Beavers Abound

Trailer & Tariffs

Beaver on Nita Lake

We first came out to Canada in 2000 for a 2 week holiday.  The plan was to spend a week in Muskoka, North of Toronto, then drive over to Vancouver and spend a week on the West Coast. Realising it would take the best part of a our second week to get there, we abandoned the plan.

Lake Vernon on the edge of Huntsville was our base for those two weeks, playing in boats on the interconnected lakes the first week, then exploring Lake Huron and the Algonquin National Park, north of Huntsville the second week.  In the two weeks in Ontario and every visit to Canada since, we've never seen a beaver in the wild; nor since we moved to Canada in 2021.  That was four years ago, Thursday April 3rd.

The last week of Feb we were in Whistler for a week and on one of my early morning walks with Jack we discovered a young beaver was walking along the ice on Nita Lake.  It's one of the last places I'd expect to see a beaver as it doesn't feel like a natural beaver habitat.  I had assumed they hibernate, they do not.  Jack, unsure what it was, just took a wide berth around it and barked.

A few days later, back on the Sunshine Coast, I was on my early morning walk with Jack along the beach road and saw something walking along the shoreline.  To my huge surprise another, larger, adult beaver, I guess looking for food.    I would not have assumed the critters ventured out into the sea.  Only one other morning walker has ever seen a beaver on the beach and he believes they live in Whittaker Creek, one of the many local creeks running into the sea at Bonniebrook.  So no beavers in 25 years and 2 in less than a week.

We were a few metres away from the animal as it waddled along the foreshore.  This time Jack was much more interested in being introduced.  Fortunately, I'd put him on the lead.  Pretty amazing as neither beaver seemed particular fazed by Jack or me.

Empty USA wine shelves

News south of the border, continues to dominate news north of the border.  The hot topic being tariffs and the opportunity for Canadians to become America's  51st state.   

We've yet to meet a Canadian who thinks the latter suggestion is a good idea.  The US Presidential  agenda seems to have done more to galvanise Canadian cohesiveness than any Canadian Prime Minister has ever been able to achieve; American produce is being shunned in the shops and travel to the USA has fallen dramatically.  

In the end it will be American and Canadian consumers who will pay the price.  Reciprocal tariffs are equally bad for Americans and Canadians and I have yet to find an article that suggests tariffs historically have ever proven successful or brought any benefit to the country implementing them.  

Liquor stores in BC (and most other provinces/territories) have cleared the shelves of any product from the USA. We are temporarily (I hope) unable to get our preferred Bread & Butter Pinot Noir, grown in California.  Still there are plenty of pretty decent Canadian wines to explore and enjoy.  That said, I do miss a vintage St Emilion.  Good clarets are around twice the price here compared to the UK.

Tariffs have been at the forefront of our mind as the RV (North American term for a big caravan) we had on order was coming from the States.  There is no significant RV manufacturing base in Canada, the USA being the world's largest producer.  They make twice as many as the rest of the world combined.  Fortunately, our supplier foreseeing supply/demand problems bought ahead and hence they honoured the quoted price and we avoided any price increase.  We are now the proud owner of a 29ft 'caravan' in readiness for our planned trip across Canada.

Parked up square!

I'd towed a large double axle trailer (12' x 8') in the UK which I used for all my woodworking, but it was low and most of the time I could see over and therefore behind it.  The RV is 29' with no way of seeing over it.  A small rear 'back-up' camera, replaces the view on a small screen in the truck.  It helps a bit.

The journey back from the retailer in Abbotsford was on the Trans-Canada Highway and then ferry.  The hwy was a good introduction to driving a big 'rig'.  

Driving down in the ferry line-up queue with approx 50' of truck and trailer, and only 8" either side to clear other vehicles was nerve-racking, but successfully completed.   On the main vehicle deck of the ferry, we had loads of space, parked up between other trailers and lorries. 

The next challenge was parking the RV on our hardstand just up from our road, requiring an 'S' reverse in, to park it up. My first attempt was somewhere between a dog's dinner and a donkey's hind leg.  It had been a tiring day!  

The following morning I got it straight in just a few minutes and am reasonably confident I know what to do next time.  Trip planning has now commenced though the trans-Canada plan may now need to be re-jigged as Ros is coming over from NZ in August, rather than April - July.  We're going to explore the Coast between now and June. First week of June we are booked into Manning Park, to do the trails, lakes and mountains and get properly acquainted with the Canadian big outdoors and RV'ing.

Last week, we had a flood.  Our 'furnace room' (they don't call them utility/central heating/boiler rooms here), which we use as a boot room, had a layer of wet loo paper on the floor when I went to collect waterproof gear and Jack's lead et al for the morning constitutional. In the night, a soil pipe had deposited its contents on the floor.  We have condensate pipes from the air source heat pump air handler and HW heater discharging into an open pipe.  Cleaned and disinfected, we thought it was a one-off until the next morning when I walked into the same room and got wet feet from half an inch of the same stuff that flooded the room the day before. 

The emergency plumbers appeared within an hour of calling them and diagnosed a damaged underground pipe. A week to the day later they were back, hand-digging the front garden (no digger access) and replacing the pipe.  The insurer has been pretty responsive and covered the bulk of the cost - we hope!

While on the front yard/garden, you may recall the damage we sustained from Chafer beetle grubs, that were living in/off the grass roots.  This attracted the crows and raccoons which proceeded to dig up and roll back our two front lawns.  Chafer beetles, a European export to Canada, immune to export tariffs!  Old lawn removed, new lawn topsoil applied and we now have greenish front lawns.  Greenish as the Hydroseed company applied new seed in a green slurry of seed, fertiliser and mulch.  Ten days on and all we can see is the greenish slurry, no fresh grass yet.  It looks better than it did.  We are in competition with friends down on the beach road who have spread their own grass seed and wait to see whose lawn grows first and fastest!

When clearing the old bits of turf, we were removing around ten grubs per square foot, which we kept back for the birds....they love 'em.  Canada has banned all pesticides, so the only treatment is a nematode application which we applied before the new topsoil was spread.  Watch this space!

In other news.  

Team Fast Lane - We have a new mainsail for the racing machine. So far we've not got the benefit from it and have been beaten in both of the last two races.  Frustrating as we won the Summer, Fall and Winter race series.

After last year's crap skiing season Whistler has had good snow this year.  Nearly two metres at the beginning of the Spring Break (schools' annual two week holiday).  Seeing the length of the lift queues, we resisted the temptation to spend a few days standing around in line-ups.  If the snow continues we may go up in April.

The Canadian Government Immigration Service has announced another round of selections from the 2020 Permanent Resident 'Expressions of Interest' pool.  This will probably happen in April or May,  If we don't get through this round we suspect they may open it up to new EoIs.  There is a huge pent-up demand from people who have not been able to apply for five years!   Hey ho.

The Northern Flickers (a member of the Woodpecker family), are drumming up mating interest, mostly on the cowlings of local chimneys.

Northern Flicker

Front yard sewer excavations

Verdant greenish front garden

Ferry home

A pint and food at the excellent Troller Ale House in Horseshoe Bay awaiting the ferry home 

Sunset after a wet overcast day