October 25, 2012

Still Unfolding

Rose close-up

Unfolding (Joseph’s Coat rose)

With the days getting noticeably shorter and our cool, wet season closing in, it’s lovely to still find some flowers in the garden. There’s something extra special about having a bouquet of homegrown roses on your dining table at this time of year.

Although they drop their petals quite quickly and their aroma might be less heady than the roses of summer, October roses are, as Linda Allen’s old folk song says, “the fairest of all”. They bring colour to an increasingly grey time of year, and, while you have to get your nose right up to them to know it, they still carry a lovely scent.

And gazing into the heart of a multi-hued, unfolding October rose, you can almost forget that the dreary days of winter are nearly upon us.

You can find the lyrics of Linda Allen’s wonderful song, “October Roses” – which is about a lot more than flowers – here. 

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Posted by on October 25, 2012 in Garden, Musings on Life and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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October 17, 2012

A Mouth-Watering Affair

Homegrown tomatoes

Tomato Time

From the smooth juiciness of the Yellow Brandywines to the smoky tang of the Black Cherries, it’s been a fabulous year for tomatoes. All 10 of the varieties we grew this summer have been prolific and delicious, making meal times at our place a mouth-watering affair.

And to think, this wonderful veggie (well, fruit, actually) was once considered poisonous. If my 16th century ancestors could see what graces our dinner plates these days, they’d be horrified, I’m sure!

It’s still warm here on the west coast, but fall rains have set in, so the other day I picked the remaining fruit, to avoid losing them to fungus. I’ll wrap all of the unblemished green tomatoes in newspaper and store them in shallow boxes in our pantry, where they’ll continue ripening from now through the new year. By the time we finish eating them, it should be almost time to start next year’s seeds – a day I always enjoy.

Thanks to careful planning and the great work of Marie and Tom, our wonderful house-sitters, we’ve been able to bring in the crop for the last couple of summers, despite being away on our boat for much of the growing season. Boating time and tomato time: the best of both worlds!

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Posted by on October 17, 2012 in Garden and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , .

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October 12, 2012

Hangin’ Out with Momma Griz

Grizzly bear eating grass on the shoreline

Summer Lunch

If I hadn’t seen it at close hand, I’d find it hard to believe that a huge and powerful animal like this mother grizzly bear could live on…wait for it…grass!

For three consecutive days this summer we watched, from the safety of our kayaks, as she ripped through the thick shoreline grass, at times pulling whole clumps to her mouth with her long and deadly front claws.

Her cub spent most of that time in the forest just above, occasionally emerging to play on the shore, overturning rocks and exploring the intertidal zone.

We kept our voices to a whisper and made sure we were downwind, and it seemed the bears were oblivious to us – except for once, when Momma Griz suddenly strutted down to the water and kept on coming, straight towards us. Yikes! I didn’t know we could paddle our little kayaks that fast.

By the time we dared to stop paddling and look back, we could see she wasn’t the least bit interested in us. She’d simply wanted a cooling soak in the ocean after her lengthy lunch of beach grass. Who could blame her? It was a hot summer, after all.

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Posted by on October 12, 2012 in Animals & Wildlife, BC coast, Mammals and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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October 4, 2012

Coastal Ballet: Barnacles at Work

Barnacles feeding

Coastal Ballet

I’ve cut my feet on them way too many times, and every spring we have to scrape them off the hull of our boat. Still, I can’t help but appreciate barnacles: they’re at the same time wonderfully simple and ever so complex.

Simple, because they have few internal organs and, aside from their larval stage, spend their entire lives in a single place, upside-down inside their calcite shell. Complex, because they must withstand such a wide range of conditions, all the way from fully immersed in the saltchuck to high and dry for hours at a time.

Often they live in places with a strong tidal current or pounding surf, so barnacle cement has to be amazingly strong – much more effective than any human-concocted glues!

Did you know there are over 1200 species of barnacles? Historically, some of the larger ones formed an important part of the diet of coastal First Nations, which is why today, we find barnacle shells in middens all along our coast.

These hard-shelled little crustaceans can also be very beautiful. As the tide comes in, they open their cover plates and wave their feathery legs about to feed on plankton – a scene that can rival the loveliest human ballet.

All this, from such a “simple” little animal!

(The photo above shows seven barnacles at different stages of the feeding process – you can click on it to enlarge.) 

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Posted by on October 4, 2012 in Animals & Wildlife, BC coast, Insects & other invertebrates and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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September 25, 2012

The Walls Tell a Story: Alison Sound’s Pictographs

Pictograph, Alison Sound

Clash of Cultures

Were they a form of news reporting? A historical record? Public art for creativity’s sake? What stories are behind the fading images found along the sheer granite walls of Alison Sound and Belize Inlet?

Numerous pictographs, painted with red ochre on mostly south-facing white rock, can be found along these spectacular inland waterways. The photo above shows the best known and most well preserved pictograph, in Belize Inlet, just outside the entrance to Alison.

It appears to depict a killer whale or dolphin in the foreground (perhaps several, but time has degraded the image somewhat), a square-rigged schooner in the distance, and between them, three other vessels. One of these looks like a longboat with a dozen oarsmen; the second seems to have a square sail; the means of propulsion of the third isn’t clear. All three seem to have one thing in common: a crew member shooting a musket. (You can click on the photo above to enlarge it.)

It’s hard to find information on this pictograph, but I’ve read that Provincial archaeologists believe it immortalizes the British Navy’s shelling of the Nak’waxda’xw (Nakwaktok) settlement at Village Cove in 1869, in which many villagers were killed. That sorry chapter of our history apparently began in 1868 with the rape of a Nak’waxda’xw woman by a Hudsons Bay trading company employee, provoking a retaliatory attack by the Nak’waxda’xw on the trading vessel Thornton. In response, our government of the day (Britain) sent a warship.

This tragic chain of events must have held considerable importance in Nak’waxda’xw history. Some writers have speculated that it may have been why they moved from the Village Cove area to the remote reaches of Alison Sound, where they lived until relocating to Blunden Harbour in the late 19th century.

Another well preserved pictograph, further up Alison Sound, appears to illustrate seven native canoes, and is believed to commemorate the Nak’waxda’xw attack on the Thornton. But no one’s really sure, and it’s very difficult to find definitive information about any of these pictographs.

One thing is for certain: with their long, narrow stretches of vertical granite walls, these waterways make an awesome gallery for the images, whatever they might signify.

More from Alison Sound & Belize Inlet – click on any thumbnail to enlarge & launch gallery view:

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Posted by on September 25, 2012 in BC coast, Central & North Coast, Coastal History and tagged , , , , , , , , , .

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September 18, 2012

Gull on the Menu

Bald eagle with its prey (a gull)

Deadly Encounter

In an unusual kayaking experience this summer, we saw first-hand just how “red in tooth and claw” Mother Nature can be.

We were watching a bald eagle being pursued by seagulls – a common sight on the west coast – when, with a sudden swoop, the eagle snatched a gull out of the air and made off with it, landing on a nearby islet.

Next we saw a flurry of white as the eagle expertly plucked the feathers from the gull and tossed then aside like confetti. By the time we had paddled closer to the islet, the gull had been reduced to something resembling a limp rag doll and the rocks and seaweed were littered with down.

Although we didn’t try to get too close, I guess the eagle didn’t fancy our company. Eyeing us, the bird lifted its massive wings and took off, holding onto the gull, whose head bobbed along like a macabre marionette as it was carried out over the bay.

Pretty? Definitely not. But pretty awesome all the same.

Posted by on September 18, 2012 in Animals & Wildlife, BC coast, Birds, Central & North Coast and tagged , , , , , , , , .

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September 9, 2012

Exploring Alison: Beyond Superlatives

Reflections of shoreline and mountains at Alison Sound

Anchored at the head of Alison Sound – click to enlarge

What can one say about a place too beautiful for words?

Cruising up Alison Sound, we ran out of synonyms for “wow”, “ooh” and “ah”. Eleven miles and hundreds of photos later, we anchored off the shallows at the head of the Sound. Granite mountains rose vertically to either side, and behind us, the mouths of two rivers and a creek formed a lush green delta that called out for exploring in our kayaks.

Alison Sound extends north and east from Belize Inlet, which in turn branches off from Seymour Inlet. This huge inlet system is separated from the outer coast by the infamous Nakwakto Rapids – a fierce tidal pass that can run more than 14 knots. Unless you have a very high-powered vessel and nerves of steel – or perhaps a death wish – you need to pass in or out of Seymour Inlet only during slack water (the time when the current stops flowing in one direction and starts flowing the other way). The window of slack  at Nakwakto is only about six minutes long, but fortunately, we timed our passages well.

As the crow flies, the head of Alison Sound is about 30 nautical miles east of Cape Caution on Queen Charlotte Sound. But because Alison is so far inland, it’s a world apart from the fog, wind and heavy seas that dominate the exposed outer coast.

We spent three perfect days in Alison and saw no other boats. The weather was warm and dry, and it was so calm that we didn’t need to worry about dragging our anchor or swinging onto the sandbars. Swallows darted around us, keeping our floating home wonderfully free of pesky insects.  Aside from the birds’ melodious chatter, the only sound was the constant low roar of a waterfall.

Could it possibly get any better than this?

More photos of Alison Sound (click on any photo to enlarge and view in carousel format):

For more on Alison Sound – The Walls Tell a Story: Alison Sound’s Pictographs 

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Posted by on September 9, 2012 in BC coast, Boating, Central & North Coast and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

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August 30, 2012

Blunden Harbour: So Little Remains

Rotting house posts with beach below

House posts and midden, Blunden Harbour (click to enlarge)

Blunden Harbour forms a welcome haven on a long stretch of open, exposed coastline on the east side of Queen Charlotte Strait. Inside are extensive intertidal mudflats along with a huge tidal lagoon, a number of streams and miles of protected shoreline.

The ‘Nak’waxda’xw (Nakwakto) people who moved here in the 19th century from Seymour Inlet to the north must have thought they’d found paradise: plenty of fresh water; an endless supply of clams and other shellfish; a flat, low area above the beach for erecting homes; plenty of cedar and other building materials in the forest; and close proximity to rich fishing grounds.

In 1901, when Charles F. Newcombe photographed Blunden Harbour (the photo that later inspired Emily Carr’s famous painting), a long line of houses and totems stretched along a boardwalk street above the beach and harbour. Called Ba’as by its residents, this village was a culturally rich and vibrant place.

But by the 1960s everything had changed, and in 1964 the people of Ba’as decided to move to Port Hardy. They really had no choice, as the federal government threatened to close their school and remove all its support for housing and other services unless they relocated. And so the beautiful village of Ba’as died – killed by the Canadian government’s increasing push to amalgamate and centralize First Nations in fewer, more convenient locations.

Nowadays, almost nothing remains: the forest and wild flowers have overgrown the area where the boardwalk, totems and homes once stood. Only a couple of fallen house posts and a long white shell midden mark the site of this once important coastal village. Looking at them, I visualize Emily Carr’s painting and think about the vibrant community that once lived here, and all the life and promise that this beautiful place must have held.

We’re off the grid for most of the summer, with only occasional access to the internet. I welcome your comments, but it might be awhile before I can reply.

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Posted by on August 30, 2012 in BC coast, Central & North Coast, Coastal History, Forest and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , .

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