Twinflowers are all over the Gabriola woods right now, and they’ve got to be the prettiest groundcover ever. (I blogged about them last year when I learned their Latin name and realized what was cool about that.) Anyway. Here we have twinflowers growing on one of the old wrecks in the Gabriola forest. Flowers and [...]
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What do you suppose this is doing in the Gabriola woods? At first I thought it was the world’s biggest beer bottle, but no. It’s made of plastic, and the letters on the plastic say PERFEX. Is this another leftover from somebody’s forest grow-op?
Filed in Gabriola Island,junk in the forest,photos,trails 5 Comments so far
Well, it looks like a metal mushroom, don’t you think? It’s actually a rusty metal spool, which probably once had cable around it. It’s in the Gabriola woods, of course. Where else would a rusting old thing be?
Filed in Gabriola Island,junk in the forest One Response so far
When I spot the remains of some old metal thing – a vehicle, an off-beat art project, a mystery – rusting away in the Gabriola woods, I’ll often leave the trail to go investigate. The wrecks usually aren’t on the main path – they’re likely to be ten or twenty paces into the woods, say, [...]
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I’ve found several more turquoise wrecks recently, but this is the first red one I’ve seen in ages. It’s nested in the salal in Gabriola’s 707 Acre Woods, just off the trail on the circle route. Have you spotted it on your way past?
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Last year I showed you a plastic bottle that appeared in a tree in the Gabriola woods. Since then, five or six more plastic jugs and a large bucket have appeared in the same cedar tree. It makes a good landmark, but it’s kind of odd to have a tree in festooned in plastic. One [...]
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For years I’ve been thinking of these piles of branches and stuff as debris, but now I’ve been living on the Isle of the Arts long enough to see the truth of it all. It’s art. Of course it is. Look at the symmetry, the composition! The angles! The use of colour! Regular readers will [...]
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So, old cars. There are a lot of them in the Gabriola forest, you know, rotting away. Mostly they’re in pieces, and being gradually covered in moss and salal. They’re usually a bit off the beaten path. Sometimes car parts become trail markers or salal decorations, like this tire rim.
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There are lots of pails in the Gabriola forest, probably dating from the time when the forest was logged. Since then the pails have started blending in, bit by bit: trees fell on them, moss grew over them, salal grew around them. Every once in a while some hiker spots a bit of plastic, drags [...]
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So, clothes dryers. Dump them in the forest seems to have been the favoured disposal method for old clothes dryers on Gabriola; I’ve found quite a few in the woods over the years. Recently I’ve been re-visiting the ones I know about, thinking that maybe I could find a good dryer drum for Michael Mehta, [...]
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How long has this been at the side of the road in the 707 Acre Woods? I used to walk that main loop (from end of Ricki Avenue to the end of Jeanette Avenue) every day, and I’m sure I would have noticed this if it had been at the roadside then. Has somebody dragged [...]
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Recognize this wreck? It’s another treasure in the Gabriola woods. I’ve walked past it a million times, but always a few feet to the left, I guess. The other day something glimmered in the light, and so I took a closer look. It seems like a whole car is there, mostly covered in moss and [...]
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I wouldn’t want you to think that the clothes dryer in the Gabriola forest is lonely. Just thirty paces or so from the dryer is its companion: a washing machine complete with hoses. It’s nestled in the ferns and salal at the side of the trail.
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How do you get rid of old household appliances? "Leave them in the middle of Gabriola’s forest as installation art" has been the answer for some folks. Here we have a clothes dryer that’s been carefully set upon a stump. Perhaps somebody thought it would be a handy trail marker? Update: the washing machine nearby [...]
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I’m stunned by the amount of drinking that goes on in the Gabriola woods. And how do I know about it? Because I hike in the woods every day, and find beer bottles and cans everywhere. And vodka, gin, brandy, rum, and other bottles, too. I suspect the bottles I’m finding are left by teens. [...]
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It’s just off the trail, so I must have walked past this thousands of times. What is it, or what was it? Although the RDN cleaned up the dump that used to be on the top of the hill in the 707-acre park, there are lots of other places in the Gabriola woods where one [...]
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