Epic hike to end the summer

We're blessed on Bowen with a small set of hiking trails which offer challenges to folks of all abilities.  Many of these are marked and official, and there are a few that are not official.

Yesterday Caitlin and I marked the end of summer with perhaps the most challenging hike possible on Bowen, the Mount Gardiner circuit.  It's an epic six hour trek that probably got us upwards of 1000 meters elevation in total.

We bagen at 1pm at the gate on Hiker's Road, on the north side of the mountain.  Climbing up a road for about 20 minutes takes you to Handloggers Trail (marked as the Midlevel trail on the map).  It's a 200 meter climb right out of the chute, but once on Handloggers heading west around the mountain another 120 meter climb takes you to a fantastic lookout over Killarney Lake and Mount Collins.

From there, the trail climbs a bit more before bending around the mountain and opening up views to the west, over Keats Island, the Paisley Group and the Sunshine Coast.  At 1.5 hours into the the trip you join the Bluewater reservoir trail, a high flat section of older growth Douglas fir and beautiful mossy forest floor gives you a chance to rest the legs for a bit until you join up with the Handloogers trail proper trail and begin steadily to move down the hill.  Some of the down hill sections are challenging, going on extending descents along cobble strewn creek beds, which were thankfully dry this season.

The Bluewater section of Handloggers crosses some impressive canyons and gullies as it makes it's way around the western side of the mountain.  After about 1.5 hours of this you arrive at the split and a decision point about whether head down to the Laura Road trail head, or complete the second half of the trip, which is far more gruelling.

At 4pm we headed up towards the South Summit of Mount Gardiner.  Having lost about 220 meters in elevation, we now headed almost straight up to recover it and more.  The 1.5 hour climb takes you up two impressive gully systems with some great views across the south part of Bowen Island, Apodaca Ridge and the Strait of Georgia and Vancouver Island.  You gain 440 meters in a little over a kilometre, which makes for a steep ascent in some places.

The trail comes out at a lovely flat saddle between the two peaks of Mount Gardiner.  From her eyou have the choice to climb to the summits, but yesterday we were pressed for time and we could feel the weather changing, so we decided to head back down again towards Skid Trail on the south flank of the mountain.  The section off the top is really steep and switchbacks take you back and forth along contours with blufftop view points opening over Sung Cove, Apodaca Ridge and towards Vancouver and the Lower Mainland away in the distance. You are now in the business of losing 600 meters or so of elevation, and the knees are knocking pretty hard by the time you get down to the Skid Trail.  The forest is all cedars and the forest floor is bereft of ferns and salal.  In the murky distance are Dangerous Dan Cowan's mysterious bike jumps.

It takes a little over 1.5 hours to go from the saddle back to the starting point, but Skid Trail becomes a friendly lovely way out.

It has been on my bucket list all summer to complete that circuit.  I estimated six hours and we were right on the dot, with time for one wrong turn that was easily corrected.  The legs feel good this morning which was a surprise, perhaps aided by a little bit of celebratory Laphroaig.  

The drought has broken

On Saturday the most violent August wind storm in history lashed the coast with damage that rivalled 2006's December windstorm.  Since then it has been raining steadily and heavily, to the tune of more than 100mm making this drought beset August now one of the wettest on record.

I went out this afternoon to look at some drainage channels I had cut at the back of my land that help the water find it's way into better drainage than under my neighbour's foundation.  I was surprise to see hardly any run off at all.  The land has been so thirsty that it has just absorbed all this rain.  Last winter, there were massive puddles and rivers of water cascading off a saturated Mount Collins.  Today, the earth is a sponge.

This bodes well for the recharging of our aquifers, the refilling of wells and the rejuvenation of the microbial systems that require moisture to do their work.  The drought is over and falls seems to be at hand.

Spear Sisters finalists in film competition (last day to vote!)

You have a chance to be a part of Kailey and Sam Spear's career boosting move to have their short film on the Twilight saga pitched to Lionsgate pictures.  Follow the link below.





Spear Sisters finalists in film competition (last day to vote!)

▶ A Day Trip to Bowen Island BC Canada - YouTube

▶ A Day Trip to Bowen Island BC Canada - YouTube



North Shore Tourism has produced a video of a day trip to Bowen.  It's full of a lot of adjectives.



But one thing I like about it is that it has a brief glimpse into Artigiani Milanesi, an outstanding small cashmere tailor that relocated from Milan to Bowen last year.  They make outstanding quality clothing from incredible cashmere wool.

Dave Witty on our OCP

LETTER: First understand the law, Mr. Long



Dave Witty, a Bowen resident and nationally respected planner, outlines what our OCP is, how it was made and amended, and why it works.  It's a good read to put into perspective the mechanics of designing an OCP for a community.



And if you want to read our document, so so here.

Making the full potential internet a reality

“It would become essential...”



Great article about Ken Simpson's recent talk at Collins Hall.  A truly broadband community run internet connection, with superior upload speeds would make shift Bowen Island's economy to a more local one quicker than almost anything else I can think of short of stopping ferry services.



It would be a powerful attractor for home based businesses and creative professionals and could be a powerful way to talk about the way our community invests in itself.

Belonging on Bowen

I've been really enjoying the work we have been doing on the Bowen Island Economic Development Committee.  I'm sitting on the Business Retention and Expansion working group and we are about to embark on a project to host a few dialogue circles with local businesses.  We want to test out a few assumptions about the way the local economy functions before embarking on strategies to retain and expand it. 

In most municipalities, BRE committees publish data and try to attract investment and industry to their communities.  On Bowen, my hunch is that we need a really different approach to this work for a number of reasons.  First of all, we are an island, and we are not on the way to anywhere.  It is very hard to attract business to a place that automatically costs them extra for being here.  We suspect that most business people who live on Bowen are in business here because they want to live here.  That is in contrast with many other places, where people are in business because the market conditions are good.  Evidence of this is simple to see: of the 500 or so businesses on Bowen you would be hard pressed to find a single one that is owned by an absentee owner.  It could well be true that every single business on Bowen is owned by a Bowen Islander.  That is a remarkable statistic.

The nature of community here supports businesses.  And it's also an inhibitor.  You have to want to live on Bowen to work on Bowen.  But when you become a part of the community it makes it easier to do business, or work jobs.  Belonging becomes not only the reason you live here but the way you can stay.  

For visitors, belonging is a key aspect to their experience as well.  Our current community branding initiative is interesting in that our visitor's survey has shown that people feel a sense of connection and restoration when they come to Bowen.  And when my little company hosts groups here, we ensure that the entire village is involved, taking our people out to Rustique for dinner, having The Snug cater, getting provisions from the Bowen Wine and Beer Store and spending a night out in the community living room up at The Pub.  I love watching people from our groups experience Bowen, meet local people and make connections while they are here.  They can feel the belonging that we know.

Belonging is a key indicator of the quality of our relationship to this place.  For me this really informs our BRE work, because we are looking at the role that belonging to Bowen plays in the attractions nd retention of business here, despite thin profit margins and staffing issues.  If it wasn’t for that sense of “belonging on Bowen” I think a lot of businesses might have relocated elsewhere.

Vancouver Coastal Health did a survey in 2013 looking at community wellness on the North Shore and Bowen island, and not surprisingly we came out at 82%, the highest by far of all the areas surveyed. This is an important feature of community life here and is a big reason why we are a unique community within Metro Vancouver.  It is also a big reason why strategies tailored to business retention and development on Bowen need to uniquely fit our context.