These pictures were all taken on the same afternoon,  in late August, 1997.  An afternoon for pensiveness and thinking in cliches.  Diffused light blurring their outlines so that the plant-forms emerged romantically in layers from their misty background. When I looked at the pictures afterwards it struck me that the same shape, a spiralling ellipse, seemed to reappear in many of them.

There were wild flowers everywhere. And it had rained recently, so some places were a bit soggy underfoot. Here and there, there are traces of the industrial uses to which the river has been put in the past, like this abandoned logging chain.

And humans have left their traces in the woods too. No natural process could have severed this tree trunk so cleanly. But nature takes over again, producing new life from the death of the old.

Looking down, one sees the roots of the trees drawing nourishment from what almost seems to be bare rock. Coming from temperate Britain I find it scarcely believable that this ground , which supports so much life, is frozen hard under snow for over four months every year.

Looking up, I see an eerie light coming through the trees. There's a waterfall further up the river and the light is refracted strangely through it, seeming to arise from below. Back at the water's edge, downstream of the waterfall, wood has drifted into spiral patterns which echo those of the tree stumps. Could that be an egg floating there?

It's certainly teeming. Can you see the two green frogs?