Christmas Tree Hunting

Every year Pat and John invite friends around to explore across their land and hunt for the ideal tree to cut down and take home and then erect as the Christmas tree in the living room.

Snow shoes, cross country skis or just plain slogging through the thick snow will do. All eyes are keep looking for the perfectly shaped, coloured, textured tree.

The hardy lumberjacks in the party are then sent in to fell the poor tree.

Yeah Dad, that is the best one. Now lets see you ski back with that over your shoulder.

He then has to carry it back to the car. I do sleep all night and work all day and go shopping on Wednesdays, but I don't have buttered scones for tea.

Instead we had hot stew and beer and a few more pleasures while the kids watched videos down in the basement. (All Canadian houses seem to have a basement to send kids down to, to watch videos!)

Sawmills

Being in a forestry town and coming from a somewhat forestry town we had to check out the sawmills here.

These guys work 24hrs a day, rain ice or snow, to fell, transport and mill the wood to supply the world with timber.

Mind you, the pine beetle is killing off more trees than they can fell or sell so they have to work as hard and fast as possible to keep the industry going.

Maurice, Barbs brother, kindly showed us around his sawmill.

The speed and efficiency of the mill was very impressive.

Everything is highly mechanised and computerised. They process at least 5 logs a minute, from a log to finnished routed 4 by 2's wrapped and ready to be shipped out.

Observatory

This is what happens when you leave the window open by your desk!

Well this is what happens when you look at stars through a telescope at the observatory when it's snowing and the dome shutters are open.

We had to stand on a ladder to see down the eye piece of the telescope. Unfortunately we couldn't see any stars due to the bad weather. We have seen them with the naked eye, and meteorites, but not the Northern Lights.

However, the Christmas lights on the houses are magnificent. One street, called Candy Cane Lane, has a whole row of decorated houses and even lights wrapped around the power lines across the street.

The front yards have nativity scenes and lights covering the shrubs or hanging from trees. The white snow makes it all look very magical!

Igloo

We had 40cm of snow over the weekend so the snow piles are getting bigger and bigger. I keep the driveway clear but the council have virtually given up with our road - at least it's flat.

The snow by the lamp post has become the girls second home. I had to cut a path to it and then I seemed to be the one that did most of the digging. I keep an eye on them when they are playing there - I'm sure it's safe but best to be aware.

It 's very cosy inside. There is a small seat on either side of the room but no windows, only a door. It is, though, one of the few igloos with external street lighting.

This is our view out the back sliding door to the veranda. That's the table on the left showing the depth of snow.

The veranda, the back yard and even the BBQ are coated in snow. The small prints in the snow are Hammeys, he's still keen to look for food. He comes right over by the glass door to where the snow is the thinnest and then burrows under the snow in search of peanuts and other human scrap food.

The Nechako River slowly freezing over. You can see small ice bergs breaking off in the foreground and blobs of snow/ice floating down the river. We were swimming in there only a few months ago!

Life Goes On

It's not really that cold. We continue our normal way of life.

We walk to the neighbours place for a quick soak.

Bob digs out the spa bath and we all hop in. Poor Libby couldn't get her toes in at first because the water felt sooo hot after the walking across the patio!

Every Monday after work, Alan Boswell, pictured at the top of the snow pile, takes a group of keen runners out for a jog around the roads and tracks surrounding CNC.

Even if the weather is wet or cold (-25C) the runners venture out.

Snow and ice under foot only add to the challenge - its like running on soft sand - good for the calf muscles.

Curling

As New Zealand is in search of some better curlers after their final placing in the last Winter Olympics, Sue and I have decided to take up curling.

The photograph does not show the beauty, precision, grace and accuracy of our delivery of the "stone" down the "sheet" to the "tee" in the centre of the "button" of the "house".

The two young girls on the adjacent sheet showed far more skill and potential than we did!

They quickly mastered the skill of sweeping as well as walking with one low friction shoe and one high friction shoe. Very tricky.

Snow Blower

Virtually every morning I shovel snow off the driveway - good exercise when you can't go out for a run. However, with snow falling steadily all night, I had to get out the snow blower!

And where do the girls stand?

Where the snow falls.

They weren't allowed to look at the blower in case a small stone or chip is picked up and ejected out.

Katie might really lose her head!

Snow blowers do make life easier, and as both neighbours opposite don't have one, I went across the road and cleared theirs as well. I had helped push their car up their small driveway recently so more snow was the last thing they needed.

Of course I leave the road to the big guys. The huge pile they left at the corner of the road and driveway made an excellent mound to dig a snow cave.

Still Snowing

Most days of the week we get more snow. The poor resident squirrel has to scurry across the surface of the snow to check his human food supply.

The temperature dropped to a minimum (so far) of -32C! (hopefully it stays the minimum). We had to go for a walk at that temperature to really experience this Canadian cold. 15 minutes was enough!

We walked up to the local tennis courts which are now the local ice hockey rinks. We were well dressed but in taking off my glove to click photographs, my fingers could not warm back up again to tie the laces on the skates. Sue had driven, of course, so we cancelled skating, hopped in the car and returned to our warm home.

When the temperature was below -25C I would drive Sue to work then return home to drive the girls to school. We would still walk home together as it was a warm -20C by mid afternoon.

Down town is pretty with all the Christmas lights coming on and the snow drifting down.

There are outdoor skating rinks but we found that it was too cold to skate around so we joined the sensible locals and went to the indoor rink instead.

You still have to take Trixie out for her walks and lamp posts so you must ensure that she is

dressed for the cold and suitably attired.

Black Out

Following the day of warm weather we had an afternoon of high winds, hail and more snow! And then the lights go out - a black out! No power, but at least the heating is gas fired.

Unfortunately for me it was the day of the Canadian football final (American grid iron) with the BC Lions in the final. I was all set to experience the Canadian equivalent of an NPC final but no TV. Even neighbours who had power couldn't watch it as the cable transmission station was out also.

Luckily our cooker is gas so we had a romantic meal by candle light then story reading time. We all slept in the same room so the girls could go to sleep reassured. Power resumed at 2am. Others had to wait days!

Ferguson Lake

In the middle of all the sub minus 15C weather we had one day of positive 10C! We went out into the country side to Ferguson Lake (here they say Lake after the name, not before) for some outdoor ice skating.

The speed track has already been prepared so we walked down to the lake to check out the ice.

Sue goes straight to the thinest part of the ice and steps in. The girls just stand back and try to work out what she is doing while I concentrate on aperature and focus. Who she was yelling at we don't know but it was straight home for dry clothes for her.