web analytics

Life in BC

You are currently browsing the archive for the Life in BC category.

"Impermanence" by Licorice Medusa is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0“I’m here to tell you the tide will never stop coming in. I’m here to tell you whatever you build will be ruined, so make it beautiful.”

Hala Alyan

I find myself sitting here – on a blustery Valentine’s day – gazing from my studio window at the grey, choppy sea and the distant mountains – pondering questions of (im)permanence.

There is no question – regardless of anything that we might do – that this sea and these mountains will exist long enough to register as permanent (certainly by comparison with our measly four score and ten)… whereas the cherry blossom which is just starting to bloom on the tree at the bottom of our garden will be gone in a few short days (weeks at most).

A few years back – shortly after we came to Canada – I wrote a song which bore the title – ‘Cascadia‘. The lyric started thus:

Where I come from we are rooted in the land

Sinking where we stand in the slow sand

We know who we are – we’ve been here for so long

That even when we’re wrong we don’t care

In new found lands – where cities tremble on the brink

Closer than they think to Armageddon

Machines turn to rust and tremors shake the crust

Dominions of dust are blown away

The song came about because I was fascinated – having just moved to Canada – that in a country in which everything was considerably inflated by comparison with its north European counterparts (distances greater, climate more extreme, animals wilder, terrain more difficult) and subject to all manner of extreme events (snow storms, earthquakes, heat domes, avalanches, wildfires, arctic outflows, etc, etc) – domestic construction is, as far as one can tell, a good deal less robust than that to which we ‘old-worlders’ are accustomed.

Back in the UK I owned – at various times – portions of several houses constructed in the 1740s. Such buildings may have their short-comings by modern standards but they were clearly intended to last and tend to be fairly firmly embedded in the dark soils upon which they are erected.

Here in British Columbia most residential properties are constructed primarily of wood (no surprise there) and sit lightly upon the land. They are also considerably less valuable than are the plots of land upon which they are built. In many instances – should one see a house of maybe thirty or forty years of age for sale – one is not surprised when the purchasers simply tear it down and build a new one.

Even the fabric and fittings of these buildings seem destined not to be long for this world. Our house dates from the late 1970s and is thus positively ancient by Canadian standards. We were advised upon purchase that it had had its roof replaced some twelve years before our purchase – the which was therefore around halfway through its expected life (the shingles at least). The slate roof of our apartment in Buckinghamshire in the UK dated was back to sometime in the 19th century! The hot water tank here (powered in Canada by what we Brits would call an immersion heater) was replaced (cheaply!) when the house was put on the market in 2015. The Girl assures me that it is thus nearing the end of its useful life and must needs be exchanged for something more robust. I am sure that she is not wrong!

I am not entirely sure why I am musing upon such matters at this point – though the long wait for spring might have something to do with it. Yesterday and today have been particularly blustery and we were without power for a number of hours overnight – though fortunately all was restored by the time we awoke (thanks BC Hydro!).

Anyway – I feel that it will not be long until the news here, at least, takes a turn for the better.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Snow angels

“When it snows, you have two choices—shovel or make snow angels”

Unknown

Following a number of false alarms Vancouver Island finally succumbed to one of the snow storms that have already been prevalent in other parts of the country. In the usual manner – and for the familiar reasons – the BC capital failed to deal particularly well with what was in fact not really a huge amount of snow.

Those further east – where the winter weather is considerably more serious (snows that fall in November or December may still be lying in February or March) – are won’t to sneer at us coastal British Columbians for our general feeb-like response to this natural phenomenon. We simply smile at them and point out that the six inches of snow that fell here on Thursday will be gone by the weekend – and in four week’s time the city’s streets will be emblazoned with spring blossoms.

Yah boo sucks!

Of course, that means I have to whip my camera out sharpish and dash off a few snaps. I really like the way the snow makes these images look like monochrome ones – with just the odd Spielbergian splash of colour giving the game away.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidI loved the juxtaposition of the bright saturated colours of these flowers in our dining room against the black and white of the snow outside the window.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Tags: , , , ,

Most liveable

I have previously made mention within these meanderings of the fact that The Girl and I do not routinely read print newspapers here in Canada – a definite and somewhat unexpected change from our previous practice in the UK. Yes – I still read The Guardian and The Observer online – but sitting up in bed of a Sunday morning with an iPad on one’s lap is just not the same as having the multiple sections of a paper strewn around over the duvet.

However – just the other day The Girl returned from a few days in Vancouver where she had been attending an Engagement (what you and I might call a conference) bearing a copy of The Globe and Mail that she had picked up on the ferry. Now – if we did read a paper here regularly it would probably be The Globe and Mail – of which Wikipedia says thus:

“The Globe and Mail is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada’s most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it falls slightly behind the Toronto Star in overall weekly circulation because the Star publishes a Sunday edition, whereas the Globe does not. The Globe and Mail is regarded by some as Canada’s ‘newspaper of record'”.

Irregardless…

The reason for mentioning this at all might just be discernible from the accompanying image – of the front page of this particular issue. The piece referred to concerns the 2023 Canada’s Most Livable Cities survey – in which good old Victoria came out as the overall number one city.

Yaay Victoria!

If one is to accept that the data is accurate (and can indeed be interpreted in the way the the Globe and Mail survey does) Victoria comes out top in many categories – with the notable exceptions of the cost of housing, (which is uncomfortably high for many folk) and healthcare (where, as I have previously noted, there is a continuing shortage of doctors). There are those who gripe about such studies and one should certainly not overlook the problems that many localities face, but I believe that the great majority of those who live here are aware that they are inhabitants of a beautiful city and that to be so is a considerable blessing.

 

Tags: , , ,

I thought the gentle reader might appreciate a few more glimpses of autumnal hues – before everything fades to a wintery grey for the the next three months or so. Fall is glorious, though it is the season of which I am least fond. Winter serves a purpose but unless one likes to get out to play in the snow and ice it is not one that some folk – self included – find easy to love. Still – it does eventually give way to the spring and that is a very good thing.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Tags: , ,

Good grief! Here we are – already well into November. The Halloween decorations are coming down and the over-zealous have already started on Christmas…

Time for some soothing images of autumnal colours – to demonstrate what a beautiful world this is despite what we insist on inflicting upon it:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Tags: , ,

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidTo Vancouver for the weekend – to see Peter Gabriel at the Rogers Arena. More on that in the next post – but first, some images of what Douglas Coupland quite understandably calls the ‘City of Glass’. Vancouver has that ‘big city’ feel – much more imposing than quaint little old Victoria.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Visitors always want to know why Victoria is the provincial capital of British Columbia and not Vancouver. Not much to be said there – except that it is what it is. Personally – eager as I am to absorb the big city vibes for a while, I am always much happier when we get back to the island.

But then – I do come from island people…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

 

Tags: , , , ,

So late so soon

How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?

Dr. Seuss

It is high time that I finished posting photos from our recent travels to a variety of locations around British Columbia (not all of which we had originally planned to visit!). Let’s see if I can wrap things up in this one post!

We spent a night in Nanaimo – largely so that we could have lunch with The Girl’s mother and a dear friend of ours from Duncan. Whilst there we also indulged in some retail therapy and I took the opportunity afforded by being on the 14th floor of the Coast Bastion hotel to take some pictures of a favourite subject of mine – float planes!

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Well – they are something that we just don’t see in the south east of England!

From Nanaimo we drove up the east coast of Vancouver island to Courtney/Comox, adjacent towns in the Comox valley that I had somehow contrived not yet to visit. We really liked the feeling of Courtney – the which has a sort of artsy vibe somewhat akin to Salt Spring island (should one be in BC) or St. Ives (should one be in the southwest of England.

In spite of its charms I somehow I managed not to take pictures of Courtney (not sure where my brain went!) but I did take the camera on an excursion to nearby Mount Washington – ski and outdoor resort.

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid
No snow at this time of year, of course, though no shortage of wildfire smoke.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidThis little chap is a jay known as a Whiskey Jack – the which is Canada’s national bird (who knew? – certainly not this recent Canadian)…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidThese apparently fearless little birds are not named with reference to the Irish grain-based alcoholic beverage, but from the Cree word ‘Wisakedjak‘. This makes the cheeky little fellow the only Canadian bird commonly known by a traditional indigenous name.

Here he is – ready for his close up:

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidHere he is – gone!…

Photo by Andy Dawson Reid

Tags: , , , ,

“You don’t take a photograph. You ask quietly to borrow it.”

Unknown

The cabin by the lake in the North Thompson to which I made reference in my last post (which body of water I will refrain from identifying any more closely) is one of my favourite places in the world (as much as I know of it anyway) to take photographs. The constantly changing light means that from one minute to the next the subjects of my eager snapping metamorphose into ever more sensational phantasms.

For evidence of this supposition – see below. I strongly recommend clicking on the images to gain the full effect.

Tags: , , , , ,

Log cabin

“In Canada, anything that’s not in the city is referred to as a cottage. Or a log cabin”.

Dolores O’Riordan

As detailed in my last post – having fled the wildfires in the Okanagan The Girl and I took refuge in her cousin’s cabin in the North Thompson. There was still plenty of smoke from the Adams Lake fire just a few miles away on the other side of the mountain, but the lake and its surrounds were mercifully calm.

Naturally I had the camera with me…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid
These guys weren’t going to let a little smoke interfere with their wakeboarding.

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidWe went out driving one day around Clearwater and Birch Island – this being the area from which The Girl hails. We worked our way back down the logging roads through Little Fort and Chu Chua and met this unexpected fellow traveler. Hard to tell who was more surprised…

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidPhoto by Andy Dawson Reid

Tags: , , , , , ,

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidAs trailed in my recent post The Girl and I have been (and are still at time of writing!) traveling within British Columbia. This trip had several purposes – to attend an engagement organised by The Girl’s First Nation – to (re)visit friends and family – to explore parts of BC that I, at least, have not yet seen – and to compensate in some small measure for our disastrous venture abroad earlier in the summer…

In this latter regard I am reminded of Lloyd Bridges’ running gag as Steve McCroskey in the classic 80s film comedy – ‘Airplane’. As things veer from bad to worse McCroskey repeats the mantra:

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up smoking/drinking/amphetamines…” etc, etc

Well – it looks like this has been the wrong year for us to go out traveling!

Now – it is clearly in poor taste to make jokes at a time that other folk have been suffering terrible loses (though mercifully not in terms of life and limb) but that is fundamentally the way that we Brits cope with such things.

A week and a half ago we headed for Kelowna in the Okanagan for The Girl’s three day engagement. Those readers who do not live in Canada may not have been following recent events in BC too closely, but that Thursday was the night that the big wildfire north of Kelowna swept down over the mountain and devoured the first of the several hundred properties in West Kelowna that have since been burned to the ground.

The image at the top of this post was taken from our hotel room shortly after we arrived. By the next morning very little could be seen at all.

The engagement was cancelled late that first evening and we were advised to retreat from Kelowna the next morning so that hotel rooms could be made available for those who had been forced to evacuate their homes. We made an early dash for Kamloops whilst the roads were yet open.

Following the engagement we had planned a few nights further south in the Okanagan – at Peachland – but by the Sunday evening travel orders had been issued to prevent tourists from driving to various critical areas of the province, the which was necessary so that the emergency vehicles would not be hampered in their operations and also so that further souls would not be put at risk, adding to the heavy burden already upon those services.

We were extremely fortunate, then, in that The Girl’s cousin – who lives in Kamloops but who has a lakeside cabin in the North Thompson which has previously been featured in these ramblings – invited us to spend a few days in that smoky but relatively safe part of the province.

This offer we most gratefully accepted. Pictures and further excursion meanderings to follow…

Tags: , , , ,

« Older entries