As reported last week, we travelled with our company from Germany north to Nakusp and then turned south to the picturesque town of New Denver on Slocan Lake. Then we took the 31A to Kaslo, where we paid a visit to the Moyie, a paddle wheeler sternwheeler that worked on Kootenay Lake from 1898 until 1957. After nearly sixty years of service, she was sold to the town of Kaslo and restored. Today she is a National Historic Site of Canada and the world’s oldest intact passenger sternwheeler.
Driftwood sculptures abound along the shorelines of the Arrow Lake. While canoeing on the lake south of Fauquier, I discovered some more, which I would like to share with you. There are also man-made structures that campsite visitors have set up following their artistic urges. Viewing them, I felt inspired to build an ‘inukshuk’ myself. Strictly speaking, these stone structures are not inukshuks. The latter have their origin in the monuments of the Inuit people in the Canadian Arctic. Among the stones, I found one that appeared to have a smiling face and in a precarious balancing act, I managed to put it on top of two other bigger stones. Enjoy.
The blue heron like the majestic eagle and the swift osprey has made a come-back after driven almost to extinction in the Arrow Lakes region. Until the use of DDT and pesticides had been outlawed, their population had been dwindling to the point of no return. Today’s post is dedicated to this graceful fish hunter along our shores typically found stalking through reeds and flooded grasses. Its voice is not pretty, but its gait and posture impress with their elegance and gracefulness. The blue heron is generally a wary and skittish bird that flies away at the slightest hint of danger. This time it allowed me to take pictures from a mere 10 m (about 30 ft). The short video clip shows the blue heron in flight. Enjoy.
On Monday my wife and I took the ferry across the Lower Arrow Lake and travelled with our canoe to the nearby Whatshan Lake, a mere 4 km distance from Fauquier. Surrounded by forested hills, the 30 km long lake is actually comprised of two lakes connected by a narrow and winding channel. The boat launch not far from the public beach was virtually deserted so late in the summer season. Biene and I knew that we would have the lake almost entirely to ourselves. Bent on relaxation with a chance to capture the wild scenery on our cameras, we let the electric motor do the ‘paddling’ for us. Here is the video of our exploratory canoe trip. Enjoy.
While camping at Taite Creek we had a daily visit from a chipmunk. The chipmunks (Streifenhörnchen in German) are undeniably the cutest squirrels in the forest. Intelligent enough to know that we human beings at the campsite generally pose no danger to them, they are, however, constantly on the alert for any threatening move that might signal the need for a quick escape. I was lucky to snap a sequence of photos showing our chipmunk friend eating a morsel of food he found in the fire pit. Enjoy.
It is my hope that I will not tire or worse not bore my blogging friends with yet another photo shoot taken from our canoe. However, traveling this time north in the direction of Fauquier along the eastern shoreline of the Arrow Lake my wife and I encountered a merganser mama and her almost grown-up brood. With the imposing rock formation as backdrop I felt compelled to capture the lovely scene of wildlife unfolding before our very eyes. On our way back to the campground a pair of whitetail deer was frolicking at a deserted beach. Enjoy.
The Peter and Gertrud Klopp Family 