August to October, 2008

Neglectful, neglectful Josie and Scott.
What the heck have we been doing for the past 3 months?
Here’s the somewhat short version:

August

August in the Kootenays is hot and dry with the occasional torrential downpour. We enjoyed it very much, except for the 35+ degrees. We spent the month as WWOOF-ers (WWOOF = willing workers on organic farms) for some lovely folks about 30 minutes outside of Nelson. We worked in their kitchen garden and orchard, helped with the construction of an addition and generally helped around the house. In return we were given room and board and learned about soil building, organic gardening, construction, micro-hydro, great vegetarian cooking, and the joys of life in the K-zone.

We also got to hang out with our friendly co-woofer who hailed from Quebec City and took us mushroom hunting and rambling up the creek near the house. We saw a few Western toads but didn`t see any skinks or rubber boas.

We got to do some exploring of the surrounding area as well. One afternoon we went to see the Kokanee salmon run in nearby Redfish Creek, where a meandering diversion was created with small stones and digger logs to encourage spawning. We got to watch their mating behaviour, which was awesome, and the salmon were beautiful. Another trip we did was to an old growth cedar stand that was up on the side of a mountain.

On the practical front, Josie got a job at the Kootenay Co-op, a large health and natural foods store in Nelson. Now it may seem odd to get two degrees and work cash, but the co-op is a great organization, her co-workers are lovely, there are good benefits, and it’s fun to interact with people instead of spreadsheets (though that’s still a side job).

The West-arm of Kootenay Lake, looking towards Nelson

Kokanee Salmon

Watching the salmon spawn


Video (sorry it's sideways) of a few Kokanee salmon spawning - watch for the sideways tail wiggles

Old growth cedar.

Tall trees

They were way taller than Scott

Josie and the biggest cedar on the trail

Walking through the cedar forest

September

Scott started school and we got an apartment in town! Our apartment is a cozy spot above a convenience store on a hillside neighbourhood on the edge of Nelson. It has unbelievably ugly carpets and required a lot of cleaning when we moved in, so clean we did – carpets, walls, heaters, cupboards, etc – for about 2 weeks. Eventually it was livable. Even though it is a small apartment our very few furniture looked pretty sparse. Thank goodness for freecycle, and second-hand furniture stores. Scott picked up some art calendars to decorate our bare, white walls and voila, typical student housing.

Our major adventure in September was our hiking trip to Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, where we were greeted in the parking lot by a sign warning us that porcupines will eat our tires and electrical wires if we don’t wrap chicken wire around our car to keep them out. We thought that was pretty funny so we took a picture of the scene, and got a few pictures as we started up the trail, then our camera died so those are the only pictures we got (truly breathtaking scenery, honest). We hiked up and along a pass that ran beside the glacier, past Kokanee Lake, checked out the Kokanee Glacier Cabin and continued out to the Slocan Chief cabin. This is an area that people get helicoptered in to go skiing in the winter, and where Michel Trudeau was swept into a lake during an avalanche. There was still some of last year’s snow beside Kokanee Lake, and we made sure to go sliding on it. We didn’t see any bears, but we did see ground squirrels, pikas, least chipmunks, red squirrels, marmots (woodchucks), a weasel, and some sort of grouse. The pikas were the highlight. We later learned that they cure their own hay and take it back to their burrows for food and nesting material.

Another trip we did was up the Slocan Valley and to New Denver for the annual garlic festival. It is as beautiful as everyone had told us, and we enjoyed the snaking drive back through mountain passes and old silver mining territory until we came to the main body of Kootenay Lake and followed the coast to Kaslo, then tucked back along the west arm of the lake towards Nelson.

Scott finished his first two woodworking projects, a carved spoon and a cutting board with practice inlay. This may not seem impressive but the cutting board had to be square, flat and evenly thick to within 1/10th of a millimeter. . . with hand tools only. Working with hand planes all day made him tired and a bit brawny.

Nelson and the BOB (Big Orange Bridge) on the walk from our apartment to downtown. Kokanee Peak and Glacier are the white-capped mountains in the distance.

Nelson from the other side of the West-arm

Our kitchen (duct tape on the floor!)

Psychedelic floor

Our living room

Trailhead at Kokanee Glacier Park - silly porcupines, tires are for driving!

5 minutes into the mountains our camera died - the last photo we got

The start of Scott's spoon

The cutting board doesn't look this nice anymore...

The back of Scott's spoon

Scott's spoon - the walnut really darkened with a beeswax finish

October

Early in the month we went to see Po’ Girl at a local pub and really enjoyed the show as well as sampling the Nelson Brewing Company’s beer.

Thanksgiving weekend was out biggest event in October. On Sunday we had a potluck diner with the folks we had WWOOF-ed for. It was cozy and fun - the food and company were great. In the evening we all went to their neighbour’s house for a visit and played a round of Scene It. Scene It is a game designed for folks like Josie’s brother-in-law - AKA intense movie buffs.

On the Monday of Thanksgiving weekend we went hiking near Crawford Bay (on the far side of Kootenay Lake) with two friends. We got to take the 30 minute ferry across the main lake, which afforded great views even though it was cloudy. We even saw a deer swimming across the west arm. We learned that Josie’s car can’t go up a super steep logging road, so our hike was 2 km longer than we planned, but it was great. We even got to climb up into the low-lying clouds, where everything was frosted and the wind was wicked cold. We missed the ferry on the way back so we spent some time exploring the Yasodhara Ashram while we waited for the next one.

Josie also went to two cooking classes in October, and Scott learned to make dovetail joints and started work on a box he designed for school. No kids came to our door on Halloween, so we have to eat all the chocolate ourselves...so sad.

Crossing the main part of Kootenay Lake

Dany and Scott on the ferry

Leaving the West-arm on the ferry

Mountains from the ferry

Hiking up up up into the alpine

Three intrepid hikers

The highest peaks were in the clouds, but the views were still great

Hiking along a ridge

We decided to climb to the top of this peak and see what it was like in the clouds...

...the answer was cold, windy and frosty!

It was nicer and warmer below the clouds

Scott laying out dovetails

The sides of Scott's box