August 1st, 2013 4:30am, awake. I lay in bed contemplating life for awhile. Asking myself questions. What do I want to do this weekend? Hiking? Fishing? Camping? All of the above? Go on a date? LOL. Its funny how peoples perspective of me is this funny, outgoing, people person, when I’m not. I hate feeling like I’m penned into a situation. I’m not really into making new friends. And I absolutely cannot stand other peoples drama. I enjoy a lot of solitude, and wilderness. I have yet to hear an argument between two trees. I can’t stand to sit in front of a television, I’d much rather sit in front of a beautiful landscape. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that I feel I’m expected to visit and socialise and sometimes don’t end up spending my time the way I want to spend it. I wonder if other people are the same way. We get ourselves into situations where we’re not doing what we need to do, and ultimately end up giving our lives over to other people. It’s interesting. People are weird. Anyhow, that’s pretty far down the rabbit hole for first thing in the morning. Time to pack. We are out of here today. After I have all my stuff loaded up and eat breakfast, and have cleaned up the mobile home for the next camp dweller, Eric comes to life and we head up the road, to Galore Creek Rd. No helicopter today. We are all finished with that part of the block. We cruise a few kms down the GCR, check in with security, and head out 4 kms down the Staging Road. We begin our trek through this very boggy, marsh, which is so humid on a day like today my eyelids are sweating. The heat in the forest, instantly saturates all my gear, and it’s almost hard to breath, the air is so heavy. The sun is trying to shine through the canopy, but this part of the woods is so thick, it seems as though the trees do not want the sun to get to the forest floor. The Branches are different here, twisting and gnarling, the trees almost look aggressive. It’s not just the age of the trees, but the entire atmosphere of the forest itself. The underbrush is different here as well, svagna moss, (which I learn is an old antiseptic herb). The sample holes are easy to dig here, the ground is soft and boggy, there’s not much in the way of rock, but the soil tastes very acidic, acrid almost. The timber is not as tall and straight here, it’s rather...... ogre-ish. Stalky, with thick burly limbs, and strange deformations. The roots are large and tangled and weave in and out of the forest floor like they’re in search of prey. The needles in the spruce have no symmetry, rather they poke out on random branches like a warn out porcupine. The all around atmosphere of this part of the block is so foreboding, my senses are on high alert and I’m constantly looking around to make sure we are not being watched by a predator. I tread carefully but not too quietly, making a little extra noise to compensate for the lack of bird chirps and squirrel knatters. We have two more tasks to complete for the day. One is to boundary off a stream which cuts through one of our other blocks and runs into a fish tributary. And the other is to traverse a road into another one our blocks a little ways south, past Bell 2. We hop back into the truck to head to the stream, we search and search and search but to no avail. The stream has apparently entered into the watershed protection program and has relocated itself. We even go so far as to walk both ditches the entire length of the cutblock road. As the stream apparently runs through a culvert, under the road, and into the block. We still do not find the stream, nor any sign of a culvert. We do come across a bear however, and decide to leave the stream as it is, and head south, to the road that needs to be traversed, and a little closer to home.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Aug 2013 03:39:23 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015