Cutting edge

Summer on Vancouver Island is the time for large-scale wood carving or driftwood sculptures. We discovered a whole new installation in "downtown" Gold River (population 1,212). Wolves, bears, crabs, eagles, fish; our native totemic species. With one exception:

Bears (with teddy bear mascots) and a pair of chimps (or sasquatches). Very modern, up-to-date chimps. (Probably sasquatches.)

Already addicted to his phone. It's a Sassung™.

Selfie

And another modern bear:

Must have his coffee!

One feathered eagle

Every year local chainsaw artists gather in a park at Willow Point to carve logs into sculptures. This year, there were dragons, bears, eagles, salmon, among others. I walked around looking at them; marvelous! Some were beautiful. But they were too new, too bright, too alien to the park around them: I looked at my photos and deleted them all. Another day, after a few rains.

And then there was this old totemic eagle, who's been standing in the shade for 8 years, gently blending in.

Someone seems to have thought he needed feathers. Only one available, though. In the background, a brown bear.

Snowy carvings

More of the snowy chainsaw carvings. 4 PM Christmas Eve, snowing hard, wet snow melting on my camera and gloves, dripping over my eyebrows. The old wood is colder; the snow sticks.

Old salt, looking out to sea.

Is this a bear? An angry bear?

Butterfly and caterpillar, and shoreline logs. Quadra Island is just ahead, invisible in the falling snow.

Eagle with captured fish. By the time I got around to see his face, my camera was too wet to function.

No chainsaw used here. Beach shack. It probably even keeps most of the snow out.

The snow held on through Christmas Day. Today, it has mostly turned to wet slush. It's raining. BC weather at its usual tricks.

Christmas angel

I went out in the snowstorm (while it lasted) to watch. In a park, I met this snowy angel.

One of the many chainsaw carvings found all around Campbell River.

The lights in the background are headlights. I wasn't the only one out for a drive on Christmas Eve.

More snow photos tomorrow.