Totem Poles

Travelling around British Columbia, I came across a number of totem poles. Totem poles are typically made of red cedar, which eventually decays in the rainforest environment of the Northwest Coast and thus few examples of poles carved before 1900 exist. The poles are painted black, blue, red, white and yellow from pigments derived from plants, minerals and salmon roe. They are erected as validation of a public record or documentation of an important event, not as an object of worship. Each tells a story or history of a person's clan or family, with the figures on the pole representing family lineage, animals or a mythical character.

Here is a selection of a few totem poles from the dozens that I captured.....

Stanley Park, Vancouver

Thunderbird Park, Victoria

Thunderbird Park, Victoria

Knowledge Totem near Parliament Buildings, Victoria

Traditional totem in Duncan, "City of Totems"

 

Traditional totem in Duncan

Modern totem in Duncan

Traditional totem in Duncan

Another traditional totem in Duncan

Yet another traditional totem in Duncan

Totem within a totem, Duncan

The Day We Almost Ran Out of Gas...

We left Tweedsmuir (and its plague of mosquitoes), heading for the Rockies...a very long drive that would take us two days, with an overnight in Williams Lake. Weary of being a mobile mosquito buffet, most of the group were not keen to hang around Anahim Lake any longer than necessary, but our tour leader was in no great rush to get to Williams Lake - it was just a convenient port of call before the epic trek to Jasper. So, the ever helpful (some might say beguiling) hotel proprietor suggested we take a scenic detour via Farwell Canyon.

On the road again

Sounded like a good option, so we set off...stopping a couple of times along the way to admire the view and then ironically, as you will find out later, at the gas station featured above. We did not in fact fill up with gas here...instead we sampled tiger-tiger ice cream (orange ice cream striped with licorice and delicious!) in the coffee shop and admired the mounted cougar. We found out that the poor beast had been declared guilty of hunting livestock, and shot for his sins...only the cattle-rustling didn’t stop after his demise, so he was falsely accused.

An innocent cougar

Shortly after the ice-cream stop, we turned off for the detour, in search of Farwell Canyon...

Which way?

Farwell Canyon lived up to its name.... it was well far away, and possibly a much longer drive than our leader had anticipated. Just when we were beginning to wonder if we’d been sent on a long farewell by the hotelier (perhaps he has an odd sense of humour... bwahahaha!) we began a slightly hairy descent down into the canyon.

The Chilcotin River winding through the Farwell Canyon

We found a good spot to picnic

I was fascinated by the ruined log buildings of an abandoned ranch, close by. I wonder what prompted its residents to up sticks and leave one day? Possibly the end of cattle ranching in the area. A bit of a creepy place, that would make a great set for a horror film..."Ranch of the Damned", or perhaps "The Long Farewell"?

Having come down such a steep descent, we naturally had to drive back up again. Our tour leader had mentioned earlier that she was going to have to fill up with gas at some point, but she was quite relaxed about it. She’d said there was loads of mileage in the reserve, and we weren’t onto that yet. On that steep ascent, however, when the reserve warning light suddenly flashed up on the dashboard she was not quite as relaxed! We were going to have to find gas soon....on a Sunday, in a very deserted area. OK, time to kill the aircon...it was probably the hottest day of the trip....but conserving fuel was top priority.

Random shot from the van

All eyes were now pealed on the side of the road, looking for a sign to a gas station...we’d all become familiar with the distinct blue “Gas Food Lodgings” signs along the roads, but never had we been so keen to see one as that day! At least three times, we spied one in the distance, only to read “Golf” when we were close enough...who cares if there’s a $£%&*golf course in the vicinity, we needed GAS! By now, our tour leader was clearly getting a bit worried...we were getting closer to Williams Lake, but were still not close enough to walk into town with a jerry can to buy fuel. Never did a road seem so unending... but eventually we were on the outskirts of town. Luckily, it was a downhill run, as we literally coasted in on vapours and pulled into the nearest gas station.

Panic over.

Bridge over the Fraser River, taken from the moving van

Things That Go Buzz In The Night

 

I've mentioned Tweedsmuir Provincial Park already....this was where we saw the Grizzly sow and her cubs, featured here. But I'd like to tell you a bit more about this unique place, which to me was one of the more interesting parts of the trip.

Tweedsmuir Park is slightly off the beaten track for most travellers. Before becoming Tweedsmuir Provincial Park, the area was explored by Alexander Mackenzie in 1793 and was originally inhabited by the Bella Coola and Chilcotin Indians. We spent two days here, based at the Eagle's Nest Resort at Anahim Lake.

Anahim Lake

Anahim Lake

We stayed in what would politely be termed "rustic accomodation"... log cabins with communal showers a fair walk from our cabin and separate outhouses for the "long-drop" toilets. This made for some potentially exciting midnight toilet trips....although the thought of running into a Grizzly en route was enough to make me renally retentive! At least we had electricity in our cabin - as the only couple on the trip we were lucky enough to get the "honeymoon cottage", so deemed because it had a double bed instead of the cot-like beds of some of the other cabins - others had to rely on paraffin lamps and torches.

Our log cabin

The Outhouse

In stark contrast to these slightly spartan facilities, the resort restaurant provided fine dining under crystal chandeliers....linen cloths, silverware, cutlery rests and a selection of fine wines. I suppose one should get one's priorities right!

We went on a half-day hike on the Rainbow Trail, that led us up through a scorched forest....

Burnt tree in scorched forest

And through an alpine meadow.....

To view the Rainbow Ridge...

 

Rainbow Ridge

Both evenings were spent relaxing by the open fire, spotting fish jumping from the lake and watching the sun slowly set....

Idyllic...were it not for the plague of tens upon thousands of mosquitoes buzzing around our ears! Tweedsmuir is renowned for its heavy mosquito density, and we were there for the worst possible time of it! Miraculously, I escaped bite-free....not sure if that's thanks to the potent bug repellent, or if I have an immunity built up from growing up in the tropics, repelling malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Either way, I'm grateful....others in the group weren't so lucky, and left Tweedsmuir covered in itchy welts and bumps!

Beautiful Blue

On a sweltering hot and humid day like today, I'm dreaming of being beside the cool blues, greens and turquoises of the glacial lakes in the Canadian Rockies.

Lake Kinney, in the shadow of Mount Robson

The beautiful colours of the lakes arise from suspended rock flour...billions of tiny particles of rock generated by glacier erosion and dumped into the lakes by meltwater streams. The rock flour floats near the water’s surface, making the lakes appear both opaque and bright at the same time. It's the rock flour’s ability to absorb and reflect certain wavelengths of light that confers the lakes' unique colours: the particles absorb or eliminate much of the blue light, but reflect some blue, green, yellow, orange and red. The water itself eliminates the reds, oranges and yellows, leaving mostly green and some blue light. And that light is what’s available to bounce off the rock flour and out to our eyes. More rock flour means that more blue is absorbed, which results in a greener lake.

Lake Peyto

More of Lake Peyto

Lake Moraine

Lake Louise

Fairmont Chateau Louise on Lake Louise

I thought I would expire walking up the steep path to get that last view of Chateau Louise. Beautiful hotel and what a setting!  I had an amazingly delicious and expensive cheescake on the terrace overlooking the lake after the killer hike.

The last lake in this series is Lake Minnewanka....yes, indeed!....in Banff National Park. Another lung-bursting effort to get to this view, but worth it nonetheless...

Ice Ice Baby!

Given my great love of all freezing cold-related activities - I’m never happier when I’m chilled to the bone, icicles hanging from my eyelashes, fingers burning with slow onset of frostbite on top of a Norwegian mountain - is it any wonder I leapt at the chance to go ice-walking on the Athabasca Glacier in Canada? I think my capacity to remember pain is limited...must be the memory loss induced by numerous head injuries incurred during activities that seemed like a good idea at the time, like skiing and paragliding. Luckily, the glacier walking was an accident-free experience, and really quite pleasant on the whole, albeit a tad nippy and windy.

Athabasca Glacier, Columbia Icefield

Putting our lives into the hands (or rather footprints) of our knowledgeable glacier guide, we crossed rocky terrain - once covered by ice, but now exposed as the glacier is receding by approximately 20 m per year - to reach the edge of the glacier.

Snow at the leading edge of the glacier

We first walked over the rather muddy looking snow left behind from the past winter, before stepping onto the ice at the toe of the glacier. Although the guide assured us that the ice is at least 200 m thick at it's shallowest point, I had to first get over my irrational fear that it would give way under my weight at any moment! The surface of the ice is melting to slush, with pools of water and blue ice beneath.
 
 

Our guide led us slowly up the glacier, pointing out millwells, which are the glacier's natural plumbing (funneling glacier melt water beneath the ice), and crevasses, like this one....

 

 

 

 

He then terrified enthralled us with a detailed account of "Death By Falling Into A Glacier Crevass", which goes along the chilling lines of this..... first, you fall until your body wedges in the crevass, then your body heat starts to melt the ice around you and you fall even further...this carries on until hypothermia sets in, and finally your body starts to freeze to the walls of the crevass....nice!

 

 

 

On the glacier

 

The surface of the glacier was quite slippy and a bit scary to walk over in the steeper parts (at least for a pathetic explorer like me!). All the time we were walking up the glacier, I was worrying about coming back down again, and having visions of toppling over, shooting down the icefield at great speed on my backside and only stopping when I encountered a rock, or worse, fell into a crevass. I consoled myself that my sizeable rear would probably save me, as I would become wedged close enough to the surface that rescue would be possible, provided they reached me in good time!

 

 

 

 

By now, the weather was turning a bit nasty (it wasn't exactly tropical to begin with) and standing on a glacier in the wind and rain with hidden dangers all around, I started questioning my sanity...and why I hadn't opted for the bus ride instead....

 

Terra bus...the transport of choice for the sensible glacier explorer

 
To my enormous relief, the guide's boss later caught us up bearing a rucksack of crampons....and thus kitted out, I had the confidence to begin the downwards walk. B didn't fare so well...we were one pair of crampons short for the group, so he went without, but was competely unperturbed as always (Macho, macho man! I've got to be a macho man!)