The Squamidian Report – May 26 / 07
Issue #261
Also in this issue:
The Ontarion
Hi All,
We took a nice relaxed run up to Whistler for breakfast on the Hog, then kept on going on up to Pemberton. Interesting thing about the Whistler area. The rise of land at the south end of town, just before you drop down into Function Junction is a water shed. Any run-off and flow south of this point runs on out to Howe Sound via the Checkamus and the Squamish Rivers. Any run-off north of this point flows into the Green River and from there into Lillooet Lake and on into the Fraser. It all ends up in the Strait of Georgia but it gets there by very different routes.
As you leave Whistler heading north you follow Green Lake, then the Green River as it winds through a very narrow and steep canyon. There are several points of interest along the way, including Rutherford Creek. This is where a debris flow took out the bridge one very rainy night a couple of years ago. A vehicle heading toward Pemberton carrying workers home ran over the washout and disappeared into the raging water. It has never been found. One person actually made it out and survived. The others didn’t.
A temporary bridge was put in until a permanent one could be build. When construction crews were working down stream on erosion control measures they uncovered the crushed remains of a car. It turned out not to be the one they had been looking for but one that had been reported stolen at about the time of the flood. Inside were the remains of the bodies of two people, along with a load of stolen items. The thieves had met up with justice, Mother Nature style.
A bit further on is Suicide Hill, a very steep switch-back that has claimed more than it’s share of vehicles that have approached from either side too fast. You have to treat some of these hills with respect. The highway drops down into the Pemberton valley, which opens up into some beautiful farmland, surrounded by high mountain walls. We simply turned around at this point for the ride home, but I did take some pictures. They are at:
http://www.thedougsite.net/Whistler/W-P1.htm
*
This past little while with its clear cool nights, planet watching has been great. Mercury, Venus, Saturn and the moon are lined up quite nicely. It can be a bit hard to see Mercury from here because its orbit is tucked in so tightly to the sun. With the high mountains to our west, our view of the sun setting is limited. Only when Mercury’s orbit fully trails the sun from our prospective can we see her. This week we have been able to see here quite nicely.
In fact, because Mercury is so close to the
sun, she is really only visible while there is still some light in the western
sky. The best way to find her is with a good pair of binoculars. Once you have
found her, you can then usually see her with your naked eyes.
She will appear as a tiny sparkle of light to the naked eye. Both Mercury and
Venus show phases, like the moon. That’s because they are ‘inner’ planets and
the sun shines on the side that faces the sun. The rest is in shadow. Through
my scope both Mercury and Venus showed about half a disk, similar to what the
moon was showing.
Because Saturn is an ‘outer’ planet, she will always show a full disk. Her disk and rings are bight enough that they are also visible while there is still some light in the lower west. That makes her easy to find, as very few stars are visible under slightly lighted conditions. So while the moon is not totally flooding the sky with its reflected light, there is a lot to look at right now.
doug
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Hello
everyone!
Well, we
made it home from Long Point in one piece and enjoyed every minute of the
weekend. We went down on Saturday and came home on Sunday evening. Carole’s
cousin and her husband were fun to spend a couple of days with. They have a
cottage that is right on the waterfront beach in Long Point. It’s a cottage
that was built by the aunt of a friend of theirs back in the mid 40’s. She sold
it to them in 1985. The cottage is exactly as it was when it was first built.
There have been literally no changes in the place except for the odd piece of
furniture being updated over the years. It’s quaint and rustic but Carole and I
think it’s a diamond in the rough. There is no insulation so they can’t really
make use of it in the winter time. The only modern thing they have done to it
is put on a new metal roof. They love the originality of it and it is nice but
we just happen to like to imagine what we would do with it if it was ours. It’d
be fun to fix it up and change it to our liking for sure. The location is great
being right on the beach of Lake Erie. Because of the changing level of the
lake, some years they have a huge sand beach and other years they have 10’ or
so from the rocks at the edge of their property to the water. No matter though,
it is always beautiful! Their lake shore yard is actually about 75’ from the
cottage to the beginning of the beach. Their lot is all sand with a few trees
on it. They have large wire nets filled with limestone rocks to act as a break
wall should the tide surge up that high. It protects them from water damage
from large waves. Lake Erie being the shallowest of the great lakes it’s prone
to quick and violent storms. When even a mild storm passes over the lake it can
stir up the sand bottom and make the lake look like light coloured chocolate
milk. However most days it crystal clear and sparkling water is a beautiful
blue colour. We happened to be there when the lake was a mixture of both, brown
along the shore and blue out about 100m. It looked very strange, like someone
had drawn a line along the lake shore and mixed one side with chocolate milk.
Strange looking for sure!
*
When we
were kids (I remember being there when I was 11) we used to vacation at Long
Point with our parents at their friends cottage. Just being there for this
short time brought back a lot of memories from back then. I especially
remembered as I sprayed on my sun block how my shoulders and ears used to have
huge blisters on them after spending most of the day on the beach in the
intense sun. OUCH! I can still feel the pain as my aunt Thelma plastered Noxema
all over my shoulders and ears. How I shivered all night with the strange cold
of the pain of sunburn. I had to spend the next few days wearing a tee shirt
even when in swimming to keep from aggravating the blisters. Oh well, we didn’t
have such luxuries as Sun Block back then and people, especially the women
literally soaked themselves in OIL to make the sun deep fry them for that “all
over” tan. It’s now wonder we have such high incidences of skin cancer
nowadays. My doctor told me as he burned a few spots off my head with Liquid
Nitrogen that these spots that are now appearing on me are from childhood sun
damage and if not removed now will turn into cancer.
Hopefully
our kids will not have to experience such dreaded consequences when they are
our age. Of course who knew about such things back in the 50’s and 60’s…
nobody! Live and Learn I always say!
*
The drive
to and from the north shore of Lake Erie is a pleasant one. For the most part
it is a straight run south on highway 24A from Cambridge to Simcoe and then it
curves west for about 20kms until the left turn point to Long Point. Long Point
is on … you guessed it… a “long point” of sand that juts out into Lake Erie off
the north shore. It extends for about 5kms south and then east in the lake. It
ends at a huge sandy Provincial Park. Being one of the older vacation spots in
Ontario it’s quaint cottages are a little dilapidated now and people are
starting to replace them with newer structures. It’s easy to see that there is
more money available these days than when the area was first inhabited. Long
Point even has one sub division of new half million dollar homes on the eastern
end of the “town”. Other than that patch of about 20 homes there is no more
development land available for such expansion. If you want to build a new
cottage on Long Point now, you’ll have to purchase an existing place and rip it
down and start over.
One thing
we both commented on was the lack of heavy traffic we encountered on the way to
the lake. If we were heading up north to the popular cottage areas of Georgian
Bay we’d have been fighting bumper to bumper parking lot style traffic all the
way. It seems this almost forgotten area of vacation land is in entirety a
Diamond In The Rough. I’m sure the people that live or vacation along the Lake
Erie shore line prefer it that way and hope it stays that way for many years to
come. It’s a lovely quiet area to spend your vacation in for sure.
Guess
that’s it for this weeks folks! Thanks for tuning in and I look forward to
talking to you all again next time in The Ontarion Report!
Bye for now.. Greg
PS:
Something To Think About>
A snail
can sleep for three years.
****
The Family and the Squamidian sites:
http://members.shaw.ca/doug_b/ and http://www.thedougsite.ca
Have a good one..
the
doug
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