A few weeks ago, we made a trip to Lake Ontario, the Saint Lawrence River and Lake Erie to shoot more footage for our documentary The Sweetwater Seas – North America’s Great Lakes. The first stop was at Niagara Falls since the only other time we were shooting there was in winter. I wanted to get some slow motion of the water as it came along to the falls and down to the river below. We stayed on the Canadian side and wish we had gone over the American side for a day as well. We then headed down the river to Lake Ontario and travelled along the US side to the Saint Lawrence. We stopped at Chimney Bluffs to get a few images and should have flown the drone around, but the beach was filled with people looking at the bluffs. Did some ground shots and detail shots instead.
We spent several days along the Saint Lawence shooting aerials and ground footage in weather which let’s say was sometimes unpredictable. One evening we went to Tibbets Lighthouse to try and shoot once again – with permission from the lighthouse foundation – and as the sun set, there was a cargo ship, The Elbeborg, coming off Lake Ontario into the mouth of the Saint Lawence. We were able to follow it up the river and shot several scenes as it made its way to Waterford, Ireland in few weeks. Ironically after dinner we walked back into our hotel room and there it was passing right by!
From the Saint Lawrence we went across the Canadian side with a stop at Point Petre before we hit Toronto. I spent an afternoon on Wards Island shooting timelapse as the clouds went from overcast to clear blue sky. As you can figure by sunset the area was crowded with folks, including the rest of our crew, watching the sunset west of downtown.
From there the next stop was Pelee Point on Lake Erie, again a very busy tourist spot as you climb a tower to see the wilderness around the point. It is a place of many shipwrecks in past years, you can see why from the aerials. I watched an Egret fish for dinner in the wetlands.
All in all, we were able to shoot more footage to use, along with our first time shooting where all five of the great lakes start their journey towards the Atlantic Ocean. Hope you enjoy this rough edit of some of the footage we were able to capture.