Ningunsaw Nonesuch

Inside the cabin (Logs are over 18" dia.)

2011-12-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

Hannes' Cabin (over four feet of snow on the roof already!)

2011-12-21T15:46:00.000-08:00

Skiing Season Starts Soon

2011-12-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

On Saturday, the 17th of December, I started a stretch of seven days off. When I start again next Saturday, I'll be working three weeks straight before I get another week off. On Sunday morning, the 18th, our manager asked me if I'd like to drive three people to the airport in Terrace. I would stay overnight there and pick up three others on Monday morning and drive them to the lodge. So that's what I did, except that the three that I took down on Sunday had to be at the Smithers airport, not the Terrace one. So I ended up doing a bit more driving that I had anticipated and didn't check into my motel in Terrace until almost ten p.m.
All of the mountain guides are here now for a training week, and the three helicopters and their support people, plus some contractors who are doing some quick remodeling around the lodge. We have what amounts to a full house, and they are all staff. Many will be leaving at the end of this week when the first skiiers arrive, and then the skiing season will officially begin.
I have been spending some of my time off cleaning up and organizing things in a little cabin which lies just east of the lodge boundaries and has recently been purchased by one of the guides here. I am now his official care-taker, since he will only be in this area for a few months of each year, I will have the use of the cabin for carving and other creative endeavors. I have sorely missed having a space here at the lodge where I can do my carving and such.
The last few nights have been cabin-warming party nights and many of the staff have gathered here for music, conversation, and refreshments. Hannes, the new owner of this little cabin has his own website which has some great photos of his skiing travels around the world. www.beyondboundaries.at

Winter is definitely here!

2011-11-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

In the last three days we have gone from mud and rain to snow and cold. About five inches of wet snow fell the day before yesterday and then the temperature started to drop. It's -10 C this morning. No more mud, thank God!

2011-10-25T18:46:00.000-07:00

2011-10-25T18:43:00.000-07:00

The photos below show the two pumpkin jack-o-lanterns that I carved and placed on lamp-posts in front of the lodge. Traffic on the highway is very slow these days, yet two hitch-hikers were out front for a while today. Hitch-hikers are rare here even in the height of summer. Dark at 6 p.m. now until about 8 a.m.

Halloween Soon

2011-10-25T18:38:00.000-07:00

Snow Melting Rapidly in May, 2011

2011-10-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

2011-10-21T17:04:00.000-07:00

Winter is coming! Where did summer go?

2011-10-21T16:44:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, I am still alive and well here in the north. I’ve just been very lazy about posting to this blog. I’ll try to make up for it in the future. Here’s the catch-up.
The month of May started out pretty normal, weather wise, but spring was much later this year than the previous two (years). June and July (so far), have been much cooler than normal, but still pretty dry. The only really freaky natural weather we had was four days in a row at the end of May, with thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are rare here, usually, and if they do come, it is usually in July. The lightning started up a fire about two hundred miles north of here, which caused the traffic on highway 37 to be restricted for a while.
My garden this year is just as large as last year, but I have a limited variety of veggies this year. I didn’t bother with any of the cabbage type stuff, or lettuce, but concentrated instead on getting my baby asparagus plants transplanted and spaced out. Got spuds, carrots, peas, beets, spinach, wheat, and a few other things to look after, but the garden doesn’t really demand too much of my time.
I have been spending some of my “off” days, here at the lodge, watching TV or reading books, or playing around with Sketchup or Movie Maker.
Last week, a couple of old friends showed up here for a while. I had met John O’Brien, originally from Nova Scotia, back in 1973 while he was working as a miner at the Granduc Copper mine near Stewart. I visited him in Nova Scotia back in 2007. Now he and a friend, Joe, drove here from Nova Scotia and spent a few days here at the Lodge. I took some time off from work and hired a helicopter myself for a one hour flight which took us up over the cabins at the Ningunsaw valley, Bob Quinn Lake, then down the Iskut and over the canyon and the huge hydro-electric project there, then we flew up and over the Eskay Creek gold mine, swung south and flew over the Knipple glacier and ice field before returning to the lodge.
There is now a four hundred-man construction camp on the lava flats near the Iskut canyon. It is supposed to take four or five years for them to get the run-of-the-river (195megawatt) project done. In the mean-time, surveyors and line-cutters are working on the power line layout which will basically follow the highway south from the sub-station near km 2 on the Eskay Creek road. The access road to the power towers will pass within 250 yards of my garden and the “Fritz”-cabin site. When the road is finally built, maybe next year, I plan to make myself a driveway to the cabin so I can haul in some really good building supplies and materials. I want to build a new cabin-cum-root cellar there just a bit to the east of the existing structure. I want to do something with all of the money that I have accumulating in the bank. I want to spend some of this money while it still has some value. I expect that there will still come a major depression and devaluation of many currencies.
Like I said, I am putting money away in the bank, living off my tips, and I am wondering what I should do with all the cash in the bank. I can’t see spending it on travel – that just burns up more fossil fuel and doesn’t really satisfy me at all. I am going to keep working here in some capacity or another for just as long as I can, or for as long as the collapsing economy can support places like this (Last Frontier Heli-skiing). I think I will start getting some building materials purchased and shipped up the highway - windows, doors, roofing, plywood, insulation, plumbing stuff, a few pallets of Sack-crete (dry ready mix), etc.
At least once a month I drive down to Terrace on Lodge business and I have been down there a few times with Richard Klocker (who has the Todagin River Ranch just south of Tattogga Lake. Usually stay a night or two when I go to Terrace. I have made regular trips to Stewart, too, all on company business with Lodge vehicles, so I really do not need to get a truck for myself at this time. I have about 2000 Km on the cycle now, but I just use it locally (no license).
During May, when there was still a lot of snow in the woods between here and Stewart, there were many bears to be seen. The shoulders of the roads were bare and good grass and clover was growing to the ditches while the rest of the woods were still snow-covered. All the bears in the country were found within a few yards of the highway for a while. I counted fifteen blacks on one trip from Stewart to the lodge (100 miles). Saw a couple of grizzlies, too. The day before yesterday, we saw a mama black here near the lodge that had two cubs with here. One black cub and one that was bright red (cinnamon). I never saw a bear so brightly colored, somewhere between the colour of a red fox and a red-haired human. This cub was only about the size of a small terrier dog, maybe 12 pounds.
A couple of weeks ago (this was written in July) I chased a bull moose down the highway with my cycle, right on his heels for about three hundred yards before he went into the woods. While I was roaring my engine in low gear at the moose’ heels, two RV’s with American tourists were stopped on the highway watching the show. I should have had my video camera mounted on the handlebars!
We have a helicopter leased for the summer this year, hoping to take tourists out for short flights, but so far, that hasn’t worked out. Most tourists these days have a very limited budget and just the price of fuel limits what they can spend their money on. Lots of foreign tourists this year, too, from Europe and South America.
I have been spending some time getting the perennial flower gardens here at the lodge in shape. They had been neglected for several years, but there are some nice perennials here that are worth saving and propagating. Lots of columbines and delphiniums. I have been transplanting some of my stuff from the Ningunsaw down here, too, but the soil and climate is much different here than it is thirty miles north at my place. It is interesting to see the differences.
The rest of the summer was really shitty, weather wise; lots of cool weather, drizzle and rain. In September, we had some major flooding and were cut off from the world for a while. Stewart had extreme flooding, too, and the road is being rebuilt. Many washouts between here and Bob Quinn, but that is fixed now. Saw twenty-six black bears on one return from Stewart in late August. Had four bears regularly here at the lodge for the last couple of months. We were able to watch them dining on clover less than a hundred feet away while we ate our supper in the lodge.
We had some guests here recently from far away who came to catch steelhead trout. I was tasked with picking some up and delivering others to the airport in Terrace, so I have made several round trips (500 miles) lately. On October 17, I left the lodge with three gentlemen from Connecticut, at 5:30 am. They had a 10:00 flight to catch. Heavy snow was falling here as I drove onto the highway, but it was melting on contact. Soon it changed to drizzle, and then, after another thirty miles or so, back to snow. By the time I got to the Hanna pass, there was about three inches of wet slush on the highway. We made it to the airport on time and by the time I returned later that same day, the road was free of snow. Today it is again snowing. Winter is on its way for sure.

Spring has sprung again!

2011-04-06T19:41:00.000-07:00

Here it is, April and the snow is melting faster than it is falling! I just had two weeks off from work and made a trip back to the cabins to see how everything was keeping. I was relieved to find that the potatoes, carrots, beets and turnips that I hurriedly stored in the root cellar didn't get frozen despite the fact that the temperature (outside) was down to -28*C at least once. I hadn't been back there since October and the time flies when you are busy having fun. Working here at the lodge has really been fun. I'll be staying on here indefinitely, but I do hope to get back up to the cabins more often.

While I was there at the cabins in the Ningunsaw valley, I checked out the surveyor's ribbons marking out the route for the access road that will be preceding the power line construction. The new road will be coming down the hillside only about 250 yards west of the little "Fritz" cabin. I am very thankful that they didn't decide to cut right through the cabin or gardens! I think in the future I will have to grow bigger gardens and get myself a little pickup truck so I can haul the produce out to the lodge here.

For a view of last year's gardens, check out the video below. Last year the snow was gone from my hillside garden site by mid March. Last week when I was there, the snow was still over 14 inches deep in most places. Here at the lodge the snow is still over 40 inches deep.

My Garden in 2010

2011-04-06T19:38:00.000-07:00

2011-02-20T06:18:00.000-08:00

Three rotations around the Bell II Lodge, January and July

2011-02-02T05:55:00.000-08:00

When Moose meets Pick-up Truck

2011-02-01T19:24:00.000-08:00

2011-02-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

I am just in the middle of a six days off/fifteen days on cycle. That is, I don't have to work until Friday morning. Just finish watching all of the HBO series...A Band of Brothers (about WW II.) Been deleting files and editing old videos and photos, too. Last time off, I went into Stewart in a logging truck. The resulting video is already on my youtube page (Doug Price-Logger)http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mo73bmHdBs . While in Stewart, I had x-rays taken of my neck. It still feels like I got a stiff neck all day since my ladder fall. X-rays show some damage or arthritic developement between the first and second cervical vertebrae.The doc recommended at CT scan which date hasn't been set up yet, but it will mean a trip to Terrace or Smithers for that. I was in Stewart last week also. Took in $210 worth of beer bottles and liquor bottles for deposit. Drove one of the pick-ups from here, a dodge with a short box and canopy. It had like a crew-cab, so I filled up the front seat also. Guess I was breaking some open bottle law! Last week I filmed a hungry fox here at the lodge. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Oofh8QBstk

We did have a period of warmer weather here last week. Avalanches closed the highway to Stewart for a while, and most of the roofs here at the lodge have shed their 40 inches or so of snow. It actually rained for a day or so, but the temperature didn't rise much above 33* F. The snow sculptures are a mess. The whiskers fell out of the walruses and the tusks (icicles) grew weak and broke off, too. I spent some five hours yesterday, just digging them out of the crusted snow layers that covered them. The shark's jaws are closing on their own.

We had one week with no bookings in January and that was the week with the avalanches and rain. Skiing wouldn’t have happened in those conditions. The week before that, the skiers were up to their wastes in powder snow. About twenty here now from around the world. Also more than twenty staff here now.

Been eating very well here. We don’t always get served the same food that the guests eat, but we get samplings of it some times. Lots of fish and meat on the diet. Good fresh veggies (never canned or frozen) fresh fruit and fruit juices, etc…. Bacon & sausage every morning, etc. I have eaten many things here in the past few months that I have never eaten before. Grilled quail, tiramisu, quail eggs, fancy mushrooms, kalimari (squid), and all kinds of fish & shellfish.

Last night a new (replacement) cook arrived at about 8 pm. He hit a moose just 20 miles south of here. Luckly for him, he wasn't injured and he was able to drive his pick-up truck here. The moose was finished off by one of the guides here, who took his rifle and drove back down the highway to where the moose was. Tonight a pack of wolves is singing just outside the Lodge across the road. They are moving south toward the moose accident. Maybe they smelled it. It is rare to hear a family of wolves howling so close to a place like this.

2011-01-31T15:22:00.000-08:00

If you'd like to see more photos of the snow sculptures, follow the link below:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=277003&id=713498935&l=7801a1a0d1

2011-01-29T23:03:00.000-08:00

The snow menagerie is getting larger

2011-01-10T15:42:00.001-08:00

2011-01-05T19:30:00.000-08:00

As if I didn't have enough snow to shovel during working hours, I have been spending some of my off time being creative. I feel inspired to create a whole herd of walrus and possibly some other arctic animals.

2011-01-05T18:03:00.000-08:00

November was a very quiet month here at the lodge. Most of the chalets were shut down for the month and most of the staff was laid off, temporarily. There were only three or four of us here for most of the month of November. I worked until the 18^th of November and had the rest of the month off. During the first half of November, we had several very wet snowfalls, mixed with rain and so, by the 19^th, the ground was covered with about two inches of frozen slush. On the twentieth of November, I hitched a ride up to the Todagin Creek ranch to spend some time with Richard and Margaret Klocker. I spent a week there, helping Richard and Margaret get the insulation and vapor barrier installed in the upper part of their house. Richard and I spent some time at the Iskut landfill, where Richard has a contract to maintain the dumpsite. Light snow was falling for most of the time that I was there at the Todagin Ranch, and the temperature hovered around –24 C. On afternoon, I hiked part way up the mountain behind the Klocker place. Saw fresh lynx and marten tracks. On the 29^th of November, Richard and I drove to Terrace. In Terrace, it was snowing and raining mixed, so the town was very slushy and it wasn’t much fun hiking around the wet cold streets. I stayed three nights at the Cedars motel, watching TV and movies while Richard did his shopping and we drove back on the 2^nd of December, pulling a trailer loaded with gyp-rock wallboard. Richard dropped me off at the lodge and I started work the next day. By this time quite a bit of snow had fallen at the lodge, but Ron (the other maintenance man) had most areas plowed open. I spent a lot of time shoveling snow and chipping ice. We keep the walkways and stairs to the chalets open and cleared down close to the concrete. Also got some time in operating the large tractor with the front-end-loader. Pushed some big piles of snow around. I had two water line breaks to deal with, under the main lodge building, but otherwise, all went well. About the middle of the month (December), many people arrived at the lodge. Owners, Franz, and George, all of the mountain guides and other staff arrived for a training week. All of a sudden the population here went from four to over twenty-five! Quite a change! Friday, the 17^th was my last working day for a while. I start again on the 24^th. My schedule for the rest of the winter is fifteen days in a row of work followed by six days off. On Monday, Dave (the chief cook) and I drove to Stewart and back. I bought a big bottle of rum and a carton of cigarettes. On Tuesday, I did some snowshoeing out behind the lodge and up toward the lake, southeast of here. Temperature this morning is about –27 C (-17 F). That is the coldest that it has been here at the lodge so far this winter. Right now there are more women here than men. About twenty staff are here now, but only two customers, an old couple from Austria who come every year and spend two weeks here heli-skiing. The old guy is in his eighties and his wife isn’t much younger. They have been going out each day in the helicopter despite the cold weather. The sky is blue and it is actually a bit warmer, higher up on the slopes. They have been doing about 10,000 feet vertical each day. Staff meals are great these days. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are all buffet style and there is always plenty of fresh fruit and salad greens. Bacon, sausage, eggs and rolls and fruit for breakfast. Excellent suppers, and lots of time to just relax right now. After Christmas, things will get more hectic. For one week in January, we will have forty skiers here, plus guides, pilots and aircrew. It will be pretty crowded in some of the buildings. That is one week that I actually have off from work, but I will probably stay here at the lodge unless I can arrange a trip to the hospital in Terrace. I would like to have my head examined, for ever since my fall with the ladder last September, my neck has been hurting and I just don’t feel quite right.

The days are very short now, less than eight hours of daylight (9:00am to 4:00pm). The sun never strikes the main lodge building now because there is a small mountain just south of this building that totally blocks out the direct rays of the sun.

Happy Halloween

2010-10-30T19:04:00.000-07:00

Guess which one I carved!

2010-10-30T11:15:00.000-07:00

A Dreary Month in the Northwest

2010-10-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

OK, so I haven’t made an entry here for some time. I blame it on laziness. Been watching TV and movies, reading some books, - all pure escapism. October is a nasty month up here. Had maybe two sunny days all month. It is either raining, drizzling, cloudy, or snowing. Yes, snowing. Our first real snowfall was on October 6, about two and a half inches, which was mostly gone the next day. Then it rained and rained and on the twentieth, we got a bit more fresh snow, which was gone within twenty-four hours. Yesterday morning the ground was whitening again, but by afternoon, it changed to rain and rained hard all night. The forecasts seem to be a bit out, lately. If the temperature had been a bit cooler all month, there would be at least three feet of snow on the ground by now!

One day not long ago, there were a total of six helicopters sitting on the ground here. Poor visibility kept them there. The mineral exploration camps (diamond drillers) have moved out of the mountains for the winter, so there are very few choppers coming and going these days.

The traffic on the highway has slowed down drastically. I made a round trip to Stewart last week (200 miles) and met only a handful of oncoming vehicles.

At least two new construction camps are being set up now, just north of here. One near Bob Quinn Lake (for the power line construction), and another near km. 38 on the Eskay creek road, near the Iskut canyon, which will soon be harnessed for electrical power production.

So big trucks are hauling in the trailer units that make up these camps. Other trucks have now begun hauling lead-zinc ore from a mine in the Yukon, down to Stewart for shipment to a smelter. But, there is no tourist traffic now and the road is empty for great stretches of time.

I will be staying on here at the lodge this winter as part of the regular maintenance staff. Yesterday, I had a lesson on operating the Skid-Steer that we use for pushing snow. It has a snow-blower attachment also. Quite a claustrophobic experience, sitting inside that powerful little diesel rig!

Last night, the nine people who are still working here got together and carved pumpkins. I am going to mount mine on one of the lampposts in front of the lodge.

End of Summer

2010-09-17T07:13:00.000-07:00

Beautiful clear skies lately make for high temperatures in the high teens (Celcius) and the overnight lows have been frosty (0 Celcius or colder). It is great to be able to walk around outside, bareheaded, with no insect repellant necessary! The colours are coming to the mountainsides, reds from the huckleberry bushes and viburnum and yellows from birch and willows.

Last week at work, a ladder slipped out from under me and I fell about twelve feet to the ground. I hit the back of my head on a sharp rock and opened a wound that took three sutures to close. It happened last Thursday and the manager drove me to Stewart where the doctor did his work. I got some good bruises on other parts of my body, too. I went to Stewart on my own again this Wednesday and had the sutures removed. Seems like the tintinatus that I have been plagued with for many years now, is greater now at times. It almost sounds like cicadas singing.

Feeling my age lately,.... and I have a tooth that is getting very tender!

Potato Harvest has Begun

2010-08-31T21:48:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, Margaret Klocker, shown here with myself, arrived with her husband, Richard and left with a pile of fresh produce. The cabbages are huge this year and have started to explode! There are hundreds of pounds of carrots and beets, gigantic cauliflowers, and more peas than I can pick!! I wish there was some way I could share this bounty with others, but the remoteness of my garden and the difficulty of access make that unlikely. Richard and Margaret returned to the garden on Monday while I was back at work at the lodge and carried several more loads up the hill and took them back to their place, the Todagin Creek Guest Ranch, which is about forty-five miles north of my cabin. Even though they live so near, the climate at their ranch makes it difficult for them to grow a good garden. Soon, the wild huckleberries will need to be picked, and I am looking forward to visiting some big patches near the lodge, up an old logging road. This week I'll have to change the oil in my new motorcycle, since I have put on over 1000 kilometers now.

The Eagle-Mobile

2010-08-31T21:38:00.000-07:00

This old fellow drove this van from San Francisco to Alaska and was on his way home when he stopped in at the lodge for gas and coffee. It has to be the strangest vehicle that I have seen on this highway. I didn't ask what sort of mileage he gets, but with all of those eagle statues sprouting out from the top and sides of the van, I'll bet it wasn't great. Traffic is slowing down now, as the height of the tourist season is over. And.... the fall rains have begun. Maybe some of the forest fires will now be quenched.

Iskut Canyon

2010-08-04T06:07:00.000-07:00

Dog Days of Summer

2010-08-03T18:57:00.000-07:00

It is hot today, and humid, and the sky is gray instead of blue. Reminds me of Virginia in some ways. There is a large forest fire burning now just south of the Yukon border so the traffic on this highway is very limited lately. Pretty slow and quiet at the lodge. The smoke from the fire is thick around here now and the sun could not really penetrate it. I went home to the cabin on Saturday night and on Sunday, I rode my motorcycle some 60 km. to the Eskay Creek Gold Mine, which is not active now, but over 3.5 billion dollars worth of gold was taken out from there between 1994 and 2009. Now just four people are watching over the facilities there which were designed to house over 200 workers. The site is near the tree-line (about 4,000 feet above sea level) and I saw many piles of Grizzly bear shit on the road, but no Grizzlies. An average winter brings about thirty feet of snow at this site. I had lunch with the good folks there and then drove back down the road to the lava flows that created the Iskut canyon. I was able to ride the bike to two different points near the rim of the canyon and took photos. I found huge patches of beautiful wild raspberries there along the access road on the lava. There was a huge male black bear feasting on them.

2010-07-25T19:31:00.000-07:00

To the Garden & Back

2010-07-25T19:23:00.000-07:00

Just returned to the lodge after a quick trip back to the cabin. We had fresh snow on the higher peaks again last week, and cool, wet weather down here, but today the sun is out again and it is warming up. I dug the first potatoes of the season and was really surprised at the number of great looking potatoes from each hill. I lifted four plants, one each of Red Norland, Yukon Gold, Red Pontiac, and Netted gems. The photo above shows the result. I took these and some other vegetables up the highway today to my friends at the Todagin Creek Guest Ranch. The garden is doing exceptionally well this year. There is going to be far more produce than I will be able to consume myself.

Kermodei Bear

2010-07-08T19:32:00.000-07:00

It's not a polar bear! It's not an albino! It's not a photoshop trick! This is actually a subspecies or variety of black bear. It is found only in a few valleys near Terrace in northwestern British Columbia. This photo was taken by my friend Ron, who also works here at the lodge. You can see that this bear is enjoying the grass.

A different sort of workday!

2010-07-06T22:17:00.000-07:00

The lodge had a vehicle at a garage in Terrace that needed to be picked up. So, this morning, Franz and I took off from the Bob Quinn Lake airstrip in Franz’s little plane and we flew to Terrace in about an hour and a half. Our altitude was about 7,500 feet above sea level. The weather was just beautiful and I got some good photos and video of the mountains, icefields, and glaciers that we flew over. See some of them below. The high peaks that delineate the US-Canada border were visible to the west, and they all had glaciers flowing off of them. Franz continued on to Smithers and Vernon, where his home is, while I did some errands in Terrace and drove back up (220 miles) in the repaired pickup truck. Sad to say, the short box of the pickup truck would not hold the new motorcycle that I bought in Terrace. I'll have to wait and pick it up another time. I got home just in time for supper. The weather is warming up again and the sky is clearing. High, wispy mare’s tails filled the sky this evening. Tomorrow is going to be a clear, hot day!

Glacier-webbed peaks

2010-07-06T21:59:00.000-07:00

July 1 and July 4 - I celebrated neither!

2010-07-05T21:06:00.001-07:00

Last week was an interesting one. Monday and Tuesday I was working on the chalets as usual, but a cold rain started to fall on Tuesday afternoon while I was pressure washing one of the chalets, and so by quitting time, I was soaked through. I had on a water-repellant jacket, but it certainly wasn’t waterproof. As I was coming out of a hot shower the fire alarm went off in the lobby of the main lodge. Smoke had backed up from the fireplace in the coffee shop. I left the lodge at 6 a.m. on Wednesday morning in the rain for a 500-mile round-trip to Terrace. Saw four black bears grazing along the shoulder; well one was dead, but the other three were enjoying the clover. I did some shopping for the lodge and myself, ordered new bifocals at the Wal-Mart and then picked up a new chef at the Terrace airport. Two more stops, for a printer cartridge and two cannisters of pressurized grizzly bear deterrent. Mace for bears! This is for any of the staff who like to jog or hike around the area, but feel insecure without it. On the way home I had to stop at Kitwanga for gas and picked up another passenger, Rosa (originally from Chile). She is working here as a housekeeper. Saw two more blacks on the way home. The three of us just made it back to the lodge for 6 p.m. supper. On Thursday afternoon, we had a staff meeting; mostly concerning the hierarchy here at the lodge but Franz also took all of us outside to show how us how to shut off the water main, the electrical main, and the propane main line in case of emergencies. He also demonstrated some of the fire-fighting equipment that we have here in our small village. Later that day, I was asked to drive an elderly Englishman about twenty miles north to help him retrieve his luggage from the little rental car that he had crashed into the ditch earlier in the day. Friday was a shorter day, for I took the lodge van up to the Bob Quinn lake airstrip to meet Franz (one of the owners of the business). Saw a sow black bear and cubs near Little Bob Quinn Lake. Franz drove down to Smithers (220 miles) that morning and then he flew back in his little airplane (home-built from a kit). Then I went home for the weekend, hiked down to the old homestead and filmed some Canada geese (with babies) on the beaver pond that used to be my garden. On Saturday afternoon it started to rain. It didn’t stop until some time in the middle of the night. I spent this time in bed, recharging my internal batteries. On Sunday morning, I harvested a pile of fresh produce for the lodge and carried it up the hill and out to the road, then I returned to the cabin and loaded up some of my carvings and extra clothes to take to the lodge. Franz met me at the airstrip, so I didn’t have to hitchhike back to work.

2010-07-05T20:56:00.000-07:00

2010-07-01T05:04:00.000-07:00

Home for the weekend

2010-06-28T06:55:00.000-07:00

I saw two blacks bears together at very close range while walking in on Friday evening. I was very quiet and they didn't see me until I was quite close (thirty feet) but I didn't get my camera out fast enough. As soon as they heard me opening my fanny pack, they turned and saw me and they both took off! The garden is doing very well and everything is early this year. I already have spinach, radishes, lettuce, baby beets, summer turnips, some brocoli, garlic (the Chinese kind )and of course, rhubarb. I had two handfuls of strawberries, too, but I don't have many plants. This spring, I transplanted some of the domestic plants that I found growing (but not producing) on the hillside by the leaning outhouse at the old homestead. In the 80's, when my family lived together in the valley, these same berries didn't ripen until late July. Another indication of our changing climate! Just after noon on Sunday, I hiked back out to the highway to thumb a ride back to the Lodge. I brought a box full of good produce with me so I will be eating some of my own good stuff here and some will go to other staff. The bugs are actually worse here at the Lodge than at the cabin. While I was at the cabin, I spent most of my time weeding, hoeing, and thinning garden crops. As I worked I became overcome with great joy with the productivity of this land and at the same time I felt a terrible sadness, for I knew that this scene will be changing soon. There are plans to put a huge electric power transmission line through my part of the planet. The towers will slice across the ridge about a mile south of my cabin and the access road will destroy these gardens! See the video below!

Yodelling Praise to the gods

2010-06-28T06:47:00.000-07:00

What's Blooming? Can you name them all?

2010-06-27T15:34:00.000-07:00

New Look

2010-06-23T22:49:00.000-07:00

Let me know what you think of the new look to my blog pages. Also, Note that you can now just click on My Videos (on the right hand side of this page) and you can see all of the videos that I have on my You Tube channel!

Longest Day

2010-06-23T21:30:00.001-07:00

Monday evening, after all the work was done and the guests were comfortable in their lodgings, most of the staff, and some of the guests, gathered around a fire that I built in the yard near the staff housing. Most brought drinks with them as we celebrated the longest day of the year. It was quite an international gathering, as we had one man from Ireland, one Korean, one woman from Romania, another from Columbia, one man from Bavaria, several Canadians , and myself. We sat around the fire, waiting for darkness to come. (It never did!) I played my harmonica for a while, and then people started telling jokes. About midnight, I headed off to my bed (I was the oldest among the bunch) and it still was not completely dark.

I am enjoying the work and the people here, but I am looking forward to the weekend, when I will go back to the cabin to tend my gardens. Many helicopters are coming and going these days. This morning, one big one started his engine at 7:30 a.m. and I was wondering what some of the guests thought about that. The choppers usually don't get going until about 9.

Today, two new staff members were hired on and Franz returned from his home in Vernon, B.C. where he had been for a week. Now, Andrea, a young woman who was raised in Fort Nelson, will be sharing the living quarters in the big lodge with me. As she was setting things up in her room, two doors down the hall from mine, she cut her hand quite badly while moving a large mirror. First aid was applied and then Franz (the owner) drove her to Stewart to get the hand stitched up. I am not sure how bad the wound really is, and so Andrea's tenure here as a chambermaid may be very short-lived.

A momma black bear and two cubs were spotted yesterday, just across the road, but they haven't come onto the property, yet! We have a huge compost tumbler here and an incinerator, so there is very little to attract the bears.

Lynx in January

2010-06-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot of the lynx who was a regular visitor to my cabin last winter.

How does the Garden Grow

2010-06-20T23:03:00.000-07:00

This photo shows the garden as it looked on the first of June. The hillside slopes to the southeast and the mountains in the background are on the other side of the Ningunsaw River, about four miles away to the peaks. The roofs of the woodshed and cabin are in the right-center of the photo. Most of the garden area was just cleared and worked in the last few months. The camera is pointed due south.

Father's Day

2010-06-20T20:34:00.000-07:00

I didn't go back to the cabin this weekend, but stayed here at the lodge and goofed off. Actually, I spent a lot of time uploading photos to my Flickr site. You can see the results by clicking on the link in the upper right hand corner of this page.

I am trying to give my leg a rest. The left one had been troubling me a bit all week and going up and down ladders didn't help much. If I had gone home, I would have stressed the leg out even more on the hike in and the garden work that I would have been doing.

The weather here has been just incredible this week. Beautiful blue skies, no rain, gentle breezes. It used to be that you could count on one hand the number of days like this in a summer in this part of the world. Climate change? For sure!!

Toads

2010-06-18T20:15:00.000-07:00

We don't have any poisonous snakes in this valley, no chiggers, no ticks, and actually, there are no snakes or reptiles of any sort here. No turtles, lizards, or alligators! There are, however, toads, frogs, and salamanders. As well as I can tell, we have one species of each family. The western walking toad, the red-legged frog, and a spotted slamander. I don't see the little salamanders very often, and the frogs are not very vocal or numerous, but the toads are found in abundance, -- and they come in a variety of colors, as you can see from the photos below. We do have many mosquitoes, black-flies, and other biting insects, so I am very grateful to the toads.

Toads of the Ningunsaw Valley

2010-06-18T20:00:00.000-07:00

My new home away from home

2010-06-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

Right now I am the only one of the staff that is sleeping in the main lodge building. The traffic is quite steady on the highway. Lots of motorcycles, motor homes towing small cars, freight trucks hauling prefabs buildings to set up at mining camps, and long haul freight trucks heading to Alaska. For most north bound traffic, this lodge is the place to fill up on fuel. The last fuel stop south of here is at Kitwanga, nearly 250 km, and the next one north of here is about 150 km. Nearly all tourists stop and get fueled up here, where gasoline is $1.12 per litre. There is a team of biologists camping here now and they go out by helicopter each day to check on some mountain goats that they had radio-collared.

Aerial View

2010-06-15T06:46:00.000-07:00

Here is a Google Earth image that will give you an idea of how mountainous this area is. Yesterday, I was brushing varnish on some log railings around one of the chateaus. It was quite enjoyable, really, and I found myself singing and whistling most of the afternoon. I am setting up a Flickr site so that I can post a lot more photos for you all to see. I'll link it to this site when I get things organized. After-all, a picture is worth 1000 words, right?

Same tree that I featured in an earlier posting!

2010-06-10T07:16:00.000-07:00

A Change of Scene

2010-06-10T06:44:00.000-07:00

The bugs are here now! I spent the most of the month of May getting my garden enlarged and planted before they did. Now things are really growing rapidly with the nearly 20 hours of daylight that we are getting.

A few days ago, I started working at the Bell II Lodge which is about thirty miles south of my place. Here is a link to their website. http://www.lastfrontierheli.com/ I am doing odd jobs and maintenance here and I have access to all of the modern conveniences, including Internet access. The really busy season is the winter when people come from all over the world to ski in the powder snow and have helicopters lift them to the tops of the mountains. But this is also a helicopter base all year. Yesterday there were dozens of take-offs and landings as the pilots flew supplies out to different mining exploration camps in the mountains.

I will be spending much of my time here refinishing the exteriors of the beautiful log chatets. See the website above. It is kind of nasty work, especially with the bugs now, but there are bugs back at my place too. Here, I don't have to cook my own meals, there are laundry facilities, hot-tub, sauna, widescreen TV, pool table, etc. and some very nice co-workers. I am staying here at the lodge during the week and will just go back home on weekends to tend my gardens. I may even get one of these choppers to give me a lift back and forth since they are flying over my place regularly to get to their base at Bob Quinn Lake.

There are nine employees here this week, but during the winter, the staff swells to three times that many. We also have an RV park for the tourists and travellers on the highway and rent rooms in the chalets to those who want them.

There is a small flock of wild doves here! I have never seen doves in British Columbia before, but I had read that there is a species of ring-neck dove in the province. I just didn't think that they came this far north.

I hope to be posting to this site much more frequently now that I have access to the Web. I have much more time to spare, too, since I only work an eight-hour day here. Back at the cabin, I had been working almost twice that!

In early May, I had a small black bear grazing the grass around my cabin for a while. He generally kept his distance from me, but I never knew when I would see him.

2010-04-20T20:50:00.000-07:00

Spring Shopping Trip

2010-04-20T20:27:00.000-07:00

Winter was really over up here in the northwest right around March 21. Since then I have been picking and eating wild stinging nettles! What a treat after spending a winter with almost no green vegetables in my diet. I feel healthier than I have for years now and I have to attribute that to the moose meat, home grown potatoes and other vegetables that I have been eating all winter.

I had a bull moose feeding in my yard for most of the month of March. He was eating the bark off of a poplar tree that I had cut early in the winter. In the photo you can just see small bumps rising from his head which will develop into huge antlers during the next few months.

I hitch-hiked down the highway to Stewart on Monday, then down to Terrace this morning. Now I am 250 miles from home. Terrace is the nearest real city close to my home and I can get my supplies for the next year all in one shopping trip. The goods will travel up the road by freight truck, then I'll just have to back-pack everything in. I'd rather do it now before the big hatch of mosquitoes. Actually saw my first mosquito on March 26. These early mosquitoes are big, dumb, and slow, and not nearly as numerous as the ones that will arrive in June and July.

Got some of my garden in and some things are actually coming up already. Rhubarb and garlic, radishes, some onions. The next month will be busy for me as I work more of the virgin soil into an expanded garden and get it planted. Most of the ground that I have cleared during February and March had an over-story of Alders (20 foot tall, nitrogen fixing trees), Red Elderberry bushes, stinging nettles and cow parsnips with some wild delphinium and chocolate lily (rice root). It is beautiful soil, and a real joy to work in. The larger alders are becoming firewood and the rest is being composted in large brush piles, which, in this area, should break down in just two or three years.

I'll be hitching back up the highway in a couple of days, and so my next posting may not be until June maybe. Love you all!

Where did the winter go?

2010-01-31T08:15:00.000-08:00

A view of the cabin from way up a tree.

Here it is already the end of January, and I am still waiting to see a good dump of snow. Around the cabin, on the hillside, there is not enough to whiten the ground. Some places on the flat have nearly six inches, but it is hard and dense, since there has been a lot of warmish weather (above freezing). The coldest I have recorded so far this winter was –25 C (-13F). I am in Stewart today (my first trip into town since December 3) and this town is usually buried in snow for at least three months of the year, and I mean really buried, with over twelve feet of snow. This year, there is less than a foot on the ground here now. For several weeks now, when we should be getting our coldest weather, the temperature has been just above or below 0 C (30-35 F). Today there is more snow and cold in central Virginia than there is up here!

On Christmas day, I found a cow moose that had been badly injured by wolves. Got some photos and video before I put her down. She was hamstrung and could barely stand up. The wolves might have taken several more days to finish her off. Wolves do not make instant kills. They sometimes spend weeks harassing an animal after the initial attack, before they finish the job. Well. That is the way of the woods! I have been keeping up my spirits doing some graphic displays of fractals. Lots a fun. The days are much longer already. Back in December, sunrise was at ten a.m. Now it is more like 8:30. That makes a big difference in one’s attitude. I am looking forward to spring and have been taking advantage of the lack of snow and cold weather to work in my garden area, clearing new ground so I can get it under cultivation sooner when the ground thaws out.

I had to melt snow for my water supply for most of December and early January. The little spring above the cabin froze over. In a normal year this would not have happened. Deeper snow would have insulated the spring and the flow would continue, but with almost no snow cover, the frost went deep.

I had a cat visiting me at the cabin regularly for a while early this month, a lynx, and I got some good photos.

I have been keeping in shape by climbing some of the gigantic spruce and fir trees near the cabin. The first ascent is slow because I have to remove a lot of dead branches and twigs to clear a path, but after that, it is easy and quick. Quite exciting, too, to be over a hundred feet above the ground when there is a hard wind blowing.

Winter is a comin'

2009-12-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

These photos were taken last month. Strange looking tree, huh?

The days are getting very short here, but so far it hasn't been really cold. +12F is about as cold as it has been so far. Got snow on the ground, but not much, couple of inches at my place, but about a foot here in town (Stewart). Lots of moose around lately. I've been busy editing this summers' videos and photos. My house guest (Robyn) left on October 26, just before we got our first dump of snow. It was a real joy to have her company for over a month and we got lots of work done. The water line is buried and still brings the water to the house, even in this freezing weather.

Daylight doesn't really get here until almost nine a.m. and it gets dark again around 5 p.m., but in another three weeks the days will be getting longer again. Right now I am using a lot of gasoline in the generator, but it sure beats using kerosene lamps. And kerosene won't keep the computer going!

I built a really super sled for hauling firewood to the cabin and it works great. Just need a bit more snow to smooth out my trails, though.

2009-09-30T19:36:00.000-07:00

2009-09-30T18:13:00.000-07:00

October! Wow! That month certainly did come around in a hurry this year! And I really don’t know if I am ready for it. Physically, pretty well set these days, with lots of fresh produce from the gardens, but I don’t know if I am really ready for all of the dark and stormy weather that I know will be coming with the months of October and November. My last blog entry was in early August and this part of the country was just getting over a prolonged drought. In September, the falls rains began in earnest here. I got all of the potatoes out of the ground before the worst of it. I harvested about 200 pounds of potatoes, which are now safely stored in my makeshift root cellar. Got the carrots in, also, about sixty pounds. Lots of big Swedes (rutabaga) and cabbage to harvest still. The Brussels sprouts were planted late and may not provide much this year, but they are still growing, as is the broccoli and cabbage.

I spent most of my spare time during the first three weeks of September digging a trench to put my water line down into. This trench is along a pathway through the meadow that I am clearing out to the high garden and it will be planted also. Sort of a strip garden as opposed to a strip mall. It is about three hundred feet from the cabin to the spring where the water originates and there will be an irrigated garden all along the way. Sure have had the water, here, too. About two weeks ago, over 15 inches of rain fell in just a four-day period! More than that in Stewart!

Yes, it’s that time of year when the mushrooms and fungi start popping up all over. I recently photographed a huge up-springing of Amanita mushrooms. They were larger, and there were more in one small area than I had ever before seen. Huge shaggy manes along the mining road, too.

The clouds have been surrounding the cabin lately, but when they do lift or the sky clears part-way, the tops of the mountains are revealed to show fresh snow from the top down, lower down, each week. Another month and I may see snow at my elevation (1700 feet a.s.l.) The peaks surrounding me top out at 6 or 7,000 a.s.l.

I made a quick trip to Stewart on Wednesday, the 23^rd of September. Hitchhiked in between rain showers. French Canadian tourists gave me a lift as far as Meziadin. Got an e-mail from my young friend Robyn, from Indiana. She was on her way to visit and expected to be at my place on Wednesday, the 23^rd, and here I was in Stewart! She did arrive at my place on Wednesday evening and worked up the courage to hike in on her own following the ribbons that I had put up last month. The trail is very rough in places and yet Robyn climbed over or under all of the treacherous windfalls, down the steepest part of the hill, with no guide. Robyn tells me that until she actually arrived at the cabin and let herself in, she wasn’t even sure that she was on the right trail. But, the maps that I had sent her set her on the correct course.

As I headed out of Stewart on Thursday morning with my supplies, I thought that there just might be a chance that I would meet Robyn coming into Stewart as I was heading out. I got a lift from a grizzly bear hunter up the road as far as Skowill Creek, where he was looking for the bear. I was on the highway for maybe an hour, when Robyn drove up from the south. She had passed me in the Bear Pass and recognized my face through the windshield of the pickup truck that I was in. She did get into Stewart and saw Pat at the liquor store, who assured her that I had probably already left town and that I was on my way home.

So now I have her company for another two weeks or so. We are planning to make a shopping trip to Terrace. I’ll post this then. All is well here in the woods. The old hermit has company for a short time, at least!

2009-08-13T09:32:00.000-07:00

A plate full of wild berries... YUM!

My poor hand....

Hummingbirds refueling in flight

Harvest Time

2009-08-13T09:12:00.000-07:00

Here I am back in Stewart for a night or two. I just finished spending over six weeks in the woods without any human contact whatsoever! How enjoyable! Responsible only to myself, getting the cabins fixed up and livable. I now have running water coming to the kitchen at the Fritz place where I am living. The raspberries are producing like crazy this year, both wild ones and some domestic ones that have gone "wild". I must warn you though, the best raspberries share their spot with the stinging nettles and I picked one day for three hours, ignoring the stings. Now my hands look like raw meat and they will take some time to heal.

The summer has been incredibly hot and dry for this part of the world, yet my gardens are doing well and I am harvesting zucchini, potatoes, beets, carrots, peas, etc etc. Eating up some home canned salmon that was left in the old place years ago and it is still good. I also found a few jars full of moose meat that I had canned over 16 years ago and it, too was still good to eat!

I ran out of flour two weeks ago, then I ran out of rolled oats a week ago and I started thinking about hitch-hiking into town for supplies, but I didn't really get going until my mosquito repellant got down to the last few drops. Then I had to get to town! The mosquitoes have been really terrible this summer, all of June and July especially. Haven't seen many bears lately, and most of the moose are higher up the mountains right now, but there are a lot of birds and flowers to enjoy. Acres of wild delphiniums, geraniums, fireweed, and roses!

I stood by the roadside for six hours before I got a lift into town. Lots of tourist traffic, but they are all too paranoid to stop for a little old man out in the middle of nowhere, I guess. I finally got a ride from an old acquaintance that I hadn't seen in years! It was great to see Kenny again.

I'd like to post more now, but I may have to wait until winter when I have more time for this kind of stuff. There is so much to do before the fall rains set in.

Then (1983) and Now (2009)

2009-07-01T19:56:00.000-07:00

My new home, soon!

2009-07-01T19:55:00.000-07:00

Main Street in Stewart, just before the parade

2009-07-01T19:52:00.000-07:00

Wild Currant blossoms

2009-07-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

Watering the new garden

2009-07-01T19:33:00.001-07:00

2009 vs 1989

2009-07-01T19:33:00.000-07:00

Canada Day in Stewart, B.C.

2009-07-01T19:31:00.001-07:00

It has been a while now since I posted anything, but I've been busy and I've been way out in the woods, far from any internet services, but here I am now, on Canada Day, in Stewart, B.C. at the head of the Portland Canal. Kyle took off for southern B.C. at the end of May, and Natalia and Jess stayed on until June 15. I have been all alone until yesterday, when I hitch-hiked into town here (125 miles). The mosquitoes are fierce now, but work is progressing well on the trail clearing, gardening, and cabin fixing. It sure is nice to be breathing clean air again, and drinking water wherever I find it! I have been photographing all of the beautiful wildflowers and wild animals when I get the chance. Found some rhubarb plants that survived on their own all these years as well as oregano, irises, chives, comfrey, and lilies. My legs are getting back in shape, but my heel still bothers me sometimes, but I can't really complain. Had some good feeds of fresh trout, but also been eating lots of stinging nettles and fiddlehead ferns. Rice and beans, too. I'll be glad when I can start eating the potatoes. Had some cool weather the last two weeks, but May was absolutely gorgeous. No clouds at all hardly, and temperatures in the high seventies and low eighties. Almost too dry, so I had to rig up a gravity fed watering system for the garden.

I will be heading back up the road soon, probably tomorrow, but I wanted to post some of these photos now while I had the chance. Many old friends still live here in Stewart, and this is where I will be picking up my mail (probably once a month or so). There is so much I could say, but there is so much to do. The days are still extremely long and I find myself getting up at 4 am, napping for an hour or so after a mid-afternoon lunch and then working until ten pm almost every day. It is really great to be back in Canada again!!

The young folk from Quebec will be here in about another month, and by that time, I should have things pretty well under control. Right now, I am enjoying the solitude immensely.

2009-05-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

Check out the size of this Cottonwood that the beavers were working on!

It was over four feet in diameter!

2009-05-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

2009-05-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

2009-05-13T20:20:00.000-07:00

Spring in the Valley

2009-05-13T20:09:00.000-07:00

There is a bunch of us now. Natalia and her boyfriend, Jesse, along with two other young men from Great Britain (Dan & Chris), arrived on Sunday. Kyle and I are still staying in the German cabin, but the others are staying in the big house. Cooking facilities are not the greatest, but we are getting by. We have some garden area worked up and planted and seeds are sprouting. The bears are up and about. Kyle and I saw four blacks and two grizzlies on the drive to Terrace today and also two coyotes. Some wolves have been visiting the valley and have left tracks and droppings in the new garden. The hummingbirds are back and the gooseberry bushes are blooming now. Almost all of the snow is gone in our valley, but there is still a lot of the white stuff north and south of us. We are keeping busy clearing old trails, cutting firewood, and we started re-doing the old root cellar which had collapsed. It was built about 35 years ago and held many tons of potatoes, carrots, turnips and beets in its time.

The big Cabin reflected in the beaver's pond

2009-04-30T20:41:00.000-07:00

Outside the German cabin

2009-04-30T20:40:00.000-07:00

Inside the German Cabin

2009-04-30T20:39:00.000-07:00

This spot held us up for a few days

2009-04-30T20:38:00.000-07:00

Lots of snow in the Hannah Pass

2009-04-30T20:37:00.000-07:00

Wolf feces and Moose berries

2009-04-30T20:32:00.000-07:00

2009-04-30T20:11:00.000-07:00

In Terrace, B.C. now. Just came in for the day to do some shopping and Kyle and I will be driving back to the cabins tomorrow. We left Cache Creek on Monday, the 20th of April and drove as far as Smithers, B.C. before getting a motel for the night. On the 21st, we drove the last 250 miles up to the homestead place to find that there was still a lot of snow covering the logging road that would take us to within a half-mile of the cabins. We had to leave the truck and hike in about three and a half miles. The weather has been absolutely beautiful. Temperatures to 70 F during the day and down just below freezing at night. The snow is melting rapidly and we made one trip a day, packing in supplies and stuff. The worst part of the hike is getting up out of the valley. It is like climbing 40 flights of stairs, except there aren't any stairs, just a steep and somewhat slippery hillside.

We did make a trip into Stewart last Saturday. Stayed with a friend overnite and drove back the next day. We have been eating oatmeal porridge with raisins for breakfast, some bannock and peanut butter and jam for lunch, and suppers have included rice, macaroni, cheese, sausage, beans, more rice and more macaroni.

We have started to get the garden area dried out, by opening the dam which our flat-tailed furry friends had built. They tried to rebuild or repair for a few days, working at night while we slept, but for the last few days the beavers haven't worked. Saw one otter one morning. A few crocus are blooming in the yard now. This whole area is very slow for economic activity now. Most sawmills are down and not much mining going on now either. Lots of robins and ducks are back now. Leaves are just coming out on the gooseberry bushes.

Lots of work to do. A few big, dumb, slow mosquitos are out already. The bears are just coming out of hibernation now. Lots of deep snow especially around Meziadin Lake. Usually it is all gone in the Ningunsaw valley by mid or late April, but there is still some there now.

Now we can drive the truck in to the top of the hill, but we still have that hill to climb, but now we can make a round trip to the truck in about an hour, rather than three or four.

2009-04-18T22:50:00.001-07:00

Below is a photo of Kyle's 4x4 GMC with the new canopy, ready for the trip north.

2009-04-18T22:47:00.001-07:00

Back in Canada

2009-04-18T22:22:00.000-07:00

Right now, I am in a motel near Everett, Washington.

I left Wisconsin on the 14th of April and drove my heavily loaded HHR (Hertz rental) about 860 miles the first day out. Most of my route was on Interstate 94, through Minneapolis, Fargo, and Bismarck. Some parts of I-94 were under water because of the snow melt in North Dakota. Still, I made excellent time, covering about 860 miles while behind the wheel for about thirteen hours. I spent the first night in Minot, ND, and headed out for the Canadian border early the next morning. I got to the border at Portal about 8 a.m. and I had no problems with the Canadian customs inspectors. I picked up the TransCanada highway near Regina, Saskatchewan. Rain was falling all morning, but as I neared Swift Current, Sask., it changed to snow and visibility was lousy, so I laid up at a truck stop for a couple of hours and had a pepperoni pizza. And checked my e-mail!

It was still snowing lightly when I got back on the road, but before I got to Swift Current, it was just rain again. Then, by Medicine Hat, the rain stopped and I had dry roads all the way to the mountains. I drove through Calgary about supper time, but continued on until I got to Canmore, Alberta, where I got a motel room for the night, right in the Rocky Mountains. 760 miles that day.

On Thursday morning, I headed west again, driving through the mountains. The roads were rougher here and of course, they were not flat and straight like the ones I had been driving on for the last two days. I had to adjust my speed and driving habits, but the cruise control still came in handy.The scenery was fantastic and I filmed as I drove. By early afternoon, I was in the Shuswap area and drove up to Eric's place where I met Natalia and Kyle and saw their mother, Deanna, for the first time in fifteen years. 380 miles through the mountains!

I spent two nights in the Shuswap area. Kyle and I bought a canopy for his pickup truck as well as a new Honda generator and a Stihl chainsaw and other supplies. We loaded all of my stuff into Kyle's truck, added the new purchases, and then I headed out with the rental car so that I could return it to Seattle. That's why I'm in Everett, Washington tonight. Spring is well under way here. Thousands of daffodils blooming everywhere, ornamental fruit trees are blooming, and the leaves are coming out on the hardwoods. In the morning, I'll take this car to the downtown Seattle Hertz rental place and catch a bus to Cache Creek, B.C. to meet Kyle so we can begin to head up north to the old homestead.

2009-04-10T05:02:00.000-07:00

Virginia to Wisconsin

2009-04-10T04:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday morning, March 28, 2009

I am now back at Ma’s place in Waukesha County, Wisconsin. I left Twin Oaks on Thursday morning at about 6:20 am. I arrived here about 7:30 a.m. EST, today (Friday). I stayed in the Knight’s Inn Motel near Shelbyville Indiana last night, after covering about 650 miles in about ten hours. I took I-64 to a spot near Lexington, Kentucky, and then went north on I-75. I arrived in Shelbyville (home of a huge Honda manufacturing plant) by 4:30 pm on Thursday. I didn’t want to try to drive any more yesterday, since I would soon be hitting Indianapolis, and then after that, Gary, and Chicago. Ten hours of driving is enough in one day. It was drizzling lightly when I left Twin Oaks, and the rain increased during the day. When I was in West Virginia, is was coming down pretty hard and steady. The rain didn’t let up until I crossed into Kentucky. I had a burger at the Waffle house about 4;30 pm, then watched TV in my room for a while, but I went to bed early and woke up about 2 am, feeling rested and ready to go so I had a shower, then a quick breakfast at the Waffle House before hitting the road at about 3:30 am. I managed to get through all of the big cities before the rush hour traffic started. It was about 44 degrees when I left Indiana, but dropped to 31 by the time I got to Waukesha.

The crocuses are just starting to bloom here.

Today, the temperature got up in the low fifties during the day and it was sunny and nice. After Julian and I returned the car to the Airport in Milwaukee and before supper, I gathered seeds from the asparagus patch. I figure that if the asparagus that I planted years ago in the Ningunsaw Valley has been flooded out, I’ll need to start a new patch. Now I’ve got hundreds of seed at no cost. If I have time in the next two weeks I can gather a lot more.

Right now, I am using the NEO keyboard that Dream gave me. It is a lot handier to use for keeping notes like this. Handier than the laptop. This thing boots up instantly and is so light and easy to carry around. It weighs less than a pound and it sits very nicely in my lap.

Leaving Virginia

2009-03-23T06:15:00.000-07:00

Springtime in Virginia and I am on my way north. Leaving here Thursday morning and heading to Wisconsin where I will spend a few weeks with family there before heading back up to British Columbia to be with my closest family up there.

I'll be chasing springtime every step of the way. I hope to use this site more frequently to keep track of events, now that I am making a major life change.

It was almost fifteen years ago that I left BC and I have been kicking myself in the ass for some time now, regretting the decision that I made then, to leave and return to the Excited States of Amurikka.

Yet during the eight+ years that I spent here in Virginia, at Twin Oaks, I have learned much about these computers and how to make them work for you.

One thing that I would like to do when I get back up in the northwest corner of this continent, is to try to establish a wilderness survival school where homesteading and colonial-type skills are taught. I made an attempt at this back in 1993, after my wife and kids moved back to southern BC. Now the kids are all grown up and seeking adventures and I hope we can work together to make something out of the old homestead.

Springtime is glorious everywhere, but I am really looking forward to being back in the log homes that I built many years ago.

Check out the old photos of the place at: http://animalboxes.com/photos.htm

And my old curriculum for the Ningunsaw Valley School of Self-reliance at:

http://animalboxes.com/NVSShome.htm

I welcome any correspondence!

My new website is up and running

2007-07-22T16:47:00.000-07:00

After many months of work, I have finally launched a new website that showcases my woodworking skills. The most unique item that I offer for sale on this site, is, I believe, my self-locking turtle boxes. It is a design that I have perfected over a period of twelve years or so. The boxes are made of hardwood, and each takes between ten and fifteen hours of work to produce. Also on my site, you will find a duck-shaped box that uses the same locking mechanism, which is unique to my boxes. I also have small wooden "pumps" that spit out pennies endlessly, and some really sweet smelling stool samples. Check out this site to see some really unique, one-of-a-kind wood carvings and learn more about what I am up to. Here is the address-http:www.animalboxes.com. I would like to know what you think of my stuff.

Call him George

2007-07-11T17:08:00.000-07:00

This is the peacock at an estate where I work one day each week. I like to think of him as Georgeous George, because he is, and he knows it, too!

Announcing my new Website

2007-07-06T16:39:00.000-07:00

Well, folks, I have finally gotten my new website up and working (sort of). The address is www.animalboxes.com. There you will find a unique collection of wooden carvings, toys and boxes. You'll find turtle-shaped boxes that lock automatically when they are closed. They are completely and entirely my own design, which has evolved over the past ten years or so. The turtle boxes are about six inches long, carved with great detail, and can only be opened by going through a series of four simple moves. I also have a few duck-shaped boxes that open with the same magical touch. You'll also find some interesting folk toys, and some one-of-a-kind birch carvings. If you are having trouble viewing some of the pages, it's because I'm just learning the game. You might also want to check out my original site: www.geocities.com/jpaulk2000/user. It isn't quite as extensive as the new site, but at this time, it's easier for me to access and revise.

2007-06-28T19:37:00.000-07:00