Rock and Georgian Bay as well as the rock island-speckled bay to the north. There were a number of sheltered tenting options for our four-person tent, as well as an excellent take-out spot for our canoe.  We were home for the day!

Eagle Nest Point and Surrounding Area – note– CS #s are the old ones.

looking over Green Island Bay from our Eagle Nest campsite

Green island Bay view from our campsite CS 832

taking in a sunset at Eagle Nest Point on Georgian Bay

Day 4 - From Eagle Nest Point To CS 723 E of The Fingerboards

Day 4 – From Eagle Nest Point To CS 723 East of The Fingerboards Is.

Next Post: Day 4 – From Eagle Nest Point To CS 723 (east of The Fingerboards Is.)

Posted in Georgian Bay, wilderness canoe tripping | Tagged , , , , , | 3 Comments