Hello, good morning

At this time of year it takes longer and longer for the sun to clear the mountain ridges in the morning. When it finally does, the effect can be spectacular.

Leaving town

The last of the tourists and seasonal residents are pulling out as the leaves change and the snow creeps closer.

Lake view, early autumn

Autumn colour

Autumn colour is subtler in the boreal forest than in the temperate deciduous region I grew up in. But even on a dreary rainy mid-fall day it's there.

Early fall trees

The birches have turned, but the larches will be another couple of weeks at least. There's lots of fresh snow on the glacier, and a dusting on the ground. Winter is mustering his forces on the mountain tops.

K&S Railway at Payne Siding

This hike takes you up high above the junction of Kane, Sandon and Carpenter Creeks. The views are fantastic, but beneath your feet there are things just as interesting -- such as snow in early October, and the corduroy impression of long-removed railway ties of the K&S Railway, cast in relief by the snow.

Garlic display

Red hardneck rocambole varieties, especially Russian Red, were the big sellers at the Garlic Festival.

Soap

As a region the BC interior must have a lot of dirty people. There are sure a lot of soapworks companies! (Actually I think it may be that sales of antibacterial plastic-bottled Lever body-cleaning products are lower.) At any rate, I love the look of stacks of natural multi-hued bars of soap. There were several such booths at the Garlic Festival.

Crowds

This photo shows about 10% of the Annual Hills Garlic Festival. It's really really big for a village of 600 residents.

Garlic Festival

One little town, one day, scores of vendors, live entertainment, food, garlic, six thousand people, lots of garlic and other beautiful produce as well as a zillion handicrafts and food items.

Gazebo skylight

Gazebo

A gazebo was built at Centennial Park in New Denver this year. Hand-crafted, with incredible attention to detail. Throughout the summer it has played host to the Art in the Park program for young children.

Fallen trees at the Kohan

A couple of cottonwoods and a couple of smaller cedars came down at the Kohan Garden. Definitive cleanup will probably happen at Wednesday evening's weekly volunteer workbee.

Sit at your own risk

A ferocious windstorm brought down dozens of trees around town, including many giant cottonwoods and cedars along the lakefront. Several fell on trailers, sheds, campers and atop or near houses but no one was injured. Beneath this one is the remains of a park bench.

Zen world fusion under the trees

A new constellation of local musicians have been jamming a new kind of music and this weekend they put on a performance at the Kohan Garden. It was the place to be. Small people, tall people, old people, young people, shorts & tank top people, long skirt people, local people, former local people, visitors from afar. Almost as much a social event as a musical one, but the music was great too.

School garden

This new green space adjacent to the preschool and primary classrooms grows herbs, veggies and a wide variety of colourful and interesting plants. During the summer it's maintained mostly by volunteers.

Cello with limbs

It's music school time again. Pedestrian traffic can look a little unique.

Smoky haze

Smoke

Wildfires 75 km to the north have put a haze in the air, making the mountain peaks and ridges barely visible. They're dropping ash on everything, and giving the sunlight a curious orangey-yellow cast.

Fishing

Garden Bench

Shade

On the heat of a late July day, visitors to the Kohan Garden can find shade and peacefulness alongside the lakeshore.

Kohan Entryway Roof Detail

Detail of timber joinery inside the entry hut at the Kohan Garden.

Kohan Garden Entry

Street faire

Besides the weekly farmers' market, New Denver hosts an annual street faire attracting flea market, antique, jewelry, imports and clothing vendors.

Fingland Cabin Blacksmith Tools

The Fingland Cabin in Silverton was the home and blacksmithy of Fred Fingland. It's a log cabin that was built in 1896 and restored by the local historical society. It's operated as a part-time museum by the society, with occasional blacksmithing demonstrations during holiday celebrations.

Bridge over Silverton Creek

The main highway bridge in the community of Silverton, spanning Silverton Creek.

Valhalla Pure

Valhalla Pure is a sporting goods retailer with 17 retail locations across western Canada. The owner has had this property in New Denver since he started the company. The name Valhalla Pure was inspired by the Valhalla Mtn. range visible across the lake. The store is only open May through September but it carries a great range of quality clothing and gear. The chain-wide seconds and remainders arrive here in boxes once the tourists have gone home and on a little-publicized Saturday in the fall the locals have a field day picking through bins and scooping up amazing deals.

The same bench can be seen in a wintry west-facing view in this entry.

Dusk at the lake

Canada Day

Canada Day Dog Show

With prizes for "cutest dog," "best trick," "worst dog breath" and "best hang-dog expression," the Annual Canada Day Community Dog Show is always a hit.

Sweet Dreams

The best local Bed & Breakfast. Amazing breakfasts. Dinner by request. A lovely old building, facing out onto the lakefront.

Picnic stop

This picnic area was originally conceived as part of a commemorative installation to make reparations for the government's 1950's policy of placing Doukhobor kids in reform school. Scores of kids who were living in a communal Doubkhobor community 100 km south of here, being educated within their community rather than within public schools, were apprehended for truancy and brought to New Denver to be forced into residential schooling. Their parents were allowed to see them on Sundays through a chain-link fence. The journey up the valley was often gruelling and could take many hours. It was forced cultural assimilation. There was resistance, at times violent.

The fractured picnic table is symbolic of the fracturing of families that occurred. The picnic area is lovely and well-tended. Unfortunately the reparations process broke down and this gesture left many survivors feeling unsatisfied and insulted. So there's no plaque, no explanation. Only an unusual pair of picnic tables.

Carpenter Creek Mouth

Looking the other direction along Carpenter Creek towards where it empties into Slocan Lake. The gradually vanishing New Denver Glacier can be seen between the two peaks in the background.

Lupine colour

Peak colour at the Secret Lupine Garden.

The Secret Lupine Garden

Along the foreshore at the south end of the village are the hospital, the heli-pad, the meadow, a scrubby area, the Kohan Reflection Garden and then Centennial Park and its campground. Tucked into the scrubby area behind the wall of wild rose bushes, where no one ever goes, is the most amazing secret wildflower garden. Lupines bloom at this time of year on roadsides all over our area, but the Secret Lupine Garden is exceptional for the density of flowers, the lakefront location and the sheer range of colours. No one knows whether they were sown by a local Miss Rumphius or not. Old-timers say they've been growing for fifty years at least.

Carpenter Creek This Week

Rock in the centre now completely submerged. Huge standing waves on the outside of the curve at the upper left.

Canyon

It's called Denver Canyon even though it's a thousand miles from Denver. Carpenter Creek heads down the mountain from Bear and Fish Lakes, past Three Forks, where it collects Cody Creek from Sandon and Kane Creek from the north, eventually emptying into the lake near the bridge from which I've been photographing it every week. Before it reaches New Denver, though, it runs through Denver Canyon, a narrow bottleneck cut deep into the rock. The original power generating station which supplied New Denver until the 1950's was built here. The Galena Trail runs right along the precipice overlooking the gorge. In typical BC fashion there's no guard-rail. Somewhere there's a tastefully understated sign warning of a steep drop-off and that's all. It's probably 60 metres or more straight down over the edge of the concrete retaining wall here.

Cable car

The Galena Trail runs along the old K&S Railway bed that used to connect Nakusp and New Denver to the mining town of Sandon. Trail-builders created a unique solution to the problem of bridging Carpenter Creek, the old rail bridge having long since collapsed. This self-powered cable car spans the creek. It fits two or three people at a time. First you pull it up to the platform on your side and anchor it with a metal hook. Then you clamber in, unhook it and enjoy the whoosh as gravity takes you down to the middle of the creek. Then you hand-over-hand haul yourselves to the far side, hook on, clamber out, and release the car to the middle of the rope for the next travellers.

Carpenter Creek This Week

More of the gravel bar is under water, and that big rock in the main left stream is now almost submerged.

Parade

In a very very small town anyone can be in the big annual May Day Parade. You don't need a float, you don't need a costume, although many people have both of these. Preschoolers walk with their parents or friends, or get pushed in strollers or pulled in wagons. Kindergarteners ride bikes. Bubbles are blown, balloons and banners and ribbons and flowers and flags are carried. Candy is thrown and collected. The fire truck and police car sirens make it all into a loud exciting event.

Maypole dance

Every year at May Days community kids do the Maypole dance. This year, quite unexpectedly, there were no tangles! There are five separate patterns they do, but this double weave is the most picturesque.

Nikkei Centre

Hundreds of Canadian citizens and landed immigrants of Japanese heritage were interned in this area during WWII. This living museum, garden and interpretive centre was part of the government's formal apology to those affected.

Carpenter Creek This Week

Trees greener. Water deeper. The gravel bar is partly submerged now. The weather hasn't really thoroughly warmed up, so the real thaw and runoff from the mountains will be a while yet.

Winter and spring together

Fresh green leaves opening on the birch tree at low elevation, but fresh snow today on the ridge up higher.

Silvery Slocan Circle Route

There's a 250 km circular route of secondary highways that connects our valley with the next one over. It has become quite famous in motorcycle touring circles. It's winding and hilly and parts of it, especially our little corner of it, have a really remote feel. And the views are fabulous, with surprises around almost every corner. Beaver dams, glaciers, lakes, waterfalls, torrential creeks, shale slopes, old mine workings, sudden mountain vistas.

Monday is Victoria Day in Canada, the May long weekend, so motorcycle and RV/camper traffic is about to pick up along this route in a big way. But still today the highway is empty and the silence is blissful.

Carpenter Creek This Week

Sakura sakura

Cherry blossoms at the Nikkei Internment Memorial Centre.

Carpenter Creek This Week

Nature Boy 4 -- below the highway

It's now an huge mass of soil, bark, twigs, trunks and branches ... and snow, huge amounts of snow, insulated under the debris and therefore not melting at all quickly. Normally this area is a precipitous slope of evergreens like what can be seen beyond it, not a huge level bench of brown stuff.