Wilderness Adventures - August, Week 3/2008
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This
is about a remote area in west central British Columbia, Canada
called the West Chilcotin. Surrounded by numerous glacial mountain
ranges, alpine lakes teeming with wild Rainbow Trout, and full
of wildlife. Living here goes from no running water or electricity
to spacious log homes with all the conveniences and without
the smog!
If
you would like to see pictures of wildlife, mountains, lakes,
exciting snowmobiling, events and more, and read stories like
'Lake Monsters' about the
Lakesounds
just
go into Archives on the lower left side of this page.
Rolling over an image will give you its description.
Check out the Picture
of the Day.
| 20/08/2008
7:10 PM
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Pouring Concrete
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Believe
you me folks, this is going to be short tonight,
I think! We spent just under five hours pouring
cement today for the footings under the greenhouse. It
went really well aside from getting rained on, but a job
like that you really don't want to stop and rest because
the concrete will harden up where the joins are, so it's
a little tiring. It's done though! And that wasn't a job
I was looking forward to at all.
It has showered off and on all day with one really wild
downpour mixed in there. There was some pretty loud
thunder but I only heard some of it over the sound of
the mixer and I had ear plugs in, so I didn't
get to enjoy the storm at all. I don't think it ever got
above 12C or around 53F today if that. But the whole province
is undergoing a cool down so it isn't just us. Right now
we're sitting under another huge, ominous looking black
cloud this evening so I expect it will rain some more.
Just for those...er....relatives that were making fun
of my lack of zucchini this summer, I just want you to
know that I made a terrific pasta sauce with zucchini
and tomatoes out of our garden tonight! Of course
I had to boil and skin the tomatoes because I could have
resoled the bottom of my shoes with the skins,
but other than that, they were pretty good. I may have
figured out why I'm having to do all the pollinating on
my zucchini plants, though. I have a frog living in the
vegetable patch, which would explain why I have no insects
in that part of the garden at all.
I've got a new place for sale on the Property
for Sale page and while it may not
be right on Nimpo Lake waterfront, it's pretty darn close
and it's well priced at $55,000. It has a cabin on it
with new roof, with a propane setup for lights and cooking
and an electric generator that is set up for the cabin
as well. Electric power will be put into the place in
2009 but the purchase price does not include that. There's
five acres, a meadow, pond, great building spots for a
house and lots of potential for development. Check
it out folks! As for me? I'm done for the night.
There's a beer in the fridge calling my name and I figure
once I park for the night, I'm going to have a hard time
moving!
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| 19/08/2008
7:32 PM
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The Furnace Blast is Over
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Our
fantastic, hot weather is officially over. While
it lasted I was getting things accomplished and so have
been a little slow on the blog. I'm sorry about that,
but good weather should never be wasted in the Chilcotin!
Several places throughout BC posted record breaking temperatures
through the hot spell and dry lightning touched off more
than one bush fire.
Our weather was supposed to change drastically Sunday
but both that day and yesterday were very pleasant days.
Actually, yesterday we got a couple of short, quick downpours
in the morning and then the sun came out and stayed out
most of the day. It was a bit breezy but that kept it
from being too hot. I took the dogs for a long, long walk
yesterday and was actually able to do it in the afternoon
instead of the evening because the temperature was pleasant
for a change.
Today is a different story. It's ruddy cold out
there. Well, by comparison, anyway. While Sunday
and Monday stayed in the low 70's, today hasn't gotten
much above 60 degrees Fahrenheit and some heavy, grey
cloud has moved in this evening, threatening rain. I'm
hoping it will be the same tomorrow except without any
rain. We're pouring concrete and since it's just Andy
and I mixing and pouring the footings, I sure don't want
to do it in the blazing hot weather we've had. Actually,
cooler weather is what we were waiting for. We've learned
our lesson.
Saturday we decided to go get the cement gravel we would
need. It was scorching hot and we bring home our truck
load of gravel and start shoveling it out of the back.
Since our dual one ton truck was groaning under the weight,
Andy figured we had about a yard and a half on. Here we
are standing in the back of the truck shoveling hot gravel
off, dripping sweat and I turned to Andy and said, "Why
in heavens name would we choose the second hottest day
of this summer to shovel gravel after choosing the hottest
day to lay forms?" You know, it's not like
we've had a long, hot summer and didn't have any other
choice. Brain dead. Both of us! No smarter than that mutt
we taught to swim. Actually, she's probably smarter. She
knows when to look for shade.
The guys went quadding Sunday. They had to build
a bridge for snowmobiling this winter and then
they did a little touring and some trail improvement and
got to show a couple of new people around. There were
ten guys and Richard's Mom and I think they all had a
blast. It's always fun when you've got new people to show
our part of the country off to. Two of the guys were from
the Charlotte Lake crew and they came up from the lake
on the new trail they and the Nimpo guys have been working
on all summer. One of them just had a knee operation recently
and I think the long, long ride about did him in but he
was doing great by the next day. I'm not sure his doctor
would have approved of his recreational activities, but
you can't just sit around when everyone else is having
fun!
People are still catching a few fish out on Nimpo
Lake but it was getting a little tougher during
that hot weather. Tough by our standards, anyway. It's
still rare to go out and not get a fish in an hour even
in the toughest times. Cooler days and some rain should
bring them back on in a big way, but there are always
lots of little lakes in the area that are great fishing
at any time, probably because they see no pressure at
all.
I've posted a couple of pictures of the fourwheeling work
party on the right. I'll return to posting more Rimarko
pictures as soon as I start a new week. I've got too many
pictures for a fast download time right now. If I'm not
plowing the dirt with my nose by tomorrow evening after
being on the wrong end of a cement filled wheelbarrow,
I'll try to do it tomorrow night.
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| 15/08/2008
8:40 PM
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Another Hot Day
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Today
was another scorcher, although not as hot as yesterday,
thankfully. We were still working on the forms for the
footings in my little heat sink today and it just got
hotter and hotter this morning. Fortunately, we had a
big cloud bank move through and although it was deathly
humid, it was still not as bad as working in the direct
sun. At least we got it all done other than laying in
the rebar. Now for the hard part. Making concrete. But
there's at least some progress and that's a good thing!
And our experience with the heat down there versus anywhere
else on the property confirms it's the right spot for
a greenhouse.
The temperature today didn't get much above 26 or 27C
or 79 degrees Fahrenheit today. Or at least I don't think
it did. I only had a chance to check the thermometer once
or twice today. I can tell you that I reserved my
walk for this evening after a breeze started up
and there was lots of shadow on the back trail.
It's a lot cooler in our house this evening than it was
last night. There was absolutely no wind so trying to
move air through this house took some doing. Boy, I sure
miss all those pine trees we used to have protecting the
side and roof of the house! Fortunately, in this country
it usually cools down a lot at night and by this morning,
Andy said he was freezing in the house. I think
we have one more day of clear, hot weather and
then there's supposed to be a cooling trend. I'm okay
with either hot or cooler. Hot's nice because my plants
love it and the new lawn is trucking right along, but
cooler is sure nicer for working outside.
The guys are supposed to be going up into our snowmobiling
area on Sunday to work on the trail and build a bridge.
That should be a lot of fun, the alpine part anyway, for
everyone that can go. Andy and Bill invited our new temporary
neighbours to come along and I think they'll fall in love
with the country. Especially higher up on the mountain.
The loons are starting to gather up, a sure sign
that fall is coming. There has been a group of
four, probably immatures from last year, hanging around
together, and now the adults seem to be less territorial
about their nesting areas and are doing a little cross
water visiting. Another sign of fall is the algae buildup
in the lake now, especially noticeable when the water
has been as flat calm as it has lately.
They've been talking on the news almost every day
about the bear problem down on the Lower Mainland,
especially where residential areas have encroached into
wildlife habitat such as around Coquitlam. Fish
and Wildlife says it's just going to get worse this fall
as bears become more motivated to gain up to
50% of their body weight in order to survive hibernation.
It still seems really odd that the bears are driven into
town because there are no berries down there, because
we have loads. I just wonder if the lack of salmon running
in the rivers this year doesn't have a lot to do with
it as well. Or just as likely, there's an overpopulation
of bears as there was last year in the Bella Coola Valley.
The best way to take care of that problem is to open up
more licenses for bear hunters if there's going to be
a continued conflict between humans and bears. Personally,
I figure the bears were there first but I don't think
the suburbanites agree with that, so I don't think there's
any choice but to cut down on the bear population. There
are only a couple of other things that I think you can
do and that's probably impossible as well. Provide
large bear proof garbage containers for each residential
block where homeowners can leave their garbage
instead of putting it out for pickup, and educate people
about bird feeders, ripe fruit on trees and bushes, and
vegetable gardens. The only other alternative? Build a
bear fence (electric fence with electrified cattle guards)
around residential areas threatened by bears, but
since most kids and teenagers are inquisitive by nature,
I can see that being a disaster! I can just see
a kid deciding to test the wire with his tongue. Good
learning tool though.... :-)
Oh,
and speaking of bears in case you were wondering about
the bear track up on the right and missed the Picture
of the Day a couple of days ago. Those very large bear
tracks at Rimarko Ranch in 1977 were the reason why the
teens decided to spend their time up on the roof of an
outbuilding, fortified with liquid courage, (more commonly
known as Labatt's Blue) and a rifle. You gotta love the
old days!
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| 14/08/2008
9:29
PM |
Heat Wave
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They're
saying on TV that three consecutive days of 32C or 90
degree weather qualifies as a heat wave. I don't
know if today's temperatures of 28C qualifies for them
but it sure does for us. That's extremely hot
for the West Chilcotin. Williams Lake and most of the
central interior posted temperatures above 30C, some up
to 37C and that trend is expected to continue until Sunday.
We were really lucky to get that three inches of rain
last week because we're in pretty good shape forest fire
wise. The ground in the woods is still wet, everything
has really greened up, and we're getting heavy dews that
are lasting until late morning. That reduces our
forest fire danger substantially. However, that
isn't the case further east of us in the Cariboo district.
I don't envy the Fire District personnel there for the
next few weeks.
We started laying out forms for the greenhouse today and
just about died from the heat in the process. Naturally
I chose the hottest place on the property for a greenhouse.
Makes sense to do so, doesn't it? However, choosing
to work in that heat sink on one of the hottest days of
this summer probably isn't the brightest thing we've ever
done. As a result, we got some work done and then
quit, deciding we really didn't need to get it done that
badly today. Tomorrow maybe. We still have to source gravel
for the concrete so there isn't a huge hurry. Still, concrete
will dry a lot faster in this weather than at 20 below.
We taught the pup how to swim today which is more of a
contradiction in terms than you think. Since I don't know
how to swim it seems laughable that I should be teaching
any creature how to do it, but fortunately,
dogs figure that stuff out a lot faster than humans.
Andy got into a bathing suit and dared to go in first,
albeit slowly. Nimpo Lake is a cold lake at the best of
times and even with the heat, it was only just bearable
at first. Our pup finally swam out to him once and then
came back in again. It didn't look like she was going
to go back out so I rolled up my jeans and decided to
be daring. Brrrr!!!! But with both of us out there, and
walking away from her because we had to go check a water
line, she swam out to us again. After that, you
couldn't stop her! She would swim out to us, circle
us for the praise and the pats and then back to shore.
The more used to it she got, the longer she would stay
out with us and we would pick her up out of the water
and give her a rest before she went back to shore. That
resulted in Andy getting scratched up pretty good but
the scratches will just add to his road map of scars.
Cat, (that's the pup) was just like a little kid. She
got so excited about her accomplishment that then she
started doing full belly flops off the shore and
swim out to us and stay out longer each time. Then she
decided that if she was going to swim back to shore each
time she might as well gather up a few reeds in her mouth
and take them back with her like a muskrat. It was our
hope that all the swimming would so exhaust her that she
would actually be calm for the rest of the day for a change
instead of getting into trouble. Not her. She was
so pleased with her new skill that she was full of piss
and vinegar all day. Worse than usual if that's
possible. It's pretty sad though when a six month old
pup now knows how to do something that I can't do.
Even though the moon isn't due to be full until Saturday,
it's already a spectacular cold white globe reflecting
on Nimpo Lake which is absolutely dead still. At least
it shows that we have little pollution from smoke in the
sky so far. Our flags are pretty limp out there right
now, it's still 19C and the bugs are just loving it! It's
too hot for mosquitoes during the day now but it's just
perfect out there for them tonight. It's too bad for visitors
that want to sit outside right now because it's been really
good of late.
I'm going to post a bunch of the old pictures that
the Rimarko Ranch guys gave me up on the right
and then at some point, I'll start posting the new ones
they took. The pictures are from 1977 so bear with me.
There's only so much that I can do with the quality because
they've yellowed so much over the years. Imagine if you
will what an adventure it would have been for a couple
of teenagers in the boondocks for the summer, lots of
big machinery to play with, horses, chickens, bears, sandy
beaches, no other people and bothered very little for
your pay. At first anyway! It's something every young
person should have to experience in their life. Talk about
learning independence, self sufficiency and just having
a good old time with not a video game in sight!
Last
week's articles, including a bit about the guys at Rimarko,
are at August
Week Two.
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The purpose of this web site is to draw attention to a
remote area of west central British Columbia. It is a
beautiful area that relies heavily on tourism. The search
engines don't know much about the West Chilcotin, Anahim
Lake, Nimpo Lake or any of the other small communities
in the region and I hope to change that! Even as large
as this site will eventually be, there just isn't enough
room or time in the day to fully describe this incredible
country but I am going to try scraping away at the tip
of the iceberg, so join me!
Follow
the links, and see what the West Chilcotin is really like!
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