A Wild Windstorm Does Severe Damage Around 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' 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.

31/10/2008 3:12 PM

Happy Halloween Folks!

I had to go help finish off at the Hall this afternoon so we're ready to go for tonight.
I went for a walk after posting yesterday's blog, and although it never did clear off, the fresh snow made it a pleasure! You know, I don't profess to know what it's like to be blind, but in my little world, going from bare ground to snow is like going from blind to seeing the light!
When walking with the dogs over bare ground, I know that their noses can 'see' everything that's been over the trail. Tracks for them is probably like seeing everything through infra red or some such thing. I know that something's been there from watching the dogs, and that something has brushed a branch from they way they sniff it, or where an animal has marked, they mark. But I can only guess what it might have been by watching them. But when there's fresh snow on the ground, a whole new world opens up and I can see what they 'see'!
It didn't stop snowing until late Wednesday afternoon and yesterday morning we got a little skiff of less than half an inch. There were fresh coyote tracks, fox tracks, numerous squirrel and what I at first thought was lynx. When I ran across the track it seemed awfully big but it was a fuzzy impression and since they had been made after Wednesday's snow but before Thursday morning's, the skiff of snow prevented me from identifying them.
I continued to mosey down the trail to the gun range enjoying seeing what the dogs were scenting for a change and then came back up the road to the junction, where I popped back onto a trail for home. Along with the fox, coyote, and squirrel tracks, I crossed the strange tracks meandering back and forth across the trail a couple of more times. Something just didn't look right for them to be lynx. They were just too big, not shaped quite right, and even if the first set I saw melted out making them look bigger, it was highly unlikely that over a period of time that all the tracks would have melted out and still looked identical. Finally, I crossed a set where the shadows showed me the distinct imprint of claws coming out from the toes in the older snow.
Oops...
I brushed away the skiff of snow and found the hard packed imprint of bear tracks underneath, and realized that a good sized bear had made them.
Today when I went for my walk I watched for where I knew they had crossed yesterday in a protected spot, and sure enough, the skiff had melted out showing the perfect imprint of the track in the snow underneath. But none of the original snow had melted out yet so the size wasn't distorted and I was able to measure them. He's big! While I admit I don't have the long fingers of a pianist, my hand turned sideways fit down into the track of his front paw perfectly. So the length of my hand is the same as the width of his paw. His back paw was between three and four inches longer than my boot.
I could see where his claws leaving his toes imprinted the snow, but there was no way of telling how far they extended. The skiff would have filled in the claw points. So I can't tell whether it was a grizzly or black bear. Those tracks in the sand near our place a couple of years ago were of a black bear and they were pretty good sized, so it's most likely a local black.
I didn't see any fresh bear tracks today and I was just as happy. I don't really care to run into one that's trying to fatten up as much as possible before hibernation.
I suppose it's possible that if, as I suspected a while back, that there's a carcass somewhere across our main road, then the smell of that may have drawn the bear in. I did kind of wonder yesterday at something before I realized the tracks were those of a bear. When I got down to the gun range near a meadow yesterday the dogs looked extremely uncomfortable and though you couldn't pin point the reason, they, River especially, just looked like they didn't want to be there. Just across and up the road from there is where I've seen ravens and Whiskey Jacks making a ruckus every day.
Today the dogs didn't act up at all near the meadow, but as I walked up the road a ways, Cat kept stopping on the road facing the bush and would just stand there looking. She kept it up for several hundred yards. She's got a lot better nose than the other two so she might have caught wind of carrion too. But the way her head and tail went down and a bit of raised hair on her back, I don't think so.
In any case, I think I'll just keep carrying my bear spray for a while longer until the buggers go into hibernation.
Today turned out to be a really nice day. Andy said you couldn't see the island this morning for the fog, and it did take quite a while to burn off, but by early this afternoon the sun was shining, and while some cloud and a little breeze kept it cool, it still got up to 7.4C or over 45F today. I'm really hoping we'll score a nice evening for the fireworks.
Have a safe Halloween everyone!

30/10/2008 11:02 AM

Snow Fall

Well, I guess you can only dodge the bullet for so long. We had fantastic weather on Tuesday. It was really windy but it got up over 14C. That's almost 60 degrees! We knew it wasn't going to last of course. It started snowing yesterday morning and dumped over four inches of Vancouver snow on us. That's the wet, heavy stuff that turns to ice underneath when packed down.
Andy was helping the neighbour put a new roof on his cabin because the windstorm blew his shingles off. It was slow going because they had to remove all of the old shingles before installing new tin and they only got one side done. It was a fairly clear day and really clear night so they didn't tarp the other side. As a result, Andy had to hotfoot it over in the morning, clear the falling snow off and get a tarp on it. The owner lit a fire inside to dry out the boards so that today, after it finished snowing, they could get the roof finished.
It's just above freezing now so this snow might melt. I wouldn't want to bet my bottom dollar on it though. We often get snow around Halloween that stays, but we'll see. Sure makes for some sloppy driving and it's going to make for some very wet walking if I get out on the back trail today. I was in a meeting all yesterday so I skipped it, but I expect the trail will be a mess until this snow freezes and turns crunchy.
It's pretty sullen looking out there right now so I don't know if we're supposed to get more snow or not. I hope not. We're decorating the community hall tonight and having our Halloween fireworks and dance tomorrow night and bad weather tends to keep folks at home.
It's getting quieter and quieter around here. There are a lot fewer chain saws buzzing around the lake and a lot of people have gotten most of their clean up done after that windstorm. There are a few summer residents that haven't made it back up to work around their properties, and may not until next year now. And there's really no hurry once the damage is done except in those cases where a roof has been punctured.
Now that things have slowed down a bit and the pressure's off, we still have to go over and check my Mom's partner's place. A big tree fell on it but it looks like it just crushed the eave. At least that's what I'm hoping. We'll have to take a ladder over and see if it needs to be tarped or not.
One of our neighbours that returned home a couple of days ago decided he couldn't take seeing his absent neighbour's damage to his truck and potential for disaster on his canvas garage. So he removed the guy's boat and fourwheeler from his garage that the tree had been leaning on just in case the cable holding it back snapped. I'm assuming that means the snowmobile that kept it from going over completely is no longer in the air. He also removed the tree off the fellow's hood and said the limb that punctured it didn't do too much damage to the motor.
It's funny, but most of us that live here take it for granted but really, I think we're all lucky to have the neighbours that we do. I'm not sure that neighbours would be so helpful and free with their time everywhere else as they are here.

27/10/2008 5:55 PM

Late Fall Surprise

We had an absolutely glorious day, today! I'm not quite sure what we did to deserve it, but it certainly was a nice weather surprise. We didn't have completely clear skies, because there was a high haze around lunch time and a couple of big clouds came sailing through in the afternoon, but it was warm. And I mean warm! It got up over 12C or 54 degrees Fahrenheit today, and was quite a change from the past few days where we've barely made it above freezing. We actually sat out in the sun just before supper this evening enjoying the 'warm' air.
I was stuck inside until early this afternoon with a tricky little computer job and so missed some of the great day. I wish I had known it was that warm because I would have dodged the inside work for the day. I got a real surprise when I went outside after dressing for my walk with the dogs. Normally I step outside into a chill wind and return indoors to don more clothes, ear muffs and gloves. This time I shed the heavy jacket in favor of a much lighter one that I never wore anyway.
It's a real joy to me to walk in the back woods when there's no wind and it's downright balmy outside. It was a little slippery today because the surface of the ground had thawed out instead of being frozen as it has the last few days. I actually rushed my walk today in the hopes of getting back in time to go fishing, but my fishing partner was intent on working on the greenhouse, so I ended up painting instead.
I think that there may be a carcass across the main road from where I come out of the woods down at the gun range. For the last two days ravens and a whole bunch of Whiskey Jacks have been making a real ruckus in the bush over there. I don't dare check it out with the dogs with me. If there is a carcass I won't be able to keep the pup from running over there every day for the next month. She's still trying to scrounge up something more than scent where that gut pile was dumped.
I was right about the inversion layer I mentioned yesterday. The weatherman on the news this morning indicated it was seven degrees warmer at the top of the mountains than in the valley. Most of the snow that had accumulated on our mountain ranges since the last inversion is gone now. Seems weird to see this time of year. By the end of October in most years the mountains have their permanent winter cap on and that will stay until spring unless we get a Chinook. I hope this isn't going to become a regular occurrence this winter or we'll have some very unhappy snowmobile fanatics on our hands!
If the satellite pic on TV can be trusted, it looks like we're in for one more nice day with warm temperatures. Then a big low pressure system that's been slamming the north coast of BC is going to slide southward. Andy is going to help a neighbour replace his wind torn shingles on his roof with tin tomorrow, but I'm still hoping we can sneak in a little time fishing. I expect this will be the last time we see it above 50 degrees for the next six months and I would like to take advantage of it.
I'm going to repost the Picture of the Day from Friday. Our neighbour was told about wind damage around his summer place. He was going to take a look it at on the blog here.

26/10/2008 5:27 PM

A Change of Scenery

Nothing like a windstorm to change things up a bit. I was looking out the window while having supper tonight and realized that our big island looks distinctly different than it did a week ago. I probably didn't realize it before because when the sun is shining everything is lost but tonight, the tree line was highlighted against fading light and the white of the mountains behind. Just as the Mountain Beetle kill has brought more mountains into our view, this week's windstorm has changed our viewscape over the lake. Actually, I like it. More character in the island's sky line. I've posted two different images on Picture of the Day.
I'm also reasonably sure that we can see a little more of Monarch Mountain than we could before. And Andy and I were discussing how many years it will be before we can see all of Kappan Mountain after the beetle kill has fallen. I know that we can already see more of it than we could before.
Today was a mixed bag weather wise. It started out sunny and cold with a high haze. We ended up with a lot more cloud than not by afternoon, still with that backdrop of a 'golden' haze that you get this time of year. I think it comes from the sun being so much lower in the sky during the day than it is in summer, and it's definitely lost a lot of its heat now. We maxed out at 3C or 37F today and I think even that was wishful thinking on the thermometer's part. It sure felt colder! And I'm not the only wuss! Andy's spent this evening cuddling up to the wood stove far more than me but I think he got a chill much like I did. We still haven't learned how to dress for winter yet.
We must have one heck of an inversion layer again. We had a fresh, white mantle of snow on the Coast Range and Itcha Illgatchuz yesterday. This morning I noticed it was looking a little patchy and by afternoon it was very apparent that quite a bit of the snow had melted on the peaks. Hard to believe in view of our cool temperatures down at this elevation.
The following text regarding an RCMP officer of the Anahim Lake Detachment has been removed and an apology issued to the Member directly as per the CO's request. The apology was well deserved.

24/10/2008 7:43 PM

The Quiet After The Storm

While yesterday there was a veritable orchestra of chain saws around the lake, today it's much quieter. Quite a few people were still doing chainsaw work to clean up the mess from Wednesday's wind storm but it didn't sound quite so much like a pack of angry bees.
Andy got a lot of our downed trees cleaned up this morning including Mr. Winch, which went over onto the wood shed anyway but didn't do any damage. There's still another tree that will have to come out and there are two over the bank at the back but I figure they can stay there for awhile, or at least until this winter when it will be easier to take the wood out onto the ice rather than carry it back up the bank.
Things are almost back to normal for us but many people around the lake, including our neighbours, have lots of work to do yet. Andy had to put a winch on a tree on the neighbour's canvas garage and chain it back to another. It moved in the wind today and was caving the garage in even farther. The snow machine that's sitting on its roots and kept it from going over before is now balancing on the roots in air. Since there's a boat in the little canvas garage, we're trying to keep it from being crushed until the owner can get it out of there.
I took pictures of the neighbour's place next to that today. I hadn't taken a real close look at it before but his property definitely looks like a bomb went off. He had mostly mature timber on his property and the beetles got nearly all of it. Now the wind has taken care of the rest and he's got quite a mess there.
We got some pretty good wind today but nothing like the other day, thankfully. It got up over 9C or 48F this afternoon and though the wind was cool, it wasn't too bad outside. It looks like we just might get some clear weather for the next three days but the temperature is going to drop drastically. Our wind has already switched from out of the south to out of the west. I expect it to be out of the north by tomorrow or Sunday and it will be bringing us some arctic air.
I'm putting one of Michael's promised stories in to lighten things up a bit. Remember how I was trying to describe how wonderful our autumn colors were this Fall? Well Mike does a much better job of describing it!
- "The Colours of the Chilcotin.
Each year during my fall time in the Chilcotin I am amazed at the ever increasing array or fall colours.
This year I said to myself, "Before I leave I am going to go to my camera store and purchase a new digital camera." My last real camera purchase was in 1974. It was a Nikon with all the lenses one could want, now in the possession of some thief in Brazil. So I said to the camera clerk, "Listen to me carefully; 1: I am 62 and not computer savvy, 2: have a hard time with instructions, 3: want something simple to operate, 4: able to download the photos to my new Vistas lap top." P.S. The MAC commercials are right on.
So he tells me, "Here is a Panasonic Lumix. Great camera."
Upon arrival at Nimpo and after settling in, I open the box. Well there is a reason, people, that I have no pictures to share. The instruction booklet, larger than the Nimpo phone book, just about broke my foot when it slipped from my grasp. This camera is to be purchased by NASA scientists or members of the Mensa club only! Lucky for this sales clerk that he was not with me, somewhere alone with me, maybe 70 kilometers up the Holtrey!
So I will describe to you as best I can the colours I saw this fall. Now there are many different areas as one leaves the top of the Sheep Creek Hill heading west to Nimpo. However there is a small cluster of trees near Chilanko Lodge? Not sure if that is the correct name. This cluster of trees are so positioned to take the most immediate advantage of the sun. Their location is especially spectacular when the last light of the day, (known to some of us who took photography lessons in the 60's as acid light). If you are in the Chilcotin and have an opportunity to sit looking NE with the sun at your back, about September 18, around 6 pm you will see the sun's rays reflect off these white trunked trees and the yellow leaves will turn an almost yellow gold colour. This only lasts about 10 minutes
Adjacent to these trees alongside the road are small red leafed bushes. The blackness of the road, the red of the lower bushes and the yellow of the leaves, the whiteness of the trunks and the blueness of the sky, was one wonderful part of the Chilcotin. And I just stumbled upon it.
There is another location, a meadow about 3 kilometers in length. To access it where I did, one turns right about 1/2 kilometer up the first road past the cattle guard eastwards from Towdystan. I think this road is referred to as a forest service road, because it clearly leads into several areas where logging took place 5 to 15 years ago. This meadow and surrounding forest is intact. Well if you are at the west end looking east in mid September, the setting sun sends this "acid light" down the length of the meadow, and it accents and highlights every tree and their unique colours. This meadow, perhaps because of the damp August weather, was lush with the most green grass.
Now the morning of the confrontation with the wolves and cow moose, the sun was almost directly overhead and a touch behind us. So our vision and our view onto the lake surface was the best it could be. The forest around this lake still has many unaffected green pines, many spruce and a good collection of deciduous trees.
Despite all the issues with wolves in the area, the white colouring of this wolf, which to my eyes had real tints of silver to him/her, made this animal really stand out against the green of the forest, the grey of the rocky shoreline, and the blueness of the water. None of these animals were in poor health. All of their coats were shiny, and their bodies in excellent shape. But this animal really stood out amongst the others and the surrounding background as its fur reflected the sunlight.
There is a new red in the forest as a result of the Pine Beetle And as bad as this is, for the people and animals that depend upon the forest for its diversity, there are some dramatic locations where the different stages of these dying and dead trees is so easily seen and comparable.
While walking near the top of Lillie Lake Ranch, about 3 kilometers prior to the upper Holtry Rd. there is an untouched forest. There is an old, very old, wagon trail winding up through this forest. About one kilometer in are some large spruce trees, with long vivid green branches, drooping to the ground, and mixed with them are about two dozen large pines all in different stages of dying. The red of the trees, the grey of the ones clearly dead and the green of the Spruce combined with a full growth of moss and lichens on the ground, make this small section of the trail very picturesque. As the sun passed behind me while I was resting and listening for moose, the setting sun almost turned this place into a haunted forest. I really expected to see the Headless Horseman riding down this trail.
There is a place which I heard was referred to as the rock pile. When I saw this location I was in awe of the small example of Mother Nature's power. Mother Nature has forced up from deep underneath the surface of the earth about 20 acres of pure grey boulders. The immense pressure exerted upon this area was impressive. The colours of the grey against the yellow of the meadow was stark." -
Thanks for the story, Michael! I'm willing to bet a lot of those trees you admired in September are now on the ground. But hey! That's how Mother Nature makes soil and we can always use topsoil in this country!

23/10/2008 7:49 PM

Wicked, Wicked Wind

Sorry for not writing folks, but our power was out for about 24 hours. The wind blew pretty good throughout Tuesday night, but it really picked up yesterday morning. The weather forecasters had wind warnings out for the central coast and north coast coastal areas, but hadn't said anything about the interior.
We woke up to some wicked whitecaps in our bay, unusual for us because the island normally protects us from what the Main Arm often sees. Our temperature was rising like crazy and was already at 10.7C or 51F by 11:00 in the morning.
I had been praying all morning that the electricity would hold out until I finished a big laminating job. After that, I didn't care if we lost power. It was a good thing too because I only had about 15 minutes after finishing up when the power went out. And the wind wasn't even all that bad yet.
At about 11:30 I looked up and saw a water spout out on the lake. "Holy...." I thought. You just don't see that here! I grabbed my camera and ran toward the front of the house with the intention of taking a picture, and immediately started back pedaling. The same wind creating that water tornado had just hit the front windows and it was something!
Once that series of gusts subsided I ran to the windows and dropped the blinds on all but one of them figuring that if they decided to blow inward, at least the blinds would slow down some of the glass. I ran around the house and closed all the doors and windows and even blocked the cat door to keep the pressure up inside the house because I honestly didn't know what was coming. At that point in time our wind gauge was showing sustained gusts of 40mph. About 20mph higher than anything we ever get here.
It was before lunch and I was just putting supper on to simmer for the day (I love gas stoves. You don't need electricity. Just a match or a striker.) when through the blinds I saw the barbecue on the front deck go skidding across only to come jerking to a stop at the end of the gas hose because we are tied in directly to the house propane. That's the only thing that stopped it from going through the railing. I got outside, got it back into position, set the brakes, put a heavy block of wood against it to keep it from wandering again, all the while trying to keep my balance against the wind and hoping that there wasn't a propane leak at the connection now.
Back inside I went and dropped the last blind, deciding if the barbecue decided to come through the window, at least the heavy blind might help matters. Then I decided I had better take a look around outside to see what was happening out there. I decided if I went out the back, I could open the door and at least I might be out of the wind. I was just in time to untie the pup who was tangled up in a tree that looked like it might go down, rescue our empty garbage cans that were headed for the lake, and ran around trying to pick up anything loose that looked like it was going to go swimming, all the while trying to stay as far away from the trees in the yard as possible. After that, things just kind of deteriorated.
I already knew we were going to lose some trees because I could see the roots of one in the air from the house, and another wasn't recovering from a bad lean whenever the wind did let up. Within an hour the leaner was down, the flashing on the trailer shed was flapping in the wind, a cable holding an antenna up on the cabin was thrashing around, more trees looked ready to go and our shoreline looked like the ocean. I had never seen such big rollers actually come into our shore and then splash up so high to fall back onto our lawn..
We have a canvas garage that has the PVC framework which was bolted to two 2X6's and that framework is attached to the ground with long rebar 'bolt's. Except that they must have been working loose because I was seeing a lot of daylight between the framework and the ground. The wind tore out the front of it and in moments the back of it. I parked my truck sideways in front of it hoping it would back off some of the wind pressure but it didn't help much. I had planned on anchoring the garage to my truck but after feeling how my truck was rocking in the wind, I decided that might be a really dumb idea. You know the one where people shake their heads at a vehicle on its side going, "What was she thinking???" I suppose it would have been like tying a big balloon to the truck. I figured for sure the whole garage thing was going to go so I tied it to a tree and a building, not so much to keep it from going over or collapsing, but to keep it from going into the lake when it did collapse.
I retreated back into the house because I had work to do and I needed the dining room table to do it on. Every time another series of gusts blasted the front of the house I backed off away from the big front windows. Finally, I got the work to the point that I could move it into the kitchen but at one point I stood near the table with my hand on the back of a chair, and it was vibrating. The whole house was vibrating. I've never seen anything like it. I swear I could hear every nail and screw in the roof and walls moving in place. You know how tornado victims talk about how one coming in sounds like a freight train? Well, this was nowhere near a tornado but it definitely sounded like a freight train. I wasn't liking any of it at all and you can damn betcha I won't be moving to Oklahoma or Tornado Alley anytime soon!
In the meantime, our neighbour stopped over looking for help because his dock had been thrown up so high from the waves that the barrels had popped out from beneath it and it no longer had the floatation to keep it, or the boat that was tied to it, afloat for long. It was headed for our bay and our neighbour was hoping to save it and the boat. I (the nonswimmer) took one look at the pounding waves, wild wind, and numerous things that needed to be looked after in my own yard and decided he was on his own and told him to make sure he wore his life jacket!
Andy had a job he was doing over at the resort across the lake and so wasn't available to help our neighbour. But when he did arrive home, I was never so glad to see someone walk in the door earlier than expected. He was working on the Bobcat wearing ear muffs and at first didn't realize just how bad the wind was getting until trees started falling down all around him and the people he was working with. He could look over to our property here and see how severely the trees were bent over in the wind and decided he'd better hightail it home and check on things. Except that he and Richard had to cut their way out of the driveway back up onto the highway. It was littered with downed trees. He came home long enough to deal with some of the things I couldn't do, like the flashing on the roof, grabbed some quilts for the store freezers, and then headed back up to Nimpo.
He and Richard checked out some properties to see the extent of the damage, and it was pretty bad in some places, with the power lines snapped or with trees hanging on the lines in several places, including along the main line on the highway. Many of the resorts sustained damage to their cabins when trees came down and a lot of driveways were choked with uprooted trees. However, one great young fellow who was out from Williams Lake for the week to help his employer, drove around with a chainsaw intent on clearing every driveway that was blocked.
Andy checked on our neighbours' places and some didn't fare so well. One neighbour's yard looks like a bomb blast went off. He had a lot of large beetle killed trees on his property and a lot of it blew down near the lake where his house is. There was some damage there but not too bad. The next neighbour over did great with his house. Not so great with his vehicle. A big pine broke off above where he parks his truck and a massive branch attached to the trunk of the tree punched a hole into the hood of his truck. It's hard to say how far into the engine compartment the branch penetrated but it's definitely an insurance job. He also has a tree on his toy house (canvas garage) and the only thing holding the tree from going right through it is the snowmobile parked on the roots. That's gonna be a tricky one....
His next neighbour over has horse shoes because a huge pine came down alongside the house and just brushed the brand new roof doing no damage at all. Like us, both lost trees on their lots, some snapped off and some uprooted, with one on the power line. Everyone had trees down but on our road from the highway, there were only two on the line. But at the T on our road going down the Main Arm of Nimpo Lake, it was much, much worse. There had to have been 20 to 30 trees down on the main line alone in a distance of probably less than 2 miles, much less what was down on lines going into people's properties. You could see that a lot of driveways were inaccessible and a couple of properties looked a lot like it did around Mt. St. Helen's after she flattened the surrounding countryside. The winds must have been just wild out along the Main Arm.
Surprisingly, almost all the trees that went down were live, green trees, not beetle kill. Even on our property we lost two trees that broke off, and five that were uprooted. All were green trees. The one tree that uprooted but didn't fall over was being held up by a tree that has actually been attacked by beetles and is dying. It will have to go now too because the green tree pushed it over so far, but otherwise, it was more stable than the live trees. We have three beetle kill at the back, but they didn't budge while two big green trees went over next to them.
After cleaning up some of the mess today left by yesterday's storm including broken branches and the barbecue (Yes, the wind got hold of it again and because the brake was on, decided to pick it up and throw it across the deck instead, leaving grates, grills, lava rock and utensils scattered all over the deck.) I decided to venture out on the back trail. I fully expected to be stepping over numerous trees but actually there were only three down that will have to be cut out. On either side of the trail there were quite a few trees down but again, they were mostly green. Some old snags went over and a few beetle killed trees, but not nearly as many as live trees were uprooted or snapped off.
We got our power back almost exactly 24 hours after we first lost it yesterday but we're pretty lucky. I think it will be tonight before everyone in the community has electricity.
For the first time ever, I have to give full kudos to BC Hydro. Anahim didn't get hit hard at all and they had power back within a half hour yesterday so BC Hydro could concentrate on the Nimpo area. They were out working until 10:00 last night getting trees off of the main line on highway 20 and restored power to the businesses in Nimpo proper. At least to the ones that didn't have their private lines taken out. By today BC Hydro had added crews from Williams Lake to the regular Bella Coola crew and they were going great guns in an effort to clear the lines and splice them back together where broken.
I'm not sure why Nimpo Lake got hit so hard with that wind yesterday and Anahim didn't, unless the lake had some influence. All I know is I was never so glad to see a storm moving in from over the mountains because I figured it would settle the wind and it did bringing a little rain and a few snowflakes. By supper time it had calmed quite a bit and by 9:00 last night the stars were shining and it was dead quiet.
Today dawned a clear, sunny, and calm day. It was absolutely beautiful, although cooler than yesterday. Unfortunately, they're calling for more wind tomorrow for all of BC. The satellite picture doesn't look good for us. In fact it looks identical to what was on it on Tuesday's evening news. I'm not looking forward to another storm. We still haven't cleaned up the trees from the last one and we have one pine winched back upright and tied off precariously to another tree until we have time to drop it in the direction we want it to go. Preferably not on a building. So if you don't hear from me for a day or two, you can probably assume we've lost our power again.
I've started a new week so you can find last week's great stories about a hunting trip to Nimpo at October Week Three.

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!