Studio stuff.

A view of a part of Linda Heslops' studio showing a work in progress (with the masking tape), a recently finished watercolor and a framed oil/acrylic hung on the wall. All are Vancouver Island westcoast scenes.

Easter camping.

We went out camping again over Easter and we were surprised to find abundant snow at lower elevations than we expected. In the image above (taken through a spattered windshield) you can see that the mainline logging road has been ploughed open but only vehicle wide, normally this road is about 20m across! Eventually we arrived at a locked gate where the cleared road continued but we couldn't. Darn! So we chose to spend the first evening camped along a wider area with a good view across the Gordon River valley to the snowy mountainside opposite.

We retraced our steps on Saturday morning and took the 'Circle Route' road south from Mesatchie Lake to Port Renfrew which is kept clear of snow nowadays. Some exploratory driving into the hills quickly came to nought and we figure it'll be another month before the snow is gone. So we spent Saturday afternoon and evening at the beach campsite at Port Renfrew in a perpetual drizzle sat beneath a portable gazebo we erected. It seemed pointless to light a campfire, too wet to sit around it, so we lingered until dark before retiring and hoped for the weather to improve overnight. It didn't, it got somewhat worse in fact, and we opted not to bother going to Botanical Beach for the extreme low tide on Sunday morning. Somewhat disappointed with the weatherman we left for home stopping for a coffee at Jordan River which we drank while parked by the oceanfront. A kilometer or so offshore we could see a pod of Orcas surfacing and diving, too far away for pictures though.

This years first camping trip.

An early morning view of our campsite on the beach at Port Renfrew, Vancouver Island, Sat March 21st. Pretty cold, some ice on the puddles, but the day turned out fine and sunny (just as the weatherman had predicted!). In summertime this oceanfront campground tends to fill up with a few too many rowdies for our liking but either side of summer it makes a fine destination. Only two or three other rigs were set up and they were all nicely seperate from each other.

We took a long walk east to the Deering bridge over the sloughlike area of the San Juan River and then followed the road back to the south end of the beach then north along the beach back to our camp. About seven or eight kilometers total. Watched a mink, then an otter and a seal frollicking in the water and had fun with the campgrounds' resident crow population.

Flowerstones and more.

Yet another one of Linda Heslops' remarkable watercolor paintings of stones. Once more this image includes poryphyr (fairly common on the beaches of Vancouver Island) and a particularly nice piece in the center of the painting shows well developed 'flowers'.

Bridging Time.

Another Linda Heslop watercolor piece titled 'Bridging Time', this one also has a small piece of poryphry (upper right hand stone).

Some Stones

A Linda Heslop watercolor painting of pebbles and rocks including granite and porphyry (flowerstone) collected locally on Vancouver Island.

Heli-logging on Vancouver Island.

Heli-logging, an expensive way of timber removal from areas where road building would be even more expensive. The helicopter we've seen in use the most frequently is an Air-Crane Sikorsky S-64 as seen in the picture, here it's at the refueling/staging area alongside a mainline logging road in the southern part of Vancouver Island. In the mid 1980's a massive Russian helicopter (and Russian support team) was used in the Gordon River area for a few years. Well worth checking out the videos at the link I provided to see just how versatile this machine is. Timber harvesting, fire suppression, and a variety of heavy lift operations can be viewed. As for the trees, nowhere's safe anymore!

Star Surfers

Three of Linda Heslops' watercolor paintings on one sheet. Obviously enough there's two similar views of sea stars and one expansive scene of surfers at Long Beach in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve (still only a reserve 35 years after the boundaries were drawn up!). This area is extremely popular with the surfing crowd though wetsuits are mandatory for the cold water, a 'Surf Jamboree' takes place at nearby Cox Bay usually in October. Lindas' artwork is carried at several galleries in the communities of Ucluelet and Tofino located at the south and north ends of the park. The Wikaninnish Interpretive Centre (the parks visitor centre) also carries her work and is a good place to spend an hour or so learning about the local environment.

Tricksters

 

Today a pair of ravens dropped by and surveyed things from the top of a sequoia opposite our home. Not uncommon for them to be in the city but not an everyday occurrence either. First Nations people knew the raven as 'the trickster', a most appropriate name for this very intelligent bird. The recent snowfalls across Vancouver Island have brought hardship to birds, particularly those used to hunting for prey or scavenging in the forest as there's been sufficient snow to obscure their food supplies. As a result of this, the bald eagles have taken to scavenging from garbage dumps in large numbers competing with the resident seagulls and crows. Ahh, how the mighty have fallen!

Hoe Chuckers, the modern way to decimate the forest.

Three views of  hoe chuckers on Vancouver Island, some scale is apparent as I drove by the parked one. Very expensive machinery that processes timber to size and species for the mills requirements via computer software updated each day. The lower photograph shows one stacking timber into a coldpile at the roadside for removal by logging trucks, should the logs need moving more than three times to get to the road, then it becomes cheaper to build a new road.  Smaller trees can be handled right from the harvesting stage as can be seen in this video of one at work. Pretty amazing equipment, just too bad it puts so many of people out of work.