Obey all signs

During frequent snowstorms driving becomes fraught with hazards, not the least of which is that the road hazard warnings are invisible. This one may warn of a school bus turnaround or a sharp curve ahead -- who's to know?

Snow story

Tiny perfect mouse paw and tail prints in the snow.

Kohan Teahouse

Rhododendrons, minus 8

Rhododendrons generally grow quite well here in the acidic soil. They don't much like the really cold temperatures, though, and below about minus 2 the leaves begin to curl tightly. The curling maximizes at about minus 8 Celsius, as shown here. In between, the amount of droop-and-curl correlates pretty well with the weather and is a useful gauge of the temperature.

Holiday Lights at the Kohan

Christmas lights at the volunteer-maintained community Kohan Reflection Garden. View from beneath the tea house gazebo.

Avalanche arms

High winding roads are all equipped with these arms for winter use. The small sign near the road warns you not to stop in the area ahead due to its susceptibility to avalanches. The arms are lowered if an avalanche has occurred or if the highways department is firing off shells to do avalanche control.

After Cape Horn

This view is the prize for successfully navigating the highway past Cape Horn.

Cape Horn

Cape Horn is a huge steep bluff of rock that forms the southern gateway into the Slocan Lake area. From the highway you catch your first glimpse of the lake. The road was only recently widened (in the 1990's) to a full two lanes throughout. Many locals still think the road improvement was a poor thing. They liked that this place was hard to get to.

Night market

The Christmas by the Lake market by night.

Christmas lights

Simplicity is one of the abiding values of our area, but there are a few people who go full-out decorating the outside of their homes or workplaces with Christmas lights. This is the local dental clinic.

Angry winter lake

There's a huge mountain range in the background, but it's obscured by falling snow.

Ice slide

The internationally famous award-winning Canadian Snow Sculpture team lives nearby and among other things they build an ice-slide at Christmas by the Lake every year. It's a huge hit with the kids and adults alike. At night it's lit by red LED lights that run beneath the ice, illuminating the whole thing like magic.

Winter weather

The first real snowstorm of the year. Vehicles in ditches, people bailing out on commitments due to travel difficulties, power outages, that sort of snowstorm. Pretty, though.

Christmas by the Lake

A European-style indoor/outdoor Christmas market and festival, organized principally by the German members of our community. It was new last year and was a huge success.