An earlier post of mine mentioned how Mother Nature can be so cruel. Some wolves and a moose were involved... Today I saw her true side, some of her best work. As we drove home after a couple of days in the valley with friends while Tim worked on his trommel - I stopped several times just to take in the view. With the lake ice gone, the open water has added new life out here. Today the water was unmoving. It was so still, and the luck of the day was that the kids and I could enjoy the panoramic view not once, but twice as the mountains were reflected perfectly in the water.
We had some excitement on Monday when we heard something chewing on the cabin while eating breakfast. Tim looked under there but could not see anything so we continued on with our morning. One is a little less concerned with this out here than they might be nearer civilization... It could have been a squirrel or a packrat, but such is life out here! On with the day... While over by the shop a short while later, we noticed that the dogs had something treed about 30 feet behind the cabin so Tim checked it out - and it was a porcupine! He had been gnawing underneath the addition. Apparently he has a liking for kiln dried 2x6's. The dogs knew he was here - Heather and Paul said they were barking strangely the afternoon before while we were away. They also woke Tim and I early that morning with an odd, whining bark right under our window. Fortunately the dogs did not have a run-in with him because being this far from a veterinarian with senior citizen dogs with a nose full of quills would not have been a good combination. Old Poky had to go - between the kids and the dogs - we could not have him hanging around.
A conversation was had recently with one of our new friends - someone who has probably read and researched the area as much as we have - about which books were written on this area. Tim and I put our heads together and looked at our vast library of Canadiana. There are quite a few. This list is probably not complete, but does contain the ones we have read. Many of these are out of print, but we were still able to find them online. Using your local library's "interlibrary" system would also be a good resource.
- "Manson Gold" by Vic Dyck - a story we like to read again and again about the area we love so. Written by the store owner in Manson Creek about coming here as a young man on an adventure - to mine for gold and ending up building a store many years later.
- "So We Bought the Town" by Margaret Owen - a great story of a family who moved here in the 1960's and ran the Manson Creek store for several years. They also discovered and developed one of "the", if not "THE" largest jade deposit in BC. (Jade mine we visited and blogged about last fall)
- "Don Gilliland of Germansen Landing" by Margaret Owen - the story of Don Gilliland who moved here in the 1930's during the depression from Saskatchewan and who lived out the rest of his eventful life here on the Omineca River.
- "Goldseekers" and "Pioneer Goldseekers of the Omineca" by Ralph Hall - a story but also excellent statistical information on the gold rush here in the early to mid 1900's.
- "Silence of the North" by Olive Fredrickson - one of my favorite books of all time - this area is mentioned when this lady and her husband mined near here in the 1940's.
- "Driftwood Valley" by Theodora Stanwell Fletcher - about a lady and her husband who lived north of Takla Lake in the Driftwood Valley collecting specimens for the British Columbia Provincial Museum at Victoria. Their adventure also led them into the Omineca Mountains.
This list is not complete - and if I think of any more I will add to it - we have many books that also mention the area in passing. If you know of any - please also feel free to share! I was lent a book today that I will add to the list when I finish reading it.
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