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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!
| 21/06/2005
1:54 PM
|
Plane over Mountains
|
A
pretty picture of a floatplane over the
Coastal Mountains was sent to me by a member
of the British Columbia Floatplane Association
to go on their annual calendar. I think I'll use this
photo for the back part of the calendar just because it's
so expressive of the usefulness of the floatplane. For
high altitude bush and mountain flying,
the floatplane is probably one of the safest planes going
because if you do have to put the plane down, it can land
on a tiny, high mountain lake or on snow. It may not be
able to take off again, but it doesn't matter if you land
safely and are alive. That's what they make helicopters
for. The picture in the right upper corner is of a floatplane
coming from Vancouver, over the Coastal Range to the Nimpo
Lake Fly-In of July 2004. If you would like to
see more on flying in the Chilcotin take
a look at the Flightseeing
page and at the Flying
Gallery .
The BCFA was initially created by pilots in the Nimpo
Lake and Anahim Lake area to lobby for the right
to land on lakes in the parks of British Columbia,
and specifically, Tweedsmuir Park. The planes
do no damage to the delicate alpine or tundra by landing
on water, and generally pilots and their passengers stick
close to the lake they landed on, usually for fishing.
They are very conscientious about garbage in, garbage
out and leave the area as pristine when they leave it
as when they arrived. But it was a long, hardwon fight
to convice the Parks of the that. They succeeded in hammering
out an agreement last year.
|
| 20/06/2005
1:44 PM
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Happy Birthday to Me
|
I
just got a new camera for my birthday, so expect to see
better photos on the site. I received a new Canon Power
Shot A510. Small, compact, light but powerful enough to
take some pretty good shots of wildlife,
even at some distance. I can also add a larger lens accessory,
which will be a real advantage for shooting animals and
birds at a distance. I'm really excited about trying it
out and seeing just how close I can bring animals in on
my software after downloading to the computer. The old
digital just didn't have much capability so I was usually
forced to use the big 35mm with telephoto which takes
pretty good shots at a distance, that you can bring in
on the computer, as long as they're in focus. Something
I have a real problem with. So off I go to work tonite
with my little instruction booklet, dreaming of having
the time to play with my new gift. But for now, I'm going
to eat cake!
|
| 19/06/2005
11:13 AM
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New Property For Sale Page
|
I
will be launching an additional page to go with this site
listing properties for sale. Although there
aren't very many properties for sale in this area, I do
get a lot of inquiries from people about real estate.
Especially people who would like lakefront property
on Nimpo Lake, Anahim Lake and Charlotte
Lake or people who are looking for acreages or
ranches in the West Chilcotin. Some property
in the area can be quite reasonably priced, but much of
the lakefront property is pricy. Or at least
I would call it pricy, but then I've been out of touch
with the Real Estate market for a number of years. I do
know that property prices have jumped markedly in British
Columbia in the past five years. In any case,
I'm hoping this page can showcase some of the properties
and help out locals attempting to sell. In addition to
a couple of waterfront homes and resorts,
there is also at least one business (general store) and
possibly two, for sale in both Anahim and Nimpo
Lake.
|
| 18/06/2005
12:55 PM
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Mix and Match Saturday
|
No
one subject today, just a little of everything. The neighbour
just told me there was a moose in our yard
wednesday night. He also said it looks like the eagles
got the loon baby in the back bay last night.
Unfortunately, the eagles dive bomb the babies until they
drown. Got some photos back from town. These are from
a different camera, so there's a little bit of everything
on them. A picture of the Lonesome Lake burn
on the backside of Trumpeter mountain overlooking the
Atnarko River. Pictures of the Trumpeter
swans that came in this spring and settled on
the Dean River for awhile until other waterways
opened up. And the Ptarmigans we saw while
snowmobiling this winter. Although they blend in so well
with the snow that I don't know if they'll show up or
not. Mixture of sun and cloud today with warmer temperatures,
so the mosquitoes are pretty bad. We need either hot dry
weather or cold to get rid of them. Terrible flooding
over in Alberta again and Melville,
Saskatchewan ended up with 4 inches of rain in
less than an hour! I wouldn't have wanted to be in that
rainstorm. So I guess we're pretty lucky. We've gotten
a lot of rain, but nothing like that. The same with the
wind. We really haven't gotten much but the wind was so
strong in Maple Creek, SK that it blew three recreational
vehicles and two semi trucks off the road.
|
| 17/06/2005
7:25 PM
|
Golfing Wild West Style in the West Chilcotin
|
Went
golfing today at Nester's Golf and Country Club.
Wow Wee! Now that was some ride! Nester Malinsky and his
wife Phil have a really sweet little setup on the Dean
River. It's a beautiful place where lots of woodworking
and wood carving skills are apparent. Nester has lots
of balls, left and right handed clubs and tees available
to anyone that wants to play. Their son, Rick, and Nester
were going to show me how to play. They didn't realize
that they were trying to teach a losing cause, but they
tried. The 9 hole course is extremely challenging.
They say if you can play that course well, you can play
anywhere very well, and I believe it! Second
hole is on top of a very high, steep bank so you have
to somehow lob your ball straight up and down onto the
green. Go too far, and you'll end up over in a gravel
pit and have to beat your iron to death to get it back
onto the green. Or at least I beat my iron to death on
the gravel. The high surrounding pine trees are
quite a challenge as well. On one hole you are
up high already, and have to lob the ball into the top
of the trees, and let the branches slow the ball on the
way down. Did I say challenging? The greens are sand,
fast and really tricky. They all slope toward the water,
as Rick pointed out, and there's water all around. From
what I could see, the greens sloped every which way and
the odd depression, rock and pine needles caused split
second changes of direction. In any case, the course is
fun, challenging and total cost to play is only .25 cents.
Beats the big fancy courses, doesn't it? The course is
just a short distance out of Anahim Lake on Dorsey,
and then Ayres road on the Dean River. Check it
out. You wont' be sorry. Just don't bring your own clubs.
|
| 16/06/2005
2:10 PM
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Fresh Snow
|
Fresh
snow on the mountains last night after the clouds
cleared away. It's been quite cool the last three days,
and apparently it's been really cool up on Trumpeter,
Kappan and the Rainbow mountains. Once the clouds
cleared away yesterday afternoon, and we saw the sun for
the first time in a few days, you could see that quite
a bit of snow had dropped on surrounding mountains and
hills to a fairly low elevation. We received another two
inches of rain night before last. We're going to start
looking like Bella Coola pretty soon. As
one person commented yesterday, we'll be fishing for halibut
right from our front door pretty soon. This is extremely
unusual weather for this area. This kind of rain over
such a long period of time is virtually unheard of, but
I don't mind. We were in the fourth year of a seven year
drying trend that was looking extremely dangerous for
forest fires in this region and Cariboo Fire Centre out
of Williams Lake was really, really concerned about losing
Anahim Lake and Nimpo Lake to fire. Especially
with all the beetle kill making the forests pretty explosive.
But it sure looks good now! Everything is really green,
and the forest floor is fairly saturated. If we can make
it well into July with cooler, wetter weather, we may
get through the summer with no fires at all. Besides,
as I've said before, this weather makes for great
fishing!
|
| 15/06/2005
1:09 PM
|
More On Spotting Wildlife
|
Pictures
of black bears show that even they can blend
in with surrounding bush. Coming back from town a couple
of weeks ago we saw a sow black bear and her cubs
on the highway near Clearwater Lake. Unfortunately,
I'm never much good at getting a camera focused in time
or these pictures would be much better. Interestingly
enough, the sow had one black cub and one red and they
were pretty fat and sassy. They took off like crazy to
get off the road and back into the bush, but once there,
like all animals, they slowed down and looked back. All
three were hidden behind a couple of trees and would be
much harder to see had I not cropped and enlarged the
photo substantially. The final picture is of the mother
black bear standing watch after she sent her cubs
the rest of the way into the bush. The forest in this
particular area has very little ground cover, and is almost
park like between the trees, or you would not have been
able to see the bears at all. If you are interested in
more 'spot the wildlife' challenges, go
to last week's page at June
Week Two . This
page is starting a new week of stories so you'll have
to go to archives for more on wildlife with some great
photos and other subjects.
|
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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