Road to nowhere

On the map, the highway north to the tip of Vancouver Island is a single, wavy line, with a few side roads, at Woss (pop. 200), Sayward (311), Brown's Bay. Zoom in further, and pale lines appear: logging roads, mostly, or roads to camp or picnic sites. These are private roads, gravel or mud; they do not turn blue when you try to move Google's little observer to them. Many have warning signs: watch for logging trucks, which always have the right of way, even if there's no passing lane; head for the ditch, or the bush.

On the ground, however, roads into the bush multiply. Some are little more than a two-rutted path, with weeds growing in the ruts. Some have been carved out and gravelled. Most have no indication of where they lead, or who made them. On Google, they're dark or light lines among the hills, becoming invisible where the trees close in.

I follow one or two on each trip north. Some peter out after a couple of turns, ending up abruptly at undisturbed bush. Some go on and on and on, winding up hill and down; when the road becomes too rough for my little car, even at a crawl, I find a wider spot, and turn back. Once, I found a tiny lake, with a house on the far side; the road would have reached it, but I needed a 4x4 truck.

Some seem completely meaningless. A nicely gravelled entrance, a road leading down a hill for 50 yards or so, then a few swipes with earth-moving equipment, and nothing more. Why? Someone prospecting for building sites, this far from nowhere? Hopeful handloggers? I can't imagine.

At one of these, I stopped and hiked to the end of the cleared "road", too rugged for my car. There was a hill, a creek, some plastic trash (why is this always present, even out here?), a few mounds of debris, as if a backhoe had been scraping out a construction site until the order came through; "You're in the wrong spot, go home, contract cancelled." Or something to that effect.

Ma Nature's contracts are never cancelled. She was hard at work, re-populating the site.

Lichen on a log. There's always lichen.

Assorted lichen (the "big" pillars are Cladonia), and moss.

Haircap moss and lichen.

Eastern eyebright, Euphrasia nemorosa. I found these near Nimpkish Lake in July but wasn't sure of the species. This, I identified by the size of the flowers, counting the grass stalks as more than 1 mm across. E. nemorosa's flowers are from 5-10 mm long.

Bird's foot trefoil, Lotus corniculatus.

And there are always slugs. Banana slug, watching my camera.