Snow Incoming
Fred Takes City Tour
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| Not a cloud in the sky - Vancouver on Thursday |
The 'atmospheric river' ran out of rain on Wednesday and the weather has started to get colder ahead of snow arriving over the weekend, through to the early part of next week.
It will make a pleasant change, the gin clear sky on the right was a welcome sight.
Flood waters in Abbotsford are almost gone and the evacuation orders rescinded. Home owners are heading back to their properties to start the drying out. Farmers have been badly affected but the impact on the usually fertile soils of the Fraser valley will not be known until next spring. Livestock farmers have been particularly badly hit. Some 628,000 poultry are reported to have been lost, plus about 12,000 cattle, pigs and other animals. Whilst it is a relatively small percentage of BC's food production, and supplies are not expected to be materially affected, there will be many devastated farmers and local communities.
Skies were clearing and the Howe Sound was calm as we queued for the ferry. The distant mainland mountains are now capped out with snow.
Our first visit was to the Mountain Equipment Company (MEC) which is the business Nick is now working for. Although there are not many Cronk's in BC, news of his appointment has sadly not reached the North Shore store. MEC was started off as a cooperative and you have to be a member to shop there. It almost went to the wall last year before being rescued by a LA based investment company. Although no longer a member-owned cooperative, the new owners are keen to invest and grow the business. Still the new Director of Brand Marketing likes a challenge!
After picking up some bath towels to cope with the influx of Christmas guests, we headed over to another well known store in Coquitlam. We've yet to hear when our shipping container is heading this way, such is the shortage of containers, space on ships and dock capacity. We suspect it is not going to get underway until late December or early January, which means it may not arrive here until February or March. We are sticking with the plan to have it shipped to the Eastern seaboard and then trained across Canada. With luck the train lines taken out by the floods in southern BC will be back in full operation.
I dropped Fred off at Park Royal (not the one near Acton, West London) on the way back, for some retail therapy and I headed off for an early ferry. As we had Jack with us, who'd patiently put up with short walks in between stops, I wanted to give him a decent run. Fred planned to get the express bus back to Horseshoe Bay for the 1620 ferry. Well that was the plan.
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| Jack happily waiting for the ferry |
The bus she joined took her to the 'other' ferry at Lower Lonsdale, in the opposite direction to Horseshoe Bay. The bus driver didn't query which ferry when confirming it was the right bus!
She quite enjoyed the city tour!
It is amazing how quickly water levels rise and fall in the local creeks after rainfall. Langdale Creek a day after the heavy rain (above), was a torrent. A day after the video was taken the water was back down running clear around the rocks on the creek bed.
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| West Howe Sound |
We are now seeing the floodlights on Cypress Mountain due south of us burning throughout the night as the 'groomers' get out on the pistes after the evening skiers have headed home. It's -3c up there today, and snowing.
Friday I had a few errands to run in Gibsons and bought a snow shovel and salt, just in case we get more than a dusting this weekend. I resisted the temptation to buy one of those snow clearing machines you see in the movies - just!
My camera is still not back from Nikon but the spares for my lathe are about to be shipped from the Far East.
How far is Vancouver from you - by the crow flies and transport route if different?
ReplyDeleteBy road and ferry it's 40k (of which 19k is the ferry) to downtown Vancouver, 30k as the crow flies.
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