Down a solstice rabbit hole

 A few numbers.

Looking up, last night, the length of this, our shortest day of the year, I noticed one particular number, one I've probably seen before but never stopped to think about. 7:03. The moment of the winter solstice this year here in BC. 

Three minutes past the hour. Odd, I thought. But why not? There has to be a moment, a precise second in which the earth passes the spot where it stops distancing itself from the sun, where the angle of the tilted axis starts its swing towards the sun again. And why would it have to coincide with a "sensible" moment on our clocks; like 7:00 PM. Or even 7:15; that would seem reasonable, right?

No, the earth and the sun aren't watching our clocks.

So, why aren't our clocks set with the solar system times?

Down another rabbit hole.

The earth's orbit isn't a circle. It all starts there. When it is closer to the sun, in spring and fall, the earth travels more quickly. Like when you tie a nut to a string and swing it around your head, (or a bolas spider ties his ball of glue to his silk) it goes faster and hits whatever you're aiming at harder, if the string (or silk) is longer.

So our clocks are set to 86,000 seconds per day, but the solar day? It depends. It's longer than 24 hours in winter, shorter in summer. Solar noon, when the sun is directly overhead, here on the 50th N parallel of latitude and 125°15' falls at 12:19 PM, Pacific Standard Time. Over on the mainland, in Vancouver, it's at 12:10.

And our day, today, the  21st, is 8 hours and 4 minutes long. With 6 extra seconds. Tomorrow, we'll get another whole 5 seconds. Then 10 more, 13, and 22 for Christmas, giving us 8 hours and 5 whole minutes, a nice Christmas gift.

That's here. In Nunavut, they have to wait another 6 weeks for the first glimpse of daylight. And I remember the years in the deep Bella Coola valley, at 52.37°N, where the sun first peeked through the gap between Table Mountain and the next peak over; the 4th of February, give or take a day depending on the snow cover. 2 minutes, and it was gone, but it would be back the next day.:

But — one more weird number— sunrise today here was at 8:17. It will still come later, even after the solstice, up to 8:19, January 4th, before it starts to come earlier. While the days are lengthening; because sunset will be coming later. And that's because the earth is tipped over, and the axis isn't aligned exactly with the earth's orbit.

Earth currently has an axial tilt of about 23.44°. This value remains about the same relative to a stationary orbital plane ... But the ecliptic (i.e., Earth's orbit) moves due to planetary perturbations, and the obliquity of the ecliptic is not a fixed quantity. (Wikipedia)

And:

The Moon is—very gradually—slowing the Earth's rotation because of friction produced by tides. Over the course of a century, the length of a day increases by a couple of milliseconds (where 1 millisecond equals 0.001 seconds). ... Within this general trend, however, there is fluctuation: sometimes the Earth spins a bit faster, sometimes a bit slower. Recently, our planet has been speeding up a little, making for slightly shorter days. (TimeAndDate)

The only constant, it seems, is change.

I looked through my old photos for one taken on a winter solstice. Here's the one I found; December, 2008. I was house-sitting in Vancouver. A snowy year, that was.

Pender St., Strathcona, Vancouver. Solstice, 2008.

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 Unos cuantos números interesantes.

Anoche estaba mirando los datos sobre lo largo del dia, este dia más corto del año, y me llamó la atención un número que probablemente he visto antes pero sin hacer caso. 7:03. El momento precisod del solsticio de invierno aquí en Colombia Británica.

Tres minutos después de la hora. Extraño, pensé. Pero, ¿porqué no? Tiene que haber un instante exacto en que la tierra pasa el punto donde deja de alejarse del sol, donde el ángulo del eje empieza a volverse hacia el sol otra vez. ¿Y porqué tendría que corresponder a un momento "lógico" en nuestros relojes; como por ejemplo, las 7:00 pm.? O las 7:15, que parecería ser un tiempo razonable, ¿no?

No, la tierra y el sol no se guían por nuestros relojes.

Bueno, ¿porqué no tenemos nuestros relojes armonizados con los tiempos del sistema solar?

Otra vez, voy siguiendo el conejo de Alica del Pais de las Maravillas.

La órbita de la tierra no forma un círculo. Aquí empieza todo. Cuando se acerca al sol, en la primavera y el otoño, la tierra se mueve más rapidamente. Como cuando atas una tuerca a un hilo y la giras alrededor de tu cabeza (o cuando una araña bolas ata su bolita de pegamento a la seda), mientras más largo tu hilo (o la seda), más rápido vuele la tuerca o la bola y más fuerte choca con el objetivo.

Nuestros relojes están configurados para marcar 86.000 segundos diarios, ¿pero el dia solar? Depende. Es más de 24 horas en el invierno, menos de los 24 en verano. La mediodía solar, cuando el sol está directamente sobre nuestras cabezas, cae aquí en el paralelo 50°N y longitud 125°15'W a las 12:19 pm, tiempo Pacífico. En Vancouver, no tan lejos, cae a las 12:10.

Y nuestro dia de hoy, el dia 21, tiene 8 horas con 4 minutos. Y 6 segundos de propina. Mañana, nos tocarán otros 5 segundos. Luego 10, 13, y 22 el 25, dándonos 8 horas y 5 minutos enteros para Navidad. ¡Un buen regalo!

Eso es aquí. En el territorio norteño de Nunavut, tienen que esperar otras 6 semanas antes de ver la luz del día. Y me acuerdo de los años en el valle profundo de Bella Coola, en el paralelo 52.37°N, donde el sol se asomaba por primera vez desde el espacio entre el monte Stupendous (Mesa lo llamábamos) y el pico próximo; el 4 de febrero, más o menos, según la profundidad de la nieve en aquellas cumbres. 2 minutos, y desaparecía, pero regresaría.

Pero — un número extraño más— el sol salió esta mañana a las 8:17. Seguirá saliendo más tarde, aun después del solsticio, llegando a salir a las 8:19, el 4 de enero, antes de empezar a amanecer más temprano. Y eso, mientras los dias se alargan, porque el sol se pondrá cada dia más tarde. Y eso, porque el eje de la tierra no está alineado respeto a su plano orbital.

La tierra en estos momentos tiene una inclinación axial de aproximadamente 23.44°. Este valor permanece aproximadamente igual respeto a un plano orbital fijo. ... Pero la eclíptica (eso es la órbita de la Tierra) se mueve debido a perturbaciones planetarias, y la oblicuidad de la eclíptica no es una cantidad fija. (Wikipedia)

Y:

La Luna está —lentamente— retrasando la rotación de la Tierra por causa de la fricción producida por las mareas. En un siglo, la largura de un día aumenta con unos dos milisegundos (donde 1 milisegundo es igual a 0.001 segundos). ... Con esta tendencia general, sin embargo, hay variación: a veces la Tierra gira un poco más rápido, a veces un poco más lentamente. Recientemente, nuestra planeta ha estado acelerándose un poco, dando por consiguiente días levemente más cortos. (TimeAndDate)

Lo único que sigue siempre igual, me parece, es el cambio.

Busqué entre mis fotos viejas, para encontrar una de un solsticio de invierno. Aquí está la que encontré; en diciembre de 2008. Estaba cuidando la casa de mi hija en Vancouver. Ese año había toneladas de nieve.

Foto: 21 de diciembre, 2008, la calle Pender, Strathcona, Vancouver.

Learning the hard way

Here's a story. A bit embarrassing, maybe, but how do we ever learn except by making foolish mistakes?

It was the late 1970s. I had been away from the coastal rainforests for 20-some years, ever since my teens. And now here I was in the north country, with a house and small farm. I had a lot to learn.

How to stay warm in the winter, for example. That first year, I made sure the woodshed was full. Three cords worth (about 11 cubic metres), they told me, would last a winter. We cut trees on our property, hauled them down the hill, chain-sawed and chopped them into stove-sized chunks, stacked them neatly. The woodshed, piled up to the roof, smelled of freshly-cut wood. It felt so good!

We had red alder, pines and fir on our side hill, and cottonwood. The cottonwood was bigger, and we ended up with a good stack of it.

("Cottonwood burns well", says a Canadian government page. Some conditions apply.)

Cottonwood is a tree that grows in moist to wet to very wet conditions. It "acts as a massive nutrient pump, drawing up and storing nutrient-rich water." (Vancouver Island Big Trees) Ours was typical. We found out the hard way. In mid-winter, with the temperature hovering around 20 below zero Celsius, and our airtight stove roaring away, we were cozy enough. Unless we were trying to burn that fall's cottonwood. Inside the stove, it oozed and steamed and dripped, and put out the fire. In the woodbox beside the stove, it made puddles on the floor as it thawed out. I took to putting a few pieces at a time on top of the stove to dry out; there it hissed and whistled as the steam found its way out. Only when it stopped dripping did I dare put it into the fire. Then, yes, it did burn well. But it didn't produce much heat. Or hold a fire overnight.

Live and learn.

But I do still love cottonwood. Not in a stove, but standing tall, glowing in the fall light, growing lichens and mosses all year; the rough bark, the scarring, the tangled and broken branches all up and down the trunk, and maybe also the dampness of the wood even in summer, provides a rich habitat.

These three lichens are on cottonwoods at Oyster Bay.

A hanging leaf lichen.

Interesting pattern of a yellow-green powdery lichen on outer bark.

A large, loose, leaf lichen. Lungwort or something similar.

 Moss tomorrow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Una historia personal. Una tontería, pero ¿cómo aprenderemos si nunca hacemos estupideces?

Estábamos a finales de la década de los '70. Yo había estado lejos de los bosques pluviales de la costa por más de veinte años, desde que era apenas una adolescente. Y ahora estaba en el norte, con una casa y una granjita. Había mucho que aprender.

Por ejemplo, como mantenernos calientitos en el invierno norteño. Ese primer año, me apresuré para llenar la lleñera. Unos once metros cúbicos, me decían, serían suficiente para el invierno. Cortamos árboles en nuestro terreno, los trasportamos hacia la casa al pie del cerro, los cortamos con la motosierra y las hachas, y apilamos la leña hasta el techo de la leñera. Todo en orden, todo oliendo a madera nueva, picante. ¡Se sentía tan bien!

Teníamos alisos, pinos, abetos, y álamos en la propiedad. Los álamos eran los más grandes, así que nuestra leñera tenía mucha de esa madera.

("Cottonwood (álamo negro) se quema bien" según dice el gobierno de Canadá. Llenándose ciertas condiciones, por cierto.)

El cottonwood es un árbol que crece en tierras húmedas, muy húmedas y bien mojadas. "Actúa como una bomba de nutrientes enorme, absorbiendo y almacenando agua rica en nutrientes." (de Vancouver Island Big Trees). Nuestros cottonwoods seguían el modelo, lo que descubrimos de la manera más difícil. A medio invierno, con la temperatura alrededor de 20 bajo cero y la estufa llena de fuego, estábamos cómodos. Eso, si no estábamos tratando de quemar ese cottonwood. Puesto dentro del fuego, producía vapor, goteaba, chorreaba hasta apagar el fuego. En la caja de leña al lado de la estufa, dejaba charcos en el piso mientras se descongelaba. Me dí por poner varios pedazos encima de la estufa para secarse; allí chiflaba y silbeaba mientras escapaba el vapor. Una vez que dejaba de gotear, la podía poner en la estufa, y sí se quemaba. Pero no producía mucho calor, y no duraba.

Se vive y se aprende.

Pero de todas maneras, me gusta el cottonwood. En el fuego, no, pero en pie, brillando en la luz del otoño, o todo el año decorado de líquenes y musgos; la corteza tan arrugada, tan cicatrizada, las ramas que brotan por doquier, y que se rompen dejando grietas, y sí, tal vez la húmedad de la madera misma, hacen de estos árboles un habitat perfecto.

Fotos: tres líquenes en álamos de Oyster Bay.

1. Un liquen de hoja delgada.
2. Unos líquenes polvorientos en la base de un tronco.
3. Un liquen de hoja despegada, grande. Tal vez sea una pulmonaria, o algo parecido.

Mañana, unos musgos.

1. 
   

Resurrection

Off-topic: I have another blog, Remembering Jellybean, where I have posted short stories, both fiction and biographical, childhood memories, poems, Mexican legends ... 

From the introduction: "I was born on a native reserve in Ontario, grew up on the west coast of Vancouver Island (as far west as you can go without running out of Canada), came of age in Mexico City. Between times, I lived in the Fraser Valley, Texas, Seattle, Oklahoma, Bella Coola on the BC north coast, and the Fraser River Delta, just south of Vancouver. For now, I'm "settled" in Campbell River, on Vancouver Island.

I have a boatload of stories to tell. These are some of them."

I had stopped posting to this blog some years back, I'm not sure why. Now I've woken it up again, with a couple of stories today. I'll keep adding to it from now on. Go take a look.

The Lizzie. Our school boat, 1950s.

Reindeer, pixies, and no bears.

In the upper Bella Coola valley, I stopped at Burnt Bridge to look for mushrooms. The forest floor here is often thick with boletus (edible if you can find them without worms; they make a nice, beefy gravy), Russula (they say they're edible, but you may as well eat erasers) and fly agaric (definitely not edible). But my timing was off; there were no 'shrooms, not even puffballs.

But there were lichens, and a bear tree; even better.

A reindeer lichen, with mosses.

More reindeer. The dark specks on the tips are fruiting bodies. (Click for a better view.)

Mosses, evergreen needles, and a densely curled lichen.

Leaf lichen on a dead tree branch.

Many lichens on a rock. Large leaf lichen, tiny pixie cup cladonia, a smaller leaf lichen, and several species of tiny crustose lichens.

And the bear tree? I've seen these several times in this patch of forest; dead trees that the bears have been using to sharpen their claws on and maybe to scratch their backs with. This one was ripped from knee-height to well above my head.

Do the bears choose a dead tree, or is it dead because the bears chose it?

I didn't see any bears.

Harbourmaster?

Marine biologist?

Lantern bearer?

Or spider fancier?

On pilings at the Bella Coola wharf.

And nary a crab

At the end of the road, where the Bella Coola river meets the ocean, I went to explore the tide flats, to discover what lives there.

The river is that thin line to the right, the inlet is on the left.

No two intertidal zones are alike. This one, though it is river meeting ocean, like the beaches I know on the lower mainland, is unlike any other I have visited. For one thing, though I turned over stones and logs, parted underwater grasses, I saw no snails, no crabs, no worm piles. And no eelgrass.

The river is glacier run-off, silty and cold. And Bentinck Inlet is long, narrow, and deep; though the tide runs up to the base of the hills, the river also runs far out to sea. The salinity is low. The currents are strong. The grasses on the tide flats are land-based grasses, not eelgrass. The only seaweeds are those the tide ripped up and dragged in; they don't live there.

This whole area is covered by the tide. Plants growing here are moderately salt-tolerant.

Besides several varieties of tough grasses, I found silverweed, blue sailor, and yellow gumweed, all in the area that is covered by salty water twice daily.

The tide rushing in, laying the grasses flat.

Rockweed tossed on top of the flattened grasses. A few leaves of silverweed poke through the grass.

Deep in the channel, where the water is heavier and saltier, there are crabs and anemones, sea cucumbers and starfish, all out of reach without diving gear. The tide flats are home to plants, birds, and flies, come to feed on dead salmon. And if I'd been carrying a shovel, maybe I'd have found worms.

Fixer-upper

What would it be like to live here? Someone did, long ago.

A sturdy little cabin in the upper Bella Coola Valley, with window, wood stove, and curtains; log walls, good chinking. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that it's still furnished, too. A plank table, a chair, maybe even a cot. Big woodshed, because the winters are cold.

Needs some patching on the roof.

The glare

On a ruined tree, torn apart as the hillside swept down to the river in the last Bella Coola flood, an eagle was surveying the river on the far side of the highway. He didn't appreciate my presence, nor the camera poking out the car window.

"Hmmpph! Intruders, always intruders!"

I eased the car forward a few feet, hoping for a closer shot, and he dropped off his perch and flew away, up the hill and over the trees beyond.

Once in a lifetime

It's salmon spawning season in the Bella Coola valley.  Every river and creek is full of them, splashing and twisting, struggling against the current in water that often seems too shallow for swimming, leaping up rocky steps, catching their breath in small eddies.

I went to Clayton Creek to watch them.

The male develops a hump in spawning season.

I think these are pinks, because of the spotted tail.

Clayton Creek runs into North Bentinck Arm (seawater) just below the Bella Coola river mouth. From here, the salmon swim up a shallow, fast stream for a few hundred feet, before things become difficult.

Where the river meets the sea. Easy swimming.

At the first bend of Clayton Creek. Jumping practice.

And only a few feet beyond, roaring Clayton Falls and whirlpool. The salmon climb it.

Somewhere above the falls, the female salmon digs herself a shallow nest (a redd) and lays her eggs. Her mate fertilizes them, and then, exhausted and battered, he drifts back down the creek. The mother will hang around a few days, to make sure her eggs are safe, but then, she too dies and floats downstream. Some spawned-out salmon are caught up top by bears and eagles; some make it to the bottom, but they all die. Their work is done.

One didn't make it up the falls. She was caught and slaughtered, her roe scattered on rocks at the base of the falls.

A male. dead on the sea grasses of the tide flats. At spawning time, they turn red, and develop a hooked jaw.

The females are more subdued. This one has a slight hint of pink, and a bit of a curve in the upper jaw.

And out on the breakwater, sea lions sleep, their tummies full of fish.

One came over to look at me.

In the spring, the young salmon will swim back down the creek, into the wide ocean. And when their turn comes, they will return to the same creek, and climb the same falls that their parents did before them.

Rainy day sampler

I have a hard drive full of old photos, most too bad to be used, some with possibilities; but these get lost in the undergrowth. Following Ted McRae's example, I've been sorting them out and rescuing those I can, now that I have newer software and am slowly learning to use it.

Here's a random assortment of the most recent recovers, in no particular order. (Blogger's choice, and I didn't interfere.)

In a dry summer, an angel dreams of days when her pool was full. York Road, Campbell River, 2009.

Is that a ... turtle?!  Photo from Laurie's old film camera, pre-2006. Boundary Bay.

Rotting ball, White Rock beach, April 2009.

I posted this on the blog in August of 2010; I think it's a feather duster worm. The photo was messy and dark, but a few quick tricks with Elements (Ted's first two) brought it to life.

Same worm, clearer pose. It's about an inch and a half long.

Lion, in the jumbled entrance of a house in Finn Slough. The background camouflaged the lion in front; a pity, because I think he's beautiful. I finally figured out how to use the selection tool, masked the lion, and blended the mess. Simple, now I know how. October, 2010.

Signs in the corner of a store window in Strathcona. April, 2011.

1980s photo, taken with one of those little Kodachromes, much faded with age. Scanned and cleaned up, it's passable. This is my younger son rototilling a patch of swamp land we were draining and reclaiming. Wonderful soil! That first year, I had 7 boxes of tomatoes to can.
Firvale, the Bella Coola valley, BC.

Straw "painting" I brought back from Mexico in the 1970s. Cheating here; I threw out all my old photos, and took a new one now that I have a better camera and a decent flash. For the first time, the straw came out as straw, and Elements cleaned up the edges nicely.

I've done a batch of scanned family photos, which I've uploaded to Facebook, and umpteen worm photos; these I will store for reference material for the next time I find another. The weather people threaten us with two solid weeks of rain: I don't care; I'm having fun!

Scenes from the Bella Coola valley

The house is gone. Not demolished, not covered in muck, not under a log jam. Gone. Nowhere to be seen. All that is left is a rectangular pool slowly draining back into the river.

Another house, more fortunate. 2 inches of slippery mud on the living room floor. Along with everything 4 feet of racing water could toss onto it.

A mobile home tilted crazily. A solid house on a rise holding a basement full of river.

A clear road rounds a corner and ends abruptly; there is a 4-foot drop, and then the river. The road picks up again at the next bend.

A highway hidden under a spill of big rocks. Farther along, logs. Better than no road.

A canoe tied up at the gap where a bridge used to be, with a rope across the stream to make it accessible from either side.

A half-dozen white chickens stepping warily out of their coop onto a plank over a new stream.

Just a few impressions of the "morning after" photos from the Bella Coola flood, here, and here.

But the news is good; there were no fatalities, no injuries. Everyone who needed to got out safely. Everyone is accounted for. The horses are back in the pastures (along with a flock of seagulls and the odd duck). The airport is open again, and a detour has been found around the washout on the highway across the Chilcotin. The hill is still closed, and will be for months, but there are flights down from the other side of Tweedsmuir Park; the valley is no longer isolated. There is a ferry on the way, bringing food and other necessities, as well as Bella Coola residents stranded away from home. A barge is bringing fuel and equipment; the bridges will be repaired.

But the locals aren't waiting for help to arrive. They're on the road already with graders, backhoes, trucks and wheelbarrows, cleaning up, repairing, filling in gaps. They're joining their neighbours to clean up the mess inside, with shovels and dustpans and buckets; one resident says, "We had many helpers doing all the dirty work alongside us, so it was almost a party. Not really!"

Not really. The work of a lifetime, for many, has gone in a day. Out here, away from "civilization", many people build their own homes, from scratch, out of local lumber and materials, adding to and modifying them as the family grows and changes. Memories run long in these homes; the kids grew up and went away to the cities to school, to work, to a life elsewhere; they bring their own kids back to spend the summer with Grandma and Grandpa, bedding down in the rooms they slept in as babies.

Yes, most of the damage will be repaired. Ruined homes will be rebuilt, as needed. Some things will never be the same. The valley people will cope.

Years from now people will look back and wonder why that road is the way it is or why some farmer has a nice field while the neighbor's isn't so good. Bella Coola will become relatively normal soon enough, but it will be a slightly new normal. Not everything will get rebuilt and not everything will get rebuilt the way we are used to. I guess that is how the way things have to go. (From Grizzly's blog.)

I zero in on the Bella Coola valley, because my heart is there. Friends, family, the mountains, the green fields and Nusatsum sleeping on his peak; they're in my blood. But the same scenes have been playing all over BC these last few days; floods in the Chilcotin, the road from Tahsis to Gold River washed out, flooding in Kingcome Inlet, Port Hardy, Port Alice, and more. On the other end of Canada, Hurricane Igor hit Newfoundland, causing one fatality, and destroying hundreds of homes. And I'm sure the same courage and resourcefulness is apparent in these places.

One thing I've noticed during the crisis; however far apart we have wandered, when disaster strikes, we come together again. One of the "kids" who live away from the valley started the Bella Coola Flood, 2010 Facebook group. At present, it has 1196 members, about half ex-residents, all sharing news, photos, offers of help. I've been talking with neighbours I haven't seen for 30 years, as if all that time was nothing; we are all Bella Coola valley-ites, and that's what counts.

My family has been talking about arranging a work party to go up and help the family there clean house and collect their belongings, now scattered far downstream. Other young people are doing the same; going up to help mothers and grandparents. A time to cement old friendships; good even comes out of tragedy.

No photos here, again. There are new photos in the flood album, in the Highways' album, and in Michael Wigle's album, more to the point.

Too much of a good thing. Far too much.

So what happened? Bella Coola residents know about the river and build for the periodic floods. Houses are built above the water level. Dikes and rip-rap reinforce unstable banks along the rivers and creeks. Bridges, even on the smaller creeks, are made to withstand the occasional flood-driven log jam. Road maintenance is conscientious.

And now ... the entire village of Hagensborg sits with its knees in the water. All the bridges from one end of the valley to the other, are damaged, some entirely gone. A sandbank up-valley caved in, taking a long section of highway with it. The "hill" on the road out to the rest of the world is impassible. Salmon, up the river for the annual spawn, lie dead in driveways. A shop ended up in a stand of trees downstream. The winter's supply of firewood, so neatly stacked for air drying, floats here and there.

And it's not flood season yet! That's still a month or so away.

The fall high water comes about the same time as the first hard frosts in the valley. "Up top", on the mountain peaks (5000 to 8000 feet), the winter snow cover is building up. When it rains on top of this new snow, there is a quick melt, and a rush of water streaming down the river. Noisy and violent it may be, but it usually stays between the river banks.

This flood is different. "Grizzly", at Bella Coola Blog, explains;

Piecing together comments on the extent of the rainfall it appears that what made this flood so big, is that the entire watershed of the Bella Coola - all the big tributaries, Salloomt, Nusastsum, Talchako, Atnarko all received a massive amount of rain.  Often these storms are most intensive in the lower valley or one of the tributaries, or sometimes the upper valley and not the lower valley, but this one was widespread.  You have a situation with a watershed of several 1000* sq km covered in 9 inches of water.

*He later checks this, and adjusts the total to 5149 sq. km.

In 36 hours, he reports, the rainfall in the valley measured 9.6 inches (245 mm.) I checked the normal averages: taking an average from 1971 to 2000, the rainfall for the entire month of September was 3.3 inches (83.5 mm.). Even for the rainiest month, October, the total only went up to 7.7 inches (194 mm.). That's per month. The sum for those two months is only a smidgen more that what fell in one and a half days this weekend.

9.6 inches doesn't really sound that much. But concentrate all that at the bottom of a deep, narrow valley, and it adds up to a torrent in a hurry to reach the sea. People report up to 8 feet of water over the highway, 4 feet in some houses.

And it's still raining. The water level dropped during the day today, but it is rising again. The forecast is for another 2 to 4 inches of rain by Tuesday night.

If you're reading Grizzly's blog, or news reports, or following the Facebook photo page, the map above might be helpful. Bella Coola townsite is at the bottom of the valley, where the inlet meets the river. The airplane icon is at the airport. The first yellow house icon is where I stayed this summer, in the heart of Hagensborg.  The second is the Saloompt bridge, (one that will be very difficult to replace, crossing an extremely fast section of river. For now, residents have been rigging up a pulley system to haul food and other supplies across the river.) And the third, on the right, is Firvale, and the site of my old home.

Here's the meadow I wrote about yesterday:

My neighbours' house is the one among the trees at the right. Last I heard, the water was to the top of the fence posts around the barn.

Pre-flood photo. One of the many creeks pouring down the mountainside into Hagensborg. The schoolhouse roof in the foreground.

For the record: the Saloompt bridge, in happier days. The normally greenish water (glacier runoff) today is a murky brown. And the river comes right up to the road.

There's an old native legend, about how there once was a very big flood in the Bella Coola valley, and a chief made a raft and saved his people. When the flood abated, he draped a rope around the tip of Saloompt mountain and tied the raft there. You can still see the mark of the rope, they say.

These days, the rafts are blue, inflatable, and made of plastic.

First fire, then flood.

I stood at my living room windows and watched the river rise. It had already flooded the meadow across the road and hidden the barbed-wire fence that surrounded it; now it lapped at the far shoulder of the road itself.

It was 1980; I had just bought my house in the Bella Coola valley, a log cabin nestled snugly at the bottom of a rocky mountain half-way up the valley. The property had garden plots on three levels, a good barn, roses, lilacs, and other flowering shrubs, an apple tree (transparents), and below us, below the level of the road even, a lawn with a row of purple plum trees.

I was watching to see if the flood waters would top the road and pour over into my plum "orchard". Otherwise, we were safe, on the first rise of our side hill.

While I stood staring out into the rain and mists, a pickup drove slowly around the bend of the road, and stopped by my corral. A couple of people, unidentifiable in yellow raingear, went to the back and unloaded a skiff, which they manhandled across the flooded fence. They climbed aboard and rowed off in the direction of the river, about a kilometre distant at that point.

Not a good day for a paddle on the river.

They cast about for a bit, then aimed for a spot towards the trees on the down-valley side. Squinting, I could see a shadow on the water there. They pulled up and got out of the skiff. Then nothing.

Later, when the water seemed to have slackened some (maybe it wouldn't flood my plums, after all!), I saw the explorers rowing back. They loaded the skiff into the pickup, turned around and headed down valley.

When the valley had finally dried, the machines came, and built a road to that hummock, the one with the flag at its highest point. There, my new neighbours built their house, high and dry in the middle of a flood plain. Bella Coola old-timers know their river.

That was 1980. The "big" flood that old-timers still talked about happened in 1968; then every single bridge in the long valley was knocked out. The Bella Coola River had carved new channels, undercut the road, and eaten away the land under a fool-hardy newcomer's house, too close to the bank.

Google terrain map of the Bella Coola Valley. About a mile wide at the widest point, 50 or so miles long.

This year, the river has broken all the rules. And suddenly, too; three days ago, residents were remarking at how low the river was for this time of year. And now, it has flooded beyond its 1968 record, beyond the memories of living men. (There was a flood that left the townsite dry in 1936; the previous major flood was in 1896.)

The valley is in the news; here's a report from CBC News. Look at the accompanying photo; the house I stayed in when I visited last month is just on the left of the open area, nearest the river. Fortunately, my hosts hooked up the trailer and moved it up valley when the rains started. My son-in-law says his Dad "doesn't like wet socks." A typical Bella Coola-ite downplaying of difficulties; all his electronic equipment is in his drowned basement, and his wife's prize garden is a rueful memory.

But they're lucky. As before, the bridges have gone. And the water, from 3 rivers and many good creeks pouring down from those tall mountains, has flooded almost the entire valley floor, from the extreme right of my map to the tide flats at the left. Above the valley, the road has been washed out, and will probably not be opened again for several months. The dike separating the airport from the river breached, and the river tore up the runway.

The valley is isolated, as it was for so many years before the road was built. And more; each segment of the valley, split as it is by tumultous rivers, is isolated from the others. Many people got out on time; many did not.   It was all too sudden. A couple of my friends woke up in the morning, dry on the second floor of their house, to find, below, their couch floating around the living room. They got out, in a boat; their horses, as far as I know, are still stranded in the field.

But the valley people are strong and resourceful; they'll survive, though life is going to be difficult this winter. They are working hard, already. Volunteers are out marking damaged spots on the road, shoring up shaky foundations, picking up stranded residents and ferrying them to safety before the next rise in the water.

Because more rain is on its way. It's expected to continue through Monday, and on into Tuesday.

I have no photos, this time. I'm too far away, here in the Fraser Valley. But there is a Facebook group, "Bella Coola Flood, Sept. 2010, with 193 photos. An ex-valleyite started it, others have added more, and those of us who can are labelling the photos for people wanting to know about their families' situations. This photo is of a bridge that went out in 1968; the "temporary" bridge held out this time, but the road access is gone. A hundred people or so are stranded on the far side.

Why was the flood so unexpected, and so extreme this year? I'll explain, next post.

Time is good to wood

I love old wood, especially weathered, hard-working, experienced old wood. Here are a handful of samples from the trip to Bella Coola.

The old Hayden barn, Bella Coola. It was in the orchard in front that we saw the bear cubs picking apples.

Log cabin, Nicola Valley. At present used as a picnic site.

Typical Chilcotin fence. These are made using local trees, a bit of baling wire, occasionally a nail or two. Every fence builder has his own style.

Zigzag fence. A common pattern.

My storage shed, Firvale, already old when we lived here in the 1970s. The house and barn are gone, the fences have been taken down; all that remains is the shed. A new house will soon be built on the hill above.

Relief!

On a hot, hot night after a day under the merciless sun,  it helps to remember blue-green mountains and cool water:

Mount Nusatsum and Mount Defiance, from Noosgulch, Bella Coola valley.

Talheo cannery, Queen Charlotte Sound.

Homeward bound.

Clayton Falls

A Skywatch post