Gabriolan.ca

Here’s a fungus I come across now and again in the Gabriola woods. I’ve seen some small specimens, but most of the ones I’ve found are huge. The one I saw last week was bigger than the platter you use for serving Christmas turkey. Amazing.

I’d love to know what it is, and I suppose I should get busy and start analysing this polypore to find out. I suppose it might be Ganoderma oregonense.

Anyway, it’s stunning. There are more photos in this gallery.

Tags: polypore

I’ve read about eagles in other parts of North America getting sick on food they eat because of lead poisoning. Do eagles on the BC coast suffer from lead poisoning, too? Apparently. According to a Canwest article, two Vancouver Island eagles died from lead poisoning last year:

Two Vancouver Island eagles that died last spring were killed by ingesting lead — possibly from eating fishing jigs or discarded lead shot, toxicology reports show.

The North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre recently received toxicology reports on two eagles submitted for testing in March 2009. The two eagles from the Parksville and Qualicum Beach were severely emaciated and had no fractures or visible hemorrhaging. [continue]

That’s pretty close to Gabriola. I hope our island eagles are free of lead.

Related:

• North Island Wildlife Recovery Association – niwra.org

Tags: eagles

Leave your car outside for too long on Gabriola and what happens? It grows moss.

It’s amazing how much litter there is in the Gabriola woods, and it’s not just along the trail, either: some of it’s under a dense thicket of salal. I know this because I bush-crash through the woods fairly regularly, and discover lots of stuff in the process.

Under salal I find plastic water bottles, juice bottles, and pop bottles. I suspect the salal-pickers leave these, because they appear in areas where I’ve seen salal being picked, or seen evidence that salal pickers have been in the area. (Salal pickers leave certain things behind, so it’s easy to see where they’ve been, even long after the salal they’ve picked has grown back.)

Anyway. Somebody else is finding this litter, too, and this somebody makes trail-markers out of the stuff.

Tags: salal, trailmarker

It was sunny in Vancouver this afternoon, from what we could see. Meanwhile, we were on Whalebone Beach under moody clouds.

I like Gabriola’s gray winter days.

We had the beach to ourselves. The dog herded seagulls, and we listed to the eagles and watched as the young eagles waited to be fed in the trees overlooking the beach.

I’ve been reading bits about the history of Weldwood on Gabriola Island. According to a page at the Islands Institute library, Until 1994 Weldwood of Canada owned 2800 acres, approximately 1/4 of Gabriola Island. Weldwood seems to have been a forestry company. (It’s since been purchased by West Fraser.)

Apparently Weldwood wanted to develop some of their Gabriola land — note the white parts inside the green-edged shapes in this map, which apparently shows one proposal made in 1993.

OK, so what I do know about the Weldwood proposal is that there was much division on Gabriola about it. And it seems that Weldwood’s proposal wasn’t accepted…right? Otherwise there would be development in the areas they wanted to develop, like on the lands between North Road and Whalebone beach.

But now those lands (between North Road and Whalebone) are owned by the Government of Canada (you’ve seen their no tresspassing signs along the Tunnel), and are called the Kensington Lands. How’d we get from Weldwood to Kensington? Kensington seems to refer to Kensington Island Properties. Their website says Since 1996, Kensington Island Properties have been in the land development business on Vancouver Island and Gabriola Island.

So I’m assuming that Weldwood logged the land, and then Kensington bought it, hoping to develop it. Is that right? Did Kensington develop other land on Gabriola?

Who drilled wells (see this photo and that photo) in the forest – Weldwood or Kensington?

I hope people who’ve lived on Gabriola since the early 1990s will be able to supply some of the details that I’m missing.

Tags: development, Kensington, Weldwood

Everybody on Gabriola heard about the drug busts a while ago: four grow-ops found by police, and a bunch of people arrested. It finally made the Nanaimo news today, and hence Canada.com. (Mounties target Gabriola’s marijuana trade.) Look, Gabriola, we’re famous again!

Tags: cannabis, grow-op, marijuana

Oh my, I’ve got lots more petroglyphs to show you! And other things too. No time tonight, though, but I thought I’d at least post a preview photo for you before going off to bed.

I’ll try to post more petroglyph photos soon, as well as blog entries for all the things I’ve been meaning to tell you or ask you.

Tags: petroglyphs, Snuneymuxw

This isn’t the sort of thing that I usually mention here, but folks concerned about privacy might want to know what Google’s up to. From Wired.com: ‘Don’t Be Evil,’ Meet ‘Spy on Everyone’: How the NSA Deal Could Kill Google.

Tags: privacy

A seed shortage? Really? Gabriola gardeners, if we need incentive to save our seeds, articles like this should do it:

Dreaming of biting into a garden-fresh cucumber sandwich this summer? Better order your seeds now.

A poor growing season last year and increased orders from Europe could make it difficult for home gardeners to get seeds for the most popular cucumber variety and some vegetables this spring. Farmers, who usually grow different varieties from home gardeners, aren’t likely to be affected.

Seeds for what’s known as open-pollinated cucumbers seem to be most scarce, but carrots, snap peas, and onions also could be in short supply. [continue]

This is an article from an American publication, so I wonder how much of a shortage we’ll see from seed suppliers in Canada. Well, still — t’was a wake-up call for me. I’ve decided that my 2010 resolution is to save seeds from my garden.

Tags: seeds

Most people on Gabriola rely on food that comes from off-island. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could be more self-sufficient with our food, we muse. And we talk about taking small steps towards that dream.

Well. Here’s a Guardian article about a British town that is way ahead of Gabriola on the self-sufficiency front. The article summary: With two fields, some pigs, chickens and community spirit, a Hampshire village is organising to defy supermarkets and become self-sufficient.

Here, take a look:

A village on the western fringes of Hampshire is well on the way to becoming the first in England to defy the power of the supermarkets by achieving communal self-sufficiency in food. (…)

Nick Snelgar, who earns a living from growing herbs and shrubs near his home in Martin, thought it was crazy that he could not eat local produce. It would be fresher, tastier and more nutritious than anything from the supermarket and I thought it could be cheaper too if we organised to cut out the middlemen, he says. Farmers’ markets tend to be expensive niche providers for the few. I wanted a system to provide local food for the many.

He organised a meeting in the village social club in 2003, and from it came the nucleus of enthusiasts who have organised the producer co-operative that is now feeding most of Martin’s residents.

Futurefarms grows 45 types of vegetables in two fields in the village. Within the fields, two acres are set aside for rearing free-range pigs. Chicken runs are moved regularly across the bigger field and the rest of the land is grazed by sheep. Chickens, lamb and pork are sold alongside vegetables at a Saturday morning market in the village hall throughout the year. [continue]

Could we do that on Gabriola?

The Nanaimo Daily News mentions mentions a rare flower that grows on Gabriola:

The bog birds-foot trefoil grows in just three locations on Vancouver Island with the largest number found on the Harewood plains. The plant is an endangered species in Canada and is red-listed in British Columbia, though it grows plentifully in areas like California.

The plant, with its cream pea-like flowering, grows in shallow soil and reaches about 15 to 60 centimetres in length. There are only five known sites in Canada where the plant grows, three of which are in Nanaimo with another on Gabriola Island and another near Ladysmith.

It’s a pretty little thing – here are some photos of this flower on Flickr.

For detailed information about this plant, see this .pdf document from the Garry Oak Ecosystem Recovery Team: Lotus pinnatus. It says, in part:

Bog birds-foot trefoil grows in open, seasonally wet meadows, along the margins of creeks, or in seepages where underground water comes to the surface. The species appears to require contact with cool, seeping water during the growing and blooming period. It grows in sites with shallow (< 15 cm) soils, over gently sloping sandstone or conglomerate bedrock.

Ok, then! I’ll be watching for this one.

Continue Reading »

Tags: bog birds-foot trefoil, Lotus pinnatus

He’s moved to Gabriola to farm. He’s in his fifties, he’s got nine kids, and there’s no school, so he teaches his own children. He realizes that he ought to know more himself, so he works to upgrade his education. He sends away for books, and he studies. Finally he decides he’s ready to take the examination to become a teacher.

He builds himself a rowboat. When it’s time for the teacher certification exam, he rows from Gabriola to Victoria, passes the exam, and then rows home. It’s 1881.

Do you know who he is?

Continue Reading »

Here’s an odd-looking cedar tree in the middle of the Gabriola forest. What has made the bark do that weird bumpy thing? Oh wait, look around the side. (Second photo.) Looks like the bark has been very deliberately cut.

I know about Gabriola’s culturally modified trees, which are trees from which bark was removed for First Nations’ use. Did somebody intend to harvest bark from this cedar tree, but then not complete the job? If so, why?

Tags: culturally modified trees

If you live on Gabriola, you’ve seen the deer amble into your yard, eat everything, and then amble out again. (Well, unless you’ve fenced everything, that is.) Ever wondered what deer teeth look like? Like this, my dears, like this.

(Bigger zoom-in-able version of the photo is here.)

I’m hoping that the brown on the teeth has happened recently (after the deer’s death) because the thought of deer suffering from tooth decay is a depressing one.

Tags: deer

There are so many signs to love on Gabriola. This is a recent addition, and those who live on Gabriola will probably take all of five seconds to guess where it’s appeared.

No bridge ahead is what I hope for Gabriola’s future.

Tags: bridge, sign

Because if this one is ringing, we’re probably all in big trouble. It’s the bell on the Bowen Queen — Gabriola’s replacement ferry, which we have while the Quinsam is being repaired and spruced up and whatnot.

That’s Haramac in the background, but you can’t see the clouds of whatever it’s contributing to the air we breathe.

(I never will get hired to write copy for the tourism people, will I?)

The weather on Gabriola right now is more like spring than winter, and the nettles agree. Last year it was March when I noticed that the island’s nettles were ready for picking. This year? Baby nettle plants are already a couple of inches tall in many parts of the forest. Head out to your favourite nettle patch now, and I bet you’ll harvest enough nettle for soup.

If you want to know more about nettle and what you can do with it, check out some of the previous blog entries about nettle.

Tags: nettle

I’ve seen all sorts of things rusting away on Gabriola, but this is a first for me. What is it? My primary consultant on Things Mechanical says it’s a steam engine — perhaps a steam-powered tractor, or a steam-powered plough, or maybe just an engine that was hooked up to something and used in place. I’d love to know its history.

If I ever buy a large section of property on Gabriola, I hope it will come with something interesting like this under the brambles.

The ever-fascinating Northwest Coast Archaeology blog has some Gabriola content today: Rock art on Gabriola in 1792. The blogger, qmackie, has found this image in the University of Washington’s digital collections.

Well, Gabriola, where could this be? The image label says near Descanso Bay. I’d say Malaspina Galleries, but I don’t think there is any rock art there. Was there, once? Or might this depict a different place along the Gabriola shore – somewhere near Descanso? Does anything come to mind as a likely location? Or is it just that the rock art shown in the engraving used to be at the Malaspina Galleries, but has faded away over the last 200 years?

Tags: petroglyphs, pictographs, rock art, Snuneymuxw

What do we all know about foam in Gabriola streams?

Well, ok. I know nothing, other than seeing masses of foam in streams all over the island. I rely now on your expertise. What do you know, wise and wonderful readers?

Is this evidence of polution? Dish-soap getting into Gabriola’s streams and wetlands? Or is there some natural explanation, and would this be happening even if humans weren’t on the island? Tell me, environmentally-geeky people. (Andrea, can you help? Anybody else?)

A fun and interesting friend visited last week (I am trying to convince her to start a Gabriola blog, though I don’t know if she’s realized that yet) and we wound up talking about small houses. Here’s one she showed me: the Glidehouse. The company behind it uses phrases like sustainable, modern, modular homes. Looks pretty cool!

There must be a price on that site somewhere, but I can’t find it just now.

Tags: alternative housing

I went looking for a map of Gabriola streams and wetlands. This isn’t quite what I had in mind, but it’s useful nonetheless: Gabriola Island Local Trust Area Freshwater Ecosystem Map (.pdf). It’s from the Islands Trust, of course.

Tags: map

Did you know that the RCMP is thinking of removing staff from some island detachments, and/or amalgamating detachments? I didn’t, but then, I don’t go to Islands Trust meetings; apparently this was discussed at the December Trust Council meeting.

The Islands Trust has just published a letter (.pdf here) that Sheila Malcolmson sent to Attorney General Michael de Jong about this issue. She says, in part:

The Islands Trust understands the need for policies that protect RCMP officer safety and understands that other small communities are likely experiencing similar situations. We would just ask that in your contract negotiations with the RCMP, you take into account the difficulty of access to Gulf Islands communities when an urgent police response is needed, particularly in inclement weather.

If the RCMP does re-organize things, will it affect Gabriola? One wonders. The issue seems to be backup, at least according to this Times Colonist article from March 2008: Some Island RCMP detachments too small to comply with national policy.

Tags: RCMP, Sheila Malcolmson

Gabriola’s forests are green all through the year, and sword ferns are part of that display. But they have their brown parts, too: underneath the green, near the ground. I’m impressed at how beautiful the dead parts are.

Tags: sword fern