An hour ago, we had emerged from The Factory Store in downtown Bracebridge, Ontario, I proudly wearing this motto on my new t-shirt. The words surrounded a huge mosquito of fierce appearance, bearing a stinger of awesome proportions. The Factory Store prints your choice of image on a t-shirt, while you wait. Nicole Lavallee walked me through the process, showing me how they first print the picture on a transfer sheet using a computer, then heat- press from the transfer sheet to the cloth. Another fascinating use of new technology.
Life moves at a slower pace in small towns.
Now, hunched over my photographic tripod just north of Bracebridge, I'm trying to capture Jean Rahme on film, sketching one of the cataracts at High Falls, as it plunges over a cliff into a huge oval pool. The namesakes of my t-shirt are buzzing 'round my ears, eager to claim their pound of flesh. Buzzing, but not lighting. This last bottle must be twenty-five years old, and I smell like I died about that time, but the stuff still works, and no bugs are biting. Bracebridge is strategically located where the Muskoka River meets the North and South Muskoka Rivers, and is at the center of some very pretty country.