South of Mackenzie, very early morning. So peaceful.
Mountain Ash berries.
A skidder, used for pulling logs off blocks.
Hay growing thickly in an old forest fire.
A kilometer marker on one of the logging roads.
I think this was taken down the 2200 road, southeast of Alexis Creek.
A herd of what I call mountain sheep, on a nearby hill. I think the proper name might be Dall's Sheep.
Early morning in Alberta.
Overlooking the community of Lytton.
West of Williams Lake.
Greg, checking a GPS point to make sure we're in the right spot. Most foresters don't leave us any real clues as to block boundaries, except for the odd ribbon or paint mark sometimes. This was a job being run by IFS, a consulting company out of Prince George. They're extremely organized.
West of Williams Lake.
An elk. I started to chase him, but then I realized that I didn't have any idea what I'd do if I caught up to him.
Pretty colours.
A block corner marker in Logan Lake.
The Highland Valley copper mine. The largest open-pit copper mining operation in Canada (one of the largest in the world). How big? Try a million pounds of copper produced every day, 365 days per year.
Another shot of the Highland Valley mine, several days later.
On the days when I end up about 250kms from the motel room at dusk, and a foot of snow on the road, the one consolation is sometimes getting a nice photo before I head home.
The only thing more dangerous than sheep on the highway is horny sheep.
Having a beer after supper.
Mackenzie, about 240km up the Finlay FSR. I'm not sure who owned the pickup, but i if you look closely, you'll see they left their dog on the roof to guard it.
I spent some time doing some trail-building work to make our access into the FFT Vanderhoof contract easier for next spring.
The bane of my existence ... deactivation ditches that are too much for the truck. Time to unload the quad.
An old forest fire from several years ago that burned through a bunch of plantations in the Binta area, south of Fraser Lake. My camp will be planting these next spring.
My first flat tire of the month. I get five to ten flats each year.
Hay bales catching the evening sun near the Kluskus FSR south of Vanderhoof.
Leaving Vancouver, heading to Nanaimo.
Planting a block near Port Alberni.
Getting ready to start planting in the morning, with my bags full of douglas fir seedlings.
I think this was down around Spence's Bridge.
Well this is a bit of a set-back. So much for my plan to drive the truck to the block.
Northwest of Williston Lake.
Look at the colour of that water. Amazing. South of Alexis Creek.
This moose just didn't want to get out of this guy's way.
Some pretty fall colours near Prince George.
Another block on the IFS project up past Mackenzie.
This boat has always fascinated me. I probably should have gotten a bigger photo, to put it into context. That's the not the edge of a lake. That's a puddle in a cow pasture, south of Quesnel.
Toys for Big Boys.
Another skidder. I could go into details about the model and specs and capability, but maybe I'll just describe it by saying, "this one is yellow."
Pretty young pine trees.
A huge fir tree, being used as bait to trap beetles.
Light snow in the semi-desert region near Kamloops.
We're going to the races!
Several kilometers of quadding in the snow makes me think it's time to trade it in for a skidoo.
Blocks west of Sundre.
Harvesting wood near Prince George.
A nice little quad bridge that someone has built.
This was taken in the late afternoon near Kamloops. I was fascinated by the colours.
I should have probably taken this photo from the other side of the nest, so the sunlight was at a better angle.
Making kale chips in Parksville. I'm addicted to them.
Near Port Alberni.
Some pretty sweet ground on one of the coastal blocks I was planting on.
Near Ashcroft, I think. Presumably this is the Thompson river.
Getting ready to go for a tour.
If only more Forest Service Roads had signposts like this, I'd never get confused.
This is why I carry a chainsaw instead of just an axe. Not that it wouldn't have been a good workout. Luckily, my truck was parked a few hundred meters away when the wind blew it over.
A short time-exposure of the full moon at night, west of Williams Lake.
And then a better shot of the moon, a few minutes later.
Patiently waiting and guarding the truck.
A block being harvested in Kamloops. They'll clean up the slash soon.
Here's another block where they've already piled the slash.
Near Kamloops. Possibly up near Greenstone Mountain, if I remember correctly.
Blocks near Logan Lake, in the snow.
I was driving by these young trees and I thought that they must be dying, so I stopped for a minute to take a closer look. I realized that they are larch trees (often known as tamarack or hackmatack in eastern Canada). Larch are the only coniferous trees in Canada that are not "evergreens," because they shed their needles each winter. This photo was taken on one of the fill blocks on the MOF Kamloops contract.
Leaving Kamloops, heading north, around 6am.
Fresh snow. I wasn't looking forward to walking through a few kilometers of this thick brush.
Jasper Park. You can see a hazy strip through the middle where a cloud was starting to form. It was a fully developed cloud and snow about twenty minutes later.
More logging.
The tree on the left is a spruce. Short needles thick around the branches, and sort of a bluish-green colour. The one on the right is a pine, which has longer needles but mostly at the ends of branches, and is more of a yellowish-green shade.
It's going to be tricky bridging this and getting a quad across in the snow.
Plants in the semi-desert around Kamloops. I need to learn what these are. I feel like the greenish plant is some sort of relative to creosote, but I maybe be completely wrong with that guess.
Another coastal block.
Scrapes and bruises on my arm after the first shift of coastal planting. It was around thirty degrees Celsius, so it was too hot for long sleeves. We were doing heli-logged blocks, so I was usually bleeding in about nine places simultaneously by noon.
Stop. English, and one of the local First Nations dialects.
A young bald eagle.
More species identification education. This time, we have a balsam fir and a spruce in close proximity. The balsam fir has soft needles, is a darker green, and has smooth bark on the trunk. The spruce has prickly needles, more of a bluish-green tinge, and rougher bark. Of course, there are also ways to identify the species based upon a close examination of the needles.
Mushrooms. Always common in areas with a lot of wild horses.
Beautiful straight trenches southwest of Williams Lake. A bit rocky, but they sure look pretty. Evergreen will be planting these trees next spring.
I liked the look of the rising early-morning mist.
This ground looks rather heinous.
Such beautiful colours. Of course, the rust-coloured trees are unfortunately pine trees that have been affected by the Mountain Pine Beetle, as are some of the grey. But it still looks beautiful.
Fresh logs in Kamloops. They're just little ones.
I found this to be very puzzling. You might be asking why. If you look closely at the two signs on the bottom left, they give different radio channels for the road. There should only be one road channel.
Grasslands up the Lac Du Bois FSR.
Horses.
A nice light snow.
Looking down over a block in Mackenzie, at dusk.
This is one of my favorite photos from this fall.