The ExploreNorth Blog

A Winter Dawn

explorenorth — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:16:39 +0000

The sun rose into a clear sky 10 minutes ago at 8:58, and it’s -22°C and calm – a lovely start to the day.

Electricity is Bad for Your Health

explorenorth — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:32:27 +0000

The Yukon is a very healthy place to live. We have clean air, clean water, infinite opportunities for recreation, and a very relaxed lifestyle compared to many places. One of the companies that helps maintain our healthy lifestyle is Yukon Electrical. That may seem odd, but it occurred to me this morning just how significant their contribution is.

Residents of every other community in the civilized parts of the world have an uninterrupted supply of electricity and thus no excuse for taking time off from the myriad of projects that require electrical power. In the Yukon, however, we lose our electricity frequently and so have lots of opportunities to just sit back and relax – read a book by candlelight, talk to our co-workers in the office, cuddle with the dog to stay warm or just “chill”.

This morning I was up early working on the computer as usual. At about 8:00, though, the power went out for about an hour. Hooray! I shut off the chirping UPS, got a cup of coffee and went to the hot tub to enjoy dawn. Thanks, eh, Yukon Electrical!

The company Web site used to say “The Yukon Electrical Company Limited has been providing reliable electrical service to Yukoners for over a century.” The word “reliable” was removed last winter. Perhaps they just need to re-word it in a way that acknowledges their contribution to our healthy lifestyle.

The Olympic Torch Relay

explorenorth — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:13:25 +0000

Yesterday was one of the days that make me think that winter isn’t so bad after all. It was flat out gorgeous. I started the day out in the hot tub, mesmerized by the beauty of the snowy forest bathed in the light of a full moon.

The first photo shows the drive into town – this is where I leave Mary Lake and turn onto the Alaska Highway.

The view from my desk at the cruise office in the late afternoon. Construction has just begun on a Native cultural center on the bank of the Yukon River in the middle of that photo (it’s a $22.7-million project!).

The Olympic torch arrived last night from the Queen Charlotte Islands yesterday afternoon and a ceremony was being held at the same location seen in the photo above. I actually saw the flame arriving on an Air North jet as I came into town but didn’t realize what was occurring so didn’t stop for a photo.

We had a meeting at the office last night, but I had no interest in the torch event anyway. Apparently I’m in the minority – there were a lot of people there! This photo was shot from the front door, at ISO 1600 with a telephoto lens.

Slow exposures with a long lens are pretty tough to hand-hold.

But sometimes those long exposures yield some interesting results

The RCMP on TV – “Courage in Red”

explorenorth — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:11:30 +0000

A new TV series about the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, “Courage in Red“, began on OLN last night. I hadn’t heard about it, but luckily checked my Facebook account and saw a message about it. I encourage everyone with an interest in policing in any form to tune in – it’s very well done. It’s a documentary-style film, not the sensationalist “reality” style that’s so popular now.

As many of you know, the impetus for me to see it was two-fold. I was an Auxiliary Constable with the RCMP in Whitehorse for 4 years, and right now my son is in the RCMP training academy in Regina (known as “Depot”). The drill sergeant in the episode about Depot, which was shown twice last night, is Steve’s drill sergeant, and almost everything in the episode shows what Steve and his troop-mates are going through during the 6-month training. While I’ve toured Depot so know what it looks like and feels like, that’s huge to me right now.

He’s going to look so fine in that uniform!

Disappearing under a Blanket

explorenorth — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 18:37:22 +0000

That’s what’s happening to the green part of my world – it’s rapidly disappearing under a blanket of white. And that makes me want to disappear under a blanket of wool for a few months…

Winter Dreaming – Brazil

explorenorth — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 15:38:33 +0000

With the days getting shorter and the snow getting deeper by the minute, Cathy and I are both doing some serious shopping for a trip. Our budget is very unlikely to permit a winter getaway this year, but if not, a major one to celebrate my 60th birthday next Fall will happen.

I booked a cruise for a client yesterday that has an incredible itinerary and is now on my list of possibilities. It’s 31 days, is Brazil-intensive, spends a week up the Amazon River, and finishes in New York in the middle of cherry blossom time. Check out the itinerary and see if it doesn’t awaken the Explorer in you

Some highlights: start in Rio de Janeiro… (these photos are all from the stock service I use for such things, BigStockPhoto)

Up the Amazon River to Manaus…

Meeting Amazon Indians…

A brief Caribbean interlude at Tortola…

And finish at New York City – a direct flight from Newark to Vancouver makes getting home easy….

The “short list” has started….

Getting Warm Now to Stay Warm all Winter

explorenorth — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 00:07:18 +0000

The rest of the firewood logs have now been delivered, and due to a breakdown of the trailer dump, the timing worked out very well. It was only possible to get 3 loads dropped out of the way – load #4 was going to block entry to the portable garage where the wood/snowplow truck is parked. Because of the trailer breakdown during delivery #3, though, I had a few hours to get load #3 bucked up and tossed out of the way. I worked until I couldn’t move anymore last night, then finished the job this morning as the sun was coming up.

Load #4 arrived about half an hour after I had finished clearing a spot for it. It’s said that firewood warms at least twice, and that’s very true – even doing it this way, I get warmed up while bucking the logs up, again while stacking the wood, again while moving it into the house, and finally when it burns. That shiny new furnace-oil tank on the right will get little or no use again this year

I want that trailer!

This is what 10 cords of wood looks like. It’ll take a few days of hard work to get it cut up and stacked under cover, and it could take some time to find those few days, but it doesn’t really matter now. Although it looks really messy from the bedroom window, it’s a mess that we like seeing

Now Winter Can Come

explorenorth — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:31:59 +0000

Since getting home from the Okanogan I’ve been so busy I hardly know which way is up! Lots of Yukoners are thinking “warm” so I’ve been working almost full time at the cruise office as well as all my other jobs. Something had to give, and it was cutting my own firewood in the bush. While I rather enjoy doing it, it’s just not a good use of time right now, so we’re having 10 cords of 16-foot-long firewood logs delivered and I can buck them up and stack the wood as I have time. Or as I need some chain saw therapy The cost of 10 cords cut to fireplace length runs around $2,200-2,400 but getting the logs was “only” $1,500. The house is very efficient, though, so that will supply all of our heat for 2 years (and I already have 1 year in stock).

The photos below show the progress yesterday, from an empty wood-yard to one with 5 cords of logs in it. Two more loads will be arriving today and will unfortunately have to be dropped at locations that aren’t as convenient to the woodshed. The hydraulic dump trailer it’s coming in is very cool!

Lakes, Bugs & Logging

explorenorth — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:49:21 +0000

Yesterday my brother-in-law and I drove 3 hours to their cabin in the high country above Merritt and did some exploring. It’s a beautiful area but the devastation being caused by the mountain pine beetle (dendroctonus ponderosae) and the efforts to deal with it are heart-wrenching.

This is the scene along the road up into the mountains, for mile after mile after mile. This wood isn’t going to a mill, it’s just stacked for burning over the winter. I’ve scanned a lot of the material on the Ministry of Forests and Range Web site but don’t see an explanation of why so much is being wasted. In the Yukon, a single pile would be worth a couple of thousand dollars as firewood. A truckload of 20 cords (a stack 8×8x40 feet) costs $2,600 in log length, $4,400 cut to stove lengths. Seeing thousands of truckloads burned is enough to make a man cry.

This view of the lake, a few feet from the cabins, is lovely (the low water level is normal in the Fall) – but doesn’t show the high percentage of trees that have been killed by the beetles. About 1/3 of the trees on the property are dead, and most of those are being felled, to get reforestation started and as a fire precaution. It seems to me that a biomass generator here could now provide very low-cost heat and electricity for the area. You might have noticed that all of my references to the location of the cabin are very vague – that’s being done on purpose due to security concerns.

I had to show you the shower that’s been built for the cabin complex – with instant-on hot water, it’s a wonderful creation

Removing the trees certainly does improve the mountain views, though! The high stumps (about 15 feet high) are left on purpose – known as “pecker poles”, they will become home to woodpeckers and other tree-burrowing birds.

Cameras don’t seem to do a very good job of showing the dead trees on a broad scale but perhaps you can see that along this backroad, about 90% of the trees are dead. This area is now flagged for logging.

A Railway History Day at Myra Canyon

explorenorth — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 02:38:10 +0000

One of the highlights of the Okanagan Valley for anyone with an interest in history has to be the Myra Canyon section of the former Kettle Valley Railway. Now a hiking and biking trail, this 12-kilometer section of the rail line has 18 trestles and 2 tunnels, and the scenery is spectacular. The Myra Canyon Trestle Restoration Society has an excellent Web site that describes the history and the massive restoration projects – the initial one and the even larger one that followed the destruction of many trestles by forest fires in 2003.

Climbing a road with views like this, what would you expect to find at the top? A mine, a cattle ranch, a logging show perhaps? Certainly not a railway!

Very soon after leaving the parking lot, the trail/railway goes through this very impressive rock cut. The day was gorgeous but very cold, with the temperature sitting well below freezing all day.

Interpretation along the rail line is very good. Among the many signs is this collection of photos from the 2003 fires.

Looking north at Trestle #11, 132 meters long. My brother-in-law had never hiked the entire 12 km trail and my sister and daughter weren’t interested in hiking the whole distance, so the women hiked 3km, walked back to the cars and then drove around to the south end of the trail to pick us up That worked out great, because while I really wanted to see the entire trail, I wasn’t up to hiking 24km!!

Looking north at Trestle #10, 59 meters long, and an 84-meter-long tunnel.

Near the southern end of the line we got a good view of the Kelowna airport.

Later in the day my daughter and I took the girls down to the playground at the beach. I love this spot.