The Squamidian Report – Feb. 11 / 06
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Hi All,
It is alarmingly easy to knock over a concrete hydro pole. The wooden ones are a lot stronger. They don’t give up as easily. We are in the final stages of the Britannia job and now that all the hydro and phone lines are underground the old poles have to come out. You can’t just put a chain around a pole and lift it out of the ground because there would be no way of controlling where it would fall. The best way is to just put the excavator bucket against the pole fairly high up and give it a gentle push. The concrete poles simply snap off near the ground. Just the wire mesh inside the concrete holds the pieces together. You have to push gently so that the top does not snap and come back in the wrong direction. Once the pole has toppled, you just grab the base that is still in the ground and pull it up and out.
With wooden poles that have any strength left in them at all you need to cut a notch in them first. Otherwise they either won’t break off or will break in some unforeseen way. They are also harder to pull out of the ground as the wood becomes pitted and uneven, creating more hold than a smooth surface would. But its all kind of fun, certainly more interesting than the usual routine stuff we normally do.
*
There are now massive amounts of snow up on the high slopes around here. Now that we are having sunnier days I’ve been able to scan the local snowfields and peaks with my scope. Where there was just rugged jagged rock there is now smooth unbroken snow. The cornices hanging off the ridges are enormous. I can look at them up above the back end of Fries Creek Canyon. They are higher and stick out further than a tall west coast tree would if it were up there.
Yet at the same time, the cherry blossoms are out on the trees in Vancouver. There are trees at the West Van Mall that are completely cloaked in pink. And there are sailboats all over out on the Bay. Must be spring. Ironically, now that we are having sunny days we are also having the coldest nights since mid November. For the first time in almost 3 months we have had nighttime lows down at the freezing point at ours and lower elevations. But the nighttime skies are clear and the stars are bright. Can’t beat that. Actually, yes, you can. There is nothing quite as spectacular as the bright moon illuminating all that snow up on the mountaintops. It just seems to glow.
*
This time next week I’ll be in Kitchener for my annual visit and to celebrate Vivyan’s 80th birthday. Should be a good time. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be sending out the Squamidian a few days early or if I’ll con someone there into letting me use his or her computer to send it on the morning of the 18th. Guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
doug
****
Hi Doug,
I've been studying my goldseekers manual. We are apparently following flood gold placer. Our timing for this new, possibly lucrative hobby is excellent as the 'killer flood', as of a year ago should have left some brand new deposits just under our nose! Gold, because it is heavy, will normally be deposited in greater concentrations with the heavy material on a bar. The tail end of many gravel bars is sand. Gold may be deposited in the gravel under that sand, but you have to move the sand to get at it.
The above information I copied from the book. The only way to find actual nuggets verses these flakes we've been finding, I believe, is to identify these new gravel bars and test them during low water. It could mean some digging.
Now, on the other hand, one might continue on up the Elaho and keep testing for these surface flake until we narrow it down to a small tributary where we might find the source.
This is called loaming - following the evidence of gold to eluvial, then residual deposits and finally the vein itself. At this point we would be called hard rock miners.
There's an interesting chapter in the book called 'gold fever'. To have the 'bug' is good. This means one is experiencing excitement which makes for alot of fun. But the fever is like a disease comparable to alcoholism or compulsive gambling. You can identify these people by their foaming mouths and buggy eyes. Please let me know when if I ever get to that point. Talk to you tomorrow.
That goes for all you Squamidian readers, too. Below is a sample email sent to Doug last week.
Hi Doug,
I've been trying to call you but your place should be called the GAB.
Janice and I just got back from gold scouting as far as Mile 40 Elaho.
We tested for gold at Mile 29, found excellent color so moved up river and tested again. Still good.
Then at the bridge which is the crossing for the Elaho we discovered a goat herd on the cliffs above us. We counted 9 in all. Some kids, nannys and a whopper big billy. This is at Mile 36.
At this point, it occurred to me that we might be able to define which river the gold would be coming from. We carried on up the Squamish to the next good spot for a test and lo and behold; next to no sign of gold flakes. We then backtracked to the bridge and drove maybe 3 miles to an excellent bend in the Elaho and dipped the pan again.
This time we struck pay dirt! The fine stuff we picked out of one pan. The coins we actually found in the sand during tests and the rock is and interesting sample of some kind of crystal.
Warren.
****
Hello
everyone!
Well I
guess we’re back in to our normal winter weather. I guess we should be glad to
have had a month or more of unusually warm and snowless weather this year.
Although it was nice while it lasted, it just wasn’t normal and I found that a
lot of people were worrying about things like “Global Warming” and the world
running out of drinking water because of the lack of snow. Of course global
warming is a true concern to everyone but I doubt the world will lack a supply
of drinking water for many years to come. I guess we’ll have to hope that the
scientists figure a way out of these situations and of course we as inhabitants
of the planet earth must listen to what they have to say and each do our part
to remedy the situation. Unfortunately, we are inherently greedy in that we are
so used to having unlimited supplies of everything from hydro to fossil fuel
that we tend to ignore the urgent need to cut down on our consumption of these
commodities. We will probably be the architects of our own demise. The only
plus for us Squamidian members is that none of us will be around long enough to
have to experience the final days of this event. They say a couple of hundred
years will do the trick and in the final analysis it will be our ancestors that
will hear the fat lady sing!
*
Enough
gloom and doom!
Last
night while I was watching TV, Carole came into the room and stuffed a small
piece of something into my mouth and said “Here, eat this!” I managed to force
the remnants of what tasted like Freezer Burnt 33 year old wedding cake down.
She stood there and smiled and said “It’s not bad is it?” and laughed out loud.
I then realized that it was indeed 33 year old freezer burnt wedding cake!
Carole still has about 3 lbs of our original wedding cake in the freezer and
has made a tradition of sharing a tiny piece of it with me every year on our
anniversary. She says that this is what keeps us together and so happy. It
finally dawned on me that if that’s the case, if I ever want to put an end to
my marital situation, all I have to do is refuse to eat the cake come January
19th! Haha!!!!!!!! At last, a way out!!!!!! LOL!
I had
actually thought I’d gotten away with not eating it this year as we were in
Florida on the 19th and figured she’d forget about the yucky cake by
the time we got home. I guess she was putting something down in the freezer and
the light went on when she spotted the cake. Or, she spotted the cake when the
light went on! Oh well, there are worse things to eat in the world but
hopefully not in our freezer! LOL! I managed to live through the cake eating
thing this year but hopefully our freezer will malfunction before next January
19th and we’ll have to toss out the remainder of the 33 year old
fruitcake. I’ll have to keep my fingers crossed till then.
Just
kidding Carole!
*
When I
think about it, 33 years of marriage is quite a feat in this day and age. Are
any of our fellow squamidians married longer than that? I know that Vivyan and
Lorne have that beat for sure but how ‘bout the rest of you? If any of you have
any corny anniversary traditions that you would care to share with us, it would
be fun to hear about them . C’mon, dig into your personal experience vaults and
take a few minutes to write about your traditions. After all, that’s how
traditions get passed on from generation to generation. Maybe Karin can give us
some insight into Australian Wedding traditions? Maybe some of that Aboriginal
“bone through the nose” stuff or “tattooing” or whatever they do in the outback
to commemorate such occasions. It’s fun to hear of such stuff from different
cultures. Think about it before next week’s edition will ya?
Thanks
for tuning in this time! I look forward to talking to you all again next time
in The Ontarion Report.
Bye for now… GREG.
PS:
Something to Think About>
A dream
is a wish your heart makes.
Walt
Disney’s “Sleeping Beauty” 1959.
****
The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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