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Published: July 31st 2012
Koya
The Pup in the dandelionMay 2007 A Camera and a puppy...
Since we had planed to make it up to Alaska and spend the summer exploring it and turn around before the first snow or if we liked it might stay the winter there and come back next fall. So the plans were fairly loose but we still were ready to be on our way. Except there were two things we still wanted. One was a new digital camera for me and we were also looking for a golden retriever puppy. We had been talking about getting a dog for a while and it was the perfect timing since we would be able to spend a lot of time with the Pup. We found an add online and went to Lebanon to meet the pups and the parents. They were so cute and we put down a deposit so we would be able to come back in two weeks to pick our boy up. We also had to wait about two weeks for the arrival of my new Nikon D200. So everything was lined up and we spent the time exploring the area around Portland. Finally we had the Camera equipment and were picked
Koya
Playing fetch up Koya were hanging out with Miles and Pangaea for a coupe more days, got the paper work for Koya all ready and drove north.
June 2007 Oregon to BC Canada... High water and Bark beetles
The border crossing was uneventful but we felt the difference of being in Canada again. The people were friendly and the old familiar shopping and restaurant chains were gone. Not that we missed them, no not at all. It was refreshing to be in a new environment and although Wall-Mart was still around we enjoyed the new look and especially the openness of nature and the beautiful roadside rest areas. We went swimming in a lake and Koya was so exited he jumped right after me and was very surprised that he could not walk on water. It was so funny and he had this shocked look on his face. after I rescued him he stayed safely on land.
We educated ourselves at a sign about the Bark beetle infestation of the forests in BC. There were different stages the trees went trough but when they turned red it was the sign that the tree was dead. We had already noticed that
Bark Beetles
The red forest... there were a lot of read trees and now we knew why. It takes a number of years for an outbreak to develop. The current outbreak in central interior British Columbia is a result of a landscape with an abundance of susceptible trees relatively mild winters over the last years and a lack of effective control action during the outbreak’s beginning stage.
The major outbreak of the mountain pine beetle in the west-central interior of British Columbia has been present for approximately 10 years but the infestation has increased rapidly in recent years to become the largest in the province’s history. Only a winter low of -40°C or a sudden cold snap in early fall or late spring of -25°C would reduce beetle populations enough to end the outbreak. By now there has bee a loss off 33 million acres of forest. This is an other sad example of how climate change effects nature. But if we just stay in the cities we will never see it so we don’t have to worry about it. It was so sad to drive for days trough red forest as far as you could see. 33 million acres! Dead dried up pines can
Bark Beetles
Endless dead forest in BC you imagine the fire risk.
But for now BC had an other problem to deal with. Everywhere people got ready for a potential distructive high water. There was lots of snow and spring was sudden and warm. The rivers were swollen and the water level was rising. The weather prognosis did not sound good either some rain and then warm temperatures. Already there was some flooding and rivers climbed over the banks and created earth slides and blocked roads. We choose the routes that were open and took a little detour to Hyder Alaska.
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