Starfish Trooper

Material for Linda Heslops' watercolors of sea stars come from photographs such as these. Abundant in rocky crevices at low tide, they await the seas return. These pictures were taken on the shoreline of Hornby Island (off Vancouver Islands' eastcoast).

Sea Stacks

Sea stacks, small and rugged islands like these are abundant off the westcoast of Vancouver Island. Both of these watercolor paintings were done from photographs taken on our 'off the beaten path' adventures to the wild westcoast. The following photograph shows a cluster of small sea stacks, with bonsai trees, at San Josef Bay near the northern tip of Vancouver Island. It's a wonderful place, easily accessed from the end of the logging road and well worth the 2.5km stroll through the forest to get there. Two vehicle campsites are near the trailhead, one is a Forest Service site but our preferred one is San Josef Heritage Park where considerably more daylight gets in.

Railroad logging on Vancouver Island

The old Shay locie at Lake Cowichan, part of the Kaatza Station Museum outdoor exhibit at Saywell Park. We passed by here a couple of weekends ago and I took this rather indifferent shot. Better views of this and more Vancouver Island logging locomotives can be viewed at 'Preserved! Steam Locomotives of British Columbia' . The last steam loco in use on the island was an Alco, last working out of Woss until 1976. This video shows her running after restorations in 1988.

Woss has the last logging railroad system on the island but nowadays the equipment used looks like this video of a spectacular trestle and a load of empties. 'From Camp to Community' is a great site for getting a view of the old days in the logging industry, check out the pages on The Camps, The Loggers etc too, along with 'loggers lingo' and 'now you're logging'