A weekend at home

In case you haven't seen 'The Chief'

Some of our weekends at home in Vancouver consist of shopping and cleaning and tending to our ancient Jeep (a full time job in itself); I have no plans to bore with you such activities.  But those 'at home' weekends that take us to new bits of our local area I might do a quick blog on, mainly for my mum. So...


Saturday:  It turns out that Vancouver is situated in a rainforest, stretching from Alaska to northern California.  Which does mean that it gets quite a lot of rain.  Coming from London, we thought this would be water off a duck's back (tee hee) but it turns out London gets 29 inches of rain a year, and Vancouver 43.6 (still less than NYC at 47.2). And when it rains here, it really rains, not that that should put you off visiting, that rain turns to snow on the mountains and the summers are great...

Not our piccie, but check out the gruesome face!

It rained on Saturday but no fear, my book of BC walks has a whole section devoted to such days, so we hiked up alongside the Capilano river to the salmon hatchery and Cleveland Dam.  The hatchery showcases the 'salmonid programme' which rears and releases hundresds of thousands of salmon into the ecosystem every year.  After 1 to 7 years at sea (depending on the species) they fight their way back from the Pacific, up the river then up the very stream in which they were born. The hatchery had glass pannelled one of these streams and we saw the very ugly salmon (they change body shape and colour the closer to home they get) leaping over each obstacle in a bid to mate.  Awesome. 

Sunday was very very sunny, although quite cold.  My bike has been neglected in the rain so I took her out for a big mountain day.  From Marine Drive we headed up Cypress Bowl road to the ski resort which hosted part of the Vancouver Olympics (yes, it was the one without any snow; last month we visited where they trucked it in from).  A solid 15km up hill, climbing 910m.  The uphill was hard.  The downhill was TERRIFYING with my hands aching from the brakes.  I wouldn't say I got hypothermic (now I've experienced that in a Scottish sea loch I can compare) but extremely cold.  But stunning views of Vancouver (mauled by my camera phone) and a 1200 year old tree.  

First trip south of the Border

We live about 30 miles from the US border; it dawned us on recently that if we don't explore Washington State whilst we're here it would be like living in England and never going north of the Watford Gap and, speaking as someone who didn't do that for the first 18 or so years of her life, that would be a real shame.  


So with our new found friends, Dan (outdoor guide and photographer extraordinaire - his pics in today's blog) and Cazz (ecologicial consultant and bird watcher supremo), we road tripped to the Olympic Park in Washington state (the big green patch on the sticky out bit on the left).

First obstacle was the US border guards, we'd been treated like long lost friends when we arrived in Canada with our 1 year visas, the US were not quite so welcoming, in fact really pretty rude, but at least we weren't being interrogated on illegal cross border working like the lady to our right.   We then steamed through the night to the sol duc campground and Mark and I spent our first night sleeping in the Jeep; surprisingly comfortable although not much privacy once it gets light...  

Fingers crossed for lots more of this!

A day of hot spring visitation (very relaxing), hiking along 'Hurricane Ridge' (no wind, lots of sun and the first new snow of the year), attempting to bird watch (they 'closed' the sand spit at 5pm) preceded a very weird night stay at the youth hostel in the 'historic' Port Townsend.  Although we were initially sceptical (anything over 80 years is historic in Canada and the States) it was actually very pretty, and as EVERY store had a Halloween display (several with life size 'guys' outside) it did demonstrate how seriously the North Americans take that particular pagan festival.

Yay, back in Canada!

And it allowed us to reflect on the cultural differences between the States and Canada; most people were friendly, but in a much busier, brasher way; you could buy ammunition at every corner; and although the cheese was cheaper, it was even worse than in Canada ('old cheddar' does not count as a food stuff).  


Our next trip to the US will be through the frozen Cascade mountains, Idaho and Montana to Yellowstone National Park over Christmas; hoping that not too many nights are spent in the frozen Jeep.   

Rain does not stop play

A weekend of two brilliant halves:


Part I:  Meeting the family


It took a scanned family tree sent from my mum to explain exactly how I was related to the Pielou branch of the Hancock family, our rugged Canadian island living relatives.  A late Friday night arrival due to the inability to distinguish between the 19 and 19A highways on Vancouver Island did not phase my first cousin twice removed, Chris Pielou, in her eighties.  A pioneering ecologist in the midst of writing her latest book, she took up sea kayaking at 75 with an easy trip to Patagonia and her most recent trip was to the Artic where a wolf eyeballed her through the flap of her tent.  Awesome. 


We then headed up the Island to catch a tiny ferry to Quadra Island; inhabited by 3,000 fishermen, loggers and artisan craftsmen, the latter including a host of second cousins, once, twice and thrice removed with such varied jobs and activities as guitar maker, social worker, museum curator, microbiologist, mountain bike trail maker, snow camper, yacht sailor and 7th grader.  All totally fabulous and very very welcoming considering we invited ourselves for thanksgiving dinner (you get to have Christmas twice a year in Canadia!).  


Then onto Part 2:  Meeting the Grizzlies


Fairly torrential rain did not dampen my spirits on the 90km small boat ride up the BC coastline to Bute Inlet to meet our native guide to hunt for grizzly bears.  A mini bus took the four of us (two guides, me and a crazy Belgian) to various viewing platforms along the river, watching for bears busy fattening up on post-spawning dying salmon.  

I hoped to catch a glimpse of one, and was incredibly luck to see four:  the first sauntering along the river; then a mother and cub devouring decaying salmon (yum) about 15 metres away from me; and finally a female digging intently for salmon eggs under the gravel.  Bear number 1 made a reappearance near the egg-digger but as the was the smaller less dominant female, kept her distance till the coast was clear, although not quite far enough to prevent a standpoint in the river... 

I've been lucky enough to see some great wildlife spectacles, but this was a pretty incredible one.  If you ever need a grizzly bear watching recommendation; try Aboriginal Journeys: http://www.aboriginaljourneys.com/ 
And here are some extra piccies:  https://picasaweb.google.com/103002243824878276777/GrizzliesOctober2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCISS7YKCwqq1rwE&feat=directlink