Expedition Canada

Damp Squib Thu Oct 28th Nick and I settled down to watch the F1Q My son, pictured right, says I talk to much about the weather.  Because he's now a Canadian citizen he seems to have forgotten that Brits like to talk about the weather; but advice headed.  Suffice it to say it has been damp, but hardly explosive. Nick was over on the Coast this weekend but as he was 'out Friday night' was quite happy to watch the F1 Qualifying with me on Saturday afternoon.  It was clearly quite riveting - we both slept through it.  Sunday morning we'd just finished breakfast when a visitor popped by.  We have no idea how it got in, unless when Fred got up to let Jack out at dark o'clock it slipped into the mud room unnoticed.  After about 5 minutes flying up to all the open doors it headed off out.  Big fella, but not sure what type of bat it was. After the excitement of the breakfast visitor and with Fred immersed in final house removals and  furniture shipping li...

Jack Sets Sail Sat Aug 14th Hopkins Landing in the morning haze Sun Aug 15th With Nick and Lizzie here it was going to be a busy weekend!   Hikes to waterless waterfalls, paddleboarding on the Sechelt Inlet, more hikes and swimming - when I fell off the board.   Saturday morning, while Lizzie ran to the top of Elphinstone Mountain (16k and 1200m elevation), the rest of us wandered up to Dakota Falls on Dakota Creek.  It was the last day of the heatwave and around 30c, though we were in the shade of the forest some of the time it was still hot!  As we neared the Falls we came across  a  huge Douglas Fir.  Nick called it a 'mother tree'. You may remember a documentary on UK tv Calculated circumference of 7.5m about how larger trees support the growth of younger ones through a subsoil connection of roots that share carbon and nitrogen to aid younger tree growth. Much of the work was done by Dr Simard, of the University of British Columbia (UBC)...