January 6th, 2016
ABC Wednesday
The letter is Z and gadZooks, Z stands for Zebellos
and here we are at the end of the alphabet......

Zeballos is a deep sea port located at the end of Zeballos Inlet on the wild west coast of Vancouver Island. about a two hour drive north of Campbell River.  It was named for Lt. Ciriaco Ceballos, a crew member aboard an early ship of Spanish explorer Alessandro Malaspina's expedition (1789-1794)  (Malaspina is also a familiar name on the Island).  The inlet remained somewhat obscure until gold was discovered in the 1920's, and this resulted in the usual influx of miners and adventurers.

The historic buildings in the village are a living reminder of these frontier days.

I recently purchased a book of paintings by Michael Kluckner 

(Vanishing British Columbia)

Here is his rendition of the hotel in Zeballos

and here as it stands today

Zeballos thrived in the Gold Rush days, but when World War 11 began

many of the miners and much of the workforce joined

the Canadian Forces, and the mines eventually closed..

Post war efforts were made to revitalize the industry

but the low price of gold made it uneconomical for the mines to continue

operating, and within twenty years they had all closed.

In the 1950s logging emerged as a promising new industry for the village 

and today the majority of the town's residents, along with the population

of the two neighbouring First Nations reserves

(the Oculcje and Ehatis)

are employed in the timber industry.

The village is becoming a favourite destination for kayakers, sportsfishers and those who want to experience the wild nature of this west coast.

There are fishing Lodges

and a museum

and for the more adventurous Rugged Mountain and the Slab in the Nomash

River Valley are well known to rock climbing enthusiasts.

Some of the best cold water diving on Vancouver Island can be found

just a short boat ride away from Zeballos,

The water are especially clear in the winter, and

colourful anemones sway in the currents while Puget Sound king crab scuttle below.  

There are purple hinged scallops, soft corals and abalone.

There are bears and elk and sea otters and whales

and beautiful towering forest-clad mountains.

You must come!!

How to get there....

Many more Zs at ABC Wednesday.

Click here and visit with Roger, Denise and

those who so kindly help and visit on behalf of the meme

January 4th, 2016

The Tenth Day of Christmas and I am taking down Christmas decorations slowly, carefully. randomly and stealthily so that our daughter, who loves Christmas, will not be struck down upon entering the house and finding the simplicity of bare-boned January staring her in the face.....They are just disappearing, one by one - two by two.....

When the light of Epiphany arrives and the sun comes shining through (surely the sun will come shining through by then....) all of Christmas that I am going to keep will  be tucked away tidily in the back bedroom closet,  dreaming dreams of wreaths and garlands, candles and bells.

I have a pretty plethora of Christmas decorations, - some of them are still in the church, waiting to be boxed up, and some of them need to be offered up to family who may want them for old times sake, to stir the blessed memories of Christmas when one was young.

Yes, we are finished with Christmas (though not the spirit) and the New Year (though not the resolutions) and we are well into a giddy round of birthdays!!


One on New Year's Eve, two on the second of January (mine and a sweet one year old great grandson) one on the fourth, and the fifth and the sixth and the seventh and the eighth and finally our youngest son on the tenth.  A mad round of parties, if one was into that kind of gadding about!

Oh look, if I had taken the picture from the other side it would have said 16, Great Expectations instead of Great Memories....

I will leave the Great Expectations to my dear little great grandson with whom I share a birthday, and hope they will eventually morph into marvelous memories for him, 

and for the other sweet great grands!

New Year's Eve 2015

Gentle thoughts, sweet memories, the first kiss of the new year, the whisper of love renewed, - and what of this new year that I must fill with enthusiasm and energy.......while Auld Lang Syne slips into evening hours...

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.

So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.

Where there was something and suddenly isn't.
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.

Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn't do
crackle after the blazing dies.

Burning of the Old Year
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Y is for Yale

ABC Wednesday
December 29th, 2015

The letter is Y, and Y is for Yale as we slide towards the end of Alphabetic Towns in British Columbia.

A little town with a racy past.....

indeed - it was said to be "the wickedest little settlement in British Columbia"

in it's heyday, at the peak of the Gold Rush -

and the "largest city west of Chicago and north of San Francisco".

The town was founded in 1848 by the Hudson's Bay Company as Fort Yale.

It played an important role in certain events of the gold rush period which threatened

British control in the region with annexation by the United States,,

However, the Governor came to Yale during the crisis, and later

Matthew Baillie Begbie, (the hanging judge)  arrived to take control of matters, and the Fraser Canyon War didn't amount to much.

Located on the Fraser River just south of where the Fraser Canyon begins and at the end

of navigable waters, the town had a busy dockside life as well as a variety

of bars, restaurants, hotels, saloons and 'various services'

Although it declined in population after the Gold Rush days it retained some prestige and such sophistication as had grown up within the rough gold town.  It was as familiar to early provincial high society as were New Westminster and distant Barkerville.

It was the location of All Hallows which was ranked as one of the main society

schools in the colony and continued to operate for decades, even into the 1920s.

There is a sweet old church,  (St. John the Divine) which I am particularly

drawn to, it having the same name as the Church I have attended for the past

sixty years - and a Museum associated with it. 

Travel on the river and the Cariboo Wagon Road was the key to Yale's success,

and when the construction of the CPR railway destroyed parts of the

Cariboo Wagon Road it cut the town off from dockside transport.

After major reconstruction of the Cariboo Highway in the 1950s the difficult old canyon stretch of the route achieved highway quality and Yale boomed once again.  However

with the opening of the faster Coquihalla Highway in the 1980s 

Yale's economy and population fell off once more.

Today most of the population are members of the self-governing Yale First Nation,

and All Hallows is a campground.

There is a great adventurous river rafting company...

the fishing is stupendous

 and every summer the town and its spectacular natural landscape is visited by an

historical re-enactment group to celebrate the Royal Engineers

 who worked on the Cariboo Wagon Road, 

served during the 'wars' and were an integral part of Yale's life

from the gold rush to the end of the 1870's.

How to get there?  Just go up the river from Vancouver until the

sternwheeler won't take you any further!!!!

You might keep an eye out for the Sasquatch who is said to inhabit the hills.

 Visit here for more interesting Ys at ABC Wednesday
with thanks to Roger, Denise, and their kind helpers.

X for Xat'sull Heritage Village

ABC Wednesday
December 23rd, 2015

The letter is X for Xat'sull Heritage Village

The Xat'sull (Hat'sull) First Nation community invites you to visit the Xat'sull Heritage Village.

Located in the Cariboo on the banks above the mighty Fraser River (the river which has played such an integral role in the life of the region), the Xat'sull is the most northern Shuswap tribe of the Seewqeperine Nation.

They followed a hunting and gathering lifestyle centered in family groups and focused on the River and the salmon.   In the winter they prepared for spring time excursions to gather staples and handicraft materials.  In the summer it was a time to gather roots and to anticipate the arrival of the great Chinook salmon, and after that the Sockeye.  The time for reaping the harvest had begun, and with drying racks and the collection of berries life along the river became alive again.

The fall was the time for hunters to test their skills and accuracy.  They hunted in the Cariboo mountains, families spreading out, preferring different areas,  rotating their hunting and practising a management which strengthened their culture and maintained a harmonious relationship with the land.

This  spiritual, cultural and traditional way of life of this community can be experienced in this National Award Winning Heritage Village through visiting with the Elders, and taking part in tours, educational and recreational activities.

There is overnight accommodation in either a Tepee

or a pit house (kikule house) which was the traditional home of the Xat'sull.

There are demonstrations of crafts, sweat houses, for cleansing of the body, mind, and spirit, a summer hut, a picnic area, an opportunity to share a meal, dancing and celebrations.

A wonderful opportunity to immerse yourself in the old ways of British Columbia, before the Europeans arrived. and I understand the hospitality is great!

You know how to get to Williams Lake (from the previous posting for W) and just a few miles from there you will find this great Heritage Village.

If you click here you will also find other great Xs, at ABC Wednesday, with thanks to Denise, Roger and all their eXpert helpers.

X, you will remember, is also a monogram of Christ,

 and a perfectly acceptable way to write Christmas, 

so I will wish you all much love, and peace, and the merriest of  Xmases.

This and That, with a Christmassy flavour

Somehow I have found myself smack dab in the middle of Christmas-as-it-was.  The traditional Christmas open house for family on Christmas Eve - Beef Stew, Oyster Stew and Apple Pie and goodies; 

Christmas dinner right here at Grandma's and me, cooking the turkey (which I haven't done for years) getting out all the good china, polishing the silver, checking lists, doing the old familiar baking.  

It has made December deliciously exciting, and I have managed to keep ahead of myself with posting parcels, Christmas letters and the most traditional baking.

The paper whites are a foot high,  showing promising bud tips that assure me by Christmas Eve they will look like this....

And the white Cyclamen that friends at the Legion sent when Charles died is in glorious bloom.

The early Hellebores which were blooming so beautifully are now under a few inches of snow, and looking quite frail and shaken....

The house is decorated, the outside lights glow in the cedar tree that is finally the way Charles would have liked it, as result of a heavy snowfall last year that changed its design completely from a prim global shape to a free flowing home for all the small birds.  

At night it looks like this, with the reflection of the piano and the music and the house lamps on the lovely great balls the neighbour left with me when they moved.

Yesterday a dear granddaughter invited me to the morning performance of the Primary School Concert, - the performance where it seems all grandparents and great grandparents are present, - at least I saw all sorts of old (in the true meaning of the word) friends, and people who I thought should be parents but were, in fact, grandparents!  Oh, where is time going as it flies past so quickly.

Here is Corbin, our great-grandson, in the middle of classmates, singing the "Rag Doll Rock"!!

This was the theme of the concert.  "TOYS! The Night They Came Alive".  No particular reference to Christmas, or the true meaning of.....  Not a 'Christmas Concert" as I remember them when it was our turn to be parents, but still a great joy to see all the children, so full of vitality and excitement and it was a great gift to all those present.  Phones were raised high, - probably the most photographed and videod event in town this year!!!

So I came home from the concert and filled the bird feeders.  It was so nice and mild outside and the birds all came flocking and provided a nice show for me and for Callie...

Then it turned really nasty out.  A wild wind blew in from the west and swirled the snow around. 

I decided to make mince tarts, and small tiny tart shells for the lemon curd that Charles used to love so much.  And then I mixed up some butter tart filling, - just a tad too much so that the tart shells were TOO FULL and bubbled up all over the pan.  Well,  I got some of the tarts out in decent condition and they should pass muster on the plates, as long as there are lots of other goodies to hide their ragged shells, but the others have ended up as little round balls in golden candy cups, and who will know the difference.  They are delicious.

It was a toss-up as to what I should do this morning.  I thought rum balls would be fun, but then I opened a drawer and looked at the silver, and my more responsible side got the better of me.....

So I spent an hour or two making things shine, including the thoughts I was having about Christmases past, - the reminisence of the friends who had given us all this silver for wedding presents when electrical appliances and other wedding type gifts were not available at the end of the war, - and I remembered Charles buying me the sweet salt and mustard containers that were such a part of the Christmas table.  And the silver cups for salted almonds that were always a tradition at home....

Two hours well spent.....

It is lunch time now - a bowl of soup and then one of those recalcitrant  butter tarts!!!  And maybe I'll have a little nap....