Category Archives: Adult Memories

Bravo! Coastal Rainforest in British Columbia Now Protected!

BC_Coast_Pacific_Wild

 

This photo above from Pacific Wild shows only a part of what is being protected

The title for this article comes from a news release by the Treehugger website on July 27, 2006.

nrdc-bear-bc-02Their article from 2006 said: “The government of British Columbia has agreed to protect more than 5 million acres of the Great Bear coastal rainforest. It is home to the world’s last white-colored Spirit Bears “

The Natural Resources Defence Council (NRDC) was also quoted in the article.

The thousand-year-old red cedars, Sitka spruce, western hemlock and balsam blanketing this swath of rugged coastline provide vital habitat for wolves, eagles, grizzlies and several hundred Spirit Bears. Found only in the Great Bear Rainforest, the Spirit Bear gets its white color from a recessive gene occurring in roughly one of every ten black bears born in the forest. The Spirit Bear figures prominently in the mythology and culture of several indigenous communities — known as First Nations in Canada — that have inhabited the Great Bear Rainforest for thousands of years.

The new conservation agreement, negotiated directly by the British Columbia government and the region’s First Nations, will protect an unspoiled area twice the size of Yellowstone National Park from logging and ensure the right of the First Nations to manage their traditional territories. In addition, the agreement establishes new, more stringent standards for logging in the rainforest outside of the protected area. “The accord will preserve this irreplaceable rainforest but still allow for controlled logging to sustain local economies,” said NRDC senior attorney Susan Casey-Lefkowitz. “It is a new model that shows we can save our most valuable wildlands and our communities at the same time.”

********************* Continue reading Bravo! Coastal Rainforest in British Columbia Now Protected!

Now You Have to Cook Them!

After posting the story Then You’ve Got to Clean Them! I obtained permission from Pacific Wild to use some photos showing the cooking of the salmon by the people in Bella Bella, British Columbia (BC). These pictures just made me drool. The people were cooking planked salmon which has to be one of the tastiest ways of cooking salmon over an open fire. See the photo and gallery below:

Planked Salmon - Bella Bella - Pacific Wild
photo courtesy of Pacific Wild

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The photos above are in no set order – just as I downloaded them. On the lighthouse we used to cook the salmon many ways but this was the most fun, and the tastiest. Continue reading Now You Have to Cook Them!

A Wolf at McInnes

A friend, Brian Waddington (aka Gups-Y-Bees) and I, he an ex-lighthouse keeper from Ivory Island many years ago, have a common friend on my old lighthouse at McInnes Island.

The friend is Colin Toner and he has been on McInnes for a few years, but the following experience as related below and the same on Brian’s website butterfliesdragonspeace  (Part 1 and Part 2) was a different day in the life of a lighthouse keeper!

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Lighthouse Keepers Life: Colin And Family have A Special Guest At The McInnes Island Light-Station

wolf
wolf on McInnes
cropped wolfColin Toner looking out the kitchen window I see my dog lounging in the sun then it occurs to me this one is grey and mine is inside – beautiful grey wolf swam all the way here to visit .
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Light-house keeping is a fine career if you are the light-house keeper type. Rarely boring, always useful, fits right into Buddhist beliefs about what makes a proper job and you just never know who is going to show up for coffee and company.
 
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This Wolf seems to want to be allowed to join the human pack on this new island.
Time will tell.

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More photos in Colin’s Wolf Diaries and Wolf Diaries Pt. 2 on his Facebook page.

Message In A Bottle

My title here Message in a Bottle is also the title of a 1999 American romantic drama film directed by Luis Mandoki and based on a novel with the same name by Nicholas Sparks, but in this case it refers to something completely different!

Most people think of a message in a bottle as a beachcomber’s mystery find. In this case there was no mystery, but lots of adventure! The story was posted on the MR BONE HEAD Facebook page. You never know what you will find on the beach!

From Glunz Ocean Beach Hotel & Resort

Judi and the message bottle
Judi and the message bottle – photo – Glunz Ocean Beach Hotel & Resort

So one of our owners Judi was walking on the beach this morning cleaning up the junk that washed into shore and finds a bottle with a message in it. There is also some sand and 2 one dollar bills.

Once we get it open and read the notes we find out that it is in fact NOT sand. It is the ashes of this woman’s husband of 70 years named Gordon. She writes that He loved to travel so she sent him traveling in a bottle with a note and money for someone to call home and tell her where he landed.

He started at Big Pine Key [Florida] (point A on the map below) in March of 2012 and then went to Islamerada [Florida] (point B) where someone found him. They added a note and sent him traveling again and he landed on our beach in Key Colony (point C).

Judi called the wife in Tennessee who was excited to know of Gordon’s travels! Judi added her note, we put him in a rum bottle (you know added a little fun to his trip) with the three notes. We added another dollar in case Gordon travels far and a long distance call is needed.

We will be having a memorial service or celebration of his life on our beach later today before sending him on his way again. Only our sister Judi could find a dead guy on our beach!

This is an amazing true story Continue reading Message In A Bottle

Tidelines and Ocean Currents

Tidelines – it is spelled both ways but I prefer the one-word form.

A tideline, according to Wikipedia

refers to where two currents in the ocean converge (or meet). Driftwood, floating seaweed, foam, and other floating debris may accumulate, forming sinuous lines called tidelines.

Two-rivers-that-meets-but-do-not-mixThe topic of this article came about after I saw the photo above.The photo actually shows two oceans meeting, but is similar to what happens with the tides on the ocean further south, especially with reference to the Pacific Ocean on the Canadian British Columbia (BC) coast where the tides change (from high to low and back again) twice a day – sometimes rising and falling by as much as seven (7) meters (22 feet)! Continue reading Tidelines and Ocean Currents

Mise Tales Twenty-Six

 

For an update on what a Mise Tale is then please see Mise Tales One.

August 26, 2013 Vancouver Sun

Keeping the light on at Point Atkinson

Pt.Atkinson

 When the Point Atkinson lighthouse was built 130 years ago, it was designed to protect shippers in the Strait of Georgia. Now the lighthouse itself is in need of a benefactor. . . . more

 

 

[private] Keeping the light on at Point Atkinson

 

 VANCOUVER SUN AUGUST 26, 2013
  
Keeping the light on at Point Atkinson
 

The Point Atkinson Lighthouse at Lighthouse Park in West Vancouver stands guard at the mouth of Burrard Inlet May 11, 2004.

Photograph by: RIC ERNST , PNG

When the Point Atkinson lighthouse was built 130 years ago, it was designed to protect shippers in the Strait of Georgia. Now the lighthouse itself is in need of a benefactor.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the District of West Vancouver are discussing ways to put the lighthouse into the hands of the community after Point Atkinson — along with 18 other B.C. lighthouses — was deemed “surplus” to the federal government’s needs three years ago and offered up for sale or transfer.

“In reflection, (the federal government) realized some of the national historic sites aren’t going to go to the highest bidder,” said Brent Leigh, deputy chief administrative officer at the District of West Vancouver, which has a co-management agreement with the government to maintain the lighthouse.

“They expect to work with the district in a community-based program that would ensure that we retain community use … Point Atkinson is one of our most beloved community assets.”

Originally built on a rocky cliff in 1875, the lighthouse has been more than just a beacon of hope for shippers over the centuries. It has also recorded a series of historical firsts as time went on, as chronicled in the book Keepers of the Light, written by one of the last lightkeepers, Donald Graham:

1774: Captain Vancouver rows past the point and names it for a ”particular friend.”

1872: The Marine Department awards contract to Arthur Finney to build the lighthouse.

1875: New lighthouse exhibits fixed white light illuminated by two coal oil lamps and silver-plated copper reflectors.

1875: Edwin Woodward and his wife land at the station.

1876: James Atkinson Woodward, the first white child born in West Vancouver, is born there.

1881: 185-acre park created as a Lighthouse Reserve.

1889: Scotch siren fog signal, powered by a coal-generated steam plant installed to help shippers navigate the fog.

1912: Original tower replaced by 60-foot-high concrete tower. Light replaced by a vaporized oil lamp.

1960: Vaporized oil lamp replaced by electric light bulb.

1994: Lighthouse designated a National Historic Site.

1996: Point Atkinson refitted with an automated solar-powered light.

Donald Graham and Gerry Watson were the last lightkeepers. Graham’s wife Elaine still lives in the cottage at Lighthouse Park.

With files from Canadian Lightkeepers Association website

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun [/private]
 
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By-the-Wind-Sailor

VelelleOne of the things a lightkeeper notices on the shoreline are the different changes, be they strange fishing floats, bloated dead fish, defeathered seabirds, massed clumps of seaweed or the profligate carcasses of the By-the-wind-sailor.

 I had seen many beaches littered with the pale blue bodies of the By-the-wind-sailor and thinking they were the nefarious Portuguese Man o’ War I hesitated to examine them, fearful of the imagined sting I would receive. It was not until I read the article yesterday on the By-the-wind-sailor from the Monterey Bay Aquarium that I realized that I was in error in my knowledge. Continue reading By-the-Wind-Sailor

Haida Gwaii

Queen_Charlotte_Islands_Map
Haida Gwaii Map

Haida Gwaii (High-Da Gwi my pronunciation) literally means “Islands of the Haida People”, informally but formerly known as the Queen Charlotte Islands (QCI) and the Charlottes, is an archipelago on the North Coast of British Columbia, Canada, populated mostly by first nations Haida people.

Langara Point Lighthouse

Langara Point Lighthouse courtesy of Langara Fishing Adventures on Flickr Continue reading Haida Gwaii

Night Photos and the Lighthouse

In August 2012 I published an article Lighthouse Under the Stars. Since then I have been very lucky to find night-time photos with  the stars and a lighthouse – not necessarily a Canadian lighthouse, but a lighthouse nonetheless. 

The first two are from Mike Salway who has given me permission to reprint them here. Please drop by and bookmark his page – some wonderful nighttime photography there.

lighthouse-milkyway5-3865

The Milky Way over Cape Leveque Lighthouse, Australia. Image credit: Mike Salway.

Continue reading Night Photos and the Lighthouse