Tim Hunt
Tim Hunt explores his community outfitted with a small sketchbook, pen, and water colour kit. In our regular feature, he shares the pages from his sketchbook and tells the stories behind his work.
Tim Hunt: This sketch of my canoe on the river at Brantwood Park is a throwback to 2021. During that summer my kids and I paddled the section on the Rideau between the old train bridge by the Queensway and Carleton University on a regular basis. With COVID still affecting our daily routines, this was an easy escape, wheeling our lumbering 16-footer on a hand-built cart to the base of Clegg Street.
We followed the changes of season; the appearance of frogs and turtles, beaver, muskrat, and mink; and noted the arrival of different types of birds. Canoeing in the snow became a bucket-list item that we realized on December 13 of that year with our paddles breaking ice along the shore and propelling us through the slush on the frosty shoreline.
I managed to avoid COVID for three and a half years, until this July. Lacking the energy to get out and about afforded a good opportunity to look back at the canoe journal I kept during that time, from where this sketch was taken.
