Summer in BC

Good thing that the blog travelogue hasn’t officially started yet, since technical concerns still seem to be at the forefront. The last entry included a photo of Aunt Barbara, with a caption of “lady at piano” immediately underneath. When I submitted the blog to be published, the caption was correctly placed beneath the picture. Once published, however, the text moved down and the caption ended up several rows away from the picture. There must be a way to co-ordinate this a little better, so will keep working on it. My quick answer as readers of this entry will note, is to post captionless photos in random order. In this way, no manner of organization will be expected

Summer at the Shuswap (actually, the entire 8 month period of time that I spend living at the cabin) ranges from active (the warm months when guests come to visit) to sedentary (the cool months when daytime fog hangs over the lake at most times other than those when it is actually raining, and no one comes. This blog/e-mail won’t bother with too much detail of who came and what happened. Rather, I am going to insert a few photos of various activities/guests and leave it at that. The pictures were intended to be in chronological order from Spring to the present and are not limited to the Shuswap. However, I have experienced some difficulties in posting pictures at all so randomness may be the keyword for this effort.
My Spring usually starts out with a May visit to Vancouver Island for the purpose of visiting mother Kay and various friends.

Kinsol Trestle
This trip was interesting in that neither of the participants, DonnaMae Wilson or myself, had set wheels on this trail before. DonnaMae’s cycling friend, Jeannette Klein (of Trails BC -Vancouver Island Division fame) had given us instructions to the south end of the now abandoned Kinsol Trestle, part of the rail freight system that had, at one time, serviced the Kinsol (short for King Solomon) Mine way back when and had fallen into disrepair when the world price for whatever mineral they were mining fell to a point where extraction became non-profitable and the railway ceased to operate. Given that the trestle itself was impassable, we were directed to a bypass that Trails BC was considering for access to the north end of the trestle and eventual connection to the Cowichan Lake trail system. At 10 kms, this didn’t seem too big a detour until we discovered ourselves climbing up a 7% grade logging road, then descending a fairly steep and narrow single track back to the Koksilah river level (roughly 700’ vertical). Eventually, we reached the north end of the trestle after having several discussions regarding the accuracy of Jeannette’s instructions. Returning to the truck by the same route would have taken us perilously close to the end of the day, so we opted to ford the river, risk the displeasure of someone’s guard dog on marked private property and save time on the way back. As it was, the day was darkening by the time we reached our starting point.




Aurora Explorer
The high point of my Spring visit to the Island was a trip aboard the Aurora Explorer. This landing craft-style freighter leaves from Port McNeil, north of Campbell River, and delivers heavy equipment and general construction goods to various remote logging camps and other settlements up mainland inlets as well as around some of the islands in the neighbourhood of Desolation Sound. In addition to a deckload of excavators, forklifts, skidders, water and logging trucks, the boat carried a human cargo of 12 passengers.
First class food and some spectacular scenery up Bute, Jarvis and Princess Louisa Inlets, more than made up for the fact that the weather remained cloudy and rainy throughout our voyage.
My mother had booked the trip six months before and had originally intended to travel with one of her friends from England. As it happens, the friend had other commitments, whereas I evinced mild expressions of interest, and left for Arizona on the understanding that she would search for more compatible cruising companions over the course of the winter, keeping me as a last resort to be used if needed. It is, without a doubt, a small measure of the esteem in which I am held that no other candidates surfaced and I got the nod. For those interested in looking up the website, I think that the address is marinelink.com, though a Google search for Aurora Explorer would arrive at the same place.
One of the downsides of going on the cruise was that I had to miss the annual Around Saltspring Island sailing race with friends Lyn and DonnaMae Wilson on their boat “Louise”. Apparently, they enjoyed the best winds in several years and finished in record time. That they were not actually in the money was a reflection of the absent ballast factor. My contribution in other years had been, primarily, to weigh down the windward rail, thus trimming the boat and adding a fraction of advantage to our cause. In lieu of sailing, we all got together for a few bike rides, one of which was via the Galloping Goose Trail from Sidney down to Spinnakers Pub on the inner harbour in Victoria – this in company with Jeannette and George Klein along with the Wilsons

Christie Memorial
In early April, Louky W. returned from South Africa to join some of the neighbours, one or two of Christie’s friends, Barbara Asquin and me for a little ceremony at the memorial corral up the hill from my cabin. We planted Christie’s ashes under the “towering” ponderosa sapling that I planted the previous year and had a glass of champagne in her memory. I was given the job of drilling holes in the granite rock that Tony W. and I had placed the previous year and attaching the plaque. I was worried about having the correct drill bit, glue and a drywall (?) plug to do the job properly, so studied correct procedure on the Internet. In the end, everything went according to plan; the plaque got mounted and Christie’s ashes joined those of a few deceased farm folks, plus one or two favourite pets who make up the residents of the memorial corral. I am pleased to report that the memorial ponderosa grew a foot or more over the course of the summer and looks as if it may, indeed, “tower” someday.

Ponoka Stampede
The annual end of June trip to Ponoka, with trailer in tow, went off, I was going to say – without a hitch, but of course, with the trailer, there is always a hitch.
Don Cameron and Kerri, collectively known as Team Medi-Dart, were great hosts, as always; the barnyard was chock full of relatives, dogs, a flock of 59 buzzards there to mark the 60th birthday of Kerri’s dad, as well as assorted guests. We attended Stampede events a few times, golfed twice and sat under the awning of the party trailer (mine) swilling beer and listening to Abba (the only CD in my collection of 10 CDs that gets universal approval). I even had the great thrill of going through Edmonton once to visit the Blackwood golf course – thanks to Gail H for the passes. Don and Kerri, accompanied by Razor the retriever, returned the visit by coming to the Shuswap later on in the summer, there to soak up sun and go for a few bike rides to the ice cream store as well as one over the top of the mountain and back down the front side (35 kms; 2800’ vertical - shuttle trucks needed for this one).


Shuswap guests
Plenty of other guests came to the Shuswap this year. Included were Reg Newcom and his trusty companion, Makk – so named because the previous dog, AKA Mac, passed away and Reg put the two “K”s in to avoid confusion. I was pleased to take on the task of being the swimming instructor for Makk, who, despite being a Chesapeake retriever, had never seen swimmable water. Off the dock he went in chase of a stick – perhaps the only dog that I have ever seen to do a regular human dive (head down, paws outstretched). When he resurfaced, gasping and choking. I thought for a moment that I might have to perform a dramatic sea rescue but his vertical attitude in the water changed to horizontal after a minute and he ended up paddling like a pro.
Jim Lebourdais was by and camped on board his “ship” at the dock. I had to spring into high gear to get the dock repaired in time – it was partially destroyed in one of the several Spring storms that we experienced this year. One of my ongoing projects – actually a project that has been static for a few years, got done while Jim was visiting. The fir tree in the middle of the deck now has space to breathe after we cut out the surrounding boards that had been threatening to choke it for the last several years.

My cousin David Asquin and family came out a couple of days. Finally, the boat, bobbing happily on its buoy all summer to that point, got a short workout as people skied, swam and sank in their respective fashions.
Tony Worrall came for 10 days in September. The water was still quite swimmable, though he brought some Toronto cloud with him that lingered throughout the week. Regardless, a good time was had by all. Mother Kay and her sister, Tommy, from England, came for a few days and enjoyed sunny hot weather. As Tommy suffers from a degree of visual impairment, preparations for them had to be made in advance. Rock pathways and steps were coated with fluorescent paint for heightened visibility, quantities of gin and pernod were imported from Salmon Arm for heightened perspective and resident spiders were pressurewashed from the outhouse. All would have gone well, had it not been for my friend Darch from Merritt, who dropped in with a couple of bottles of wine that he proceeded to pour into the ladies, to the point where a tipsy hike back to the guest cabin was enjoyed by all. There were plenty of other visitations, including friends from Lake Louise and area (Dawn, José, Dan and Joe with Dan’s brother Steve), Neil Mckendrick, Brian Honeywell and the CSPS golf team (how I can play so poorly and win money at the same time is still a mystery) spent a weekend, Doug and Sue Macdonald en route to, or on the way back from, their place on SaltSpring Island, dropped in and new acquaintances, the Richards from Sidney, BC arrived with dog Kenya in tow. A frequent visitor this summer has been Onyx, a young German Shepherd, so named because of his jet black colour. He is a recent arrival at Bastion Ranch, which surrounds me, and pops by quite regularly to check up on me and see what lady dog guests are on the loose (not to mention the leftover roll of “Rollover” that I inherited earlier in the summer). Other than that, MaryAnn H., now a Whistler resident, came out to show me her new, mufflerless, diesel truck and Lyn and Linda Michaud, whom I hope to meet in Arizona shortly, made their first appearance ever at the cabin. I’m sure that there were more arrivals but, memory being what it is, I have temporarily forgotten.

Projects
My projects this summer were fairly mundane. Dock repairs, following Spring storms took most of my talent and energy. Firewood cutting was ongoing throughout most of the summer, the deck, as mentioned, got cut around the tree, plus I replaced some deck planks. In addition I obtained a Lee Valley concrete mixer with which Don Cameron and I built some stone steps into the lake (or out of the lake, depending which way one is climbing) from the cliff immediately below the cabin. On most efforts, I had help from willing guests, though on some projects the guests did all the work - to all of you, thanks and please come back any time.
As this blog segment is being written, I am back on Vancouver Island for the Fall visit, though will be returning to Shuswap on Monday next. I need to get the frame shop in Salmon Arm to straighten one of my trailer axles after which I should be on the road south, hopefully on or about December 3rd.
The plan is to meet up with the Michauds when I arrive in Arizona, maybe travel to new and exciting destinations, then get to Gunsight Wash, near Why before Christmas. There is a good chance that the Perecys (of Sunnybrae Road) will be there and we can enjoy one or two campfires together.
This blog will end up being identical to the pre-departure group e-mail that I plan to send – the reason being that I am a little uncertain as to whether the blog is going to get through to its blogsite, presumably by passing through the blogosphere on the way.
One observation about the making of the blogsite comes to mind and maybe there is someone out there who can point me in the right direction. The text written here is in Word. I have downloaded the Blogger toolbar from Blogger.com and am attempting to write as if this were simply a Word document. The process of inserting pictures (as opposed to “attaching” pictures), however, is when the problems arise. Try as I might, the pics keep getting out of order – as if they had minds of their own. In any case, I have attempted to include a few pictures, though not all that I wanted (some simply disappeared), and one might note that they seem to be randomly placed. I think that I need to get to the next level of my blogging education and would welcome any input that anyone might offer – don’t hesitate to comment - that’s what the “comment” button is for! For those reading this as an e-mail, the blogsite can be found at travelswiththegoldenfalcon.blogspot.com – start at the bottom and work your way up to read in a chronological fashion. Oh and it’s time for he annual reminder – those who wish to receive the group e-mails simply have to respond with even a sentence to let me know that you are still alive and interested. Those who wish to “unsubscribe” can just let it ride by doing nothing.
JW