Labour Day Weekend

Back to School

Sat Aug 4th

Saturday Sunrise

to 

Mon Aug 5th

The Labor Day weekend is the final public holiday and long weekend of summer.  The holiday goes back to events in the late 1880's and a printer's strike in Toronto that led to demonstrations and an organized labor movement against the banning of trade unions.  

Historically it has been the first Monday of September and not aligned to similar May holidays in other parts of the world.  Schools go back from Tuesday onwards and the ferry terminal is building up for a busy Monday.  That is of course assuming that many did not head back on Saturday when a large part of the summer's absent rain fell in one day.

Community Library on Gates Lake - Pemberton

Saturday didn't get off to a bad start but the 'red sky in the morning' should have forewarned us of what was to come.  The sun does not appear until ten minutes or so after the official sunrise as it has to climb above the ridge of the mainland mountains.  Unusually, the peaks of the mountains in front of the low rising sun cast a shadow on the clouds.  I've never seen that before and it lasted just a few minutes. Soon after I was back from our Hopkins Landing Jack-walk it started to rain, and went on all day.  

A brief lull in the afternoon enabled Fred to take Jack out and swap a book in the locally 'mini-library'. 

In the same way red telephone boxes have been turned in to libraries in the UK, Canada has adopted a unique collection of home built structures.  The concept has taken off and many of the communities we have visited or stayed in have them dotted around.  Our local print shop also runs a jigsaw exchange.  Fred's eyes lit up ........  yawn!

By coincidence The Globe and Mail ran a feature on community libraries on Saturday.

The Coast Reporter which is published on Friday, flagged a guided trail walk on part of the Health [forest] Trail on Sunday morning.  It was promoted by the Living Forest Institute.  The walk, and opportunity to

learn something of the local forests, sounded interesting even though after some research it appeared they were a lobby group opposed to logging in 'old growth' forests. 

Canadians are passionate about their environment.  From eco and recycling, which I have mentioned before, to de-conflicting wild animals from the human presence, the environment is central to life in BC.

If you don't engage you don't learn.  I headed off to a forest service road (FSR) for the 0930 Health Trail rendezvous, ready to learn.  Fred and I had started to explore this FSR before until we lost GPS and phone coverage and headed back.

About thirty Coasters assembled plus the organizers.  The former Chief of the shíshálh Nation, Calvin Craiganwill, (many were given European names at the time of the residential schools) shared his knowledge of the area, family history and passion for the environment.

Start of Health Trail

The shíshálh originally lived in what is now the westernized Garden Bay/Pender Harbour area, before they were moved on by European settlers. A great sense of humour coupled with his historic insight painted a fascinating picture of the impact on indigenous/first nation peoples by European settlers and the tensions that have existed, then and now. Now, a nation within a nation, they have a degree of self-government over their lands.

The walk on the Health Trail, with thirty Coasters to herd, was a rather slow 5k. We started late and we weren't going to finish by the advertised 1230. It wasn't the easiest of trails. Often steep with roped sections to assist with the climb up or down and handrails of questionable safety. We didn't finish until about 1330.

Tree hugger!

The forest we walked was 'old growth', it hadn't been harvested and replanted, though a fire in the late 1800's did destroy many older trees. The Lead was a local botanist and tree specialist who was not only passionate about preserving the ancient woodland, but was also instrumental in building the Health Trail.

All cut by hand over several years, materials to create steps in steep banks and board walks had to be hauled in manually. He knew his stuff and I can at least now distinguish between the various tree species that exist in the area. He pointed out two bear dens, which will be occupied from some time in October onwards, depending on the weather, as well as areas that the local Elk bed down in.

The largest tree, The Elphinstone Giant, was certainly large, though not as big as the Douglas Fir (known as a mother tree) we saw on the Dakota Forest Service Road (FSR) we walked with Nick.  I sent our Trail Lead details as he was unaware of the tree.

I'm not turning in to a 'Tree Hugger', it was just so I could get a comparison of the two trees!

The Dakota FSR tree wins by an arm!

Later in the afternoon Fred and I headed off to Cliff Gilker to walk around the creekside trails.  The water levels had definitely improved since Saturday's rain.

For the first time Jack got himself in deep water and could not get out.  He slid down a rock he was inspecting, which was slippery after the rainfall and could not get back out, sliding back in as soon as he was halfway out.

With a bit of direction from Fred, he swam over to some trees in the water and climbed out over them.  Unfazed, he was back in the water minutes later!

Monday mornings walk on Hopkins Landing beach had a lovely light looking back to the mainland.  The photo looked very 'Turneresque'  when I checked it on the phone, but is no longer there to share - so you will have to imagine it!

A mother Black Tailed deer and fawn were grazing in an adjoining garden.  A popular spot as we'd seen them there before and the Black Bear.  We suspect there is a route through to the upper levels of Langdale and the forest.

Ten minutes later as we were sitting down for breakfast the local male black bear ambled across the road and in to next door's garden.  He's clearly still around.

He's partly hidden by the garden vegetation, he is there and is big!

For those curious after Friday's blog about whether we made it across the Friendship Bridge, the answer is yes, eventually!  We had to go back to Mazar-i-Sharif that night and find a hotel while the wheels of international diplomacy ground in to action.  

We found a couple of rooms in a hotel overlooking a busy street in the centre of town with the market opposite.  It was OK, though I wasn't too sure what the small bugs were in the shower.  Lamenting it had been 4 days since I'd had a glass of wine or a beer, Baqer spoke to the hotel staff as we sat down to supper in the deserted restaurant.  Half an hour later a chap reappeared with a pack of Russian beers.  Where they had come from and how old they were will remain a mystery.  The Russians had left 14 years prior!  As they were in Cyrillic I could not read the sell by date.  They tasted OK.

The next morning we headed back to the border by taxi and were told we could cross and enter Uzbekistan.  The then head of the BBC's Uzbek, Hamid Ismailov  service had been in touch the Ministry of Foreign Affairs who organized our permission to cross. 

Not looking forward to the 2k of bridge and roads to get to the Uzbek border on the far side, we managed to hitch a ride with a UN vehicle making the crossing.

We left Afghanistan with their poorly maintained roads, donkey and carts supplementing beaten-up pick. up trucks, Afghan women wearing full burka and people living and working out of shipping containers at the side of the road. In contrast we were greeted by female Uzbek borders guards in white blouses and knee length skirts, white lines on the roads and modern cars.  It was startling contrasts in the 2k between the two sides of the Anu Darya river.

I was to meet Hamid in Dushanbe, in Tajikistan, before heading on to Bishkek and Tashkent with him as my guide for the last legs of the journey.  But that's yet another story!

 

  

Some more images of Sunday's forest walk below.

One of the several creeks we crossed

It means taking in the forest and bathing in the views and smells

The trail was quite sell signed

And annotated!

And orange tape marks the trail