groundhog spotting

I started writing this post last week and hadn't yet published it because I thought no one would care to read about my backyard rodent-friend.  But let's be honest, my mom is probably one of the few people that actually reads this blog and she'll like it...so, here we go.  ;)

In mid-May we had some friends from Smithers come for a weekend visit with their toddler.  It was great to see them and discover Rupert through the eyes of a two year old (highlights: boats, ice cream, and Mason).  Their visit also uncovered a north coast neighbour we didn't know existed.

The sunny-ish weather inspired some bbq-ing and open patio doors, which is how our house guests discovered what they first thought was a cat in the neighbor's backyard.  Upon closer inspection, however, the supposed cat turned out to not to be feline at all, but a rather large-sized, plump rodent.

What the hell was it?  Embarrassingly, two of us in the room graduated with degrees in Wildlife Biology, but the best we could muster was that it looked like some sort of marmot.  Good old Google came to the rescue (seriously, what did we do before Google?) and we realized that our new next-door neighbor was indeed a marmot- in fact it was the largest species of marmot, the groundhog (Marmota monax).

This was perplexing.  What the hell was a groundhog (also known as a woodchuck) doing so close to the ocean?  I thought marmots were mountainous creatures?  Even more curious was the fact that this groundhog seemed to have claimed a large pile of scrap wood as his empire. He sat atop it surveying his over-grown-backyard-full-of-junk kingdom.

This wasn't even the weirdest part...after spying on the groundhog for a while, we realized that a cat (a real one this time) was sauntering up behind our newly discovered friend.  Eek! I was certain that the groundhog's demise was imminent.  Alas, after skulking around and then bounding up behind it, the cat's presence appeared to have no effect on the groundhog one bit.  In fact, they appeared to be buddies.  He even let the cat sit on top of his wood pile.

And so, thus started my groundhog fascination.  Since discovering this little buddy (whom Ty has dubbed Sylvester), I did a bit more research into groundhogs.  Turns out, unlike other marmots, they aren't a mountain creature at all, but prefer lowland areas.  Despite the fact that their range map does not show them on the coast of BC, they do indeed live here in Rupert.  They are much more plentiful back east, however, and aren't always the most popular.  They build elaborate dens with mutliple tunnels that can do some damage to fields, parks, and even the foundation of a building.  They are also one of the few mammal species that actually undertakes a true hibernation.  Fascinating, right? (Stop rolling your eyes).  Find out more enthralling (I'm serious now) facts about groundhogs here.

My mother, being the fabulous, creative, quirky person that she is, adapted Edward Lear's Owl and the Pussycat just for me and my new groundhog friend.

"The Woodchuck and the Pussy-cat met for drinks on a sunny, woodland patch.

They’d brought clover so fine and dandelion wine, the last of the homebrew batch.

The Woodchuck looked up at the house afar and whistled a worried tune,

“The landlord is changing, there’ll be rearranging and likely eviction too!”

“Don’t worry ole’ Chucky, ole’ Chucky, ole’ pal.” purred the cat to his rodent friend.

“Stay out of their garden and you’ll get a pardon, and all will be right in the end.”

“Interpretation will be your salvation! There’ll be woodchuck-watch tours for friends.”

Haunted houses and daffodils: Digby 2.0

In early May while Ty's brother was in town, we ventured out to visit Digby Island again.  Last time we hiked across the island from the airport ferry dock.  This time we took the easy route by taking the water taxi that deposited us right in the quirky, quaint community of Dodge Cove.

It was a perfect time to visit, Dodge Cove was in bloom.  Most prevalent were the sunny faces of daffodils doting every yard and along the sides of the road.

We struck out to find the CBC Hill trail just south of the community.  It is a charming, easy, well-maintained trail.  We found frogs and unfurling fiddleheads on top of the various "treasures" like beach glass, shells, mini dinosaur figurines and a few Disney princesses tucked into various nooks and crannies by locals. This would be a perfect trail for wee ones.   You can even sneak down to the beaches to do some intertidal investigating.

Half way along the loop the highlight of the trail emerges from the undergrowth: the old Doctor's House.  What must have once been a stately and stunning home now stands in ruins, slowly crumbling back to the forest. Built in 1912, apparently it was never occupied by a Doctor, but was constructed to house one should the quarantine hospital that had been built on a small island nearby ever been put to use.  Alas, the boom of immigration that was predicted, never occurred and both structures began to crumble. Now it stands almost as a sweet and sad reminder of a yet another boom that never manifested for this part of the coast.  

It's creepy and beautiful all at once.  Looking at it from the trail, one could imagine white, ghostly figures appearing in the open, dark windows. I would never step foot in it, and not just because most of the floors have caved in, but it's the perfect stereotype of where a horror movie would occur.  As we poked around, my scaredy-cat nature ensured that I had Cody or Ty nearby.  

The deliciously eerie aura of the house is quickly replaced a little further along the trail as you climb the CBC hill (so named after the CBC transmission towers located there) and step out into a field of daffodils.  

Instead of looping back to town at the end of the trail, we continued along to Casey Cove to do a little beach combing and see the old marine station.  Yet another picturesque set of buildings slowly falling victim to the wet climate that decays just about everything.  

After making our way back from Casey Cove with only a bit of time left before the water taxi home, we made a last jaunt, this time up Buddha Hill.  The short trail leads up a soggy incline to a nice lookout west towards Chatham Sound.  A small Buddha lies hidden in the salal with a scattering of small offerings laid at its base.

southbound sail

At the end of April I had a suite of meetings to attend on the northern end of Vancouver Island and thus had the chance to cross another activity off my North Coast Bucket List - taking the ferry down the coast.

Confession:  I love ferries

I know, I know, it's almost sacrilege to say considering how much British Columbians love to complain about BC Ferries, but the truth is, I adore a good ferry ride.  Love' em.  (Admittedly I've never lived somewhere where I relied on one for day-to-day life, which I am sure takes the romance of them pretty quickly, but I've probably taken 100s of ferries in my life and I still love them).

The trip from Rupert to Hardy is the grand-daddy of all BC Ferries trips so I was extra excited in the days leading up to it. That being said, besides booking myself a reservation, I didn't do too much research into what the trip would entail and what I should bring.  In my usual last-minute fashion, I posted a quick question on Facebook asking people what the must-haves for the trips were.  It was a bit silly, considering I was already at the terminal and couldn't do anything about it, but in case you were curious, here is what I got in response: Gravol, Night vision goggles to look for blows, Alcohol, Know where the liferafts are, A flask, A cabin.  I had none of the above.  Dammit.

Feeling like a rookie (no flask!), I twiddled my thumbs at the terminal for what seemed like an eternity.   The waiting an eternity part was also my fault.  The truth is, I am am a total goody-goody when it comes to check-in times.  It was a Tuesday in late-April, so of course the ferry was not busy.  None the less, since BC Ferries recommended that you get there 2 HOURS before this sailing, I insisted that Ty drop me off promptly at the time stated on my ticket.  And then I sat there.  For hours.  I'm sure in the summer when the sailings are busy, it's a good idea to get there with plenty of time to assure your reservation, but in April, trust me, this is not the case.

At last, it was time to board.

All aboard!

We had a spectacular day for our sailing, and as we left Rupert, I had a little hint of what it must have felt like to take a bit trans-Atlantic voyage from Europe to North America.  Everyone was out on deck, taking pictures, exploring the ship, looking excited.  But by 'everyone', I mean the 20 or so people that were on the sailing. Seriously, it was dead.  I was shocked by how few people were on board. The crew probably out-numbered the passengers 2:1.

Leaving Rupert

Scenes from the sail

Leaving the harbour I started humming a little earworm that stuck with me the entire trip.  Ridiculously, it only started because I am terrible with song lyrics (ask my sister) and I always sing the wrong words. I somehow mixed up Rod Stewart's  "Will I see you tonight, on a downtown train"...as "I will see you tonight, on a southbound train..."which seemed fitting for my southbound sailing despite the fact that I wasn't on a train and well, they were the completely wrong lyrics.  None the less, it provide my inner soundtrack for the entire 17 hour journey.  Good ol' Rod.

Now you're humming that song, right?

Haha. You. Are. Welcome.

Incorrect lyrics aside, the evening aboard was quite lovely.  The lack of people on this sailing meant you could pretty much have any area of the ship almost completely to yourself.  I spent time on deck enjoying the sun and searching for whales, taking pics, having a beer (why don't all ferries have beer?), reading a magazine and generally enjoying myself.

Beer on board a ferry! Sweet!

The Rupert-Hardy sailings in the winter and spring are an overnight service, so after a few hours on board, the sun began to set, turning the water an iridescent shade of orange and the clouds a cotton candy pink.

Sunset scenes

Because I was travelling on my own dime, I decided to forego a cabin and brought my thermarest and sleeping bag to make myself a little bed in the main seating area.  As I mentioned, there was hardly anyone on the sailing and I pretty much had about 20 rows around me to myself all evening, so I was feeling pretty smug aboout my decision to skip getting a cabin.  The smug feeling was short lived though, as just as I was getting ready to go to bed, another passenger came and made her bed RIGHT beside me.  It was the oddest things ever. There was so much empty room around us!  I gave her a look that could only mean "Are you kidding me?" but either she ignored me or didn't pick up on it.  Needless to say I let our an audible sigh and moved all my stuff a little further away.  She happily took over my former spot and proceeded to snore away the rest of the night.  Oy.

Tucked into bed, giggling over the weird lady that apparently wanted to sleep right beside me.

The next morning I awoke in Fisher Channel to the captain announcing that there were killer whale ahead.  I ran outside in my jammies and watched a group pass by at a bit of a distance.  It never gets old.

I spent the rest of the sailing, curled up next to the window reading and watching the more familiar central coast go by. I'd picked up 'The Oil Man and the Sea' by Arno Kopecky a few weeks previous and it proved the perfect read for the journey.  The book chronicles a sailing trip between two friends, one an author, one a photographer, neither a sailor, as they trace the route of the Northern Gateway tankers through the Great Bear.  It's eloquently and humourously written, while still emphasizing the multitude of reasons why the Enbridge pipeline and it's associated tankers are a terrible idea for this rich landscape.  There were points in my ferry trip where I was passing through the exact locations being described in the book, making it an even richer reading and travelling experience.

As we pulled into the Port Hardy Terminal 17 hours after leaving Rupert, I actually felt a bit sad that the trip was over.  There is something almost meditative about travelling alone this way.  For 17 hours I was quiet and contemplative, moving passively through a beautiful landscape, with nothing but a book, some magazines, my own thoughts, and the wrong lyrics to a Rod Stewart song to accompany me.  With life always moving along a full tilt, it's not very often in life that we take that amount of time to just 'be'.

lava

How many times have you been driving in British Columbia and the words "Boom. Lava" have come out of your mouth?  Don't over think it.  The answer is probably never unless you've been to the Anhuluut’ukwsim Laxmihl Angwinga’Asanskwhl Nisga’a (a.k.a. Nisga’a Memorial Lava Bed Park).

They were the exact words that came out of my mouth as we drove in from the north on the Cranberry Connector.  The site is pretty surreal, to be honest.  You're cruising along, enjoying typical northern BC forested landscape and then, well, boom, lava.  Lots of it.  The park is the site of BC's latest volcanic eruption, 250 years ago.  The lava that swept down, burning everything in it's path, also destroyed two villages, and sadly killed 2000 people.

What's left now is a landscape that looks lunar. The black lava is now covered in a fuzzy layer of lichens.  Few larger plants have yet to take hold of the minimal soil available, but there are brilliant spots of bright green saxifrage.  It's beautiful and a bit haunting.

In stark contrast to the black lava and ghostly lichens, the nearby Tseax River is an amazing turquoise.  Just before we left the area, we stopped in a section of park where the lava bordered some old growth forest and walked down to admire the incredible green-ness.

During the summer months, guided tours run from the Nisga'a visitors centre to the cone, something I'd really like to do when we visit again.  The park encompasses 179 ha of land north of Terrace, close to New Aiyansh. While this first visit was the final stop of our Easter weekend road trip to Stewart and Hyder, it would be a do-able day trip from Prince Rupert.

See here and here for more information on the park, tours and the history of the area.

hyder

Welcome to Hyder

Remember that creepy movie Insomnia starring Robin Williams and Al Pacino?  A bunch of that was filmed in Hyder (and Stewart).  The eerie vibe of that film sort of describes how I felt about the town.  It was one part beautiful, one part decaying, and one part heebee-jeebee inducing.  Definitely an odd place. 

Hyder is located a few more kilometers down the road from Stewart.  You can't venture any further into Alaska from there as it's the end of the road, so there is no border crossing upon entry.  Just a few signs (obligatory photos required) and a sense that you're in America.  This includes a somewhat racist depiction of a First Nations person on a gas station, cheap cheese and some guns...though we'll get to that in a minute.

Ty with the border marker between Canada and the US

"Do not injure"

In the 2010 census, the population of Hyder was 87 people.  Originally established in 1907, it was first called Portland City after the canal that it's situated on.  After being informed by U.S. Postal Service that the name was already taken, they named the small town Hyder.  Although originally settled for it's nearby mining possibilities, now Hyder seems to run off the silly tourists (guilty as charged) that want to claim they've been to Alaska and been 'Hyderized'- taking a shot of 151-proof Everclear.  We had big ambitions of being Hyderized ourselves (because we're grown ups like that), but the bar was closed. We settled for a walking tour through town.

We spent an hour or so wandering through Hyder (which is taking things very slow and moving at a snail's pace).  In the span of that hour, four amazing/hilarious/concerning things happened:

1. We walked into what appeared to be a gift shop only to find it was someone's home, stuffed with 'merchandise' that appeared to have been last stocked in 1981.  Perched among the junk was the elderly proprietress herself.  She scared the bejeezus out of Ty when we spotted her.  Besides the post cards, jade stones, and t-shirts were large bags of walnuts (?!).  It was bizarre.  We all bought 20+ year old post cards since it seemed rude to 'window shop' in someone's front hallway and leave empty handed. 
2. An avalanche roared down one of the mountains behind town.  I'd never actually seen an avalanche before and it was intriguing only because we were a safe enough distance away to not have to worry.  I wonder what it's like to live somewhere where you feel like the mountainside behind your home could come down anytime? This may explain the general feeling of unease in Hyder.
3. We saw a sign for a 'Cheese Sale', which of course was too good to pass up.  Following the sign we arrived at another shop situated in someone's home (this time the garage, not the front hallway).  The woman opened up the shop for us which turned out to not only stock cheese, but a large, varied inventory of taxidermied animals and prepared pelts.  We bought some cheap Muenster and played a rousing game of 'what animal did that use to be' with the owner.
4. On our way back, we were admiring the vast number of homes that appear to by falling down, when an elderly gentleman walked out on his porch with a rifle.  We did not stick around to find out what he planned to do with it.  I swear I heard banjos playing.  

After our tour through town and a chat with the bearded old man in the general store about the town's history, we headed out the end of the road to look out at the Portland Canal.  Like much of the scenery, it was beautiful and almost a bit drastic.  The old pilings of the original Portland City can still be seen in the estuary, a disintegrating memory of the past.  

Old piling from the original town

Portland Canal

Hyder is popular in the summer with long-distance motorcyclists and those who come to see the bears in Fish Creek.  If you go, remember to take your passport.  Coming back into BC, there is a border guard.  He seriously inspected our documents and asked if we had anything to declare.  With a sheepish grin we held up our newly acquired cheese, but he waived us through.