I recall visiting The Tate Gallery approximately 15 years ago, spending virtually all day wandering around the exhibits, concluding that there was nothing that appealed to me: classical or contemporary. Admittedly that was before I started to appreciate art as an aspect of design, when I moved into web development.

Judging from the publicity material for Emily Carr’s exhibition at the National Gallery of Canada, it was apparent that this would be a different from the standard ‘show and tell’, telling the life and inspirations of Emily through her work, influences and relationships with her peers. And indeed it was, although there’s little about her background, except where it affects the work she produced.

Prior to the start of her career, visits to the First Nations communities in British Columbia influenced her strongly. Her first paintings showed First Nations people and the use of totem poles in the context of their communities. She painted an awful lot of totem poles. But she also painted landscapes – mainly trees. A lot of trees. Financial problems caused her to abandon her career in 1913, and it wasn’t until the late 1920’s that she resumed work, having come in contact with The Group of Seven whilst participating in an exhibition of Canadian West Coast art.

This time around her work became more expressive, still driven by landscapes – yet more trees – but reflecting her emotions, religious beliefs and her views on the Canadian logging industries that were destroying forests. It’s this latter phase that I found more impressive because her works was not simply a reproduction of what she saw, instead there’s often a skewing of the subjects – the merging and twisting of trees and rock formations, stylistic reduction of landscapes, broader stroke-work and incredible shades and colours.

I cannot handle a full day visiting a gallery because all the exhibits merge into each other and you end up with a mush of memories. This visit to the National Gallery therefore included just one more section: Contemporary Art.

There’s a lot of rubbish in the Contemporary Art section. You can always tell rubbish art when there needs to be detailed intellectual descriptions behind a piece of work. One series of works were ink and paper based maps, showing altitudes, roads, railways and houses. Imaginary maps for ghost towns. As in towns for ghosts. Yup.

Worth seeing is the brief Rock and Roll section, including one huge sheet of paper on which were printed album titles at 6pt. There is also a lot of art reflecting the legacy of First Nations people. But the highlight was a full-size truck trailer. Because it’s not a truck trailer. Instead it’s a canvas, thumbtack and plastic reconstruction of a trailer, complete with assembly instructions under its base.

Thursday was quite different from what we had planned. We set out under moderately cloudy skies to drive to Upper Canada Village. This is a development close to Morrisburg that is a working recreation of an 1860’s village.

On the way south the weather got worse and then the rain started. It stopped, started and then decided to pour down. By the time we reached our target it was dreadful – far too bad to venture out and about, so we abandoned the idea of wandering around the place.

Instead we ventured to a nearby Tim Hortons for a coffee and donut, to warm ourselves up. It’s worth visiting one of these ubiquitous fast food restaurants because the coffee is decent and cheap, as are the donuts. A little over CAN $2 for a medium coffee and a yummy chocolate caramel donut. Compare this to £2.25 for just a coffee in Inverness Station.

We then decided to take a route back home via a revisit to Merrickville for supper at The Goose and Gridiron.

Tuesday and a return trip to Gatineau Park. Last year we made a couple of trips to the park to wander around the lakes and some of the trails. This year I wanted to see some of the lakes we’d missed.

Sure, there are other lakes. Lake Fortune is huge. The ski-runs from Camp Fortune are adjacent to it, but you can’t get to the lake. It’s simply too steep to run steps or tracks down to the lake. You can only peer through the trees to glimpse it.

Lake Bourgeois is better, although you wouldn’t believe it, unless you were prepared to fight through the trees, bugs and undergrowth to get to the edge of this swampy lake. The park does intend people to walk down to the lake side. A few yards down from the parking area there are some steps, precariously perched at an angle, for one to venture down. Then it’s time to seek out the bare paths that others have trod to get down to the bottom:

It was a warm, sunny day, and all types of bugs were flying around including huge dragonflies which often bumped into us like little drunken helicopters.

Oh, and for those keeping track of my Dairy Queen obsession: just the one so far.

The weather is on the turn Wednesday, but on Thursday we’ll be visiting Morrisburg and Upper Canada Village towards the south of Ottawa.