Sojourn in Smithers, BC

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We are staying with son Matthew & wife Dawn (plus two sister cats) in the Old Ranger Station in Telkwa, 14 km south of Smithers. Open plan living in a gallery space is new to us but interesting. We were here in January with snow on the ground. Now with everything green and dry after a hot summer it's quite different. Matthew took us for a walk to their 300 foot-long Bulkley River waterfront property yesterday; they plan to build on its north end. We saw the havoc that first a winter flood then an ice-jam created on the river frontage. Giant tree trunks tossed into the bush above the shoreline, and scrapings on tree bark eight feet off the ground from ice-blocks breaking free, all attesting to the unrestrained power of a river in winter. Fortunately for the soon-to-be builders, the flood and ice-jam are the first in living memory here, perhaps even the first for a century.

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