Life in the Salish Sea

View of Coast Range from Bowen Island: photo D. Millar
Chris Corrigan's Bowen Island Journal is one of my favouriste place-blogs. Bowen is a 20-square-mile island a 20 minute ferry in good weather out of Horseshoe Bay, West Vancouver BC, inhabited by artists, singers, writers, hermits and intentional misfits who can flaunt their exurbanism and flexible hours. This nearly-submerged mountain, like many places on the Wet Coast (as we call it) enjoys a different climate every 30 meters of altitude. Sometimes the climate decides to climb down a step or two. In an act of homage and shameless plagiarism, we reproduce some excerpts:

Jan. 29 We awoke to ten centimeters of snow on the ground this morning [unusual at sea level]. (photo: Corrigan's house, more in the blog)

Jan 31 Rob Paterson [an East Coast blogger] is experiencing some emergency conditions on PEI as the power has been out for a few days now. He has posted a great set of musings on 21st century emergency communications as a result. Some of these are quite adoptable to Bowen.

Feb 6 Last night we had a significant wind and rain storm but this morning was sunny and bright and the snow line is up above 300 meters again. We seem to have had more snow this winter than any I can remember since moving here to the west coast in 1994.

Feb 7 My friend and neighbour James Glave has just published a mini-book on learning to hunt deer called "Buck the System." This is a brilliant 26 page story about his quest to bag a deer right here on Bowen. It's a moving piece of work and a phenomenally told story, and it captures beautifully the melancholic state of intention that lacks ultimate execution. James pokes at the folly of middle class environmentalism with a modern day parable that is about much more than aiming arrows at ungulates..

Feb 8 Nice high pressure ridge over our coast over the past few days, bringing sunny skies and fog to the region... La Nina is in full swing, which means that this kind of weather will be rare over the next six months Expect a wet spring again and possibly another wet summer. Might make the early berries a bit mushy, but the huckleberries and salal should come out fine.