Last night was about as cold as it ever gets around here: dropped to -8.



Wednesday night I came home late from the continent on the water taxi and we had a low low tide of 0.3 meters. Walking home in the dark, the water was so low, all I could see in the lagoon was a rime of frost around the edges of the mud flat.



Yesterday morning, as I went back to Horshoe Bay to fetch the car, The tide was high again, just coming down from a 5.0 meter height. We actually had to walk UP onto the Bowen Queen, which is very unusual as that little ferry ride very close to the water.



I'm amazed at the volume of water that sloshes around the Pacific Ocean.



In atmospheric news, the high pressure that is giving us the cold weather is sustaining the outflow conditions, meaning that out in the channel every night, we have gale force Squamish winds, blowing at 40 knots. It's been a largely cold and dry week around here.

Important and useful safety information if you live on Bowen Island.  Worth a read.

 

We've been living in the teeth of a ferocious Squamish for the last couple of days. The snow fell through Thursday and Friday, but since early Friday morning - and I mean early; I was on the 5:30am ferry - the wind has been blowing at gale force approaching storm force out of Howe Sound. That means it has gusted upwards of 80km/h at times, with the attendant windchill in the low -20s for some parts of the island.



We have survived most of the wind, although there are times when it bends down over Collins Ridge, or swirls in Mannion Bay that we get blasts of it. The whitecaps out in the channel though have been streaming southward solidly, lashing ferries and tugs. As a measure of just how local these winds are, I can look across the channel to Whytecliff and see that the trees near the water have no snow on them, while the trees at the top of ridge, less than a kilometer up behind Horseshoe Bay, are laden with many centimetres of snow. In Vancouver, there has been much more snow, but none of this wind or windchill at all. That the nature of these focused katabatic airstreams.



Yesterday the kids and I drove up to Hood Point to see the full fury of the the storm, and there was so much wind that Smuggler's Cove Road was at times covered in green douglas-fir boughs. White snow on the sides of a green road. Very pretty.



This kind of sustained Squamish is not common, but it can be very damaging. In 1990 a similar event kept blowing harder and harder for a number of days, knocking out the power on the island for up to two weeks in some places. People talk about that storm as one of the defining notches of true Bowen identity. Either you lived through that one, or you missed it, and there are two types of islanders as a result. This week we've had power flickers and outages of a couple of hours - nothing out of the ordinary really - but we have been spared any major inconvenience. Still, it's nice to have the wood stove stocked full of mill ends humming away while the wind and cold assaults us from all angles.

There is a common myth in the rest of Canada, that British Columbia is a land of pleasant winters and early springs, where it never snows and is always wet and rainy. That is true for a very small part of the province, the part on the south coast, inland as far as the 1000 meter level. From there on, and from there up, winter is the long, bitter, frigid experience that it is in the rest of Canada.



Having grown up in southern Ontario, where proper winters can be delightfully experienced from December through March, I have to say that living in Canada's temperate zone has been a mixed experience. I love winter. I love snowy days, cold air and crisp blue skies. I love the feeling of warming up by a fire, and bringing life back to my extremities. I do. Really.



So today, Bowen Island's annual week long snowy season began. Early this morning, light snow started falling, and now at lunch time, there is probably 3 centimeters coating everything. As usual when it snows here, the air is just below freezing, there is not a breath of wind, and everything is silent. It is so still and gentle, that the snow has lightly capped my snapdragons that, being the hearty little flowers they are, are still in bloom in early January.



It's a delightful day.

THe sun is setting on 2004 through a high cold blue sky here at the mouth of Howe Sound. The Brittania Range across the channel are respelndent in a new coat of snow cap, dazzling the ey in the late winter afternoon, as the sun lit them from across the Strait oif Georgia. A Squamish wind that was blowing most of the day has tuckered itself out, packing up just in time to make New Year's Eve visting a pleasant round.



Our gas station has closed here on Bowen, for some strange reason that I can't understand, having to do with posturing, face saving, Council decisions and a plethora of communication that didn't happen. THis will make it very difficult for people here who rarely go to the continent, and with the Queen of Capilano's annual refit all set to go, we'll all be packed in like sardines on the Queen of Bowen Island going to West Vancouver to fill up.



But now, with blues and pinks and oranges so vivid out my window, nothing can take away from the beauty and peace of this place.



Happy New Year.

Christmas is coming here on Bowen. Cocoa West is doing a brisk business, the shops in the Cove and up at Artisan Square are burning up the till tape, there are trees and lights and good vibes everywhere. Lots of handshakes and smiles here on the rock.



And some good news. The Snowin on Bowen CD is now sold out, according to Bernie up at A Little Bit of Everything. There are still a few left at Phoenix Photo, the Pharmacy and Bernie's place, but other than that, they are all gone. An island of 3500 people consumed 1000 CDs in three weeks. That is astounding, because it means that we have raised $14,000 for the performing arts centre building and $6,000 for Bowen Island Family Place. Incredible.



Mad Mabel has made her annual return to Bowen's shores. The popular play, penned by local guy David Cameron stars his partner Jackie Minns as Mabel an old woman who lives in a garbage dump and discovers the true spirit of Christmas courtesy of dustman dave McIntrash and his daighter Anna (played by Corbin Keep and the inimitable Molloy Montgomery). Kat Bernards, in danger of typecasting, played Raphaella, Mabel's feral cat. The Legion has been sold out for the performances this week and last. It's a great production, yet another reminder of the quality of talent around here.



So, tis the season. We hunker down by the woodstove, wait for a little snow to fall (Bowen's snowy season is usually the first week of January) and reflect on how fortunate we are to be clinging to this rock off the west coast of continental North America.



Happy Christmas, if that's your gig.

It is truly developing into a classic El Nino winter: calm, mild and reflective. The moisture in the air just hangs around at different levels. Sometimes it forms a layer of cloud that turns pink in the sunrise. Other times it sits on the water as thick fog, as it did the other night when the fog horns out in the Strait sounded long and dreary as the freighters plied the inside passage. And some times, like last night, it dissipates into the air and we get a clear day and a night full of comets and planets.



There has been very little rain and no real wind yet, not like we had back in 2001 for example, when the southeasterlies lashed the house several times during the fall. There is no new snow on the mountains, and the water is so calm it looks slack all the time.



Take lazy summer days and move them to December, make them 20 degrees colder and that's what we have.



Also, the coho have returned. A small school of them were gleaming in the lagoon the other day, their red sides glowing eerily in the murky water.