Nurtured by Love

Category: Rural life

  • Active Transportation Advocacy

    Active Transportation Advocacy

    I’ve been a member of the local trails Society for years, and have volunteered at a lot of trail-work days, but I’ve always resisted invitations to become part of the board. Three years ago, though, I learned that they had become the keeper of the legacy of another Society, one that had tried unsuccessfully to create a trail between our neighbouring twin villages.

    I got interested.

    I didn’t join the board but I did ask to be appointed the head of a committee charged with this initiative. I have ignored it for months at a time, but I have hamstered away at various aspects of it on and off. Now happens to be an on time, so I’ve put a lot of energy into it over the past month or two.

    Our two villages are, largely speaking, two neighbourhoods comprising one community. Although they have separate village councils, the businesses and services that comprise a functional community are shared between them. There is one post office, one ER, one credit union, one grocery store (located in New Denver). There is one dental clinic, one health food store, one laundromat, one hardware & building supply store, one performance hall (located in Silverton). Between the village is a single two-lane highway. This stretch of road is just over 3 km long, and has an 80 km/h speed limit, negligible to entirely absent shoulders, poor sight-lines and steep drop-offs. There is no sidewalk, no adjacent pathway, no back road or gravel track to offer an alternative. And of course there is no public transit: a bus runs through three times a week but depending on the schedule and direction of travel you will wait between 8 hours and several days for a return trip

    I bike it, but I don’t feel entirely safe doing so, and I’m one of only about 10% of the area population who feel even passably okay walking or biking the highway. So most people feel like they have no choice but to use a private motor vehicle for their daily commutes or errands.

    While I am willing to accept — as the previous Society decided — that a scenic lakefront trail is a no-go due to private property interests along the foreshore, I am not willing to accept that there is no active transportation solution whatsoever for connecting two interdependent neighbourhoods. In the late 1800s people living in this area were able to push railroads through mountain passes in the space of a few months with little more than hand tools and dynamite. A rock face or scree slope here or there was not a deal-breaker.

    With some governmental money floating around to support the development of Active Transportation projects, I decided the time was right to resurrect the pathway idea and try to push it forward with less of a scenic/recreational spin and more of a eco-conscious/active transportation spin. I had a co-conspirator early on, but he stepped back for personal reasons, and so I’ve been carrying the torch mostly on my own.

    The inter-Community Active Transportation (i-CAT) Link now has its own webpage (because I maintain the Trails Society website). I have done a large community engagement survey, put together a twenty-page white paper laying out the case for the link, explored land title issues, done an informal survey of the existing road bed, and have learned more than I ever expected to need to know about historical public roadway statutes, Ministry of Transportation construction and maintenance standards.

    The i-CAT Link has now been picked up by a regional Citizens’ Advisory Group on Rural Mobility as a supported project, which gives me a foot in the door with the regional district government and the Ministry of the Transportation. Queue lots of meetings.

    I also applied for a small community grant under the Trails Society umbrella, so later this year I should be able to hire a planning consultant to start a bit of a scoping plan. I’m not kidding myself: this three-kilometre stretch contains within it almost every geotechnical and jurisdictional challenge possible. Ultimately big grant money, likely to the tune of several million dollars, will be required to build a separated shared mobility pathway. But even if I can smooth the way a little bit, I think it will be worth the work. Until motor vehicles are banned, we need an alternative, and this project makes so much sense. I am convinced it is inexorably moving towards fruition, albeit on a geologic time-scale, and I am happy to play whatever role I can.

  • Fireweed Hub

    Fireweed Hub

    Four years ago I joined the board of the Silverton Co-work Society. They were a group working towards the creation of a co-work space in the area, and had just married that idea to another long-term community goal: of a food hub. It was a long, twisty road we trod, but the result is that we are now the Fireweed Hub Society and successfully managed a million dollars in grant money to renovate a heritage building on Main Street, transforming it into and absolutely amazing community resource.

    We opened in May 2024 and two months later the area was hit with a massive wildfire event. Our still-wet-behind-the-ears facility became the de facto community hub. Amidst all the evacuations and business closures, we were able to accept donated food, purchase what we could from businesses with excess produce to help feed people in need, rally dozens and dozens of volunteers to do useful things, employ laid-off food workers, feed firefighter and structure protection crews, welcome evacuees and those on alert to hang out, to connect, to eat, to destress, and act as the information hub and meeting space.

    It was the ultimate proof of concept: we manage a multi-purpose community space that can quickly adapt to serve almost any need. The emergency situation demonstrated to community members the breadth needs that we can serve: we are not just a pop-up restaurant venue! And we enjoyed a lot of positive press coverage and a huge boost to our reputation throughout the region.

    Thank goodness things settled down by mid-August, giving us the chance to better find our feet. The remainder of our inaugural year has included pop-up restaurant and café offerings provided by chefs who rent our space, weekly social / recreational / educational gatherings for community elders, a lot of use by non-profit and other groups for in-person, remote and hybrid meetings, meal preparation for the local food bank, occasional use by value-added food producers, and a steady rota of food-related workshops and cooking bees.

    Our Society is comprised a great “working board” of directors and some great staffers; we have fun and enjoy and trust each other. My role is as the lead on the co-working operations, I sit on the fund-raising committee, I manage the website and the technology solutions within the space, and am the communications and publicity person. I also do a lot of volunteer dishwashing and food prep for the programming our society offers.

    I probably do 5-10 hours of Fireweed work in a typical week, but some weeks are just an hour or two while others more like half-time or even full-time. It’s gratifying, because we have created a community-informed tangible facility that is unique, and is already serving a range of important roles.

  • Bikeaversary 2

    Bikeaversary 2

    I’ve now been car-free (locally, meaning for distances of under about 40 km one-way) for more than two years. The second anniversary slipped by without me even noticing. I no longer feel like I’m out to prove something; it’s just become second nature that this is how I live my life.

    I ordered studded tires for the new bike and I think these will work much better in the snow than the noisy somewhat finicky chains I had to use on the Rad Mini’s non-standard tire size. Incidentally, the Rad Mini has been passed along to a local friend who is not a winter rider and who rides mostly flat terrain around the village. With a new wiring harness it seems to be running well for her and I’m sure happy that it hasn’t had to go directly to a landfill.

    The other day I decided to try out a newly rehabilitated trail in the northwest corner of Kokanee Glacier Park using a recently reopened forestry road for access. To get to the forestry road I had to ride about 20 km from home along the highway to the top of a long hill. I had been assured that the gravel forestry road, just over 12 km long from that point, was in great shape, so there was no reason not to use the e-bike to get to the trailhead. As it turned out it was a great choice.

    The 32 km of mostly climbing did give me a twinge of range anxiety. Adding in four hours of alpine hiking, I knew that the climb up the hill back to my house would come at the end of a 7-hour day of non-stop exertion, and I did not want to be running out of bike battery at that point. Having not done a lot of really long rides on the new e-bike I wasn’t sure how much of a cushion I would have, so I kept the power assist either off or — when climbing — on the lowest setting. As it turned out, there was plenty of juice, but I didn’t know that in the morning. Better safe than sorry.

    The Roadster turned out to be a very capable Logging-Roadster too. Nice gravel-style tires with a fair bit of volume, some front-fork suspension and a suspension seat-post kept me very comfortable. The hike itself was amazing, though fairly steep, meaning I used muscles on the descent that I don’t stress very often, and I’m a bit sore 36 hours later. But it was worth it to spend a crisp sunny day getting into a beautiful alpine basin that will like get snowed in within a couple of weeks.

    Because I was away from home and e-bike for half the summer, it took me until this week to clock 1000 km on the Roadster, and the moment came along the forestry road leading toward Blue Grouse Basin. A great location and a great day for a first major milestone for this bike. Looking forward to many more thousands.

  • An Apparent Evergreen

    An Apparent Evergreen

    In spring
    did they notice
    that alone among the conifers
    you were fully cloaked
    trunk to twig
    in feathery tassels of new green?
    While other trees
    merely added pale buds to branch-tips ,
    did they see that you lacked
    their staid dark under-cladding?

    Perhaps they did
    but in summer you stood in the copse
    like one of the rest,
    an apparent evergreen,
    your trunk driving towards the mountain sky,
    needles dark and firm like any proper pine or fir.
    Any suspicions they’d had were put to rest
    as you set about the photosynthetic business of being a tree.
    Making roots and cones and twigs,
    you exhaled oxygen,
    and soon you too forgot your odd feathery spring.

    Yet as the nights grew crisp
    your suspicions grew
    that you were not, after all, the same as the rest.
    Your mid-summer energy spent
    your needles slowly brittled.

    And suddenly one cold morning you were certain
    that you were not to be ever green after all.
    You burst into the frost-days of autumn
    a fiery yellow larch,
    starkly different,
    unapologetically so,
    shouting your gold
    across the high mountain slopes
    to others of your kind:
    I’m here! I’m not like the rest! See me!

  • The orange pill

    The orange pill

    During the summer of 2021, Fiona was offered a job working as a veterinary assistant at a clinic 50 km away. It was a super opportunity, so I told her she should take it, and she could use my car for the commute. I would use the e-bike. We had bought a Rad Mini in 2018 to help Sophie and Fiona get around for work, school and groceries in Nelson while they were living semi-independently. They mostly walked but the bike was occasionally a huge help.

    Once Fiona moved away to university in the fall of 2020, the e-bike came home to live in the garage in New Denver and only occasionally got used. But the following spring, with my car leaving town 5 days a week, the e-bike became my primary vehicle for errands. It was suprisingly enjoyable. It could pack a fair bit of payload, and I felt much less guilty making my little runs up and down the hill to the post office or grocery store most days. So when she went back to Toronto for her second year of university, I decided to see if I could keep using the bike for local trips, at least until the cold rain started in October.

    I decided that for every tank of gas I didn’t have to buy, I would flesh out my cycle-commuter kit. I got myself some rain pants and I made it through October. I figured I’d keep going until the snow was flying. I was surprised to discover that the tire tread was pretty good in the first skiff of snow. I added an under-helmet balaclava, a set of warm waterproof gloves, some goggles, and a hi-vis jacket.

    Suddenly it was April. I had ridden through the whole winter.

    And so I kept going. I lent my car out to people who needed a car. I used it myself for trips of over 100 km (for orchestra gigs, to retrieve various children from airports to bring them home or to dispatch them, for appointments in Nelson) but for everything local, meaning everything within 15-20 kilometres, I used the bike.

    It was addictive! I was thrilled with how fun and easy it was. And then I discovered NotJustBikes and swallowed the orange pill for once and for all.

    NJB is a YouTube channel by a Canadian guy who grew up in the same general area of the country that I did, and who now lives in Amsterdam. His dryly sarcastic video essays talk about the differences in transportation norms and urban design between North American cities and those in the area he now lives.

    Spoiler: we don’t come out looking very good.

    I fell down the rabbit hole of his YouTube channel and found myself alternately inspired and frustrated by the contrasts. It was a sort of “I never thought about it, but the way we live really sucks, and there is no good reason we can’t radically change things” experience. And a lot of “omg, why do we still insist on doing things so stupidly, when so much of the rest of the world has been doing them so much better?” And repeated sentiments of “why do we just accept this shit?” This is the orange (Dutch) pill.

    I don’t know what the magic sauce is that makes the orange pill go down so smoothly, but I cannot recommend his channel highly enough. It is definitely a gateway drug.

    So here I am another winter later, still only using the bike for local transportation. I now have a cargo trailer, made out of the old kids’ Burley D-Lite trailer, which I can hook on for bulky loads. I have pogies (bar mitts) and a better high-visibility winter jacket. I have the bike tricked out with a go-mug holder, tire chains for the icy days, slick tires for the summer, a phone mount and rear blinkies that function as turn signals. It’s getting close to the 4000-kilometre point on the odometer, which isn’t all that much compared to the mileage I put on my road bike, but it is a ton of riding when you take into account that it is made up almost entirely of 3.5-kilometre trips up and down the hill between our property and town.

    And I am now a passionate advocate for active transportation options. I organized an e-bike event at the local market last summer to encourage other people to look to e-bikes as a transportation option. (Several have since done so!)

    I have also taken on the challenge of trying to develop a shared-use active transportation trail between our village and the next one over, something that has been tried repeatedly over the years. They’re only 4 km apart but the highway is so dangerous for anything but motor vehicles that everyone is car dependent as a result. I’ve waded into the worlds of municipal politics, public advocacy and grant applications as a result, places I would ordinarily avoid like the plague, but the orange pill is making me do it.

  • Back to the garden

    Back to the garden

    Although I’ve kept herbs and occasional greens growing next to the deck, I haven’t grown a proper garden since (checks blog archives… ) 2008. That must have been the point at which the water line broke, and I started taking on more of the summer Suzuki institute administration, and the kids were losing interest in growing things.

    A lot can happen in 11 years. Especially in the realm of goutweed. Somehow this vegetation from hell sneaked onto our property with the gift of some rhubarb about 20 years ago, and with me not beating it back on an annual basis it has taken over. It’s not quite kudzu or Japanese knotweed, but it’s got to be close.

    The effort to reclaim some sort of a garden began months ago when I started digging a trench for a replacement water line. It had to be deep enough to facilitate winterizing, and it had to go under and through countless tree roots because … well, the forest. So it was quite a slog.

    Next, the fence. I figured I could do the first bits of planting and fence immediately afterwards, but the dog-who-digs had other ideas. So the fence had to be completed first. I dug a few posts, stretched some salvaged fencing, banged things together.

    And then one day at the end of April, with a few tomato and pepper starts languishing on the dining room table, I looked out at the frame from the old trampoline and the liner from the ice rink and thought “those could be a greenhouse!” So I set to work. Within 48 hours I had a passable greenhouse. I used some scrap poles and lumber, and bits of garbage ABS pipe, and some rebar scraps and a webbing tie-down strap and some 3M house tape.

    The only money I (eventually) spent was $15 on a zipwall doorway that I cut into one side of the tarp. The greenhouse is definitely not pro-quality: it’s fairly large and not insulated or at all air-tight and therefore doesn’t really do much to protect plants from the cold at night. And because the tarp is white rather than clear, on overcast days it doesn’t get all that warm. But it has been so much better than nothing, and it took my little tomato-starts from spindly 3″ sprouts to bursting out of gallon pots begging to be planted in the space of three weeks.

    I’m especially pleased with my eggplant since I had never tried to grow one before, knowing they need a long warm season. I bought it as a seedling as I hadn’t had the forethought to plant one in late March, not having had my greenhouse epiphany by the point. I’ve nurtured it along, and it is doing really well. It is now setting fruit. In June already!

    The goutweed is still the bane of my existence. I’ve dug out kilos of rhizomes, double-screened a lot of soil, organic-mulched large areas to a depth of 6 inches (only to have the damned stuff grow through without a second thought), plastic-mulched the crap out these same areas, and in this year’s reclaimed beds I’ve dug and pulled and weeded and mowed and mulched and yanked and mowed and pulled. And still I feel like I’m only making minor headway. I have two small beds for my (very crowded) tomatoes and peppers, and another for some horseradish, and that’s it. And every day I pull dozens of goutweed sprouts from those same beds that I’ve dug over and screened so meticulously. Although the sprouts are looking increasingly anemic, which I take solace in.

    Because I didn’t imagine my way to a greenhouse until almost May, I missed the boat a bit this year. And the fencing, goutweed-from-hell and water line slowed things down a bit. Hopefully next year I’ll be that much further ahead and will be able to make more of a go of things. For this year it looks like we’ll get some fruiting nightshades, that blueberry tart and not a whole lot else. But it’s pretty. And it’s progress.

  • Atop Idaho Peak

    Atop Idaho Peak

    Idaho Peak is the mountain that overlooks our property. It’s unique in the area in that despite being one of the highest peaks around, it has well-serviced forestry roads that allow the trail to the peak to be accessible to anyone without major mobility challenges, requiring minimal levels of fitness and stamina. It’s also the ideal launch spot for paragliders. The weekend before SVI I was a marshall and communications relay person for a trail marathon that brought runners through Idaho Peak, and while standing around waiting for the race to complete, I was able to watch a number of paragliders take off. If I had a bucket list, this would be on it.

  • Upgrading the trail

    Upgrading the trail

    I began working on a connecting trail from our property to the linear park below almost three years ago. I hacked in a goat-path of sorts: narrow and full of switchbacks. It changed my life, in that it made one of my favourite running trails a mere 3-minute scrabble from my door.

    Yeller McLeod, my birthday present to myself. He's a combination of tamper, rake and hoe.
    Yeller McLeod, my birthday present to myself. He’s a combination of a tamper, rake and hoe.

    But it wasn’t a great trail, technically speaking. Parts had a grade of more than 15%, it was narrow, there were a couple of places that were subject to erosion and the tight switchbacks meant that you couldn’t ride a mountain bike on it.

    Last summer I did an IMBA trail-building workshop and learned more about how to lay out ride-able, sustainable trails. Armed with this knowledge and my new McLeod rake, I set out to improve my trail. I laid out a new route at the top, eliminating three of the most problematic tight turns. I’ve spent the past couple of weeks working on that portion, about 75 metres in length.

    Now I’m dealing with one of the three remaining switchbacks that can’t be edited out. Ideally it should be a loopy turn with a loop diameter of about 25 feet. The problem, of course, is how one creates a relatively level 7-metre-wide platter of earth on the side of a mountain with a grade of 30-40 degrees, made of clay, roots and rock, with nothing more than a mattock and my trusty fire rake. I’m figuring high-speed flowy bike turns will have to be compromised in the name of preserving my sanity. I’m shooting for a 4-metre radius, something that will require  and even that is going to require a herculean effort. I think I’ll be able to snake my way through that at lower speed without falling over. I’m about a quarter of the way through my first such turn, and have spent probably 10 hours at it. So … yeah … this trail may end up being a lifetime’s work.

    Still, I am having fun riding my bike up and down the piddly first 150 metres.

  • House progress

    I really love our Nelson house. When we bought it I was sold on it as an investment, a fixer-upper, but I think I’m falling in love now. It has a really nice feel to the living space. It’s open and light and airy during the day, and yet at night it feels cosy and welcoming: the best of both worlds! I love the absence of clutter and the simplicity of the space. I know it’s probably just a matter of time, but I’m determined to do whatever I can to keep the junk from accumulating. (Maybe it will help that Chuck doesn’t actually live there!)

    Now that we’re establishing a fall routine of back and forth-ing, I’m love having repair and renovation projects I can pick away at when I’m there, rather than just feeling like I’m killing time during the girls’ activities. This week I did a fair bit of outdoor work, dealt with a couple of filthy floors and completed the stripping of a white bookcase in preparation for repainting it black. I’ve also been researching historical colour schemes for the exterior. The big project for next week will hopefully be drywalling the front bedroom. I’ve been making extensive use of Kijiji (our version of Craigslist) and have scored some lovely hand-scraped hickory to re-do the flooring in there too. Sophie is hosting three choir festival billets the first weekend of November, so I hope to have that room finished by then!

    • Finished converting my 1989 black Stumpjumper into a mountain city cruiser

  • 2015 Loop

    Last year I carved some time out of July to do a self-powered trip along the Silvery Slocan Circle Route. I did it counter-clockwise over three days, combining kayaking, running and road-biking. This year, with a new-to-me road bike recently acquired, I decided to do the same route all on two wheels. I rode clockwise for a switch, and over two relatively short days. The first day took me over the pass, through Kaslo, down the North Shore of Kootenay Lake to Nelson, for a total of about 112 km and 1700 metres of total climbing. The second day brought me home through the Slocan Valley, for about 100 km and a bit less climbing, about 1500 metres.

    Screenshot 2015-09-16 13.10.20

    Screenshot 2015-09-16 13.10.46

     

    IMG_2517Because my overnight waypoint was the Nelson house, I was able to ride almost entirely unencumbered. I carried only water, snack, debit card, phone and my little bike toolkit. Knowing that all the comforts of home were already waiting for me in Nelson was almost as good as having a support team travelling with me!

    The weather was great: cool but sunny. The seasons seemed to actually turn while I was riding. On Friday I had noticed that the birch leaves were looking paler as if they were getting ready to turn; by the time I arrived home on Sunday they were yellow and flying off the trees in the wind.

    I like giving myself a multi-day solo challenge every year. It gives me time to just be with myself. I come out of it feeling like I’ve accomplished something, renewed. I think this is a tradition I’ll try to continue. I wonder what 2016’s challenge will be?

  • Pergola completed

    Pergola completed

    With lights and wattle railing panels installed.

  • Pergola

    • A little help from Limpet
    Our “new” deck is almost five years old now. I always had bigger dreams for the square apron that extends towards the trees, but at the time we opted to put up a minimalist railing for safety reasons. Of course that had the effect of eliminating all the urgency of doing something else with the space.

    A couple of weeks ago at Fiona’s behest I ordered some nice globe lights to string over the apron. We spend a lot of time walking around Nelson and, being new to the whole business of neighbourhood rambles, we enjoy noticing the neat things people have done with their homes and businesses. We were admiring a lovely lighted patio and suddenly the push was on to enact some similar ambiance at home.

    Over the Easter long weekend, with all four of us home and available, we decided it would be an opportune time to push to get the project both started and [hopefully] completed. I had spent a few hours the previous week digging the screws and bolts out of the under-inner-side of the old uprights. Chuck had got busy reclaiming lumber from the remains of our old carport, cutting it down to the right dimensions.

    When we got home from Nelson mid-day on Friday the girls immediately got busy with the measuring tape, some cardboard templates and the jigsaw. Spring is still toying with us: while the sun shows up from time to time, temperatures tend to otherwise hover just above the freezing point, and today was definitely on the cool side. The fire pit helped warm our hands up when we needed. Between them Sophie and Fiona did almost all the 40-odd decorative ends for the beams.

    The first afternoon we got all the beams prepped and ready for assembly.

    Then we hit a couple of snags. First … it snowed overnight. It took a few hours for the snow to melt. And then we realized that the 8″ lag bolts weren’t quite long enough to anchor the two corner posts that had to be mounted into diagonal braces. Eyeballs and guesses had been substituted for trigonometry. That’ll teach us! The building supply store was closed for the holidays, so we were stuck.

    We did still manage to do a fair bit of assembly, using clamps and braces and gravity and what hardware we had. We got to the point of having the main structure standing, with the cross-beams laid overtop but not secured. The next time we have a chance to do some work, we’ll substitute in the proper bolts, attach the cross-beams, work on wattle railings and attach the light strings.

  • Getting around

    DSC04780Here’s our minivan. We bought it about 18 months ago and it transformed my driving experience. It made access to alpine hikes a breeze. Road trips and drive-in movies were awesome. I loved not having to hike in from the highway end of our driveway even once last winter, and knowing that winding mountain roads covered in snow were safer with our 4-wheel-drive and high ground clearance. The right-hand drive was easy to get used to, and while there are more and more of these beasts in the area, I also loved the mildly eccentric aura that it created around us. Fuel mileage has been pretty decent, and it’s a spacious and comfortable vehicle for five or more.

    But the Delica is showing its age (it’s a 1994), especially since we’re such mileage-hogs. Our at-home family is smaller now, and I’m not driving five teenagers to choir practice anymore. In another month all three of my older kids will be in possession of driver’s Learners Permits (Erin and Noah having delayed attaining their full licensure due to a combination of temperament and lack of proximity to home). And really, what is the wisdom in having beginning drivers learn their basic skills in a right-hand-drive vehicle? So we’re planning to sell it and buy something new or new-ish. Something with all-wheel drive, but smaller and cheaper to maintain, considerably more fuel-efficient and with the driver’s seat on the left. I also like the idea of having airbags again. I’d like a few airbags. Hoping to make this a reality before winter hits full-force, since this is a pretty good time of year to be selling a snow-trampling monster minivan.

    IMG_0042We’re now spending part of each week in a city. When we get to Nelson, we’ve been trying to leave the van parked at the house, and walk as much as we can. It’s been so much fun to poke our way around amongst the secret stairways and paths in a city where the terrain makes drivable roads a bit of an engineering challenge. Our house in Nelson is a mere 750 metres from downtown, but 100 metres above it with most of the elevation gain taking place over just 400 metres. Just getting home is a workout, and it’s a workout we tend to do at least a couple of times a day. The sidewalks run places roads can’t, and we love the feeling of winding our way amongst lovely homes and beneath hardwood trees with changing leaves, up “sidewalks” like the one pictured above.

    So we’re spending three days a week in a walkable city, and when we’re home we hardly need to drive at all. We’re still doing two trips a week to Nelson, but soon that will be in a much smaller vehicle that gets double the mileage. Our carbon footprint should diminish dramatically in size this year.

  • Almost a circle

    So here’s how I felt on the third morning: revolting.

    Jittery, feverish and nauseated.

    The first day was amazing. I had rented a kayak from Smiling Otter in Slocan (my paddling destination) and brought it home the night before, depositing it on the lakeshore. I was on the trail before six for the short run to the lake, catching the first glints of sun sneaking through the Carpenter Creek valley.

    First sun: my shadow crossing the Carpenter Creek bridge

    It was a hot day but the lake was still in shade and I kept to the east side all morning, tucked into the shade of the mountains. I’d rented a solo touring kayak, much sleeker than our tandem, and made really good time. I’d allotted six to seven hours for the 27k paddle, and finished in four and change. Along the way I saw bald eagles, great blue herons, ospreys, mergansers and countless plovers, swallows, killdeers and such. The lake stayed completely calm until mid morning when some wind blew up. It was pushing me on my way, but the swells and chop were getting rough just as I was passing the cliffs at Cape Horn and knew I had nowhere I could tuck in. I kept checking behind me for the telltale “black line on the lake” that can arrive in ten minutes and capsize unwary boaters who don’t take shelter, but it didn’t come. I pushed hard the last few kilometres just in case, to the river’s mouth, and all was well. I let the river current push me the last couple of kilometres, returned the kayak, donned my shoes and pack, and set off on foot.

    Lake mostly shaded by low morning sun

    I took the afternoon’s run along the rail trail at an easy pace. I arrived in Winlaw by mid afternoon, hung out by the creek to cool off, then had an extended lunch/dinner at Sissies. Eventually I barefoot-jogged the 4 km to my B&B for the night. My chronic ankle problem had really flared up on the trail, and I wasn’t feeling too optimistic about the next day’s 54km run, but I had a deep sleep and woke up the next morning feeling a lot better.

    Rail trail along the river
    Rail trail along the river

    The next 25k was also along the rail trail. I stopped after a couple of hours for a snack and was very surprised to pick up an unsecured wifi signal, presumably from a nearby house, though I couldn’t see anything. So I had a fun little chat with Fiona. Thanks, whoever you are!

    I met a couple of skittish bears and a tiny fawn and a few toads and snakes as well as making a positive ID on a Lazuli Bunting, thanks to my iBird app. Love that app! It also lets me talk to the birds by playing recordings of their songs. They get very intrigued and usually come closer.

    Lots of giant black slugs on the rail trail in the morning
    Lots of giant black slugs on the rail trail in the morning

    The southern part of that day’s run was amazingly hot. The forecast when I left home had been for cooler weather but the thermometer at Taghum at 3:30 that afternoon was in the 90’s. I was in full sun for most of the last four hours and although I stayed well hydrated I felt worse and worse. I suspect I was pretty close to getting heat stroke, as I ended the day nauseated, headachey and feeling weirdly feverish. Couldn’t stomach the idea of dinner. I couldn’t sleep, either, which was odd because I was definitely running a sleep deficit from the two previous nights.

    The next morning I decided to do what I’d been toying with the night before: take the bus to my bike, rather than running the 30 km along the west arm of Kootenay Lake. I was still too nauseated to eat, which meant all I’d eaten in the previous 36 hours was a small bowl of granola, a salad wrap and a couple of Luna bars — despite having run more than a marathon. I knew I couldn’t run until I could eat again. I worked into the morning gradually, drank more electrolyte stuff, and more water, and some coffee, sat around a bit, and then hopped on the bus.

    On the ferry
    On the ferry. My very old bike is awesome, but is currently in need of some TLC.

    I jogged to my bike, feeling a little better, and rode back to the highway. This involved a side trip across the Harrop ferry to my friend’s place, which was a nice diversion. A few kilometres later I stopped and managed to eat a bit of late breakfast.

    IMG_1143
    Near the summit of the pass, looking towards home.

    The rest of the day was fine. I felt better for the food. The ride to Kaslo was tougher than I expected, the hills more numerous and steeper. I’d been preparing myself for the big pass between Kaslo and home, but as it turned out the hills before Kaslo were steeper (5-10% grade) than the long slow climb over the pass (3-5% grade mostly, and no problem at all). But it was lots cooler on the third day and occasionally drizzly and made for perfect biking weather. I love that road over the pass anyway, thinking of it as my very own highway since it’s the one that our property is on, and I run on it all winter. There are no utility poles most of the way, so it feels high and lonely and wild. The descent was glorious and I whipped along at up to 50 km/h. Cutting off the morning’s run meant I got home in time to pick Noah up from work, cook dinner, eat (yay!) and get Erin to her gig. Watched an episode of The Newsroom with the younger three kids and went to bed before ten.

    I’m still a bit nauseated today but except for that I feel pretty good. A couple of blisters here and there, and that yummy feeling of having done something very long and difficult with my body, but pretty much my usual self.

    So yeah. Almost a circle. Not going to beat myself up over a small missing arc.

  • Owl encounter

    We heard that an injured owl had been found semi-conscious being mobbed by crows in the parking lot of our local grocery store. It had been whisked away and left with Rob, who, along with his wife Linda, is a bit of a birder. So we dropped by the café Rob runs to see if we could have a look. The owl was being kept quiet and warm elsewhere while Rob tried to figure out what to do with it. It turned out that the Orphan WildLife (OWL) rehab centre on the coast was willing to take the owl, and that transport had been arranged through the Trail airport, but that someone was needed to take the owl there for a 4 pm flight.

    Having already planned to swing through Castlegar at about 5 pm to find Fiona some dance wear on our way to gymnastics, we volunteered to go a couple of hours early and drive the 25 minutes out of our way to drop the owl off.

    He was a great horned fellow, alive and thumping around a little bit in his closed box, but mostly seeming quiet. We were warned that these guys have nasty talons and a grip strength of up to 300 psi, and so not to open the box under any circumstances. We loaded him into the back of the van and headed out. We didn’t get to really look at him, since he was all enclosed, but I did push my iPhone through the breathing hole and take this picture. All puffed up from stress, shying away from the light of my phone. I left him alone after seeing that. Poor guy. But beautiful!

    When we arrived in Trail we were surprised to find a local friend waiting for her own medical transport on the same flight. They departed together.

    After they left we spent a few minutes updating Rob and Linda, and the veterinary clinic that had offered to overnight the bird if there hadn’t been room for him on the flight, and the OWL Rehab centre, whose volunteers were amazingly helpful and efficient and were already en route to meet him at the other end.

    Then we bought dance shoes, tights and leotard (very exciting!) and went to gymnastics.

    Although our friend did well with her surgery, we found out a few days later that the owl did not fare so well. He was vastly underweight due to a broken leg that had presumably been preventing him from hunting for some time. He did begin eating well, but an xray revealed that his leg was shattered beyond repair, so he had to be euthanized. A lot of people did their best to help, but it just wasn’t to be.

    If you’re in the Lower Mainland, I’m told that the OWL Rehab Centre has excellent educational tours. That will be one of our stops the next time we’re in the neighbourhood.