Early March
Plenty of light in the mornings. The runoff runs onto of the frozen ground. It will be a couple more weeks before the ground absorbs it. Thats when the dandelions sprout. When the worms reappear. Until then it’s still winter.
Category: Kootenay Gothic
pussywillows
The pussywillows showed up on time. . . early. This has been more of a traditional winter. Snow and low cloud obscuring the stars.
A few peaks are shedding the clouds.
One eye on the predator and one on the prey.
early February.
Roads closed. Ice, snow all the rest. Avalanches. Spring is coming early. 
You wan’ed to write before the booze and weed kicked in. To all those youngsters looking ate he moon.
The cedar rushing by. My nose in the air, figuring a challenge.
My land is nor much. It melts, sun dries, the land turns dry to shit. So they said it was coming.
Other than that it’s all good.
tracks
It’s easy to forget where you came from. The trees, mountains and tracks right out the door. Everyone saying to get away. My heart was too stubborn to leave. I try my best to show it to my children and grandchildren, but I hope they don’t feel it like I do. I just want them to know.
Of course, all of it is beyond my control. My new mantra, just like the downtown doctor: do no harm.
Then again that may run contrary to the truth.
It’s compassion, I want to pass on, towards the bush and other living souls. That doesn’t mean not cutting down trees or eating meat. We are animals after all.
The world didn’t get fucked up recently, it’s been that way for awhile.
My bet is still on good sense.
the place we call home
A couple of big announcements in the local news this week.
***
First, the proposed Jumbo Resort is dead. It has been on the books for over thirty years, at times pulling the community apart, setting business people against each other.
It was a harebrained scheme from the get go. With bullshit from both sides of millionaires being flung, liberally, at each other.
I think most regular folks got out of the way along time ago, leaving the fighting to the elitists in Wildsight and Patagonia, and the villainous, Jumbo Glacier Resort and dumbfounded Jumbo Municipality.
However, something good may have come out of it. The area will now be a designated protected area to be overseen by the Ktunaxa First Nation.
Time will tell how this will play out.
The only way this issue was going to resolve itself was by money. Reason, common sense, goodwill, or even a deep desire for preservation or development was not enough.
It took the government paying off both sides. The anti Jumbo folks secured over $16 million and Jumbo Glacier Resort was paid an undisclosed amount for the tenure to the publicly owned property.
***
The second announcement was The District of Invermere down zoning the Octagon Property behind the Invermere Arena.
Part of the property was where I grew up. It overlooks Lake Windermere. At one time the property was worth next to nothing, because it was on a sidehill and had a train running by almost constantly.
Later the coal trains started running less frequent, with the Albertans buying up most of the other available lake front, the property became more valuable.
After my parents passed away our family quickly sold the land to a couple of wheelers who sat on it for a year and sold it to Octagon for a couple hundred thousand profit.
After Octagon bought it they left it derelict, while lobbying mayor and council for rezoning to build a nine story hotel.
It was during this period that my parents house became a crack den. Police were called regularly. Octagon refused to board the place up. My parents would have rolled over if they would have seen what became of their house.
One of the hardest things I never did was burning the place down. I would have got everyone out. That wouldn’t have been a problem. I worried about a volunteer firefighter getting hurt.
Instead, I pestered the brass at Octagon, a bunch of snakes, into tearing it down, which they finally did.
Meanwhile the District of Invermere, against the will of most citizens, caved to the wishes of Octagon and granted their rezoning demands.
Last week, the District down zoned the property so the owner, creditor of the previous owner, can sell it off by the piece. In the end, regardless of their grand plans, that’s the only way they can make their money back.
***
There won’t be a nine story hotel beside the tracks, beside the lake. Jumbo will remain undeveloped. I should be happy, but it takes a bunch of nasty business to come to the right decision. This time money was on the side of preservation, next time. . . who knows.
mid January
Not much for blue sky even through the -20°c stretch. Hopefully February will clear for the Milky Way to rise sideways adjacent to the mountain tops and church steeples.
Spring, just before it leaves winter, is aways away yet.
winter colours
Follow the ridge. Telemark through the spruce.
There is a little extra daylight. Not much but noticeable. There is something to be said about the colours of winter, deep shades of grey, colours only seen at this time of year, hues of mauve and blue.
Evaluate the shadows in winter to plan a walk in summer.
To be without would be a shame. To see them a gift. The owl on a snag, eagles waiting for a fish or a duck to get separated. The mountain ridge fully defined. And the quiet that accompanies it.
Willow.
Winter Birds
A Bald Eagle, sitting on an osprey nest, hunting. Keeping an eye on the fishing shacks. Opportunity knocks when a fisherman throws a Pike Minnow on the ice.
It was whistling to two others circling the lake. Also keeping a sharp eye on me, making sure it was only a camera and not a gun.
The Osprey nest platforms are man made to keep them from building on power poles. Of course the Ospreys are wintering in Mexico at this time of year so they don’t mind the intrusion. Come spring it will be a different story.
A herd of Bohemian Waxwings get ready to swoop down into a berry tree. Such a treat to watch. Their chirps fill the sky while coasting onto a perch, and what voracious eaters, they can strip a tree in no time sometimes passing the berries back and forth and even getting drunk on the fermented fruit. Can you imagine the thrill of flying under the influence? Of course you would have to be wary of those Bald Eagles.
looking back
A chinook rolled in taking most of the snow in the valley bottom.
Willow and I headed into the mountains tonight. We were looking for stars, but knew it would be a tough find. Sure enough it was cloud cover. Sometimes the clouds can be scaled via a mountain pass leading to clear skies. It was worth a try. The roads were ice but decent.
Back in the bottoms we took to the lake, frozen with at least 14″ of ice, glare from melt. Pure hell to walk on, especially in the dark. This is were I grew up. Only yards from shore, across the tracks.
It’s a different place now. The lake is an attraction. A commodity to be bought and sold.
But, here tonight, it doesn’t look much different than I can remember. More ice shacks, less fish, more lights on the east side filling the sky with pollution.
The tracks are there. My world would revolve around those trains. Watching them roll by, the sound, tracks creaking, listening for oiled ties loose on a stoney bed, coal dropping by the cart load, happy to be burned, eventually getting between me and the lake.
Things change, not quickly, but minutely, it’s hard to detect. Until one day you’re scratching your grey beard, in the same place as when you were young, finally figuring the joke’s on me.
Warm Spell
Jan 2018, Eclipse, Wilmer, BC, morning rush hour.
The woodpile is holding it’s own. Six inches of snow melting on top. The coming cold will dry it long before it needs burning.
Palliser Pass 