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Published: August 27th 2018
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Waterfall
But no bears. The weather was awful again today but, according to the forecast, the rain was due to stop at midday. We had a causal morning to wait it out and sure enough it cleared up as scheduled.
Whilst bears are dangerous and there are warnings everywhere about not feeding them and how to react when you come across one, they are actually something that everyone wants to see. Black bears are apparently relatively harmless, but it is the grizzly bears that you need to look out for. Apparently, however, there are constant patrols checking for grizzly bears and if any are spotted then the whole area is closed off to the public.
Anyway, there is a road called Callaghan Road where there is apparently a strong chance of seeing some black bears. We drove along it and then back again and, whist we found a nice waterfall to have a quick look at, unfortunately we did not see any bears.
There were also a couple of camper vans (recreational vehicles or RVs, I think they are called here) who were also looking and I am not sure whether they had any more success than we did. According to our
Inuit Symbol
A smaller one just outside Pemberton. son though, they were actually looking for somewhere remote to park-up and cook crystal meth (something to do with Breaking Bad I think).
We drove on to another nearby town called Pemberton. Here there was a large Inuit symbol to have a look at and and a nice walk around One Mile Lake.
After that we headed back to Whistler and went to the Squamish and Lil’wat Cultural Center. It was only 3/4 of an hour before closing when we got there, so we were let in for half price. There was a tour, but they were already watching a video, although we were able to tag onto them once the video was over.
The Squamish and the Lil’wat are two separate tribes (referred to as ‘nations’) who historically lived in close proximity in this area. They were however culturally very different and the cultural centre covered each aspect of their traditions separately.
For example each nation had different views on which animals are and are not acceptable to hunt. When they did kill something every bit of it was used (there was no wastage) - from the obvious such as the meat to eat, hide
One Mile Lake
The Weather had started to clear-up, but was still not perfect. for clothes, bones for tools or trinkets, to the less obvious such as using the brains help to treat the hides. Our son found that last one a bit “grim”, to use his words.
The entrails were left out for other animals to eat. Also “grim” apparently.
One animal that it was not acceptable for the Squamish to hunt was the goat, however they used goat hair for their coats. Consequently it meant collecting the hair that was left behind when a goat had been scratching itself against branches. Apparently it could take years to collect enough hair to make a single coat.
We wondered how they could survive the long, cold winters. Basically, they would not leave their houses. The materials that they used for the floors of their houses meant that the heat from a fire would spread, effectively giving them under-floor heating.
At the end we were all taught how to make some Cedar wood rope bracelets, which were surprisingly successful. Our son had a go as no animal left-overs were involved.
It was raining when we left. Our staying dry was not helped by:
• We couldn’t find where we
Cultural Center.
Bears - real and art. had parked the car;
• When trying to throw some rubbish away I was being beaten by the bear-proof bin.
We went to got back got our apartment, we thought we would get the bus back down to Whistler Village to avoid getting wet. We got outside just in time to see the bus pulling away. It had stopped raining, so we walked down in view of a particularly spectacular sunset.
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