Left: Children watch on as snake-wranglers demonstrate various tricks goading the rattlesnakes. Fangs have broken the balloons, foreground, during demonstrations at the annual Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater, Texas. The Texan cultural tradition, both horrifying and curiously fascinating, takes place during Springtime every March, when thousands of rattlesnakes are competitively captured each year and placed in pits inside the local arena, with wrangling demonstrations, milking, skinning, tables of bizarre crafts, the sale of deep-fried rattlesnake, and even a meat-eating contest involving Miss Roundup’s participation. Next photo: Individuality – each snake has its own unique markings and colors.
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Now that we are moving from Texas and may never live there again, I’m so glad we went. View more photos posted on March 15th 2009, the initial post of Rattlesnake Roundup in Sweetwater TX.
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Happy Halloween — earlier this year we drove through Rockford, Illinois on the way to set up the Trees Exhibition in Wisconsin. You never know what surprises await when you get off the main highways.
Kingston Ontario, webs on steel
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Small mock inuksuit are built by travellers and displayed on the rocky edges beside Hwy 17 in Eastern Ontario, particularly west of North Bay. Those in the shape of human forms are “inunnguaq”, historically built by the Inuit to help herd cariboo. I built one of my own too, but it’s not as easy as it looks! Next, Lichen amass on shoreline rocks along Lake Superior, Ontario, the largest freshwater lake in the world.
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Vegreville, Alberta, cnada boasts the largest Easter egg, or Ukrainian Pysanka, in the world. The work by Paul Maxum Sembaliuk is 31 ft (9 m) long and three and a half stories high. Vegreville, Alberta is noted for its high Ukrainian Canadian population.
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Theme displays with antiques and creepy maniquins, Rowley, Alberta Museum. I almost feel bad about laughing because the people who have created these displays are quite serious about bringing the town back to life, and they hope to put it on the map as a tourist destination. The amateurishly displayed decor is part of the ambiance and curious charm of the place. Rowley is now a ghost town, and was a shoot site for the films “Legends of the Fall” and “The Magic of Ordinary Days” in addition to “Bye Bye Blues”.
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