Thread: Chasing After Wood

I've spent 3 months in BC and Alberta and you definitely have some of the best scenery in the world, but I reckon our wood is more interesting

The software seems determined to scramble the order of the pictures. Dang, any way. Is there a fix?
Pic 6. Quick stop in the mouth of the Castle to shovel up 50kg fine yellow sand for abrasive. The sand bank
just behind the 'Burb. Nice now, maybe 23C.
Pic 7. This slate deposit is the nose of a hill, the commercial mine is up top, above this. The company puts out a few grand piano-sized pieces for people to hack at. Keeps us all on this side of the mine gate. Spent an hour busting rocks but no pyrite crystals.
Bucket full of slate slabs to bring home. I seem to have hidden my entire inventory on my self.
Pic 8. This is a typical logging debris pile, as required by law. After 5-10 years, it gets burnt off. In the meantime, you can take away as much of this as you want, for free. Just don't mess the pile. Yank out one log at a time and cut it up, take it home.
Pic 9. After the shake block crews are done, they leave a lot of western red cedar that they can't sell (1+ knots, pencil size or bigger).
So, I've just peeled the bark off these old log bits. Branches every where. Time to move on.
Pic 10. I know where there's some wood in the bushes that the burning crew missed. As it turns out, I have no need for more shake blocks but curved shell pieces are a real find. I've just chopped out the ant-infested core. Log was maybe 60-70cm diameter. Yes, that really is the giant Lee Valley screw driver. Maybe the LV Box Tool there as well (there is beauty in ugliness.)

I'll illustrate the cleanup of that log shell piece some other time. Not until the very end can I see if it's reasonably clear, straight-grained carving wood. There's 15mm+ sapwood that has to come off, the ends, sides, more core bug-wood.
Pic 11. Very smokey/hazy today. I'm 800m+ above the Fraser River, behind me. This slate outcrop is iridescent (schist, maybe?). I want to see if I can shape the stone slabs just as I do for abalone shell. Few more handfuls of pieces.
Pic 12. Looking south "up" the Fraser River Valley. There's no foreground in this picture as I am standing on the cliff edge, 100m down into East Twin creek. No throwing rocks= there's a little hydroelectric power station down there.
Pic 13. The lush green of an avalanche track upper L. to lower R. Premium Grizzly bear habitat. Glacier fed rivers like the Holmes are emerald green and a little opaque from the rock flour in the melt water.
Pic 14. No grouse but some carving(?) wood and stone. I came down to the paved road, zipping along at 75kph, come around a bend and this dang Black bear was sitting in the middle of the road. Fast grab shot and not fast digital focus. Maybe a 90kg 2yr+ bear.
Pic 15. It's going to get a whole lot colder before it gets a whole lot warmer. The Fraser river bottom land is hay field and pastures, a little wheat, clover & peas.

Suppertime. No grouse. Have to suffer with another Bison sirloin steak BBQ. Oh Well.

Wow! What a gorgeous country. It's Stunning!
Do you keep bear mace on your belt when you go fossicking?

Stunning country for wood chasing!!.You are fortunate to loive in such a beautiful place!!

I can't do cities any more. Four years in Melbourne were four of the very best years of my life.
I lived in Vancouver for several years. I just can't do that any more.
I visit my kids in Vancouver. I tell you, 10 days and I'm looking for escapes. The kids understand.
BobL: Yes, it is a fact = you have far more interesting woods than I/we have.
Featherwood: I have an armband holster for capsicain bear spray. I never take it.
a) all it means to the bears is food & people (with little distinction to them.)
Soft on the outside, crunchy in the middle.
b) My bear spray is an o/u 12 ga Baikal shotgun with Remington NitroMag 3" #2 shot in I/C chokes
made by George Trulock in Georgia/USA. Shot some trap = I believe in his machining.
I wear the shot gun. I wear a full shell belt of assorted #2, SSG, BB.
artme: thanks. I am still mindful to look up. Many many days up those roads only affirm
why I moved here when I retired.

Haha Guessed you were going to say that!

You just have to show up. YXS is the Nairobi, the Kenya, of North America.
3rd longest runway in Canada, plenty for 747's.
I'll be there. Another 220km west into the Rockies and we're home.
Lots of food & drink. The Chessies are a bit slobbery.

Your just showing off now Robson, I'm officially jealous.

Glad to read that you all liked the tour. This is the first season that I've stopped for pictures.
There's 500cm snow in there in the winter.
The big spring melt wrecks the roads and blows away some bridges which all take time and money to fix.
The biting flies and hordes of mosquitoes live there for the summer.
That leaves about an 8-10 week window in the autumn.
Popular region with the big game hunters. They leave absolutely nothing but some ashes in a fire pit.
You would never know that they had been camped for 2 weeks.

My most memorable moments?
1. Less than 100m from that debris pile of logs is a wide, grassy place.
For more than 10 minutes, by the clock, I sat and watched an adult pair of Lynx supervise the
play of their 3 kittens who were already 5-7kg.
2. I stopped to have a good look at a young porcupine, they are justifiably quite fearless.
The poor little fellow got high-centered in the bushes, little back legs flailing away!
3. A couple of wolves jumping on mice, way out in the middle of a high pasture.
With the wind, they never knew I was there.

What a privilege! It must be wonderful to live so close to so much untamed wilderness.
Thanks for the tour RV.

Thanks, featherwood.
I'm quite excited by the prospect of carving slate stone like abalone shells.

The dogs pushed up the cats. I know =/- 50m where the den is. I don't hunt there any more.
Have not seen them for 2 years, hope that they are doing OK.

The deal is, I slide in there, do my bit and try not to leave a mark.
Erosion is the strong force in this place. I am always amazed at the
ferocity of the water to shape the landscape, sometimes just over night.
There's the thunder on a sunny day, just the big rocks being pushed along the river bottoms in the spring.
That's the BIG melt in June.

Where's the bridge?
Oh, a chopper pilot found it.
Maybe 500m downstream.
Dang.
By the same token, it is a very violent (geological) landscape.
Logging debris piles collapse. Rock slides are common.