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.
08/02/20109:44 AM
Event List
Hi
Everyone. Just a quick note to list a couple of upcoming
events. The dinner and auction for the 139 Kid's
Fund is on this Saturday at the Anahim Lake Community
Hall. Anahim and Nimpo Lake contribute a great
deal to the fund through this event. And yet for being
such small communities, they are actually one of the bigger
contributors in the Cariboo. So, keep it up folks!
There is a crib tournament on at the Hall just a couple
of days after but I'm not certain of the date. If you're
interested, keep an eye out for posters locally. Saturday, February 27 is the date set for the Annual
Poker Run starting at the Nimpo Lake boat launch at 10:00
a.m. SHARP. C'mon folks, lets work a little harder
at being on time this year. Waiting for up to an hour
for straggler sledders isn't fair to those that show up
on time. $5 per poker hand and food donations would be
greatly appreciated. I understand Lunch will be at McLean's
on Charlotte Lake where Chris and Linda will have the
barbecues fired up. Yum. We're still trying to decide
if we'll finish up with supper on the lake where we had
the New Year's ice party or up at Len's shop. I guess
it's going to depend on the weather. In any case, anyone
with a sled and five dollars burning a hole in their pocket
is welcome to participate. There is no limit to the number
of poker hands you can buy. Well, I guess if there's a
huge turnout you're limited by the number of cards we
have, but I think Leah is going to make sure there's lots.
Last, but not least.... The Ice Pool is on!
As of the first of February you can pay your five dollars
and put your name in for the time and day that you think
the ice will come off of Nimpo Lake. I'm not sure, but
I think the pool closes before the end of March so make
sure you get your name in. You can do that up at the Nimpo
Lake store. Half the funds go to the Nimpo Lake Community
Association, the other half to the winner and you get
your name on the great plaque Richard and Leah bought
last year for that purpose. While it's been dropping down pretty good at night,
the last couple of days have been marvelous. Sunny,
warm, and above freezing. At long last, we're having the
nice days our Chilcotin winters are known for. I don't
know how long it's going to last, but I'll take it while
I can get it. Yesterday it got up to 5C or 41F and while
it makes the snow a bit sticky for skiing, it sure didn't
stop lots of people from being out either walking on the
lake or side roads. Which reminds me, watch out for the
spider holes out on the lake, folks!
We haven't seen the baby moose for the last day or so,
but there's sign that he's eaten some of the hay Andy
put out for him. Here's crossing our fingers that he makes
it and thanks to Duke and Winnie for donating the hay
bale.
05/02/20103:26
PM
Back From The USA
Hi
Folks. I'm back from Quartzsite, Arizona to the good old
Canadian North. I was actually back a week ago but had
so much catch up to do that a blog just couldn't happen.
Still do, in fact, so blogs may not be all that regular
in the near future. It's just that I have a major project
to work on now and not enough time to get started on it
today, so it seemed like a good time to post an update
on what's been happening.
I was down in Arizona for two weeks, partly in search
for some warmer weather and to visit family. The
first couple of days that I was down it was really nice
out. Then while collecting cactus from neighbours for
my Mom's cactus garden, I managed to get a cactus spine
in my eye. It filled up with blood pretty fast that day
and the pupil was really dilated that evening, so we decided
I ought to go into Blythe just over the California border
to emergency the next day. Of course it was a Sunday and
Martin Luther King holiday so no clinics were open.
As a result we cooled our heels in emergency for about
five hours while I tried to talk the emergency
room doc out of sending me to Phoenix (over two hours
away) to a specialist there. The only way I could do it
was to promise that I would come back to emergency the
next day so he could take a look at my eye and make sure
it hadn't gotten any worse. Of course he gave me a hard
time about not wearing protective eye wear while moving
cactus because HE ALWAYS DOES! How was I supposed
to know? I'm from Canada, we don't have cactus where I
live. Needless to say, after a Tetanus shot, antibiotic
pills, antibiotic gel for my eye, and the emergency room
visits, I was thankful Andy purchased medical insurance
for me before I went down. Having to put the gel in every
six hours for ten days kind of put a blanket on the holiday
only because I was seeing the world through a blurry eye
for five out of every six hours every day, but fortunately,
the weather took a turn for the worse so I didn't miss
much.
The Sunday in emerg was the last nice day. For the next
three days it was overcast and a little rainy and cool.
Then on Thursday the region experienced the worst
rainstorm and windstorm they had seen in at least 20 years.
The 27 foot RV I was staying in was blown off its jacks.
Numerous Saguaro cactus (you know, those big cigar shaped
cactus that often have arms sticking out of them?) hundreds
of years old blew over from a combination of rain saturated
ground and wind. A couple of them blew over into people's
houses and did a lot of damage. They're really, really
heavy things. Some tiles were lifted off of roofs and
lots of trees blew over.
The huge swap meet that goes on in Quartzsite was on while
I was down there. A lot of tents covering stalls
blew over and many were flooded. There's a huge
tent that is set up for two weeks and I understand they
had to evacuate everyone from it and then tie as many
big, heavy trucks to it as they could find.
Quads and vehicles had to be tied to any planes and ultra
lights parked outside to keep them from taking flight
in the area I was staying. We lost power in the afternoon
for a few hours, and a lot of roads were flooded. It was
pretty interesting. I don't think I've ever seen rain
come down like that and the winds were clocked at 60mph.
I spoke on the phone to my brother that is based in Iraq
and told him about the storm and weather for the past
week. Of course I told him the same thing happened up
north in the Yukon this past summer. They had been burning
up for months with forest fires all over the place and
the night we arrived it started raining and pretty much
rained for the whole eight days we were there. My
brother decided that I could be hired out for a lot of
money to drought stricken countries. Just go on a holiday
there.
I have to admit that friends and relatives were looking
at me with some suspicion while I was down in Arizona
and it was whispered about that perhaps I should change
my plane tickets and return to Canada post haste, and
take the rainy weather with me. :-) However, for the last
couple of days the weather was really nice and warm and
sunny, so I caught a break at the last. It was wonderful.
At least until I landed in Williams Lake where I promptly
started chattering from cold, even though it wasn't much
below freezing. My, how fast we acclimatize to warm weather.
Andy had reported dreary grey weather for the past week
before my return but I figured it would clear up by the
time I got home. It's rare for us to have heavy overcast
for more than a few days. Not so this year!
It's been grey ever since I got home with heavy low cloud
and yet I suspect it's been clear and sunny a little higher
up, which was proven when the guys went out sledding on
Wednesday and got into sunshine as soon as they got up
off the plateau. I can only assume that El Nino has been
the cause of this overcast. At least the temperatures
haven't been all that cold. Last night was the coldest
but that's because it finally cleared off and we had sunshine
today. The temperature even made it up to 4.5C or
40F today, the highest in months and everyone's mood reflects
the warmth and the sunshine.
One of my neighbours was kind enough to send some sledding
pictures for the blog while I was gone, since I haven't
been around to take any. Ted also sent me a picture of
a moose calved last year peering into a sliding glass
door while his wife Deana talked to it from the inside.
Today another neighbour came over to get me and my camera
because the calf was down in front of their place and
not going anywhere. Little guy was parked in some bushed
just on shore watching the comings and goings, apparently
not minding the sound of a snowmobile or a snow blower
clearing an ice rink less than a hundred yards away. I
walked over to try and get a picture as did Andy, and
I was probably less than 50 feet away. Baby just
watched me so I didn't get any closer so as not to frighten
him, but I couldn't get much of a picture either.
He was well camouflaged. The four of us stood around talking
while standing on the ice for a long time and the baby
never moved. Perhaps he's smart enough to know that sticking
as close to human habitation as possible is the safest
thing for him to do. Neither coyotes or wolves will come
in that close. I think it's pretty obvious that his mother
has been shot, most likely by natives. This is their favorite
time to hunt when they can run the animals down on snowmobiles.
I only hope he'll make it to spring but because he's so
small, he might not. We'll try to help as much as
we can by not giving him any reason to fear humans.
We'll keep our dogs tied up and if I walk, I'll make sure
they're contained. I can only hope that other residents
will do the same. Obviously should anyone or anything
be stupid enough to come hunting him, there will be dire
consequences, I can promise them that.
While there isn't much of it, January's blog can be found
at January
Week One . I'll do what I can to keep
up the blog a little more than I did last month but no
guarantees folks. My desk is piled up so high with stuff
to be done that I kind of feel like I'm sinking into a
nest of alligators here.
Thanks, Ted for all your photos.
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!
