Wilderness Adventures - October, Week 2/2008
|
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.
| 15/10/2008
7:48 PM
|
Another Short
|
Hi
everyone. I apologize but this is going to be yet another
short one. I'm still going to beat the band on printing
and am doing that while I write. Since that's the
equivalent of walking and chewing gum for me, I won't
be at the writing part for long.
It was yet another cold night last night and my flowers
are really starting to suffer. Most of the annuals have
had it, between hard freezes at night and cold temps during
the day, except for the pansies of course. They're amazing
little buggers. They always look half dead covered under
a heavy layer of frost in the mornings, but are bright,
perky, and still blooming like crazy by afternoon. Most
of the perennials are looking pretty ragged too but they
held out for quite a while there. I guess that's to be
expected but it still saddens me to see the plants going.
That, and the light. Boy, is it ever getting dark
early now and we haven't even gone off Daylight Saving
Time yet!
We had a really pretty day with sun and some high haze.
It only got a few degrees above freezing but at least
we didn't have more than a light breeze so it didn't feel
quite as cold. There was some powder up on the mountains
yesterday just as though someone had sprinkled a little
icing sugar on them, but it was gone by this afternoon.
Maybe it's warmer at upper levels than it is down here
again.
Tweedsmuir Air's Beaver was up and down on the lake this
afternoon. I thought the owner had taken it home because
the other one had been put ton bed for the winter and
I'm sure I hadn't seen the second one tied up at the dock
lately. But I may have missed it or he may have taken
it somewhere to have work done on it and brought it back
here to check it out. It didn't look like he was loaded
and he landed and took off a couple of times, circled
and did it again. I don't know if he was doing touch and
goes, training someone, taking out hunters, or what. But
it sure was nice to see it still flying. Winter's not
here yet!
It's definitely chilling down tonight! There's
a big old, fat, orange moon rising and though there's
some high haze, it won't be enough to keep the heat in.
Every morning now the ground is frozen solid. The rain
we got the other day was just enough moisture for it to
freeze. Unlike last year where it snowed before the ground
froze. From the looks of the weather forecast tonight,
it looks like we're in for some truly nasty weather tomorrow.
While Bella Coola is expecting a deluge, I expect we'll
get snow unless it warms up substantially. That doesn't
seem likely with as far south as the jet stream is dipping.
I suppose I should go dig out some snow shovels, eh?
I was going to talk about our Canadian election
tonight but I don't have the time and I'm still PO'd at
British Columbians. So rather than ruin my good
mood I'll pass on the rant for today.
|
| 14/10/2008
9:33 PM
|
Shorty
|
This
is going to be quite short tonight, folks. I'm on a roll
with printing my calendars today after being sick for
the last few days, and don't really want to take too much
time out.
I got an email from a reader who would like to track down
a lady that used to live in the Chilcotin and with her
permission, I am reprinting a portion of it here. For
any of you that live here, used to live here, or know
some of the background on the Chilcotin, any help or knowledge
you can impart would be much appreciated!
- "I needed to ask you about a family that
lived out your way. I don't know just where they were,
and the daughter that I know is now living in Italy with
no email so I can't just drop her a note and ask. Anyway,
here's the story as I know it... My friend Georgie Adessa
(I never did ask her her maiden name) grew up on a remote
ranch in the Chilcotins. An airplane would drop in school
supplies once or twice a year, and in good weather her
mother would get on a horse once a month and take a week's
trip to get some supplies and mail out the lessons. My
own children were home schooled, but in the Sr High years
we did straight correspondence courses from the province's
home school headquarters so that we could be sure the
kids got University entrance. One year we read in Social
Studies about cattle brands and one of the brands they
mentioned was my friend Georgie's family brand. I can't
remember what that brand was or I could track it down.
Since you were raised upcountry I thought I'd see if this
means anything to you, if you may know any of these people
or have any idea where they were. If not, it's an interesting
story, at least to me, a country gal living too close
to civilization!
Sharron" -
Thanks ahead to anyone that can help. Just drop me a line
through the contact page and I'll pass it on. Geez, this
is almost like message hour when I was a kid!
There was definitely the predicted weather change overnight
but not quite what I had hoped for. It dawned bright,
beautiful and ruddy cold this morning and never did make
it up above 4.7C or 40F today. Some really high haze moved
in preventing the sun from ever really heating things
up and a cool, brisk wind didn't help matters much either.
It was just as well. I have lots of computer work but
if it had been warm enough, I would have been outside
today painting.
I waited until I figured it was as warm as it was
going to get today before going for a walk with the dogs
in the back woods. thankfully, no more carrion
or offal along the trail but the pup sure has a nose on
her! It was still tough to get her away from the site
even with everything cleaned up. It was a good walk, anyway
as long as I stayed out of the wind.
There's a full moon tonight with a high haze reflecting
the light, but I think it's going to be another cold one.
It's already -4C and I've got a fire rocking in the wood
stove.
I don't have time tonight to change the pic of the day
so it'll stay the same as yesterday.
|
| 13/10/2008
1:45 PM
|
The Back Trail
|
It
would appear that stupidity still reigns supreme in the
world. It was a gorgeous morning and I was looking
forward to taking the dogs for a long walk today. We had
just gotten to a junction where all the trails meet when
the dogs went nuts and I couldn't call them off of whatever
it was they were on. When I got up to them it looked like
they were on a deer carcass and most of my concentration
was on getting them away from it.
As we continued down the trail, me trying to keep their
attention on me rather than where they really wanted to
be, I got more and more furious. I figured someone
had shot our local deer that had been hanging around.
Unfortunately, you can't prevent that from happening.
We don't, after all, own the wild animals and disappointing
as it would be to know a neighbourhood animal had been
shot, there's not much you can do about it. But what was
even more infuriating was that someone would leave the
carcass where everyone walks. While it's not exactly Stanley
Park, it's akin to it in that it would be just like
someone dumping a carcass right in the middle of a trail
in Vancouver's jewel. However, it's a lot more
dangerous to do so here.
Bears have an extremely sensitive nose and we have a big
one hanging around a meadow not far from that trail junction.
There is nothing more deadly in North America than
a bear on a kill. Since many of us in the area,
more than half of which are women, walk alone on that
trail, whoever left it is putting us all into serious
danger. I had already concluded it would have to be cleaned
up as quickly as possible, so I stopped at the neighbour's
on the way back home to ask for help. Being a hunter myself,
I'm aware of how heavy the innards and hide of an animal
can be and it would be a lot easier getting it into the
back of my truck without puncturing the gut bag if I had
help.
Alex and Iris, who also walk that trail were quick to
help and rode back to the site after I got my truck. Alex
noticed right away that there was way too much gut for
it to be a deer and that there was no blood around.
I hadn't even had time to examine the site when I was
trying to get the dogs away from it but he was right.
On closer examination we realized that it was the innards,
and hoofs of several animals. We rolled the gut bags and
innards of five different animals into garbage
bags and a small swatch of hide that had long, white hair.
We figured it to be goats, but not wild mountain goats.
Rather, someone had probably butchered the animals and
then chose to dump the rest of the carcasses on the trail.
That makes the person even more of an asshole.
Because to dump it there means they live here and were
too lazy to take it to the dump. They're also too freaking
stupid and very obviously inconsiderate to realize that
they're putting our lives into danger. It's not uncommon
for people to leave carcasses out in the woods when hunting,
but you don't dump where people and bears are going
to meet. Am I pissed? Absolutely! Man, there's
some brain dead people out there!
On the brighter side, our weather is holding. It started
raining yesterday just after I got the lawns cut and sprinkled
into the night. When I woke up this morning it was really
beautiful out, but you could tell some clouds would be
rolling in from over the mountains shortly. That's why
I decided to go for a walk earlier than I normally would.
Sure enough, the wind has really picked up and there
are some clouds, but that may mean a weather improvement.
I watched the weather last night and it looks like there's
a little high building off the coast that might actually
last for a day or two.
Andy and his brother, who lives in Kelowna, have been
going through their own saga. One of Dick's much loved
dogs has been really sick for the last day or so and they
had to do an emergency run into the vet's at 3:00 a.m.
this morning. They nearly lost him and it's testament
to a fantastic vet that's willing to bail out of bed at
that time of the morning to save a dog's life. So far
it looks like the dog might pull through, so if you need
a good vet in Westbank, let me know. It sounds like this
is the guy to have. Jeez, try to get a doctor to
come out at that time of night to save your life. Not
likely!
Alrighty. I've shot down most of the day already and really
need to get some work done. Happy turkey day everyone!
|
| 12/10/2008
2:30
PM |
The Inversion Layer
|
We
had a strange thing happen with our weather yesterday.
When I got up in the morning, it had tried to spit rain
which immediately froze on the deck. The most it got up
to was 5C or 41F and it struggled to do that. Yet all
day I could see that the snow was melting really quickly
on the mountains and the higher they were, the faster
it was disappearing. That's pretty unusual. I figured
that snow wouldn't be melting before next summer.
Had the temperatures up high been the same as we had down
here, there's no way that would happen, so I think it
was raining up there the night before and the temperature
was at least 5 degrees warmer at higher
elevations than it was here. That happens sometimes when
you get an inversion layer, but it's not common. I hoped
that meant we would see warmer temperatures today and
we certainly have!
It's already over 13C or 56 degrees Fahrenheit and
still climbing. It was an absolutely glorious
morning which surprised me because we had a lot of high
cloud last night, but it's starting to cloud over pretty
good now. I haven't seen the weather forecast for a few
days but I sure wouldn't mind seeing at least one or two
warm sunny days in a row. There's a lawn out there calling
my name but I don't know if it's going to get cut before
snow hits and stays.
I joined friends in setting off some fireworks last night.
That was pretty cool. We were a little concerned about
starting early but it's definitely pitch black by 7:30
and the moon stayed hidden behind clouds so no worries
there. The store owners acquired a bunch of fireworks
for a Halloween party to be held at the Nimpo Lake
Community Hall on Friday, October 31st. as well
as some for New Years. Of course, nothing like being a
kid at heart. Both Leah and I were eager to test some
of the smaller ones out and the guys set them up out in
the driveway up at the car wash. Definitely a cool show.
I can't wait to see what the big ones can do. So don't
forget to turn out for Halloween folks! It's only $5,
you can dress up if you want and there's a dance after
so it's a fairly inexpensive night. I'm pretty sure you
can't go to the movies on that anymore. Fireworks start
at 8:00, the dance at 9:00 and donations toward the fireworks
would be appreciated but is not expected.
The number of docks in the back bay have increased
substantially in the past two weeks. We still
have nearly two months before freeze up, but for those
resorts closing and folks leaving for the winter, it's
best they get them moved and parked now. As for us? I'm
hoping to go fishing some nice day next week so our dock
will be in for a while yet. The fish jumping all over
the lake is just too hard to resist and I noticed that
several people have been out in the last couple of days.
Our neighbours were out a couple of days ago and did very
well. I would dearly love to put some fillets down in
the freezer for the winter.
Happy Thanksgiving to all our Canadian friends out
there. Some of you will be eating a turkey dinner
tonight, and others tomorrow night. And if you're really
lucky, you'll score both nights, so here's to feeling
fat, sassy, and full!
I have finally started a new week so you'll find last
week's articles at October
Week One.
|
|
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!
|
|
 |
|
![[Valid RSS]](rssimages/valid-rss.png "Validate my RSS feed"){kind=small}
