Winter laid a light hand on us this year especially when you consider the weather most other Canadians had to endure. It was hard not feeling a little smug. We barely had 3 weeks of sub-zero temperatures and even then, the weather was brilliant sunshine. There was one occasion when it snowed about 30-40 cm and we couldn’t drive anywhere. On that occasion we walked and in doing so, came across an enormous wolf footprint. We had seen this wolf a week previously and considered him to be the largest we’d ever seen. And other islanders concur. He had a stride of more than 32 inches and probably weighed about 160 lbs. Most wolves come in at around 80-120 lbs. We kept Cedar on a short lease for that walk. The big wolf was accompanied by 5 others.
Our old dock at Coast Mountain, originally built in 1939 is being demolished. Despite its huge timbers, time has finally rendered it unsafe and we are replacing it. This is an up-grade we’ve been putting g off for some years now. It will keep the local pile driving crew busy for 2-3 weeks and will mostly empty the bank account.
Lannie is on the verge of finishing her Discovery Islands Ecosystem Mapping project. We learned some time ago that government ecosystem data was hopelessly out of date. Since all the forest licensees were unwilling to share their data, it made it nearly impossible for the public to comment meaningfully on land use issues. Lannie took it on herself to organize a small group of dedicated GIS technicians who have since digitally mapped all of the ecosystems of the Discovery Islands. In the process she managed to raise over $60,000 to accomplish the project. You can see the results of that work at: www.diemproject.org
Ralph Meanwhile has organized more than 130 local businesses to support an itinitaitve to protect forested shores along the many marine corridors of the Discovery Islands. At present he and other wilderness tourism businesses are meeting with government and industry to raise the standards of logging to protect view sheds. Meetings are monthly and on-going.