Wooly Leaves

I finally finished the scarf I started last winter. Funny how I can't even think about wool in the summer, but after a couple of weeks of rainy weather, visions of sweaters (and mittens, and socks) dance in my head.

The yarn is from Anna Running's Qualicum Beach Woolen Mill (just across the water from me). The pattern is simple garter, edged with leaves from Nicky Epstein's Knitting on the Edge, interspersed with random lengths of I-cord.

Autumn Beach Walk: Part Three

This massive rock formation is a favourite roosting spot for seabirds on a calmer day.

This side of the island, which is more protected, has very different geological textures than the northeast side.


Gracie found a coconut. Well, what else would you expect to wash up on the shore of a remote northern island?

Coming into Spring Bay.



The waves brought in a bit of flotsam and jetsom.

A path up from the beach.

The stone is eroded in amazing patterns.


I love how this log has the hard skeleton of a vine twined around it.

A little impromptu sculpture.

Home to the untouched pebble beach of Spring Bay.

Autumn Beach Walk: Part Two

As we look back, the sky is still stormy...

...but ahead to the northernmost tip of the island, Boot Point, it is clear.



Boot Point has an impressive, and enduring, beach hut. A ragged Canadian flag flies atop, but I'm not sure where the ALP sign came from.

Oyster catchers gave us the eye as we ambled past.




And there's the rainbow, just off the Fegan Islets.

Autumn Beach Walk: Part One

Gracie and I set out amidst high winds and breaking clouds.


We headed north-west, with the wind behind us. The light was gorgeous.


The wind was so strong it blew Gracie's ears right back.


Beach huts such as this one spring up during the summer. Winter storms inevitably tear them down.

This part of the beach is pure sandstone.

An old dingy settles into the firmament.

More to come...

Boom Heads

As a child growing up in the Pacific Northwest, log booms were a familiar sight. These were massive arrays of floating logs corralled by other logs linked together in a giant loop. These would be towed by tug boats to their destination of a lumber or paper mill, or perhaps to a port for transport across the seas.

Now, logs are shipped on enormous barges, entire forests stacked like cordwood, directly to foreign destination. Like many of our sawmills, log booms are a thing of the past. The boom heads (which had giant holes drilled in them to facilitate linking them together) were left to wash up on the shore, and many were cut up for firewood. The ends of the boom heads are a common sight on beach walks, and are also a popular folk art driveway marker or fencing feature. I came across all these on one 2 kilometre stretch of beach - considering that's a wee scrap of beach in all the Gulf Islands, and the Sunshine Coast, and Vancouver Island, there must be a heck of a lot of these out there.

















This is a painting of Ladysmith Harbour by E.J. Hughes, an artist who recorded scenes of Vancouver Island life from the 1930's to 2000.