Stories, Excerpts, Backroads
The Palliser Fire is still going in places. Forest fires have been known to burn roots underground for months. Lisa and I wandered around. Lisa was hurt to see some of our favourite places burned. Rock Creek was burned badly.
The fire burned 9000 hectares. It was managed by a large firefighting crew who seemed to control it and let it burn. That is the way forest fires will be managed now. Forest fire management has become an industry unto itself.
Fires are springing up and starting to burn all around.
Bad news from Jasper tonight as it is being reported that several buildings are starting to burn within the evacuated town.
I would often visit Jasper in my teens for the hiking into the surrounding mountains. It is a beautiful area. Lisa and I even spent part of our honeymoon there.
I was hoping with the cooler spring we had that the fires would not be bad this summer. Just wishful thinking.
November can be grey, typically not a lot of snow, however it is calm. A welcome relief. It hasn’t been cold, but a thin layer of ice is forming around the shore of Lake Windermere. The lakes in the mountains are frozen over. Not enough that the ice can be trusted. Soon we will be donning skates for a trip on the inner edges. Spectacular if the snow holds off.
Lisa and I were out scouting around. We picked out a Christmas tree. It is still too early to cut. I will come back in December. The walk will be much longer and tougher as there should be at least a foot or two of snow by then. The small tree will be harder to find covered in snow. Lisa said we should have brought a bright ribbon to tie around it. Since we didn’t have a ribbon I suggested she hang her panties off of it. She didn’t like that idea.
The next day we walked around an area of bush that had burned during summer. The underbrush having burned away made walking easy. Willow and Lola ran chasing rabbits and rodents. The dogs were out of luck with so many hiding places on the scorched earth. The roots of the trees catch fire and can burn for months leaving tunnels where the roots once ran. The trees blackened, but still sturdy will start falling in the brisk winds of spring. Many people have died from burnt trees falling on them.
The burnt mountain is eery but beautiful in its own way.
Our grandkids slept over Saturday night. We had a nice dinner and watched a movie. They were up early Sunday with energy I can only dream of. A very fine weekend.
The smoke has returned. We have had several wind storms that have caused the local fires to flare up. The Horsethief Fire has caused Panorama Resort and surrounding homes to be put back on evacuation alert. Still we are better off than many parts of BC and the Yukon where cities have, started, or been evacuated.
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Last week during the Perseid Meteor Shower the skies were free of smoke. Shortly after smoke rolled back in. Lisa is finding it hard to breath.
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The valley bottom, including the town of Invermere, historically was grasslands. Due to fire suppression and development it is now mostly trees, shrubs and buildings. Drought has become commonplace. The trees and underbrush is dryer by the year. It will burn again as it previously has done even without the added effects of climate change. We won’t be able to prevent it.
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Meanwhile the tourists continue to travel here and can be found at every back country lake, on every gravel road and on every smoke filled patio. Recreating, hard, like everything is fine. I don’t understand. Maybe they are trying, like Jim Morrison said, ‘To get their kicks in before the whole shithouse goes up in flames’. It doesn’t encourage me to hold out hope for where we are heading.
The valley bottom is thick with smoke. Plenty of fires burning. So far nothing threatening. Just a lot of smoke making it hard to breath for people with lung issues. Plenty of people walking around with masks.
Jimmy says he has to smoke a cigarette just to get some fresh air.
The Resort is busy, as is the valley, on the long weekend. I am on my fourteenth straight day and it will keep up for awhile.
We have been furnishing a house to be made into a BNB. Our job is to put together furniture made in China. It is amazing stuff. You start off with flat box with panels and a freezer bag of assorted hardware. When you open it up and take everything out all you can think is, FUCKKK! But somehow it all goes together. None of it is high quality. The wood is manufactured from sawdust and glue. The veneer has been printed on an inkjet printer and the vinyl fixed to the ‘wood’. It all fits in a flat box that can be stacked miles high in a shipping container. That’s some crafty engineering.
The garden is out in full force. The smoky air acts as a flat filter giving the same light to the bottom of the leaves as the top. It is like the plants are in a green house.
The youngsters at work, from the UK and Ontario, have their belongings in their vehicles just in case they have to make a run for it. They haven’t seen anything like this. I tell them, it is good to be prepared but not to panic. I don’t say it, but it can get a lot worse.
The Albertan tourists and second home owners keep flocking in like nothing is wrong. They bitch that the pool isn’t crystal clear, like they haven’t noticed burnt ash has been falling on it nightly.
It will keep up for awhile like it always does. August has become a bitch.
Woke up about 3:30. The bedroom smelled like smoke so bad I got up and went outside to make sure nothing was on fire. The moon was orange in the west. Everything was okay. Thats the way it is. A few fires burning close by. Nothing threatening.
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Fire fighters are up from the United States to help fight the fires. They drive army style trucks with the name of their squad on the side. Forest fire fighters are called Hot Shots in the US. They must be contracted by the BC or Federal government to help out and we could use all the help we can get. I am sure every local citizen is grateful for their service.
I looked up two of the firefighter crews, they were from Idaho and California. Hopefully those areas won’t be short if fires break out there.
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Invermere’s Mayor dusted off his Covid Speech, tooling it to the wildfires, welcoming ‘Our Alberta Friends’ to the community, regardless of impending threats.
Agreed, things are not as bad as they can get, so why let a little thing like smoke, flames and breathing clean air deter tourists from spending money in the valley grocery, galleries, cafes and hardware stores.
A reminder our politicians are clowns, concerned about they and their friends monetary interests instead of doing the right thing for people and the environment.
Not surprising. We should be used to it by now.
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The kids came over today and helped in the garden, picking veggies and filling their baskets with peas, giving the old wrinkled ones to Willow or Grandpa.
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Plenty of wasp nests this year to be dealt with at the resort and home. Tomorrow morning when it is chilly and they are docile I will try to move them. Almost impossible when they are protecting combs and laying eggs. Most will end up dead. Unfortunate, if it was up to me, we would mind them, knowing we will get stung occasionally as the price of sharing. We have become intolerant of the natural word, considering even ants and some plants a nuisance.
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The next five or six weeks will be busy. I have started working 7 days a week. Saturday and Sunday should be shorter days. The overtime will come in handy in a tourist hotspot where prices continue to increase. Not that we are complaining it is the same everywhere.
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The winds are up. The trees are swaying one way and the clouds are going another. Never good when the bush is on fire.
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I wrote the above last night but didn’t publish it. I thought I may have been too judgmental of the Mayor of Invermere and wanted to think about it overnight. I did soften it a little, even taking out the word ‘shill’.
When I arrived at work this morning the staff parking area was filled with two large trucks pulling wake boats. They were from Alberta. The word staff used to describe them was entitled.
The outside pool and hot tubs had a skim of ash and burnt needles floating on the surface. Things can get worse, no matter how hard we look on the bright side.
There is a forest fire burning close to us in Kootenay National Park. The fire is creating a lot of smoke and today it seemed to settle down into the valley bottom. It is not too bad and it could be much worse.
The sun came up red and set red. High in the sky it was a strange yellow that cast even hot light. I snapped the photo above a few minutes ago, hoping I would capture the sunspots. Smoke is an odd filter to use to photograph the sun, but it works.
The sunspot in the upper left is new, perhaps revealed as the sun rotates. It is called sunspot AR3372 and according to Spaceweather.com poses a threat for strong M-class solar flares.
The large sunspot in the lower middle of the frame is sunspot AR3363. These sunspots are much larger than earth.
There are also several other sunspots visible. The picture is not as sharp as I would like due to shooting, not only through smoke, but a few whispy clouds often prevalent near the horizon.
Out early to beat the heat. . . and tourists. Headed into the mountains. It’s early for huckleberries, but with this weather who knows. Took off for #2 creek. The road was rough with washboard, folks yanking trailers behind them, bouncing along, dust in clouds. Luckily we were early enough to miss them, but cursed them just the same when I hit the pot holes or sliced sideways over washboard. Lisa and Willow suggested maybe I should just slow down.
Once off the main road it was cool sailing, cedar, small creeks, fireweed lining the roads, dips and dangles instead of dust and ruts.
It takes awhile but then you finally arrive! It wasn’t long and we were looking up the slides for berries. The mountains were shrouded in smoke. We headed higher.
It’s early. We tried anyway and found a grove of huckleberries. We picked. I told Lisa if anyone should come up, we should pretend to make love, instead of disclosing we were picking huckleberries. In other words, get rid of them.
Fortunately we were far enough away to be out of contact.
The berries were plentiful, but not large due to the hot spell. I’m holding out hope for a touch of rain. Lisa and I picked and ended up with plenty to make a few batches of jam.
cruel the moon and sun are the same size from where I stand. the sun is bigger of course, it’s a mathematical anomaly. space tends to put things into perspective. still, what are the chances.
A regular person has to back down plenty. Thats why they head for the hills and kill cars in their backyard. Play loud music late at night, drink too much, smoke weed and take pills of dubious origin.
A regular person has to put up with injustice normalized and legal, they have to nod their head to incompetence, racism, sexism and environmental destruction. It’s part of feeding the family.
A regular person has to push it down and bottle it up. Put it in the jam or home made wine. That’s why the homemade stuff tastes so good.
Palliser Pass 