Yikes, Fall Already?

The colours on the hillsides are wonderful and the eavestroughs are filling up with leaves again so it must be fall. The autumn routines have started up and soon Richard will be back at  work most days. It has been an incredible summer.

Part of what made it incredible was that we had two separate holidays. The first was to Newfoundland and Labrador and I've posted photos of that trip here on the blog.  The scenery was spectacular; the people were interesting; and the opportunities to learn were abundant. Besides we got to ride in Zodiacs and that's always fun in my books.

The second holiday was very different.  We spent a week with a friend on his island. The pace was leisurely but we got a lot done. We helped with various chores around this island and when there was a two-person job rather than a three-person job, I got to sit in the shade and carve spoons from freshly cut wood. It reminded me of some of the canoe trips we once took during our summers, only this time, we had a cabin to sleep in rather than setting up a tent every night and if the weather was nasty, we could stay inside.




We cleared brush and stacked firewood. Richard and John worked on plumbing and wiring and roofing. I hid in the shade while they soaked up the sun. We started our days with coffee, tea and conversation, sometimes until noon; sometimes until early afternoon, a rhythm that suited Richard and me just fine. I sat on a rock near the shore and played my ukulele, a birthday present this year. I also did a few wood projects. I made a large handle and latch for the doors over part of the electrical system. It was an interesting challenge to improvise holding systems and figure out how to cut curves without a jig saw.

When the time came to leave the island we got to spend a few nights on the road in our new-to-us camper van. Despite the problems with Flopsy we had living in her pretty much down to a science and it will take us some time to attain the same comfort level with Vinnie. We don't quite know where to put things yet or how to best make up the bed. It's brilliant, though, not to have to kneel down on the floor and peer into a little gap to see whether or not the fridge is lit each time we gas up. Also, dumping grey and black water is a new experience for us. We want to take off and spend more time on the road but we also love being at home, seeing our friends, singing in choirs and taking music lessons, not to mention the days I happily spend in the shop. So, even though we're enjoying the start of a new term for many of our activities, we're looking back at the fun we had this summer, and looking forward to adventure possibilities for next summer. There is no shortage of experiences, remembered, lived and imagined and for that I'm grateful.

Newfoundland and Wild Labrador Photos

So I have finally finished selecting and organizing photos from our trip. At times it was an exercise in frustration. I hope I now have links that work and photos that are in the order in which I want them.  I'll attempt to put all six of the links below. Cross your fingers.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

There are very few photos once we reach Ottawa so the trip ends rather abruptly. I hope you enjoy looking at the photos. It was a fabulous trip and I enjoyed revisiting it as I went through the photos. Canada is an incredible country.

Trying out technology

When am I not trying out technology?  I'm still in the process of organizing photos from the NL trip and have just completed the day we spent in Hebron.  I'm trying to juggle between Picasa and Google+ photos.  For some people this may be a no-brainer but I'm still figuring it out. This doesn't really count as a blog post but for those of you who are following the photos, I hope the link works.  I will post the links to each of the photo collections (I think that's what Google is calling them now) when I get them all done.  I have five days photos yet to go through and there aren't as many in that batch so I'm hoping to finish them soon



I hope you enjoy them as I've enjoyed taking them and then looking back at them.



Newfoundland and Wild Labrador: Part 4 Hebron

Looking back on Newfoundland and Labrador

Richard photographing Google John

It's a weird thing but sometimes I think I enjoy a holiday more after I've come home and I have time to think about it.  While I'm there I'm truly living in the moment.  This was especially true of our holiday with Adventure Canada called 'Newfoundland and Wild Labrador.' It's amazing what we packed into  each day. We got to hike, meet people from the small settlements in NL, explore ancient sites with archeologists, listen to live music and sing with people from across the globe.

Our days were very busy.  They began at 6:30 with Stephan announcing over the PA, "Good morning, good morning, good morning.' There were always three, 'good morning's.' He next gave us the weather conditions and the times for breakfast. By that time we were awake, even if we didn't plan on eating breakfast.

We hiked in Gros Morne, visited the site of the Viking settlement at L'anse aux Meadows and the abandoned town of Hebron in Labrador. Hebron was once a thriving community whose people were relocated farther south with promises of houses and territories in which to hunt and fish. The people, thus displaced, lived their lives as outsiders in the new locations and there is an air of sadness in that place.

On days when we sailed for most of the day there were talks going on in various areas of the ship.  My regret was that I couldn't use Hermione Granger's trick and be at three different places at once. No matter which talk I attended I always felt as if I was missing out on something else. One day the seas were too rough to land so we stayed on board and some of the talks were repeated so I did manage to get in a few extra ones. I think Stephan was disappointed that we couldn't land and he made a point of speaking to everyone about the need for the decision. In some ways I didn't think too much about it because, having never been to the Wunderstand, I was blissfully ignorant of what I was missing.

As so often strikes me when on holiday it was the people I met who made the trip.  That may sound funny coming from a confessed introvert but the people on the ship were fascinating.  Richard has described the voyage as a floating TED talk that lasted for two weeks. We met archeologists, ornithologists, geologists, adventurers, artists, publishers, writers and you couldn't turn around without bumping into a professional photographer. It was a trip filled with intelligent and interesting people and my brain whirred with excitement after almost every conversation.

Margaret Atwood, Graeme Gibson, Scott Forsyth (foreground person unknown)

I feel a bit awkward about writing this next part because it seems a bit like name-dropping but I did meet and talk with these people and the conversations were fascinating. Billy Gautier and I talked about carving, and fell into the comfortable space of artisans sharing what they love. Doug Gibson told marvellous stories about the writers he published in during his career with McClelland and Stewart and Shirley Montague passed her guitar around the circle one night after most folks had gone to bed and only a few of us lingered to sing and play. Margaret Atwood took off her hood to reveal a marvellous hat with cat's eyes and ears on it and said that she bought it at a market in Poland, (I think it was). Terry Fallis sang and played guitar and helped push zodiacs off the rocky beaches into the sea. Gilles Gagnier hosted us at dinner one night and we talked of travels by bike and canoe, Sable Island and the beginning of Merlin bicycles since another guest at the table was one of the inventors of Merlin bikes. Initially we thought it might be tough to do without the internet for two weeks but we had so much to learn, so many stories to listen to and so much technology to play with that we only missed it in the sense that we couldn't share our excitement in the moment.

John Bailey from Google was there with his street-view backpack photographing the wild places to add to Google earth.  Billy was there from Fuji and he loaned out cameras. Both Richard and I borrowed cameras and now have a serious case of techno lust for the new Fuji mirrorless model.

David Newland the host for our trip described the Ocean Endeavour as a floating village. There were about 176 of us plus another 100 or so crew. It is only since I have come home that I have time to appreciate how truly spectacular an experience it was and I haven't even started on the people we met in the small settlements we visited. That, perhaps is a topic for another day.

Photos from the first part of the voyage NL 2015

Here is the first instalment of photos from our trip to Newfoundland and Labrador with Adventure Canada. I haven't used this way of uploading before so this is an experiment.

https://picasaweb.google.com/104135492874704004816/NewfoundlandAndWildLabradorPart1?authuser=0&feat=directlink

Fleecy clothing and rubber boots

Out on the land in the rain

I know a lot of people think that I'm out of my mind but I was perfectly happy the last two weeks travelling the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador where the daytime highs were around +5 or +6 celsius.  I was sometimes cold but never when we were out on the land and the only time I wore my long-johns was to bed one night. To me the temperatures were perfect for hiking. If we were headed up, which we mostly were having started off from a ship, we warmed up quickly and it was easy to unzip the rain jacket and pants to get some ventilation. If I then cooled off too much I simply zipped up again.

Modern shipwreck

One time I dashed out onto the bow deck to photograph icebergs without anything more than a t-shirt. By the time I'd spent 5 minutes out there I was happy to get back into the restaurant. The day we hiked in the rain I was glad enough to get into dry clothes at the end of the hike but the grey moving fog and the shipwreck made for marvellous photo opportunities.

Adventure Canada provided us with rubber boots

It would be different if I were out on the land with a backpack and a tent. Then getting warm would have been quite a bit more complicated.  As it was we huddled against the wind and the spray on the ride back to the ship and then went into a nice warm cabin, got a cup of tea which was always available and changed into non-sweaty clothing. It is a luxurious way to travel and, at this point in my life, I'm all for it!

Riding in the zodiac

The Chilkoot Trail 1984 and 2013

Up up into the fog and rain

The saying goes that you can never go home again. I beg to differ.  You can, but you must be prepared for an entirely different landscape, both inner and outer.  In my case I'm not talking about a literal home but about retracing our steps on the Chilkoot Trail between Yukon and Alaska that we hiked 29 years earlier.

In the spring of 1984 Liz, Richard and I decided to hike the Chilkoot Trail.  Liz was living in Whitehorse at the time and we thought we'd drive up for a visit and the three of us would do the hike.  Perhaps it's just the passage of time, but I don't recall a lot of preparation going into the trip. We had tents, sleeping bags and stoves and we went out and bought packs. I probably did some walking and may have even done some walking with the backpack loaded up. In those days we'd been doing quite a bit of canoeing and some hiking. 

Getting food ready for the trip meant heading for the grocery store and laying in a supply of Minute Rice and some boil-in-the-bag dinners. For breakfast we had instant oatmeal and powdered milk and for lunch we had apples, peanut butter and cheese. Oh, and we had curry powder to give the meals a bit of taste.

The weather was perfect, sunny and on the hot side during the day with cool temperatures at night. We quickly discovered that the rations for breakfast and lunch were okay but dinner left us searching the bottom of the pot to see if there was any more rice left.

Going over the pass was tiring and chilly.  When we got over onto the Canadian side a ranger met us and fed us mugs of hot chocolate to warm us up before we crossed the snow fields. I remember the flags that marked the way through the snowfields and that Happy Camp wasn't particularly so we pushed on beyond Long Lake to the next campsite. We were pretty tired by the end of that day but the sun continued to shine and we carried on.  Instead of going all the way to Lake Bennett, we opted to walk out on the railway track to the junction with the road where we had left one car. Just as we got into the car to head for Skagway to pick up the other car it started to rain, the only rain we encountered on the whole trip.

Fast forward twenty some-odd years.  Someone, and I might as well take the blame for this, suggested that it would be fun to hike the Chilkoot again and take Liz's two grown children Ryan and Leah with us. The five of us camped together while they were growing up and we thought it would be a brilliant adventure to crown the camping experiences. 

In the summer of 2013, 29 years after we first hiked the pass we were ready to tackle it again. 

Richard and I had long since sold our small tent and the sleeping bags we had on the first trip had lost their loft and we had given them away.  We had a decision to make.  Would we make do with the equipment we had, I still had the original backpacking stove and it still worked, or would we buy new equipment?

After some deliberation we decided that we weren't as young as we used to be and that we should think in terms of what would make the journey easier on us.  We bought new gear.  Since the first trip Richard and I had learned quite a bit about how to eat well in the backcountry and in January I started searching the net for recipes and began planning meals and drying food.  By the time we were ready to leave each person had a large bag containing a series of smaller zip-lock bags each holding a meal. We packed one extra dinner for each person just in case.

We had a new lightweight stove that boiled water in a flash and a great gravity-fed water-purification system. When it was time for supper we'd boil up the water.  Each person would select a meal and pour boiling water into the plastic bag.  Then we'd mostly close the bag and continue with setting up camp for about 15 minutes.  By then the meals were rehydrated and still warm.  We even had brownies two nights.  There was minimal clean-up and we put the used food bags in the garbage bag and carried them out.  That part worked well.

Although I had been running half marathons and was generally in better shape than when we first attempted the trail, it was hard going. I fell the first day and hurt my tailbone and my shoulder.  It could have been worse for as I went down I thought I was going to pitch onto the steep slope beside the trail. Not the way to start a hike but, at least, I didn't need a helicopter to get me out.

The weather was not as cooperative either.  We had rain and more rain and we were pretty thoroughly soaked by the time we got to the top of the pass.  I don't know what our time was on summit day the first time but in 2013 we were on the trail for 14 hours.  The young folks were very patient with the oldsters who couldn't go nearly as fast as either group wanted to.

The trail, too, was very different. There was a board walk through a huge beaver pond that hadn't been there. There had been some landslides and  the switchbacks of the 1984 trail had been wiped out so that we found ourselves clambering over boulders to get to the top of the pass. It was exhausting.  Happy Camp was much happier than on our first visit.  There was a warmup shelter and a shed to store food in order to keep it away from the bears.  We were able to get warm by the stove if not dry.

The next day it rained again and we squelched on through the mist. We were disappointed in the weather.  The first time we did the hike we were treated to blue skies and wonderful vistas and while there was undeniable beauty in the rain-shrouded forests, it was not what we hoped to share the the next generation of hikers.  By the time we got to Lake Bennett the sun was out and we had a couple of days to relax and dry out before catching the train back to Skagway.

I'm glad we had the opportunity to do the trail again and to share the experience that meant so much to the three of us with Ryan and Leah.  It was very clear to me the day we ascended the pass that I would not being doing this trip again.  The difficulty to fun ratio was simply too high. Apparently there was a 75 year-old woman who completed the trail that summer. My hat is off to her but I'm not about to try it again.  To my way of thinking, we cut it close enough to the line the last time. I was working at my full capacity most of the time and felt that I had very little strength in reserve and in those situations it's too easy for things to go seriously wrong.

I'm grateful we had the trip and I'm grateful we were able to share a part of the country that meant so much to the three of us.  I hope that someday the young people will return to the Chilkoot trail  and hike it at their own pace. I hope the sun will shine for them, that they will feel fit and strong and that breath-taking vistas will wait around each corner.  As for me, I'll think twice about returning to some of the areas I always thought I'd revisit. I'm not sure I'm up to the changes.