Location Taken: Chaplin, Saskatchewan
Time Taken: June 2010
I think today I shall go really random in my photo choice. So here’s my mom standing next to two giant bird statues in a parking lot.
This was a small roadside museum/nature center and viewing point along the Trans-Canadian Highway. It was right next to a large salt evaporation pond, as well as a large (salty) marshland/lake fully of all sorts of birds. The nature center was focused on the birds as well, talking about how the area was a major migration stop for hordes of species, especially shorebirds.
The main gist of the place was that this large salt water lake right in the center of a large continent is downright crucial for birds used to living near oceans. It gives them a place like they’re used to on their long continent-crossing migrations, heading from South America to the arctic and back again with the changing of the seasons.
The local town of Chaplin is proud of the importance of their large lake for the birds, not to mention that it provides a nice industry extracting salt for them to sell. The people, not the birds, mind you.
This is all incidental, really, but at least it explains the giant bird statues.
The fact that my mother is posing in front of them is something that has no explanation.
Giant roadside objects are awesome. They need to be posed by. They practically insist upon it. Like giant prairie chickens and turtles and moose and the geographic center of North America…
Canadians understand this.
Sure, it can be understood, but can it be explained?!? I think not!