Strathcona Dam under snow

In winter, the campsites below the Strathcona Dam are silent, except for the distant roar of rushing water. Snow muffles the rustle of soggy grasses; the whispering leaves have fallen and been buried; no dogs bark, no children shout. The land sleeps.

View of the BC Hydro workings and the campsites beyond, from the top of the dam.

Spillway, on the far end of the dam, to the right of the area in the photo above.

My trusty Toyota, atop the dam.

The dam is at the point of the red arrow.

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La presa Strathcona, bajo la nieve. En el invierno, el campamento al pie de la presa duerme en silencio, aparte del rugido distante del agua del aliviadero mas allá del bosque. La nieve calla el crujir de las hierbas del campo; el susurro de las hojas, ahora caídas y cubiertas de nieve, no se oirá hasta la primavera; no hay perros que ladran, ni las risas de niños en sus barquitos. La tierra duerme.

La primera foto es la vista desde encima de la presa; se ven las instalaciones de BCHydro, y el campamento abandonado más adelante. El canal aliviadero (segunda foto) que hace el ruido está trás los árboles al lado derecho de la foto.

Y allí arriba de la presa está mi fiel carrito.

Over the Salmon River valley

What is a road trip, someone wrote a couple of days ago, without a side trip down a dirt road? I agree, although this time it was UP a dirt road. Beside the Salmon River (60 km north of home), I followed a road, paved for the first hundred metres or so, up into the hills, past a few small homesteads, up to the logged-off sidehill.

There I stopped, because there were warning signs beside the road: "This Road is No Longer Maintained", and a creek crossed the road, making a deep ditch. I pulled off as far as I dared, in case of other traffic (not likely, but you never know), and went for a walk.

Peaceful valley. Looking west, towards the late-afternoon sun.

Waiting for spring.

Up on the hill, my patient Toyota waits beside slash piles ready for burning.

One of the slash piles.

After a site is logged off, forestry companies pile all the slash in these large mounds, like enormous anthills. Sometime in the fall or winter, they may be burned, to reduce the risk of them fueling a forest fire. I watched them doing this a few years back when the forests were already burning; crews were busily reducing the heaps of dry logs to ash. No sense leaving dry fuel in the path of an oncoming forest fire.

Above all the destruction and waste of the logged area, Mount H'kusam floats serene.

What I found up there, I'll tell you tomorrow.

The only constant is change.

Maple leaves

I've been reading commentary and watching clips, mostly on the blogs, of our concurrent debates, Canadian and American. Laurie watched ours on TV. There were some good moments; Elizabeth May surprised us with her knowledge and resolve. We won't be voting Green, but still, "Go, Elizabeth! And we hope to see more of you."

Harper was as arrogant and condescending as we expected, Palin not quite as inarticulate, ("you betcha!") but just as mendacious as ever. Half the time, I haven't known whether to laugh, moan, or rant.

But all thoughts of the bumblebees I was planning to write about have jumbled themselves up in my head with the buzz of the debates. I'll leave them for a bit, and report, briefly on what's happening in our neck of the woods.

• We've finally brought home a car. A 2003 Toyota Echo. It looks sturdy and reliable enough, and will be economical to drive, a prime consideration given that gas was almost $1.30 here yesterday. That's around $5.00 a US gallon. (I found it strange that in the Toyota dealership, all the new cars are big or bigger. The same thing applies across the street in the Nissan dealership. SUVs, even. I thought we were supposed to be burning less gas!)
  
• Now that we have wheels again, it's raining.
  
• The juncos are back for the winter. And a couple of towhees. Yay!
  
• The leaves are finally turning colour. I think fall just might have arrived.
  

Fiery reds and yellows in an oak.

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