The Amusing Paradox of the Vancouver Winter

Most weekends when I call up my parents my father will ask how we're doing in the snow, either having read about weather warnings in BC or likely because its very snowy in Manitoba. Vancouver gets very little snow to be honest and its typically fleeting. The picture below shows the first of two snowfalls we had this year. The second was actually a heavier fall but I didn't get a picture of it in 2 days and by then it was gone. For those of you in Manitoba I'll let that sink in. Gone in 2 days ;)
Most winter weather out here is grey and rainy with the occassional bright day thrown in for good behavior. This photo is from Christmas Day of 2009 and shows a light covering of morning frost out by Stanley Park as we were out feeding chickadess and seeing raccoons.
Not that the entire city is spared mind you, since we live by the sea and have a very low elevation we have it easier than other places. This picture is from our first winter in Burnaby when we were living part way up Burnaby Mountain and had some heavy snow for a few weeks and probably a month of some sort of covering.
The downside to all this mind you is that Vancouver is totally unprepared for actual snow. The bus lines shut down in more than half an inch of snow and nobody has any idea how to drive safely on a good day much less in the snow. Any day even resembling winter is a good one to stay home or take transit if you are truly forced outdoors.

Tubing

Tubing has been on Kathryns list of things to do since we moved here and I feel very silly that it took us this long to get properly fit it in. With her brother Steven in town for the week we finally had the excuse and time to go and took a shuttle up to Cypress Mountain for an afternoon of recreational winter. The snowboard hills are on the mountain further away in the picture below.
The tube park itself was snug but given that its more for kids we still had a thoroughly enjoyable time. The only downside being that there were lots of lines for the lift up (though you can walk up and we often did) and there were lines again at the top to prevent heaps of people from colliding with each other. It was understandable structure but it does somewhat slow down your afternoon to wait in line every minute or so.
All it all it made for a most enjoyable day and got us out in the snow for a fun day of sliding, exercise and enjoying being away from screens and the like. Steven was kind enough to bring up a new waterproof/crushproof/freezeproof camera that I have been coveting for awhile now so it was also fun to get pictures while sliding around and not worrying about breaking anything.

The Biodiversity Museum

After months of meaning to go, Kathryn and I finally made our way out to UBC to look at the Biodiversity Museum. The crown jewel of said museum is the articulated blue whale skeleton suspended in the entry foyer. Buried in PEI in the 80s, the skeleton spent 20 years getting vaguely cleaned up naturally before a group of professors and students exhumed it and moved it across the country for mounting and display.
Beneath the whale there are rows upon rows of display cases containing articulated skeletons, stuffed birds, plant samples, and endless jars of preserved fish and reptiles. The cabinets are both museum and univeristy collection with every 3rd case having a facing out display for visitors and the rest being closed for preservation and student uses.
Each of the rows in the picture above is a decent sized display of specimens, with the whole museum containing thousands of different animals of all sorts. Our visit was long overdue and very enjoyable once we finally made it.
By blind luck we also ran into some of our friends from Vancouver Island that happened to be in town and in the university for the same 5 minutes we were passing by and we met up for dinner with Roger and Colleen in the evening.

More Manitoba Mammals

There were quite a few other mammals to be seen this summer in Manitoba, starting with this little wild rabbit I saw while taking a walk through the Forks. He dashed across the path and stood still just long enough for my auto-focus to kick in before jumping through a hole in the fence. They are a not uncommon but always pleasant sight for me, and somewhat less so for my mother-in-law and her wonderful garden.
A trip out to Oak Hammock Marsh found us a handful of very tame and curious Richardsons Ground Squirrels, one of which in particular was willing to pose until we were practically sitting on him with his nose in the lens.
And last but not least, the icon of Manitoba, the bison. They were unfortunate in being on the wrong end of the "there's so many of them we can kill them forever and never run out" line of thought of early settlers. Their once massive herds have been decimated to a number of protected herds in provincial parks and some small herds raised for meat. This individual is from the latter group as there was a small group of them near the marsh.

Animals in the Field

A life long dream came true this summer when I came across wild horses in the Chilcotin. First time I didn't have a camera. Wandering around in the bush we came almost face to face with a stallion and his mare and foal. A lovely sight. We also saw a herd of 8-12 drinking and grazing near a small lake. These three we were lucky enough to see several times as they seemed to like a grassy meadow that this rough logging road went right through. There is a stallion and two mares. There are some documentaries about horses in the Chilcotin. People living there still lose the occasional horse to the wild herds.
This was a problem. Walking up an access road that goes to the block we need to survey we ran across these tracks. It had rained the day before and these tracks were so fresh they were still damp in the middle as you can see from the photo. Some investigating revealed another set of tracks and another. One big set and 2 small. A mother cougar and her babies! We left pretty quick. I wasn't hugely concerned as where we parked the truck we got snorted at by some wild horses and I don't think they would have been so relaxed if a huge kitty and her brood were close by. Some research into tracking that evening showed that the tracks were really fresh as it was warm out and they would have dried out fast and they hadn't had a chance to do that yet. When we went back the next day I made sure I had my machete and I sang lots.

Manitoba Legislative Building (inside)

Back in the days of the railway, Winnipeg was situated right in the middle of the country and had high hopes for becoming a transportation hub and all around huge city like Chicago became. Time didn't play out the way they'd hoped, but a very elaborate legislative interior was part of the payoff for thinking big. Tours of the interior are free to anyone passing by and if you've never done it, its certainly worth a look. The main entry plaza (click panorama below to enlarge) is pretty spectacular and those giant bronze bison were brought in without scuffing the marble floors by using giant pieces of river ice to slide them through.
The assembly chamber itself is a goodly size and filled with statues of philosophers and paintings of saints with seats on both sides for the ruling party and the opposition. There was no session going on the day I passed through but if the politicians are meeting there is a gallery above here where the public can watch.
And this is the interior of the giant dome at the top of the building looking up from the middle. There's a hole in the 2nd floor that lets light all the way down to the ground floor where there's another neat room below.

Manitoba Legislative Building (outside)

Canada lacks castles in general and Manitoba falls particularly short to that challenge, but it does have a very nice legislative building near the downtown core. As far as I can tell, most of the parliament buildings were built to the same general design but I guess if it ain't broke you don't fix it. The Manitoba legislative is made from Tyndall stone which is a sedimentary stone quite often filled with fossils, so the exterior of the building is full of neat worms and shells if you look closely. (click on the panorama below to enlarge)
On top of the central dome is the golden boy; holding a sheaf of wheat in one hand and a torch in the other, but apparently forgetting to wear pants, he shows how Canadians are always charging forward to greatness without perhaps thinking things through properly.
And since it was designed and built by The Masons there are all sorts of weird things like sphinxes on the building. Traditional Canadian sphinxes. A part of the heritage of the European settlers, indigenous natives and the metis all rolled into one: sphinxes. Okay, I really don't get them either...