Time for reflection on water

If you spend much time on the water in a kayak or canoe, sooner or later you’re likely to be transfixed by reflections. Sitting so low in a kayak, reflections dominate your view of calm water from even quite close to where you sit. It’s easier to see beneath the surface by looking straight down but in the wider view, without polarized sunglasses, then reflections rule. All that lies beneath the silvered surface is rendered largely invisible.

Freeways cross over water Seattle

Trees and branches overhanging rivers and canals,  create scenes of pleasing symmetry. There is a similar visual tunnel effect between the two images below despite their very different locations, France and Missool, Raja Ampat.

Reflected plane trees, Kristin Nelson on Canal du Midi France

Arching nipa palms, Misool Indonesia

Some reflections appear more constructed than others. The bold reflected shapes beneath bridges with pillars arches and girders, quiver and gently distort as ripples move between the solid structures. I am left with the impression the solid structure exists beneath me, no matter what the actual depth is, or the real nature of the bottom. (for explanation of the green water color, see my Color of Water blog post)

Illusion of underwater dock construction, Seattle

Neither can I resist an opportunity to pause in the face of semicircular arches that are sucked into visual tubes by reflection. Do the curves really continue beneath the surface? Is this structure a tube, or is that just an illusion? The real bottom may be flat, and just beneath the surface, but it’s difficult to discard the impression that it follows the shape and depth of a tube.

Illusion of tubular tunnel, Kanu-Funsport Leipzig Germany

Reflected, concrete girders under a freeway that offer nesting shelter for pigeons and surfaces for clandestine graffiti scribblers create optical illusions of solid structures just beneath the placid surface, but as soon as the surface is disturbed the structures morph into dizzily shifting curlicue patterns.

Reflected Girders beneath freeway

Girders reflected in wavelets

Closer view of reflected girders in wavelets

The eye sees and the mind attempts to make order of the subtly shifting patterns. Only by taking a snapshot of the reflections does it become easier to see why the patterns are so challenging to follow. Even in a snapshot the crisscrossing wave patterns form such twisted reflections that seen out of context they illustrate a puzzling reality. Serving as Rorschach ink blots, the frozen shapes can conjure all manner of things, but rarely reveal the original object that was reflected. When the image is rapidly moving, what chance do you have of making sense of the shifting tree-ring patterns? 

wavelets create tree-ring style patterns

Ripples in motion

Stainless steel anchors, anchor pockets and scratch plates on ship hulls contrast the warping mirror of water, offering steadier mirrored surfaces. Just as from a flat-water surface an individual facet will reflect simply. However, multifaceted surfaces shatter reflections in a completely different way to water, creating collages of recognizable reflected bits of the surroundings.

Collage of reflections around anchor 

Water does something similar, but the effect is repeated many more times over by the procession of ripples each presenting its own set of constantly changing reflections from its uniquely morphing three-dimensional curves. Small undulations across an otherwise smooth surface cause shifting curvilinear shapes; shapes that are echoed in art including art from Papua.

Surreal abstract patterns of reflection in water

Although bridges and tunnels and docks offer some amazing reflections, there’s little more pleasing to me than cruising across flat water when the sky is blue with a few fluffy clouds. Looking ahead I have the sensation of flying high above the clouds, which shape-shift beside me as the wake from my bow warps the surface. Close beside my craft the reflected clouds seem to fade, and I can see through them into the water, perhaps seeing fingers of watermilfoil reaching up toward me, or fish darting away. And there on the surface itself, all around me suspended above the mirrored sky is another world of objects too light to sink, too heavy to fly. Here are insects that can walk on water. Here are floating plants, the leaves of waterlilies, feathers and twigs.

Cruising above the sky, Labrador (from the book On Polar Tides)

If you've enjoyed this blog post, find more of my creations on Nigel Foster YouTube channel, and on nigel foster vimeo. You can find my books on my store. I'm also available for presentations and special kayak instruction.

Reflection of canoeist, ceramicist  Kristin Nelson shattered by ripples 

The kayaks glimpsed in this post are by Nigel Foster (Point65 DoubleShot and Whisky 16 and Seaward  Kayaks Legend) 

On Polar Tides and the Torngat National Park

The Torngat National Park was created in 2005 at the northernmost tip of Nunatsiavut, Labrador. It encompasses a wonderful area of jagged mountains running down to fjords and steep capes, with islands offshore. 

The Torngat Mountains

It is tundra; the realm of the polar bear and caribou, wolf and arctic fox. Offshore the cold Labrador Current carries a procession of stately icebergs south toward Newfoundland.

The Torngat Mountains extend north from Nachvak Bay

On clear dark nights the sky comes alive with the dancing curtains of the northern lights that subdue even the brilliance of a full moon. 

A green curtain of the Northern Lights

Boasting some of the oldest rock formations in the world, at about 3.92 billion years old, The Torngat Mountains have shouldered an almost supernatural role affecting endless generations of hardy northern people. The strong winds that can slam down without warning from the mountains into calm fjords, the ghosting caribou camouflaged against the terrain, and the polar bears that appear where they were not evident a moment before, as if materializing from mist and cloud, could be easily identified as the spirits of these mountains. 

The northern extremity of the Torngat Mountains

Nowadays you can join a tour backpacking, flying in by helicopter or small plane, or by boat along the coast. Nunatsiavut Tourism nowadays can help you learn more. But until recently the idea of tourism remained a faraway dream. The Torngats were reserved for a handful of hardy adventurers and a few tourists arriving by boutique cruise ship.  So what was Labrador like then?

Violent winds can sweep the fjords to the icy sea

 You can gain more insight from my newly released FalconGuides book, On Polar Tides, (which better covers the ground than my earlier Stepping Stones of Ungava and Labrador.)  In the book the Torngat Mountains and the coast of Ungava and Labrador is revealed as experienced from a kayak before the National Park was created. Take a deep breath of the clear fresh air of northern Labrador, and dive into the story!

Purchase a signed copy of On Polar Tides from my web store, or find the book on Amazon, direct from the publisher, or from your local bookstore. I hope you enjoy! 

(Nigel Foster offers a slide presentation about his adventures in Labrador titled "On Polar Tides". Contact Nigel with any Requests/Invitations.