While winter can be pretty, it has its hazards.
Our skin now resembles this flakey lake ice surface. While some people think Canadians are all wrestling wolves and thwarting bears, this is what real nature sightings are like.
We went until roads become "Forest Service Roads, use at your own risk". At first we saw nothing more than rodentia prints.
Oooh, these footprints look more promising! Let's traipse across the field to see.
Oh my gosh, if you squint, you can see wapiti (elk)!
First time I've ever seen them, and totally worth walking through thigh-deep snow.
In more boring deer news, Barry would like you to know that this is a mule deer, and yes Laura, there are different types of deer, and people do care about that. I care more about not hitting it with my car.
Here is a blurry bald eagle shot to go with the blurry whadeva deer. They were impressive and plentiful at the dump, a lesser-known nature and vacation destination.
I have seen (entirely peaceful) bears twice in my life, and now I've seen bear spray once. People (such as Barry) feel safer convincing themselves they could use this with gloves and snowshoes on. I'd be better off challenging the bear to a yodeling competition.
Ok, back to the topic at hand which is survival: Moisturizer, bear spray, and staying dry, unlike these coots (really, that's their birdname). It was -20C when we saw them, and Barry was very concerned about their cooty foot skin.
Since days are short, dark and moody, you need to appreciate bright and pretty things. Like snowflakes. Here are some, but this is my best macro lens shot.
You can't really eat coniferous needles, but the trees in British Columbia are covered in lichen. Like with many things Canadian, I know almost nothing about lichen, do you?
However, fear-not! With my recent and hopefully fleeting interest in binomially questionable mycology, I have looked up some fun facts! Lichens: not just fungus, not just bacteria, but both (which reminds me of the human gut)!
Edible:
usually (with poisonous exceptions); and delicious: I don't know! While the lichen were a consistent food source of First Nations people in many formats, they require extensive processing, and have some questionable, sometimes hairy textures, as shown above.
I tried to understand how to tell moss, above, from lichen, and, well, that's not interesting.
Look at all that lichen! After a while, I stopped seeing the tress for the furry bits!
The real hazard is the driving. Don't do what these cars did. It can be a challenge, and rental car companies aren't so keen on giving you cars with the tires you actually need in winter. (Jokes, these cars are long term parked).
Here, tiny Barry shows the size of the snow removal attachment for the plough. If you're my Aussie reader, snow removal happens after the snowbanks get too big. Don't worry your tanned little head about it.
My mother gave me wise isolation-cation advice, which was to cook good-smelling food in the oven for a long time. Luckily, Grandma's baked beans recipe cooks for precisely 4-6 hours, yielding much yum.
Finally, the real secret to surviving winter is suitable indoor pastimes, such as a Caesar and crossword.
So, there we were, distracting ourselves with glowy lights,
And experimenting with strange unplumbed indoor bath basins now available from China. I prefer the tiny Pink Panther splashy bathing can.
When suddenly, Barry found a portal into the past!
From what we learnt, they had song, dance, fun, games, crime, prostitution, and a catastrophically collapsed hotel.
Here is an actual picture of previous attempts baking recipes calling for rising dough at "room temperature", which is ~10 degrees warmer here.
