Royal BC Museum

After many years of wanting to go to the Royal British Columbia Museum in Victoria, Dick, Wilma, and I finally designated a day to visit.  It was as great as expected.  I did not know that the museum has an actual baby mammoth, Lubya,  She was excavated from permafrost in Russia several years ago, featured in National Geographic.  One month old when she died, Lubya is the most complete mammoth ever found.  And she's here in BC!

There are fine dioramas of Ice Age critters at the Royal BC.  A Columbian mammoth holds court with a short faced bear and a saber toothed cat.

The cat is especially fierce.  There is a great IMAX movie showing at the museum that brings the mammoths, cats, and dire wolves to life...really!  You wear 3 D glasses and the critters seem to jump into your grill, trumpeting, roaring, and snarling.  Kinda glad I live now and not then!  

Here's a short faced bear, standing 12 feet high.  The early cave men had to make sure one of these guys was not in residence before they took over a cavern.

And here's your congenial host at the Royal BC Museum, The Mammoth!  He's life size...larger than all living elephants...and has been the symbol of the museum for at least twenty years.  He used to be situated near the entrance, where you could see him without going inside.  Now he's well within the premises, but well worth paying the admission to see.

Another shot of Mister Mammoth.  Museum setting on the Nikon Coolpix produces this image.

There is a special exhibit on the Ice Age running at the museum now, but there's much more to see.  This diorama features some of BC's local sloats, including a massive Steller's sea lion on the right.  

One of the museum's real treasures is its collection of coastal Indian art.  Here are three totems carved in the late 19th/early 20th century.  It turns out that there were many more totem poles carved by the Haida, Kwakiutl, and other coastal tribes after European contact...when they gained access to metal tools...than before.

A fine design, found in a Haida lodge, I believe.

This bench was originally in a Kwakiutl chief's home; he donated it and many other artifacts to the museum in the early or mid 20th century.

A line of totems in the museum.

A collection of masks, behind glass.

Uclulet at its Best

Uclulet is beautiful on a sunny day.  It's no doubt majestic on a stormy day...haven't seen one, but hope to.  But in the fog, it's mystical.  On this morning, it was sunny inland, with the mosses shrouding the branches in the rainforest.

Last Friday on the Wild Pacific Trail, the fog shrouded the forest...in places.

Storm gnarled trees in the mist.

A coastal canyon.

Dead trees bent to the wind.

A cool spar.

Onshore winds sculpt the vegetation.

Masses of driftwood, washed far in from shore by the winter storms.

A beach in Pacific Rim NP.

Oregon Coast Scenes...plus a few Critters

I came up the Oregon coast from Yachats a couple weeks ago.  Here is a pic of the Yaquina Bay Bridge in Newport in great light.  This is a Conde McCullough classic, built during the 1930s with fine Art Deco style.

The Peter Iredale has been an attraction in Fort Stevens SP since 1906, when it ran aground on the beach.  The story of the wreck is in the next pic.

This plaque at the wreck site explains the incident.  Blow up the pic to read.  This was my first visit to the ship in, oh, at least thirty years, but I came here as a kid several times.

A tranquil lake in Fort Stevens SP.  Lots of mozzies, though.

Some of the old coastal defense installations at Fort Stevens.  Sitting at the mouth of the Columbia River near Astoria, this was an important military site on par with the Golden Gate.  These structures were built in 1898 and abandoned in 1947.  You can tour several rooms in various buildings in the park...cozy but drab.  I would imagine they were chilly and dank much of the time.  

A large tanker entering the Columbia River near Fort Stevens.

Octopus tree at Cape Meares, near Tillamook.

Sea cave at Hug Point, near Cannon Beach.  There were actually a lot of people around.  The Oregon Coast is wonderful, especially in summer, and the folks from Portland flock here in great numbers.

A barnacle colony at Hug Point.

The classic view from Neahkanie Mountain, looking south.  Manzanita is on the upper left.  I take the same picture almost every year, but the view never gets old.

And just a few critter pics...I toured the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle last week with some friends from Redmond WA.  Though I lived in Seattle in my college years and have been back many times since, I had never been to the zoo!  It's quite good.  Here the Humboldt penguins are enjoying the sunshine.

A jaguar sloatin'. 

And here's the cock of the rock...literally!

Mists of Uclulet 2.0

One of the sweetest things about visiting Canada in midsummer are the looooong days.  9 PM is broad daylight...ten is dusk.  Post happy hour strolls turn into hikes.  My friends and I turned such a saunter into a 6 km trek thru Stanley Park last Sunday.  Here a mama duck takes her charges for an evening swim in the YVR.

After a fine evening in Vancouver, we headed for the island the next day.  Leaving Horseshoe Bay, all three types of BC ferries were on display.  Here a small one is coming in on the left, with a medium sized one farther right.  We were on a big ferry, bound for Nanaimo.

Now I'm in Campbell River, on the 50th parallel.  Thunderstorms were developing over the mainland mountains across the Discovery Channel.

This pair of bald eagles perched on a rock right in front of my motel in Cam River.  They were chillin' after a morning fishing expedition.

Back in Uclulet.  Aah.  I have seen many coasts on five continents, and there are none better than the shore from Uclulet to Tofino on Vancouver Island.  I was here six years ago and published a blog post named The Mists of Uclulet.  It can still be found on this webpage.  No mist on this day, but the scene was just as magical.

These logs are perhaps 15 feet above the tideline.  I would like to see the storm that deposits them this high!  Best stormwatching month hereabouts is November.  I need to come then...after a trip to REI for some rain gear.

Amphitrite Lighthouse, guarding the coast since 1916, on the Wild Pacific Trail in Uclulet.  The squat sturdy construction scheme of the structure is a precaution against winter storms.  Though the lighthouse is a good 30 feet above the normal tideline, huge storms out of the Gulf of Alaska send water up as high as the light.  There's a photo on site to prove it!

Dick, Wilma, and I are staying in a cozy condo (with a private hot tub) by the Wild Pacific Trail.  Here the Lizards are enjoying a tranquil sunset.

Summer Migration

Every summer I migrate north, to the land of my birth, upbringing, and tertiary education.  While the winters in Oregon and Washington can be (OK, are) clammy, gray, and wet, in summer there is no better place on the planet to be.  So I venture to the Pacific Northwest when the days are long and the sun is warm.  Enroute...on this trip I decided to take a look at Shasta Dam.  It's six miles west of I-5, and over 55 years and dozens of trips up and down the freeway corridor, I had NEVER visited Shasta Dam!  Quite an oversight.  It's rather majestic, as you can see...and Shasta Lake is almost full, about 15 feet below top level.  There is always something new to see.

Well, so much for the sun...on July 7 Mount Shasta is obscured by clouds, as it was the last time I passed by in March.  It started raining right after I took this photo.

I had lunch with a friend in Medford, then passed through the historic town of Jacksonville.  They've been wearing Levis for a long time there.

A covered bridge over the Applegate River, SW of Medford.  A peaceful spot with a picnic ground.

The river from the bridge.

Another covered bridge, vintage 1920, in Sunny Valley.  This place seems to live up to its name...it's usually sunny there, even on days like this one where clouds prevailed in surrounding areas.  It's between Grants Pass and Roseburg on I-5.

Yet another covered bridge, this one in Drain, just SW of Cottage Grove, OR.  Oregon has many covered bridges...somewhere between 50 and 100 if I recall.

This is the bachelor herd of Roosevelt elk along the Umpqua River just E of Reedsport.  I'm surprised they don't go into town and hit a sports bar.  One would assume they root for the Milwaukee Bucks in the winter.

This is an old favorite spot...Oregon Dunes between Florence and Reedsport.  Did a nice hike to the beach today, which counteracted the massive French Dip sandwich I had along the Rogue River last night.  Maybe.

The wind blows dry sand into microdunes over the wet sand on the beach.

Abstract pic of beach grass in the dunes.  Sand dunes are fine places for abstract photography.

This shot is kind of  abstract, looking toward the sea over alternating forest and dunes.

Windblown surf at Yachats.  Though it's July, there's a respectable coastal storm going on at the moment.

The Yachats surf crashes onto the shoreline.