Bears

reposted from my photography blog

Bears are difficult for me to photograph when I come across them. Difficult because they strike on a primal fear that I have to intellectualize past. This kind of gets in the way of things like having quick reaction on the camera controls, setting up the photo's composition...planning my path of retreat first tends to take priority and remains an ever constant thought. Because of this I am unlikely to ever get a good photograph of a bear without a really long zoom lens because large wild animals and people in close proximity simply don't mix.

I was reading in the Merritt News yesterday that a bear had to be shot last week- only the second one of the year. According to the conservation officer this is a very low number for this area. Merritt is surrounded by hills, mountains, and grasslands for many kilometers and part of the community backs right against the wilderness. Many residents have fruit trees in their yards and are in the midst of cleaning up their gardens so one would think that this is a tempting place for a bear to come...until you read a bit more and realize that wild food sources have been very plentiful in our region and that people are taking more responsibility in keeping their properties clear of edible attractants. The Bear Aware campaign has no doubt helped make people realize that bears are opportunistic creatures that will take advantage of people's bad habits- they will get into garbage containers placed out over night or root around the apples that start to rot on the ground which bears find very easily by smell. People are taking more precautions for the practical reason of safety.

This is in sharp contrast to the story that I read in the Vancouver province where one bear in particular had to be caught in a trap and then shot. The town of Whistler which is also located in a heavily mountainous area has no doubt always dealt with roving black bears in and around the community and this bear in particular for 15 to 20 years. I can't understand why food garbage on the scale that wealthy tourism-based Whistler must produce is handled in the same way as a community in the lower mainland.

Why can't they remove and relocate the green waste they produce on a daily basis to a remote location instead of doing this to the problem bears? Green waste can actually be part of a composting campaign but a bear will just come back unless you take it really far away where it may well die because it can't locate food.

 

A small town in the interior does not produce so much food waste and is far less likely to have maudlin ideas about dangerous wild animals. Hunting is part of what keeps the bear numbers down and the less encumbered management of bears which seems to be another problem closer to large urban areas. It is disgusting to read online comments made by ignorant people who know nothing about wildlife or conservation yet viciously attack the conservation officers who actually have to deal with the problem.

 In my opinion if people want to see and photograph wildlife they should go into the wilds to do so- not take advantage of an animals natural tendencies to scavenge for garbage and certainly not to take advantage of the B.C. Conservation Officer Service and it's resources.

Finding Creativity

I was thinking about creativity a week or so ago and lamenting that I seem to have lost a lot of mine in the past year. A few days before my grad reunion a friend of mine showed me a water colour she had just had printed up as a card. As an artist who enjoys painting in the field she too is trying to find her creativity during these cold months and she manages to do it and inspires me. But before I could really start to try for a good drawing (eventually a painting) my grad reunion was upon me and I made the reluctant trip down to the coast, prodded by the nagging of a friend.

Drawing anything and everything when I was a child

 In the course of touring the high school and listening to various people’s recollections of events and incidents during their school years I really tried to recall highlights of what was for me a horrible time.

I was a fan of Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber

 It wasn’t until the evening of the dinner that I really started to enjoy myself and acknowledge that I didn’t harbor any resentments because the people who had tormented me then didn’t leave behind any memories at all- and the few who did seemed a bit sheepish but kind and surprised me by remembering me as an artist.

I was so into comics and character designs!

 And it wasn’t them who quashed my artistic spirit: I spent this evening going thru all my old artwork looking for a picture of that nagging friend who asked me if I still had the “pictures you used to draw of me”. I feel so regretful that I must have either given them away or even destroyed them in a fit of anger over something. I am determined to draw another one of her and send it to her.

But it was while looking over all these old drawing I took the time to sort them by year and see that I wasn’t hampered by any insecurity over art at the time- or at a loss for ideas on what to draw. I drew what interested me at the time and was even objective enough to know where I needed most to improve and notice that what was flat in the 8th grade became rounder and more 3 dimensional by my senior years. I enjoyed looking at the remarks of Mrs. Eggenburger and then later Ms. Graziano on the backs of the drawings.

Illuminated letter project and the The box art project :

 I kind of got encouraged about creativity all these years later and delved into the later art as well and realized that some kind of insecurity has been hampering me lately that wasn’t present during high school or my years in China.

I wasn't scared of water colour then!

The moral of the story is it might actually be good to go back into your past and take a hard look and what you achieved despite any and all obstacles. Even if high school was hell on earth, people can be gracious decades later, reconnect with old friends and generally enjoy the show…hopefully the creativity will follow!

Some yearbook signatures

Falls Lake

I was missing the green-ness of home when I suggested to my husband and brother-in-law that we check out Falls Lake. This is a tiny little lake located within the Coqhihalla Summit Recreation Area. While I would like to have explored more of the park we came rather late in the afternoon of a sunny weekend. It was distinctly cooler and damper in this area compared to Merritt which lies within the southern interior bio-climatic zone. Forests of fir, cedar and pines cover the mountains and I saw wild blueberry among other plants.

The hike in is a kilometer and a half mostly uphill but nothing strenuous. It opened out onto a shore that had small boat access and plenty of room to set up a tent although there are no facilities. The water was alive with little trout coming up for whatever was landing on the water and I imagine the deeper part of the lake holds good sized fish.

It was a nice break from the usual brilliant sunshine of the Nicola Valley and I had to remind myself that one of the best reasons for living in Merritt was because of the absence of such a forceful and damp atmosphere as Falls Lake. It is almost typical of the brooding, misty feeling of the west coast tucked away into the mountains until the sun breaks out and makes it look like there should be a summer camp on the far shore!

To get there you drive to the Falls Lake turnoff which is located midway between Hope and Merritt, B.C. The road in goes for about a kilometer west and from there on you walk in. The Coqhihalla Summit Recreation Area itself is open to fishing, hunting, hiking, cross-country skiing, and horseback riding. It is a very historic area as remnants of the Kettle Valley Railway which operated from the 1900's to the 60'd can still be found here.We concluded our day with a stop at Kingsvale which is located on the Coldwater Road coming into Merritt. Kingsvale appears to have been a small community that established itself along the Kettle Valley Railway. There is one very old but well preserved building beside the road and remains of a bridge and a few smaller structures.