forests

Managing expectations

/ Amanda On A Small Blue Planet / 2 Comments

Like everyone, it’s been challenging to be resilient in the face of a global pandemic, climate meltdown, and sixth mass extinction. Writing anything has been hard, drawing has been easier, perhaps because the only thing I think about is ‘which colour should this leaf be?’ ‘Do I have enough coloured pencils?’ (the answer to the last question is always no).

Finally I’m back at work, albeit inevitably with some hours cut. It feels good to have some kind of schedule again after the weird melding of time. Each week rolled by with little to distinguish the days (who cared if it was a Monday or a Saturday?) except for some online exercise and drawing classes and then in June socially distant mountain bike lessons that I’d been hankering after for two years.

Providing the most effective and immediate salve to anxiety however, has been being getting outside; like so many during this time I’ve found I can ground in nature. I recognise and am so grateful to have that privilege here in Western Canada. In late June the Provincial campgrounds finally reopened and a couple of weeks later we headed out to enjoy the luxury of large tent sites and a different view.

Duck Lake Recreation Area

Scott looking out over the Duck Lake Recreation Area, Powell River, Sunshine Coast

A break in mountain biking at Duck Lake

Lunch break at Duck Lake.

Arbutus tree, Saltery Bay

Arbutus tree: Saltery Bay, Sunshine Coast

Roberts Creek

Roberts Creek, Sunshine Coast

When the smallness of our tiny apartment proved more challenging than anticipated with us both at home so much, four or five days camping in the Okanagan and on the Sunshine Coast were like islands of relief. Like many, we’ve had to manage our expectations: of ourselves, of each other and of each day. It’s a time of emotional adjustment and of building psychological resilience. Never a bad thing.

We’ve learnt how to grow things, well partly. We took over a community vegetable garden and it’s probably been about fifty per cent successful. Which is okay, I’ve had to manage my expectations around that too. Sometimes you lose plants to insects, sometimes the plants thrive. It’s all a learning curve. The dahlias did well.

dahlias

Dahlias

And with autumn arriving in a flurry of fog, rain and wind, we’ve had to adjust to the fact that if we’re going to spend as much time outdoors as we can, we’re just going to have to accept that sometimes we’ll be cold, damp and sitting in fog in the campground. Which happened last weekend on Salt Spring Island. And that was okay too.

foggy campground

Camping on foggy Salt Spring Island.

dew-laden cobweb

Dewy cobweb in the morning fog

 

A flower drawing, and a video on saving our planet.

/ Amanda On A Small Blue Planet / 2 Comments

Lately, I’ve been working on a drawing of a hollyhock flower. I loved learning how I could keep the delicacy of the flower petals intact (lots of patient layering of colour), and for the first time used masking fluid to make sure I kept the white areas free of colour as I drew. Messy at first but ultimately it seemed to work. I also learned that hollyhocks not only are good providers of nectar for pollinators, but also offer up a much needed start to the life of the butterfly, providing a home and food to the caterpillars.

hollyhock flower

hollyhock flower

And I had to include a very good short film in this very short post.

 

Discovering new mountain bike trails, part two: Cumberland, British Columbia

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Mountain biking Cumberland, BC

Taking a breather, Cumberland, BC

After three days of a rural retreat on Quadra Island in July, we headed for another mountain bike hub, Cumberland, the self-styled ‘village in the forest’ nestled in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. We were booked in for three nights at a local airbnb, a cute self-contained apartment with a full kitchen – so saving us a ton of dough cooking our own food – and oh joy, a washer and dryer; sweaty, rank bike gear no more!

I hadn’t realized exactly how close to the trail system we’d be. A step out of the door from the converted attic above a nice family home, one, two, three turns of the pedals, a couple of moments coasting down the road on a gentle incline and we were suddenly in the woods and starting up a forestry road. No driving to a trailhead, no fighting traffic, no muss no fuss.

The trails in Cumberland are excellent; well-maintained, clearly marked, extensive, fun and challenging when you want. Thanks to the efforts of the local bike club, the United Riders of Cumberland, the agreements they hold with private landowners have allowed the development and maintenance of a vast network of trails in a working forest. Additionally, the Cumberland Community Forest Society has over the last few years been raising funds to buy parcels of forest adjacent to the town and in the process are protecting an important ecological, recreational and historical area.

BC BC Bike Race, Cumberland, BC

BC Bike Race

Cumberland attracts riders from around the world. The last day of our visit the town hosted the second stage of the BC Bike Race, ‘the world’s best mountain bike race’ ~ Outside Magazine. The race next year is already sold out. We watched as over six hundred riders shot past our airbnb into the woods early in the morning, the spin of so many wheels buzzing like a vast hive of bees. The local sports field was a sea of red tents set up for the riders that night, and were just as suddenly gone the next day, on to another stage of the race in another town.

MTB trails, Cumberland, BC

Scott, Cumberland

Bike races aside, for all its popularity as a mountain biking destination once we’d ridden up the forestry road and veered off on the first of many trails we saw at most a handful of riders each day. On the second day dark clouds hove into view as a deep rumble of thunder sounded. Despite its throat clearing the sky spared us all but a spattering of rain and lightning. We traversed a web of trails that led us up into great swathes of logged, open land; stumps and replanting abounded instead of thick forest. At other times we were led back into gorgeous woods that had been temporarily spared the chainsaw or were soon to be felled, judging by the brightly coloured plastic ribbon that adorned them.

I’m conflicted about the areas we rode in. The trails are brilliant: loamy, rocky, rooty, flowy, techy, take your pick. But the cleared areas jarred. The forest society notes on their website that all unprotected forest is to be logged. Replanting can’t hide the evidence of chainsaws at work (at this point of the growth cycle anyway). Where new growth reached just over our heads, it was easier to deny the logging – the inevitable out of sight, out of mind.

Coal Mine
Heritage building fronts
Town centre
Says it all…..

In a way Cumberland is a lesson in survival and evolution (I highly recommend a visit to the Cumberland Museum and Archives, we learnt a lot in a couple of hours one afternoon). With the discovery of coal in the 1800’s, Union, as the town was once called after the Union Coal Mining Company, grew rapidly, swelled by the arrival of Chinese and to a lesser extent, Japanese, immigrants to work the mines in harsh and dangerous conditions. As coal production gradually declined followed by the depression and WWII, many Chinese returned home whilst the Japanese endured forced internment during the war years. Chinatown and Japanese Town were dismantled. Logging replaced coal mining as the primary industry. Bolstered by the conviction that the forest is now worth more standing than felled, the community is ushering in a new economy. It’s nice that mountain biking is a vital part of this latest growth; Cumberland, with its artsy, craft beer, music, outdoor enthusiasts scene will have fully evolved once again.

We’ll be back.

Vanilla MTB trail, Cumberland

GoPro screen capture from Scott of Vanilla MTB, Cumberland. Flowy, bermy, fun!