The Squamidian Report – Aug. 9 / 03
Also in this issue:
Traveling Carol
The Ontarion
Hi All,
Most of the country celebrated a long weekend last weekend. Our holiday Monday was called BC Day. Our weather was perfect, hot and sunny and dry. Not good for the fire fighters in the interior but great out here on the coast.
The areas most affected by the fires are in that dry belt running right up the center of the province. The Okanogan Valley and surrounding valleys are down right desert in the south, changing to dry grass and pineland as you go north. Even during wet years these areas are dry. Anyone who has driven through the Kamloops area has seen the high rolling hills covered with sagebrush. The sections that are not forested are ranch lands. The parched grasses burn just as vigorously as the forests.
Typical of most of the terrain here, the forests cover areas that are too steep and rugged to hike across, making fire fighting a real nightmare. In a lot of instances, there is no way to get equipment into the fire zones. Everything depends on the use of aircraft. When men can get to the fire fronts, they often have to carry pumps and hoses etc over slopes and ridges that would make the ‘Chief’ seem like a picnic. I guess only Greg is qualified be able to imagine what they must have to deal with.
There is one story about a crew of fire fighters that was trapped in Barrier, a small mill town. The fires surrounded the town and leveled everything, homes, businesses and the mill. These fighters had taken a stand, trying to save the town. They lost that fight but managed to survive, unharmed. Must have scared the Hell out of them.
The fire zones are about 300 miles east of here but even here on the coast we are under a strict ‘no burn’ order. Some of the hiking trails are closed to the public, as there are a lot of very stupid people that would think nothing of lighting a cigarette and dropping the butt anywhere. There should be a law against stupid people.
We had the Squamish Day celebrations, which included the Logger Sports Championships. Some of the events are just plain amazing. They race up high pole trees using spurs and ropes. After hitting a bell at the top they have to get back down at top speed. The climbers basically freefall, just catching the pole with their spurs every 20 ft or so.
There are events where they have to chop notches into poles, wedge a springboard in the notches, climb onto the springboards and chop off the top. Other events have them racing with nitro burning chain saws as they make cuts through large logs. They pull heavy chokers over floating logs and an obstacle coarse. There are chopping contests, and axe throwing contests and log rolling contests. The climax is where 20 men with chainsaws cut down 20 large poles that have been planted in the ground in a row. It is a race but it is not just how fast they can drop the pole, they have to hit a marker with the falling pole. Makes for an interesting afternoon.
Squamish hosts the wind surfing contests as well as the kite surfing contests in the Sound. When there are no contests happening you can sit out at the end of the Spit and watch them doing if for fun. The Spit is a finger of land that runs a couple of clicks out into the Sound, separating the Squamish River from the waterfront. There is a pretty fantastic view of the surrounding mountains, the Chief, Shannon falls etc from there.
The kite surfing is pretty wild. They use something between a para-wing and a kite to pull themselves along. They have a cross between a surfboard and a snowboard to stand on. They speed along at incredible speeds and can get air born for long distances. While we were on the Spit watching, there were a bunch of seals in the water watching, trying to figure out what all the fun was about.
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Hi Everyone,
Well we have been home for close to a week and I'm not sure if any of you want to hear about the last part of our trip as it is old news now - cyberspace has been heated up all week with e-mails about The Concert - but I promised to write about it so if you are tired of the subject just skip this section.
We left Doug & Sue's on a Sunday after the 4 of us spending our last evening at Warren's place. It was exciting to know we were going on to something new, not just heading home. We thought it would be more interesting to take the smaller roads and left the trans-Canada at Hope and headed south-east from there, crossing into the States at Osoyoos heading towards Spokane, Washington. We had stopped in Hope on the way west there is an interesting place called Hell's Gate there that I would recommend. We stopped at the site of an earth quake induced land slide that buried a former lake and the road is now 75 meters higher then it was before. 4 cars and occupants were buried and never recovered and it was also the site of 2 fatal small plane crashes. It was a not-so-gentle reminder that we are mighty puny next to nature. The next 6 hours or so was driving through desert. Washington is an interesting state. It shares the glorious coastal mountains with B.C. but also the barren land in-between mountain ranges of the Okanogan Valley and it also has flat, Prairie-like wheat fields. If any of you take this trip I suggest you take the inter-state from Vancouver towards Seattle and go east on hwy.2. The barren land is fascinating and Grand Coulee Dam was a sight to behold but hours of driving through that was just too much.
I don't know where to begin to describe Yellowstone - it is like nothing I have ever seen, or even imagined. Our pictures came back today and they just didn't capture the same feeling we experienced looking but some are still impressive. I will be taking them over to Gale's place and we will try to scan a selection of pictures that best depict our trip. If that works I will e-mail them to Doug to add to his web site. We stayed an extra day at the park and still didn't see all we would have liked to. There are coloured, bubbling pools of mud. Steam comes out of the earth all over the place - sometimes in hissing gushes of water. Old Faithful didn't put on quite the show we expected but we didn't have time to wait hours for the really big geysers to blow as there was just too much to see in 2 days. Among the wildlife we spotted were mule deer, elk. buffalo (I ate Buffalo one evening in Wyoming, it wasn't bad but I wouldn't go out of my way to have it again) and a bear. There are warnings posted in the park about people being gored by buffalo and mauled by bears but it didn't stop some tourists from trying to get closer. The bear was quite a distance from the road so this one couple left their car and were hiking to the bear caring their toddler! If a parent wants to endanger their own life fine but endangering the child is sheer stupidity. No one had told us that there is a Grand Canyon of Yellowstone. This impressed Al even more then all the thermal activity. It was magnificent and breathtaking! If you ever get the opportunity to visit this place jump at the chance.
We left the park by the north-east entrance which takes you over the Beartooth Pass. This pass climbs to over 10,500 feet! The views were spectacular. We were looking down on snow and mountain tops. We were way above the tree line. The only place there were guard rails on the road was where the drop off was immediate. Mostly if the drop off was a meter or so away there was no protection between you and eternity - Doug would have loved the drive. (I picked up a second rock up there for Greg's pond if he ever wants to claim it). We also stopped at the Little Big Horn, site of Custer's Last stand. Al and I are both history buffs. The park ranger gave a very informative and interesting talk on life for the ordinary Calvary man. Only small men were recruited for the Calvary to save the horses. So all those Westerns that show John Wayne leading the Calvary wouldn't have happened - he was too big. Our last stop - and the only place we purchased a souvenir for anyone was Sturgis & Wall, South Dakota. The reason was the thousands of motorcycles that gather (mostly Harleys). Al bought Tim a T-shirt just to rub it in that we were there. We gave it to him on our way home as we re-entered Canada at Windsor. And yes while Al had a swim I went to the pick-your-own place for blueberries.
Al and I make a game of spotting different license plates - probably because we go to the Falls so much and people come from all over to see it. We spotted every North American plate (including Mexico) on this trip except Maine, Rhode Island, P.E.I., Nova Scotia & Newfoundland. We were wondering if people out east just fly when they travel or are they so happy at home that they just don't want to leave. Which is it Sus? When the time comes that any of you want to take the big road trip please come to us for suggestions on must sees and for literature on the places. I know Brenda would love to share her suggestions from when she was out also. We put 10,500 kilometers on the car but I'd do it all over again if I had the chance.
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THE ONTARION REPORT
August 8, 2003
Hello
everyone! Carole and I just got home from a couple of days up north at a
friends trailer. It’s on the Trent-Severn Waterway in Severn Bridge. That’s a
small blip on the map about 15 kms south of Gravenhurst Ontario. They’re in a
nice location with about 30 permanently located trailers. It’s actually more
like a cottage than a trailer. They’ve all been there for 15 or more years and
they are located on a small man made harbor where they can dock their boats.
Our friends just purchased a new boat and we spent a good portion of the 2 days
touring the Trent river and surrounding lakes in it. It’s a Doral 18.5 ft bow
rider style boat with a 190 horsepower inboard motor. It’s a beauty if you’re
into boating. You can travel the Trent-Severn Waterway pretty much right across
Southern Ontario. I’m not sure where it starts in the east but it ends up
opening into Georgian Bay. There are several lift locks and a Marine Railway
that allow the boats to change elevation during the trip. It’s pretty interesting
to see these locks in action. It would be interesting to rent a houseboat one
summer and travel the whole length of the waterway. If you’re into boating,
that is!
I guess I’ll never get my sea legs since my limit is about 2-3 days of boating and I’m done for a while. I do however love to kayak in the 2 Kayaks we have but that’s a totally different method of boating.
Well, needless to say, once we got home I checked my e-mail and found about 35 messages waiting for me. I was surprised to see so many comments from the “Squamidian” enthusiasts about last weeks SARSfest. Nice to see so many positive comments about the concert. No matter how successful an event is there will always be negative aspects as well. For the most part, I’m sure the concert was a positive thing and the complainers will sound off to deaf ears. In fact, the article written about the lineups etc is the only negative one I’ve come across. Anyway, what’s a few crushed fingers and toes when you consider how many of them there were at the concert! As far as the amount of urine sprayed on the grounds at the airfield, I say pee on ya if ya can’t take a joke! Hahahahaha! Sorry ‘bout that, couldn’t resist!
I
hate to do this to you but I’m going to make this week’s Ontarion a short edition.
I’m just too pooped to think and my fingers are aching in sympathy for those
that were stepped on at SARSfest last week. Think a cup of tea would go good
right now and then off to bed. Thanks for taking the time to check The Ontarion
out again and I’ll talk to you all next week for sure. Take care and have a
safe week.
Bye for now. Greg.
PS: Something to Think About>
A man who can do everything can do nothing!
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Have a good one..
the
doug