Ya big fairy!

Nope, I'm not insinuating that someone likes to dress up as Tinkerbell and float around in sparkly dust. It's a clever pun to illustrate that today, Jethro and I made the most of the WONDERFUL weather and hiked to Fairy Creek, a little waterfall on the outskirts of Fernie which is a very pretty spot. We were going to go biking, but the shop ran out of bikes. It seems everyone is making the most of the sunshine!

We slapped on the suncream (as we are fair-skinned, British and therefore burn badly, unlike the rest of our house who just look at the sun and turn brown) and hiked up the hill, past the Alpine Trails community where all the posh people in Fernie live. You get the idea - huuuuuuge log cabins that back out onto beautiful wilderness, with many decks and hot-tubs to be seen. And most of these houses are empty - only to be used in the winter. It's a travesty, I tells you.

As soon as we left the main road and stepped onto the trail, I got a wee bit scared of bears... it's something I'm going to have to overcome, as it ruins my enjoyment of walking when I'm worried that a grizzly is going to jump out and eat me at any second. Unfortunately, it's something that can happen around these parts, so you need to clap your hands, sing loudly and generally make a lot of noise so you don't give them any nasty surprises (which is when they're likely to attack). You feel like a right numpty walking in the wilderness singing Britney Spears songs - the only ones we could think of at the time, but hey, it's not like anyone else is out there to judge your musical tastes. Apart from the bears... and gophers.

(I heard a rustling in the undergrowth and freaked out, practically jumping on top of Jethro, only to see a small gopher looking at me quizzically.)

We made it to the creek, which is where most of Fernie gets its water from. It's a lovely spot, with a small weir, waterfall and an area that just begs to be used for paddling. As it was so hot, we took our shoes and socks off and did just that, but the water was so cold that our feet went numb in seconds. Thank God we didn't take the plunge and dive in - we would have got pneaumonia. Because the water is all run-off from the melting snow in the mountains, it's crystal clear but very chilly.


The Three Sisters with the last bits of snow still holding out...


Hellloooooooo? If any bears are behind me, I don't want to know! (check out the not-so-tanned legs!)


The aforementioned 'Rustling Gopher'


Fairy Creek itself. Very picturesque, I'm sure you'll agree.

Birthday boys and girls

We had a weekend of birthdays starting on Friday, which has meant that we've been socialising like mad little social things, and meeting people that have been in Fernie over the winter but who we never met until now! Fernie's a small place, but it's amazing to find that there are whole groups of season workers that you never crossed paths with over the winter, mainly because you moved in different circles. It's really nice to meet new friends, and there are quite a few people staying over the summer so it should be a good crowd.

The most important birthday of the three that were being celebrated was, of course, our housemate Julian's. He's just turned 25 - he thinks this is old, but the rest of us told him that after 25, it just gets better and better. And it's true! So we had a little gathering for him in the form of a barbecue on Saturday night, and I baked him a hedgehog/beaver/porcupine cake, which was well-received. Lisa made Nanimo bars too which were rather epic. If you don't know what a Nanimo bar is, it's a confectionary masterpiece of biscuit, custard and chocolate and it's YUMMY!

We hear that there's a heatwave in the UK right now. Would you mind sending some of it over to us as it's been downright wierd weather in the last week! We keep forgetting that in Fernie, it's still Spring - hence we've been getting a lot of rain, but some great thunderstorms. The weather turned yesterday, and it got sunny and nice (but I was at work - great!) but it's supposed to be hot and dry for the rest of the week. Woke up this morning to more grey skies - fantastic! We hope things improve for Canada Day weekend as we have Michael and Anke visiting from Vancouver, and they're driving all the way here, bless them! That's a 22-hour round trip just for the weekend. They rock!

Anyway, onto the usual plethora of pictures:


Gloomy Fernie – the storms here are seriously good, with lots of scary lightening that hits the top of the mountains in proper dramatic style.


After the storms, we’ve seen some fantastic rainbows – this one was a double, but Jethro couldn’t get it all in the picture it was so big!


The birthday boy himself, young Jules!


The presenting of the cake – nobody had the foresight to take a picture of it before it got devoured! (doh!) but take my word for it, it looked great!


The barbecue in full swing – because of the weather, we had to erect a tarp over the garden in case we had another downpour. In typical sods law fashion, the evening stayed dry…


… and we ran out of gas half-way through the evening, meaning that we had to cook everything in the kitchen! Some of you who read this blog regularly may remember that the same thing happened over the winter. Moral of the story: before you invite a few people over for a barbecue, check the gas!


Nice weather at last! A bit of contrast to the last week.


Giving us a chance to work on our tans (in my case: what tan?)


Jules plays with his birthday present from us – a super soaker water pistol. Hence, his girlfriend Emma is looking a little worried. After this picture was taken, I’m ashamed to say that she got a good soaking, but soon managed to steal the gun and get her own back – go Emma!


Now that the snow on Mount Hosmer has melted, the Ghostrider legend can be seen in the evenings on a sunny day. The rocks form a shadow in the shape of a horse and rider, the ghost of an angry Indian chief and his jilted daughter pursuing William Fernie. As the legends tells it, William Fernie was courting an Indian Princess to learn the source of her sacred black stone necklace. It is said that after learning the secret location of the Morrissey Coal Seams, Fernie stopped seeing the Princess and the tribe's medicine woman placed a curse on the Elk Valley. A public ceremony in 1964 officially lifted the curse. Members of the Kootenay Tribes assembled in Fernie and Chief Red Eagle and Fernie Mayor James White smoked a pipe of peace. I swear to God, I'm not making this up!

On the road... AGAIN!

Yes, you've all probably realised by now that no miraculous job offer materialised in the last two weeks for either Jethro or myself - even if we did apply to thirty positions between us. Maybe we should have given it more than a month, but money ran out... so guess where we are now.... yup, Fernie!

We hopped on the Greyhound last night in Vancouver at 6pm, and arrived in Fernie at 1pm this afternoon, having shared our journey with a remarkably 'diverse' amount of people... some might say the dregs of Canadian society, but that might be a little harsh. Our first inclination that it might be an 'eventful' journey, was when we were queueing at the bus station, and saw an altercation between the police, security and a man with mental health problems who was desperate to board our bus, but wasn't very successful. He got dragged off kicking and screaming and yelling obscenities... nice!

Within the first half an hour of the journey, some poor sod had his bag stolen when he left the bus for five minutes to have a wee... he'd left it on his seat.

And we had some 'interesting' rednecks at the back, drinking heavily, drawing fake tattoos on themselves and puking up at various intervals in the journey - for FIFTEEN hours. I repeat, nice!

This was The Greyhound Experience in glorious technicolour, so I guess we should be grateful. It was just a shame that we missed out all the fun on our journey to Vancouver a month ago.

So, Snow Valley Lodge is still standing. Lisa, Colin and Jules have been looking after the place spectacularly, and all look sickeningly brown and healthy. We now need to catch up! There is still some snow at the top of the mountain, but the landscape is vastly different to when we left - everything is much greener and all the flowers have come out so Fernie is looking tres, tres lovely.

It's good to be back.

Some nice pictures of our trip, taken from the window of the bus:







The Elk River is pretty high now as the snow is melting - you can see how green and lush the landscape is. Hence the floodplain is now, well, flooded.