Expedition Canada

Vivaldi's Gloria Thu May 4th Male Rufous Hummingbird - Selasphorus Rufus Steller's Jay in the front garden A debate is starting to rumble in BC as to whether the Rufous Hummingbird should replace the Steller's Jay as the official provincial bird.   The Rufous, which has just returned from its winter sojourn in Mexico, will be here until the middle of summer, when it will head back the 2500+ miles to avoid the BC  winter.  The one above has been a frequent visitor to our feeder, along with all year round Anna's  Hummingbird. I'm not overly convinced that a bird that spends less than six months 'in town' should warrant the title, beautiful though it is.  I do find it pretty amazing that something so small, weighing in at 0.1oz (3 grams), flies such distances.  Flying at speeds of 20 - 30 mph, that is 100 days in each direction. No wonder it is only around for 3 - 4 months.   The Steller's Jay is resident year-round in BC.    Others favour ...

Plus a Bison Banquet Thu Nov 24th  After putting my pre-order deposit down in Nov 2021 for the all electric Rivian R1S (SUV), I finally heard last week that delivery will between October and December ........ 2023.  That's the good news and bad news in one!   I have finally been able to see one in the flesh at a customer event last Saturday in Vancouver.  Nick and I had a boys day in town checking out the vehicles, which continue to get amazing reviews.  Top Gear reviewed the R1T pickup .  They are impressive vehicles and the larger battery pack has a range of circa 320m (514k), though if I test the 0-60mph in 3 seconds regularly I suspect that may be a tad optimistic .    The event was busy, suggesting there are quite a few pre-order customers in BC, the launch province for Canada, the only country outside the USA where Rivian vehicles are being sold at the outset.  It's not surprising as BC has the highest proportion of EV sales in Nor...

Quiet News Week Mon Jan 24th Howe Sound The week since the last post has flown by and you might reasonably assume it has been jam packed with adventures.  I'm not sure where the time has gone, but it's not been spent climbing mountains, hiking trails or other outdoor pursuits.  Too cold for anything water based! The latter part of last week, we were absorbed in a potential house purchase.  We got a heads up on Tuesday that a property in one of our preferred locations was coming on the market  and went to see it first viewing, first thing on Thursday morning.  We liked it so had a second visit on Friday, before putting in an offer.  The three bed house was on the coast near Bonniebrook, where we spent out first month on the Coast.  Nice quiet location, but needed some work for an additional bed and shower room that influenced our offer.  We went in just below asking and were unsuccessful and suspect it went above asking.   The search cont...

Except on the Driveway Fri Jan 7th Wednesday morning ferry queue to Horseshoe Bay I remember chuckling at news in the UK about how local authorities were not so good at clearing snow and dealing with icy roads.  In fairness the UK does not usually see a huge amount of snow, certainly not as much as BC.   That said, road clearing teams in BC have struggled to keep up.  Labour shortages due to Covid have not helped.  Salt is now in short supply locally, with no more due until February.  The snow that arrived overnight Wednesday left another six inches on top of what was already there.  The dual-carriageway up from the ferry terminal in Langdale, which the large trucks take slowly with their hazards on in warm weather, was blocked when I took Jack for his morning constitutional.  Several large trucks and trailers were 'parked' up and cars were coming back down the 'up lanes' as something was blocking the road further up. Before I ...

Shipping Scheduled Ferry inbound to Langdale Fri Dec 17th With Christmas around the corner there can be few who are not contemplating the impact of the latest Omicron variant on being able to get together with family, particularly if they are overseas.  Although the stats for BC and Canada as a whole are proportionality lower than the UK's figures, Canadians are being 'advised' not to travel internationally at Christmas.  More announcements are being made daily and visitors have to self-isolate/quarantine for two days in non-shared accommodation.  Fred's sister who was due to arrive on Christmas Eve, has had to postpone her trip, as we feared, further restrictions are likely to be put in place in the next few days.   Snow capped mainland mountains Canada is significantly behind the UK in rolling out booster jabs so it is a surprise that the numbers are not worse than they are.  BC had 763 new cases yesterday and 183 hospitalize...

Dodgy Drivers Sub-zero and he's in shorts! Sun Dec 12th  Friday morning brought low cloud and snow showers so we abandoned skiing for the day.  We have a season pass which reduces the pressure to go up the mountain, rather than waste an expensive day on a day/weekly ticket.  There will be more opportunities.  In any event we discover that now we are no longer 35/34 year olds, it hurts more the next day! We had a wander around Whistler Village and then headed up to Lost Lake for a walk around the loop trail. At the moment it's sti ll open to walkers, but once the snow builds up it will be closed to everybody but cross-country skiers.  This is the walk we did in summer, past the slumbering young Black Bear a couple of metres off the side of the trail. There were few people out as the snow started falling more heavily as we got further round the loop.  It was very picturesque and Christmassy!  As we started around the actual Lake it looked as though sever...