The December Month for Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake.

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' - just go into Archives on the lower left side of this page.
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07/12/2006 9:19 PM

Snowmobiles On Nimpo

It must finally be that time of year. Two snowmobiles showed up on Nimpo Lake today. It looked to be the neighbour from down at the other end and Bill from across the lake checking the ice.
Andy took the older Ski-doo out for a short spin today and said that it's pretty mushy in the back bay. I don't know if a spider hole opened up in the same place in the ice as it did last year, or if it's just lots of overflow. That bay has been frozen up for since long before our first big snowstorm. As a result, there's a lot more snow on it than there is out in the Main Arm of Nimpo. The weight of the snow on the ice pushes it down and allows water to flow overtop, saturating the snow. Hence, overflow. Nasty stuff if it's deep because it will slow a snowmachine down to the point that you can get good and stuck if the snow is deep enough.
The snow on the ice also provides insulation which means the ice doesn't grow into nice, clear, strong ice. Rather it's murky and weak, and often not as thick. Between poor ice, overflow and spider holes, I may not do much cross country skiing on the lake this year.
Last night there was a really strange warm wind and it was quite warm. By this morning it had started dropping below freezing and remained that way for the rest of the day. Now it's warming up and the wind has started up again. It's well above freezing and climbing. Definitely a strange reversal of normal weather! If a pineapple express comes in it'll melt the snow off of the lake, giving it a better chance of growing good ice. But it also means losing all this great snow we have. I guess you can't have it both ways though, can you?
We're still not hearing Nimpo Lake much. No groans, wangs or burbles and not gunshot cracks. Most of the sounds probably can't be heard easily because of the layer of snow on the lake. Or it could be that the same snow is insulating the ice so well that there are no extreme temperature changes. Therefore, no sounds from the ice. The same thing happened last year and it's a little disappointing because I really enjoy those 'outer space' or 'monster' sounds.
I realize that these posts are a little short. I've got a deadline with web sites right now and haven't even gotten out the door much so I can't even report anything new and exciting going on lately. But, I figure if I'm good now, I can play later when snowmobiling time rolls around!

05/12/2006 7:39 PM

Power Off, Snowing Again!

Hi Everyone. This is going to be a quickie! Our power was off for several hours today and I lost that time on the computer, so of course, I'm behind....again.
Someone at the Two Mile Reserve dropped a beetle killed pine on the power line and since it takes the lineman from Bella Coola quite a while to get up here, we knew it was going to be a long one. Anahim Lake wasn't out for long but we were out until supper time. As I said before, the problem is only likely to get worse so a generator may well be a 'must have' purchase in the near future. The big disadvantage of the sudden power outages is the damage it does to all of the electronic stuff, fridges and freezers. Although my office computers are protected by battery backup, I had my laptop out on the dining room table and Andy's computer was on downstairs. I think the laptop is okay because it has a battery and it was plugged in through a surge bar, but Andy's computer was screwed right up. He lost his 'desktop' completely and since he couldn't do a proper shutdown, he had to keep hitting his restart button until everything sorted itself out.
Last night it cleared off and the temperature started to really drop. At about -14C or 2F I figured, man, I better put some dogs in and make sure I had a good bank on the fire. I had no idea how much it might drop but the weatherman had said to expect much colder temperatures by the middle of the week. I guess the clouds started rolling in at some point because by dawn it was -6 and just a short while later it was just below freezing.
You could see low, white snow clouds rolling over the mountains, and then obscuring them. We had a little snow squall here for a couple of hours. Now it's clear and the moon is shining brightly again. This weather just can't make up its mind what its going to do!
At least we're waaay better off than Saskatchewan. I was talking to my web host over in Saskatoon and he said they've been doing nothing but shovelling snow over there for the past week and they're thoroughly sick of it! They usually get our weather about two days later so I told him they should see a break for the next day or so. LOL. Friends in Yorkton said the same as this guy...that there just wasn't any place left to put the snow.
We definitely have more snow than usual ourselves, this month. I was noticing today that the benefit of that is if you slide off the road, you probably aren't going far. Most likely you'll just smoke a snow bank that will stop you from going right into a ditch, and then you can reverse right on out of there. If you aren't going too fast that is.
We're all in the planning stages for the New Year's Party at the Nimpo Lake Community Hall December 31st. Andy's still in the process of taking around Thank You letters to the folks that donated for the Bingo, and already we're on to the next thing. At least the old hall is getting a good workout this year.
For those of you that think you'll be in this part of the country then, come check it out!

04/12/2006 6:55 PM

December Day

Today was an amazing day. The sun was shining and it was only a little below freezing. There was no wind so being outside was quite pleasant. I went for a walk with the dogs this afternoon and it actually got too warm after walking for awhile for all the layers I wear.
I saw our neighbour walking back from the boat launch on the other side of the lake from us. He checked with his auger along the way and said that there was six inches of ice all the way to The Dean on Nimpo. That's just about enough to drive on! I know that there are already snowmobile tracks over that way from a certain 'someone' carving the first run on Nimpo Lake the other day.
We got another skiff of snow last night and the little chickadees are going nuts on the sunflower seeds in the feeder. I'm not sure why that is, because it isn't that cold. I wonder if it's because so much of their food supply is buried under snow quite a bit earlier in the year than is normal.
I noticed on my walks the past few days that I'm seeing very few wild animal tracks. Some old moose and deer tracks half buried in snow but nothing fresh. Quite a few rabbit tracks so it must be a high cycle year for them. One thing of note is the lack of squirrels and squirrel tracks right now. They were absolutely nuts earlier in the fall but the food supply has to be pretty scarce for their numbers right now since the mountain pine beetle has devasted so many of the pines.
Our lane looks quite different than it ever did before. BC Hydro has come in and dropped a number of trees on the road that leads to ours and our two neighbours' driveways. Now there's a massive pile of red beetle killed trees that need to be cut up. The neighbour has a big job ahead of him. He still has more trees to be dropped that are almost on top of the hydro line but BC Hydro now says that the Government insists they can't cut anything within 45 feet of Nimpo Lake without a riparian study being done. Can you believe that? The trees are going to come down whether from wind or by man and they'll have a lot less effect on the water and the lakeshore if they're cut down, because then they'll be cut up and removed completely. If left to fall down, they'll not only take the electrical line with them, but they'll land in the water. I'll never know where the Government has its collective brain but it definitely isn't where you can find it easily. In any case, the landscape is slowly changing as more and more trees come down. I'm discovering views I never knew existed!
A low mist started rolling in off the lake this afternoon and now there's a pretty thick blanket of it out there tonight with a full moon shining creepily through. It feels a little like a 'werewolf' night. The picture up on the right shows what a pretty day we had but already the sun was setting in the early afternoon. Three more weeks before the days start getting longer again.

02/12/2006 7:19 PM

Craft Fair And New Property

The Fair at the Anahim Lake School seems to have been a success today. Certainly, there were a lot of people in attendance. The only problem with not getting out much is that when you do, you spend all of your time running into people, standing around and catching up. I got to talk to a lot of the people that I've worked with at the mill in the past and I don't get that opportunity much anymore. But as a result, I didn't really get a good look at everything on display. What I did see was great, and there was a terrific variety from Bella Coola, Hagensborg, Anahim, Nimpo and Tatla Lake.
When I arrived at the School, one of the police vehicles was stuck in a snow-filled ditch. Someone was trying to pull him out backwards with a pickup, while the RCMP member shovelled furiously, but the next time I looked, he was in head first and in even worse shape. Probably what happened is that the vehicle slid sideways when the pickup tried to pull it out.
Eventually someone else latched onto his vehicle from the front, which was down in the ditch, and pulled him out smoothly that way. And me without my camera....
I sympathized with the member a bit because it turned out he had his family with him, which I hadn't realized. I don't think many people did or they might have been more helpful. Unfortunately, it's tough for people to sympathize with the man's predicament when he's just stopped them in a roadblock four times in the previous month or two.
The weather was a lot warmer today with temperatures around -5C. It felt positively balmy when I first went out to unbury my truck from the snow it's been sitting under for the past week. But by this afternoon it seemed a lot colder, even though it wasn't. I think the humidity had gone up and it certainly looked like it was going to snow.
Another system is moving in from the coast and is poised to hit the central coast and the interior of British Columbia. More snow. We already got another inch or so last night and it's building up.
I picked up the neighbour's girl on our road on the way home this afternoon carrying her helmet. Her snowmachine track had stopped turning out in one of the back meadows and after lugging it about ensuring it wasn't stuck, she finally gave up and decided to start walking. She quickly decided that following her own snowmobile track back while wallowing in several feet of snow wearing a bulky snowsuit was a bad idea and decided to make her way up to the road instead, hoping for a ride home. She said there was excellent powder in the open meadows so I look forward to checking it out. I admit, it's been a long time since I've seen snow this good so early in the year. Now if we can just avoid a pineapple express...
I finally have that new property listing that I mentioned a little while back. Located on just a little over an acre on Nimpo Lake, this log home built in 1989 has two bedrooms, a beautiful covered deck overlooking the lake and a huge 32' by 32' two car garage with workshop. There's a large, lush lawn sloping down to the water and dock and the back yard is nicely developed with lawn, flowers, trees and circular driveway. I'm hoping to have the more detailed listing up under Properties For Sale by tonight or tomorrow.

01/12/2006 11:57 PM

Yikes! Only A Few Minutes To Midnight!

And my computer might turn into a pumpkin. Actually, I think it already has. It's really acting up tonight.
Just a short note for the day and I'll do something longer tomorrow given half a chance.
Temperatures were a little colder than expected last night and today. We started out with a pretty nice day that turned to heavy cloud by this afternoon when I went for my walk. I don't know what's coming in, but it looks like more snow. But hey, we've got nothing on Whistler just north of Vancouver. That ski hill has recorded about 13 feet of snow so far.
The birds were feeding like crazy today and that's never a good sign. I keep listening to the lake but although you'll hear the odd Waaang every once in awhile, it just hasn't been making the fantastic sounds it usually does this time of year and I miss that.
Things have been a little busy as usual and I had to miss out on a poker game tonight because I had to work on my pumpkin, er..computer, but tomorrow is the Anahim Lake Craft Sale and since I missed out on Christmas shopping in the Okanagan because of weather, I just might attend.
Laugh as you may at such a minor thing, the Craft sale at the Anahim Lake School is actually a major event for the area, mainly because there is no such thing as shopping here. We don't have malls, box stores or even quaint gift shops. We have heavy duty, down home General Stores that provide everything from frozen pizza to horseshoe nails. Great if you're just getting by living in the country but not so great if you're Christmas shopping for all of your loved ones. Hence, the Craft sale. For those who don't shop out of area, or even those that do, everyone in the country relies on it heavily to provide that special thing for family and friends. So look out folks, you'll probably get a special report on all the goodies I see tomorrow. Oh yeah, the baked goods...mmm.
Canada's Liberal Party is working on voting in a new leader tonight and for the rest of the weekend. A lot of people turned down temporary leadership after Paul Martin, our Prime Minister, went down in flames, thanks mostly to his predecessor, The Cretin. But keep in mind that that's my opinion only.
The newscasters are making a big deal of the whole leadership convention, even counting how many seconds one candidate spent speaking French. C'mon!!!! The man freewheeled his whole speech. No notes, no teleprompter. And he only spoke 90 seconds to 4 minutes out of a 13 minute speech in French? Horrors!!! You know what? Compare the population of French speaking people to the number that speak other languages in Canada, including English, and I suspect his percentage was right on. But God Help Us if We poor English speaking joes don't give the French more than their due! Pleeeeeze separate Quebec. Then Canada can become a successful country again.
Oh yeah, I forgot to add...that's all just my opinion. Oh, and another point. Not a single Liberal candidate brought up the matter of representation. Census figures for 2006 showed that the Western Provinces are massively under-represented in Government because of a huge population shift from the East to the West. Like the Bush Administration in the U.S. now that the Democrats have taken over the House of Representatives and the Senate, Harper's Conservative Government here is a minority Government. Yet I don't think that fair representation based on new census figures should be a matter of a vote in Ottawa. It should become law automatically. What's up with that? Yet no one is talking about it, including the new Liberal Candidates. We already know why with them. Their vote is predominately from middle Canada and the East but still, you would think that at least one of the candidates would mention it. If they cared about the Western Provinces, that is. Which they very obviously still don't. Someday...that's going to reach out and bite them where it hurts. Hopefully in the next election.
Happy Friday night. Hope to see you tomorrow! Oop, and no time to upload a picture of the day...!
You'll have noticed that I've started a new week, so you'll find last week's posts at November, Week Four.

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!

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