Autumn comes to the land of the Mighty Peace River by Dave Belcher

Panasonic Lumix LX2 28-112mm...

The gentle town of Peace River, Alberta (pop. about 6500), lies at the bend on the river while surrounding on all sides are the rolling hills and plains which make this one of the world's finest agriculture regions in Canada for the production of grain, livestock and honey. Also in the region are extensive deposits of natural gas and oil, but most of the people remain here because of the gentle, peaceful life. Early fur traders chose this as one of their waypoints and gold seekers on their way to the Klondike also passed through here. Just upstream from here, the Smokey River joins the Peace which eventually flows into Lake Athabasca and ends up becoming the Mackenzie at Great Slave Lake.

This view is from the "Twelve Foot Davis" memorial cairn on the hillside above the town, taken about an hour after sunrise. Davis was an early goldseeker.

I did a whirlwind tour of the Peace region leaving Edmonton Friday evening and returning Sunday evening, covered more than 1475 km and recorded more than 30 GigaPan panoramas, mostly of the autumn colours including one of my largest, 3.8 GigaPixels.

In autumn, the aspen and poplar trees turn a brillian shade of yellow-gold. On the far shore of the river is the local ski hill, Misery Mountain.