Six Mile Lake

Closed. Or open. So hard to know these days. The Province of Ontario, using only the finest in evidence based decision making to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, declared that people in the province could now form a social circle of ten. This is different from a social gathering of ten people. This is also different from a protest gathering of several thousand.

What is a social circle?

As we continue our shared fight against coronavirus (COVID-19), social circles are a way to safely expand the number of people with whom you can come in close contact. Think of your social circle as the people you can hug and touch, or those who can become part of your daily and weekly routines.

You can now establish a family or social circle of no more than 10 people who can interact with one another without physical distancing.

Everyone living in the same household is in a social circle.

People in the same social circle:

• do not have to physically distance
• can hug and touch each other
• should continue to follow public health advice, including frequently washing their hands and taking everyday actions to help stop the spread of COVID-19

The government even provided this helpful chart in case, you know, it seems confusing to create a social circle.

Social circles.

Ten.

Not eleven.

Or twelve.

Just ten.

But if you have a family of six, just four more.

As long as those four do not form a circle with someone else.

Anyway, we have been playing along with all of these interesting rules imposed by our government and we added our youngest son to our social circle.

Our park had a soft opening on the week-end and we rented him a cabin here. After being back in Canada for almost three months, I was finally able to see one of my children in person.

We decided that it would be great to go out together to one of our provincial parks and do some photography. The parks were recently reopened for daytime use.

But not really open. We went to Killbear Provincial Park first. And the nicest areas of that park were closed. The road to enter was barricaded with a fence and it was just too far to get to the best photo spots.

Here are a couple of shots I had taken at Killbear a few years back. The park has walking trees. They were just walking too far away from us.

We diverted to Six Mile Lake Provincial Park.

The main road was barricaded. With a car. They must have a bigger budget than Killbear.

We found a spot to leave our car and we took our chances by walking into the Forbidden Zone. The park was devoid of any human life. I was able to get a few shots in before an encounter with the park ranger.

“What are you doing here?”

“Just taking some pictures with my son.”

I thought the encounter might become a difficult situation however she seemed really happy to see some other humans. She pointed out some areas for us to shoot and wished us an enjoyable evening.

We stayed at Six Mile Lake until the bugs came out. At which point we made our way back to our park.

The best shot of the day?

This one.

I was so happy to be able to spend the day with my son.

Hoping to see the rest of my children soon if there is room in their circles.