Gong Show time on the Charlottes.  Definitely not Sydney here.

Sunday started out quite sunny and beautiful.  A great morning until a neighbor 5 miles down the highway phoned and said our horse was on the highway heading south.  She seems to have a fetish for heading south.  The other two times she got loose over the years, she headed south fast, as if  Horse Heaven awaited.  She’s never been to the south end as far as I know.  Lord knows what her fascination with it is.  Caught up with her at St. Mary’s Spring, about ten miles away.  A long ride back along an icy highway.

That wasted most of the morning, and we didn’t get a few things done we wanted to before the AGM of our music festival, Edge of the World.  It was one of those meetings where you know no good will come of it.  The incumbent in the top job was challenged for the position, vote taken, and the challenger won.  Hate these things, creates bad blood.  Caught in the middle, E and I had to choose.  With only 15 people there, and the vote split 8-7, there’s only one or two questions as to who didn’t vote as expected.  Someone switched camps.

And that was the good day.

Monday, weather turned ugly just after midnight, screaming southeaster.  We’re scheduled to catch the ferry to Rupert in the morning, the ferry that  was supposed to come here overnight.  If you go to CBC or CTV news on the net, you can read about it.  The ferry came out of the islands on the east side of Hecate Strait and waltzed into a nightmare.  I heard the captain was from southern B.C. and this was his first run up here.  Bad timing.  BC Ferries says the weather came up bigger and faster than the forecast, but I suspect a seasoned captain up here wouldn’t have stuck his nose out with that brewing.

They bounced around in 7-10 metre waves for about four hours before being able to make the turn and head back north for cover, limping into Rupert around breakfast time.  This is of course, the Northern Adventure, a boat from the sunny Mediterranean  that they bought to replace the Queen of the North, which they sunk a couple of years ago, while the captain was off duty asleep, and the first mate and the second mate (female) were otherwise engaged on the bridge, or there-abouts.  Ran straight into an island in the middle of the night, a big, big island.  Anyhow, this present boat has been dubbed the ‘Misadventure’.

So, no ferry trip.  I was scheduled to have a follow-up test to last year’s bypass I had done.  But it’s ok, sort of.  We had an extra day leeway, and they said the ferry would come back this morning (Tuesday).  So, cancel one hotel reservation, re-arrange a number of other things we had scheduled.  The wind dropped Monday evening, things are looking ok, sort of.  Forecast is for another storm though.  Late Monday the word comes down the pipe that the sailing is canceled.  More phone calls, canceling all the changes we’d just made.  At least it worked out with the test I was to have done.  They said the camera on their machine just kakked out and all appointments would have to be rescheduled anyway.

One more problem.  Elizabeth’s adopted daughter from Prince George (in the interior) had been staying with us, and was due to go back, on the ferry of course (then the bus).  So booked a flight out on the float plane today.  Plane canceled.  Re-booked for tomorrow.  Weather forecast dicey.  Even in the best of circumstances visits by her daughter are fraught with tension, each day its own little challenge to keep the lid on.  Things have been not too bad this visit, but she’s getting bored, and antsy, and we’re getting tired.  Not a good brew, what?  The plot thickens.  Patience is not my strong suit.  Arrrgghh!!

So there you have it Aussie folk, all is blissful on the Misty Isles.

Uncle Keith

Greetings all;

Well, I made it to Whitehorse to see my sons, one in his late twenties, a journeyman carpenter and loving it, the other mid-twenties and doesn’t know what to do with himself.  So he worked on a paving crew all summer, 12 hours a day, seven days a week, and made scads of money.  Plans to hit South America this winter with some mates.

One primary reason for my visit every October is to get them out of town and off to Haines, Alaska for salmon fishing.  As usual, this was a great trip …. for them the fishing, for me, time alone with them away from their regular diversions at home.  The fishing was a little slower this season than previous, but we still wound up with 5 coho, 5 chums and a sockeye in two days of fishing.  Most of it winds up in the freezer as vac-packed fillets, but both Tyler and Stefan like to smoke up a goodly portion as well.  A few pictures for you attached of the Chilcat river near Haines.

After having my by-pass done almost a year ago now, I basically lost that year in terms of getting major jobs done around the property.  So this fall I’m dedicating to catching up.  The woodshed is mostly full now, but I built an elevated deck on the backside of it, and opened up the back walls so we could get at it from that side.  Now we’ll always be able to get at the oldest wood first, no matter which end we initially loaded it from.  Drying wood here is a chore what with the damp climate.  Just in time, as we got our first skiff of snow this morning.  Well, it’ll be a nice clear sunny day and great for working outside.

I’ve got the hardware up now for the slider barn doors on the front side, where our prevailing winds and rain hit.  Hopefully I’ll get the 6×8 foot doors built and hung today.  Finished off the wood shed extension last month that gave us space that is insulated and heated, for motorcycles and other equipment.  Now at last I have my shop back and can actually begin to do something in it.

We’ve taken over tending the chickens down below (our house is up on a knoll)  that E’s son and wife have. Ah, ain’t it exciting in the country.  Lynn is off to Vancouver this winter to work on getting her doctorate (marine biology) and Leandre is busy as a one-armed paper hanger with his various contracts.  He and his partner have a crew working up at Tow Hill on North Beach, replacing for the Parks branch all the boardwalk trail that winds up to the top.  It’s a major job.  They had to dismantle it all and collate into bundles.   All the new wood they marshalled in the campsite parking lot below the hill.  Then on a good flying day, they called the chopper over from Rupert, and started an intense day of flying each lift of wood up to a designated spot, and hooking on to the old wood and lifting it out. (pics attached).

Ah, life in the country. Elizabeth is a singer, and is often asked to sing at various events around here, funerals being a regular thing.  The last one was for Winnie, an old friend of her mother’s.  So, she got to town and they held the service, but Winnie had to sit tight so to speak, as they couldn’t bury her.  The backhoe had broken down.  The backhoe was off to the garage and Winnie back to the cooler.  Next day they planted Winnie with due reverence and ceremony.

That same day I had  planned to make hamburgers for supper.  But we use deer burger instead usually, sometimes bison (which we can get at the store, from Alberta).  So I thawed out a package of burger and rummaged through the freezer looking for hamburger buns.  I knew that Anne’s store down the road was out of them a couple of days previous, and her weekly order wasn’t due to arrive on the ferry for another couple of days.  No burger buns, but I did find hot dog buns.  When E got home, I knew she’d ask what’s for dinner, so thought I’d tease her mind a little …. answered ‘deerburdogs’, thinking this would stump her.   Not so, she had it in a second, as she’s had to be very creative over the years with either no store at all handy, or like now, a small convenience store with limited stock.

My son Stefan arrives  in a couple of weeks for a month visit, prior to heading for  S.America in January.  Looking forward to taking him Steelhead fishing in the Yakoun, a beautiful river in the centre of the island.  Cold, tough fishing in December, but absolutely gorgeous when the sun shines.  Steelhead are a sea-run rainbow trout.  Will likely go deer hunting too as its getting time to re-stock the freezers.  They are small Sitka blacktails, half the size of whitetail on the mainland.  The deer were introduced (about a 100 years ago) and have no natural enemies, so are here in great numbers and play havoc with the island’s ecosystem.  Hunters are encouraged to take as much as they want.  There’s no chance of decimating them as there’s so much wild country that’s essentially inaccessible for regular hunters.  All it does is keep them in check a little.

That’s all for today folks.  Hope you found it a little interesting.

Keith

I’m basically a city slicker and I know that many of you are as well.  My uncle, on the other hand, lives in a remote part of Canada called the Queen Charlotte Islands (http://www.britishcolumbia.com/regions/towns/?townid=3661).  I asked him if he would be interested in writing about some of his experiences of living in a place about as far away from the city as you can get.  I’m delighted to report that he has agreed to post when he can.  Without further ado…

Hello to All Down Under and Others Parts Unknown

This is your host’s uncle, Keith to be precise, writing to offer a slice of life from Haida Gwaii / Queen Charlotte Islands off the north coast of B.C., Canada.  As you can see, we’ve got a severe case of split personality going on here.  Do we choose to share the name the indigenous Haida call this soggy rock or cling to the name some sycophantic explorer, trying to suck up to that twit George the third, bestowed upon this place.

We live on 30 acres of mostly bush (ie. forest) at the metropolis of Tlell  (pop. 200) on the east coast of Graham Island.  We try to seize our opportunities to “get off the rock” when they present themselves.  A couple of weeks ago, my wife Elizabeth was off on another of her training sorties to the mainland (she’s a retired postmaster, and takes short contracts to train other postmasters in tiny communities in the interior).

I went with her as we had a big agenda to fill regarding off island acquisitions.  We took her son’s truck and flatbed trailer in order to buy a load of hay in the Smithers area (highway 16, between  Prince Rupert and Prince George on mainland British Columbia).  We have this horse for reasons only Elizabeth (E) understands that eats more than I care to mention and magically converts it to three times the volume in manure.  A neighbor with a similar problem was eager to share the load and cost.  Hay here at Ranch Feeds hit $17 a bale last winter (just can’t grow enough here, so it’s all trucked/ferried here from mainland), compared to $3 in Smithers.  Factoring in our cost, probably works out to $9-10 a bale, so we made some decent savings.

Also bought a newer Ford Explorer to replace my old one which I use for our summer Invasive Weeds contract.  And all the hardware for barn door sliders, which I’ll put on the woodshed so the driving rain in the winter can’t get at it.  E and I only have wood heat, which is economical, but makes for a lot of work for an ol’ fart.  It works in another way though, as it’s a constant battle here to keep the forest at bay, to prevent the houses from mildewing due to lack of sun.  And finally, lots of dry goods to fill the pantry.  It’s normal for us to spend 5-6-7 hundred dollars on a trip like this.

Had a wonderful weekend during the trip at a B&B on Francois Lake, south of Burns Lake (hey, you all know where that is, right?)  This couple in their late thirties bought five acres on the lake with a big old log house.  Took them two years to sand every log, inside and out and completely re-do the inside to turn it into a beautiful B&B.  Instead of the logs being almost black with age, they are now a beautiful blond.  The guy and I would jump in his skiff with an electric trolling motor and catch rainbows (trout) right out in front of the house.  This was a good time.

Don’t know if you’ve heard about our pine beetle problems the last decade, but the evidence is everywhere there.  That area of the interior is rolling plateau, and the hillsides in every direction are splotched with red-brown, the sign of dead pine forests.  Then you have patches of spruce dead from the invasion of the spruce bud-worm the previous decade.  Despite the gruesome image, it’s still a gorgeous area with seas of poplar (trembling aspen) pocked with cleared fields for farming and ranching.

Arriving at the ferry terminal in Prince Rupert, I’m wondering if I’ll have a scrap with the ferry people about ‘over-height’ and ‘over-width’.  Our old ferry, the Queen of Prince Rupert was recently retired with the new Northern Adventure (which we’ve dubbed the ‘Misadventure’) now in service.  B.C. Ferries has been having one of their usual communication gaps, so half the staff are using the new guidelines and half the old ones.  It’s great fun when you have to tell people what their own regs are.  Anyhow, the attendant at the entry kiosk comes out with her wheel-on-a-stick odometer and says to me in a cheery sing-song voice:

“And have you been measured yet today?”

Quite an opener.

I’m thinking, “Geez, of course, they measured me at the gas station, and there was a girl in a bunny outfit doing the same when I stopped at Safeway for groceries”.

I say, “I know I’m not over-height or width”.  She just nods and measures truck and trailer for length.  Didn’t hassle me for the tarping job on the hay either (its dangerous goods you know, favoured by discerning terrorists world-wide).

Sitting in line later I’m thinking, missed the boat with a quick retort.  In response to the ‘being measured yet today’, I should have come back with “No need at all, my girlfriend knows right to the millimeter…”.   Of course in today’s politically correct insanity, I likely would have missed the ferry and endured an afternoon of fielding incredibly stupid questions from a panel of puckered arsed politicos that are paranoid about offending anybody about anything.

The trip back was normal winter fare, rocking and rolling in a 45 knot southeaster.  Got the hay in the barn, and now doing renovations on the wood and storage sheds before serious winter rains set in.

That’s all for now folks.  Off to visit my boys in Whitehorse, Yukon in a couple of days, and go for our annual trip down to Haines, Alaska to fish for coho (salmon).

The Queen Charlotte Islands are located off the west coast of British Columbia, about 700 km north of Vancouver. They are sparsely populated and quite isolated. But now they are home to one of about eight cowshare operations now running in British Columbia. So you can live out there on the edge of nowhere and still get raw milk. That’s progress. Here’s a story by Heather Ramsay, which appeared in the Queen Charlotte Islands Observer last week. Thanks to Gordon Watson of Home on the Range cowshare in Chilliwack, for sending it our way! 

“Every morning, Lisa Graham-Knight, who is running a cow-share co-op that provides fresh raw milk to 21 islanders, relieves Ebony and April, a Jersey Holstein and a pure Jersey cow, now living on Maude Island. An unlikely-looking revolutionary, the tanned, smiling 22-year-old has a clear conscience even though federal law forbids the sale or distribution of unpasteurized milk. That’s because she’s not selling the milk. Instead she’s participating in what some might consider a radical act. She sells shares in her small herd and buyers become part of a cooperative, paying her a maintenance fee each week. The milk produced by the collective cows is divvied up between owners.

Several other farms across Canada offer raw milk in a similar fashion, including a farm in Chilliwack where Ms Graham-Knight worked last year.

According to Health Canada, unpasteurized milk is unsafe. The agency has issued warnings over the last several years reminding Canadians that bacteria like salmonella, E. coli and listeria can be found in raw milk and these can lead to food-borne illnesses involving fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and, more seriously, kidney failure, miscarriage and death.

But raw milk activists say that health concerns are outdated. Pasteurization became necessary during the late 1800s when industrialization was ramping up, but health standards were not. Factory-like farms were producing milk for large cities and distributing over large networks. Disease and bacteria were easily introduced at any step along the way.

Ms Graham-Knight admits she hasn’t tested the milk, but she did have the cows tested for various diseases before she brought them up from Chilliwack and they were given a clean record.

Healthy cows create healthy milk,” she said. To create a good product, animals have to be very well cared for and with only two to look after on a small farm, she feels able to do that.

Raw milk is not for everyone, she admitted, but in her opinion pasteurized milk offers more potential for people to become sick. When milk from an industrial dairy gets contaminated, thousands can become ill. “Raw milk has its own immunity,” she said. “It wants to protect itself from pathogens.”

Some believe drinking raw milk makes children less prone to allergies and that raw milk can help with auto-immune conditions like eczema and Crohn’s disease.

Arguments for and against raw milk abound on the internet, but that aside, Ms Graham-Knight brought the cows to Haida Gwaii because she wanted to give something back. “It’s my home and I wanted to somehow contribute to the community,” she said. “It’s honest, wholesome work. And it’s the best food I could think of to bring.”

For Ms Graham-Knight, two cows and a cow share co-op allow her to live on her friends’ farm (thank you so much, Laird and Linda, she says) and earn a small income, something that is impossible to do in the industrial milk system.

Besides milking and bottling, she’s busy in the garden tending food for the cows. She cares for the pasture and ensures no harmful weeds are making their way into the cows’ diets. She spreads manure on the garden and she checks their feet for cracks, then she brushes their lovely backs.

The community has been very supportive, she said, with people stopping her on the street to talk about their fond memories of drinking milk direct from the family cow.

People remember receiving it as a child and they’ve been longing to have it again,” she said.”

A few years back, we were lucky enough to tag along on a friend’s 54 ft. trawler on a cruising trip from Sandspit to Gwaii Haanas National Park  in the Queen Charlotte Islands.  This is the homeland of the Haida Nation.  I could write pages about that experience.  One of the many things that made an impression was the chance to see the old totems lying on the ground and watch the young generation learning how to carve in the style of their ancestors.  I decided someday I wanted to do that.  I searched in the forest at our place in Michigan and found a large cedar tree that was tipped over and from that cut a 14 foot log.  Last summer I finally got around to carving my totem and I painted it in the style that I had observed.  While it is nowhere near as nice as the ones I saw on that trip, it does however provide a lot of great memories.  We put it in the ground last Labor Day weekend and I can now view it out the window of my studio in Michigan.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free”.   Michelangelo

1. Get outdoor magazine story assignment.

2. Be the only person on the trip with a good camera.

3. Take 200 photos a day.

4. Know the art director.

Ok, so it wasn’t very difficult, but I did land my very first magazine cover photo in the latest issue of Kayak Angler magazine. The image in question is one of the 1,400+ photos I took during a week of kayak fishing in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Click here to read the story.

For more details about my ongoing travails to get my photographs published in the magazines that I edit (let alone elsewhere) read this.

Can I call myself a photographer yet?

I have returned from the Great Wet North laden with seafood. My dad and I fished for four days off Masset in the Queen Charlotte Islands on his boat and I caught two halibut and two coho. I was given another three coho by generous locals so my freezer is totally full. Two of the four days we caught nothing as we were being followed by a big pod of humpback whales that were scaring all the fish away. It didn’t matter that much to me as I had a fabulous time cruising the waters of Dixon Entrance and proving my seaworthiness by learning as much as I could about how to catch my own fish and manage the boat. I can now catch halibut, coho, gaff halibut and get them in the boat (no small feat I assure you), tie fishing lures, cook while the boat rolls and dive for fishing rods that are headed over the side of the boat.

I bought a new book to go with my fish: Halibut – The Cookbook. It is a collection of recipes edited by the head chef of the Fishouse Restaurant here in Vancouver. I am not very good at cooking fish so I hope to improve dramatically in the coming months and hopefully this book will help me. I will be sure to post the results.

To my great relief my garden did not go out of control while I was away. My husband watered my newest sprouts. The pickling cukes got a tad on the large side but I will turn them into sweet pickles tonight. The sunflowers are doing really well.

I have finally figured out which sunflowers are which. The “Music Box” is the variety that bloomed first and stayed at a height of four feet. The “Autumn Beauty” variety is now ten feet tall and making blooms twice the size of the others. Unfortunately many of the blooms are too tall for me to reach with the scissors. Survival of the fittest I guess! Both the plants are producing blooms in colours that range from bright yellow to mahogany. None have made any of that really rich deep red yet and I don’t think they will.

Moin zusammen…

diesen Flug von Sandspit nach Bella Coola machte ich schon vor vielen Tagen und natürlich schoss ich auch eine Menge Bilder. Heute  Morgen, als ich endlich mal den Bericht fertigstellen und die Bilder noch mal sichten wollte waren sie… fott, weg, away… entmaterialisiert… einfach nicht mehr da.

Also werde ich den Flug von Sandspit nach Bella Coola ein wenig beschreiben.

Wir befinden uns also auf den Queen Charlotte Islands -> Sandspit.

Die Queen Charlotte Islands (Haida: Haida Gwaii) sind ein Archipel vor der Nord-West-Küste von British Columbia, Kanada. Die Queen Charlotte Islands bestehen aus den beiden Inseln Graham Island und Moresby Island sowie ca. 200 kleinen, vorgelagerten Inseln. Auf den Inseln lebt eine Vielzahl seltener und endemischer Tierarten, wie etwa die größte Unterart des Amerikanischen Schwarzbären (Ursus americana carlottae). Viele Baumarten wie etwa die Küstenkiefer, die amerikanische Roterle und der Riesenlebensbaum sind hier heimisch. Die Inseln wurden von Kapitän George Dixon nach seinem Schiff, der Queen Charlotte, benannt.
Unser Flug führt uns zunächst über die Copper Bay bevor wir den rund 66nm-Sprung über das Wasser (Hecate Strait) zum Festland beginnen.
Zwischen Banks Island und der Estevan Group tauchen wir ein und drehen kurz vor Campania Island nach rechts ab und folgen unserer Route über Rennison Island, Harvey Islands und Price Island.
New Bella Bella lassen wir rechts liegen und Bella Bella/ Campell links und das Airfield Shearwater (YSX) wieder rechts liegen… danach geht es geht es gerade aus weiter, bis wir den Fjord erreichen.
Sobald wir über dem Wasser sind, drehen wir nach rechts ab und halten geradewegs auf Namu (ZNU) zu. Den ersten Fjord, der nach links abzweigt nehmen wir… das ist die Port Hardy – Bella Coola Schiffroute. Hier bleiben wir und folgen dem Fjord vorbei an Kings Island, South Bentinck Arm… North Bentinck Arm bis wir an der Bucht vor Bella Coola City ankommen. Von dort aus ist es nur noch ein Klax bis zum Bella Coola Airport (CYBD), wir folgen einfach dem Bella Coola River und sind schon fast da.

Ein Musthave für diesen Flug ist sicherlich Holger Sandmann’s Bella Coola Szenerie  aus dem Jahr 2004, die noch immer ein Knaller ist!

Mit dem Google-Earth-File können Sie meine Route nachverfolgen. Möchten Sie die Route nachfliegen, downloaden Sie einfach den Flugplan (*.pln –> rechte Maustaste -> Ziel speichern unter…)

Enjoy!

Der Sandspit Airport auf den Queen Charlotte Islands in einer der beliebtesten und gleichzeitig oft vergessenen Flughäfen in Nordamerika. Die Queen Charlotte Islands – sie bestehen aus den beiden Inseln Graham Island und Moresby Island sowie ca. 200 kleinen, vorgelagerten Inseln – liegen übrigens nördlich von Vancouver und westlich von Prince Rupert, in der Provinz British Columbia, Kanada. Es sind die westlichsten Inseln in Kanada. Nur die unendlichen Weiten des Nordpazifiks liegen zwischen der Westküste der Queen Charlotte Islands und Japan.
Der Sandspit Airport wird von vielen Piloten während des langen Fluges vom US-Festland nach Alaska für einen Tankstopp genutzt.Kauf und Installation

Die Szenerie Captain Keith – Sandspit, B.C. ist im SimMarket für unter 10 Euro erhältlich und kommt mit knapp 40MB daher. Die Installation sollte via Installer problemlos verlaufen (nicht getestet).

In dieser Szenerie gibt es nicht nur den Sandspit Airport, sondern auch den Masset Municipal, der etwa 50 Meilen nördlich liegt und “Mr. Frank’s Place “, einer Cabin mit Dock für Wasserflugzeuge am Masset Inlet (etwa in der Mitte zwischen Sandspit und Masset). Weitere Extras der Szenerie sind AI-Traffic, einschließlich z. B. einer Air Canada Dash-8, die Sandspit täglich anfliegt und eine private Grumman Goose in Masset, die ihre Runden als Charterflugzeug zieht.

Einige Gimmicks, die aber heute schon zum „guten Ton“ gehören, sind animierte Vögel im Flug und Wale, die es zu beobachten gilt.

Alles in allem ist Captain Keith – Sandspit, B.C. eine recht nett gemachte Szenerie (wenigstens geben die Fotos dies so rüber), für kleines Geld. Ich möchte nicht sagen, dass Sandspit ein Must have ist, aber für Backcountry-Piloten ist der Kauf sicherlich eine Überlegung wert. 

Zu beziehen via SimMarket, Preis: 9,49 Euro, Flusi-Version: FS9

Hier einige Fotos…

Enjoy!

I’m currently reading a very interesting book that looks into the myths and myth-tellers of the Haida nation of the Queen Charlotte Islands off the British Columbia coast, A Story as Sharp as a Knife (Buy Now: Amazon.ca; Amazon.com) by Robert Bringhurst.

Bringhurst looks at the efforts of linguist and ethnographer, John Swanton, in the early 20th century, who wrote down oral myths told by Haida elders. Bringhurst compares these myths to the classical myths we’ve all heard from around the world.

I’m a sucker for this kind of story telling, and Bringhurst’s insights are very interesting and enlightening.

So, what’s wrong with that?

www.donmeredith.ca