Summer Camp

We had the amazing opportunity to set up a Summer Camp in Big White.  The Canadian Government sponsor one member of staff who is a full time student, and the school PAC decided to pay for a second member of staff from their funds.  So, the amazing Sara, a 17 year old from Beaverdell, and Lucas, an Aussie who ran the ice climbing tower, and who also broke his leg on the last day of last season and so had never made it home, became Big White Summer Camp employees. They organized activities every day, lots of craft and lots of mountain exploring and every week there was a trip off the mountain…sailing, bowling, swimming in the local lakes, parks, museums all for the vast price of $5 per child!!  What a blast…Lucy went every day….every day!  She loved it!  But it was the last week that proved the most exciting, well, for the children anyway, when they organized a camp out at Rhonda Lake.  No electric hook up, borrowed tent, no stove, no swimming pool with slides, not the glamping I'm used to!  Also, we had to do all the bear precautionary stuff like hanging all the food in a tree away from the camp.  These Canadians make out they know what they're doing but I wasn't convinced, especially when there was definitely this sniffing sound outside my tent at 5am…and I really needed a wee but no way was I going out there!!  Plus, we had taken a dog but he'd spent all afternoon barking at stones!!! So, was knackered and just slept all night…some deterrent he turned out to be!  However, besides that it was a beautiful night, sat by the camp fire looking at the stars and watching the space station fly over, we even did some wolf howling and listened to the sounds echo around the cliff.  Glorious experience, but maybe just the once!!

 Yoda…our protection…haha!!

Raft building, sort of!

Ned's birthday

I really should make a point of writing this blog a bit more often, it's 27th October and I want to write about Ned's birthday which was on 11th August...oops!  I think I'm just going to download the photos as I can't really remember the details of the day...but I'm going to try!  Ned wanted the other two Grade 6's to come as well as the lone Grade 5... then he decided he wanted not just the children but their families too...then a couple of other families asked if they could come too and, all of a sudden it had turned into a Big White at Atlantis Water Park day out!  Not too hot which was a bonus, just the right amount of sun, so no burnt children, but no shivering ones too...add in a Dairy Queen Birthday Cake and what more could a boy want for his 12th birthday!

 In the hot tub with the girls...huh!

 Cake for the grown-ups too!

Takes after his father!

Kopje Beach

Every Saturday in various parks in Lake Country, an area just outside in Kelowna, there is a family day...games, bouncy castles, live music and other stuff.  So, Don and Judy asked us to go to the family day to be held at the beach nearest to their house.  Also, as an added bonus, the music was to be an Abba tribute act...what more could I ask for!  The beach turned out to be beautiful, playground, swims in the lake, soccer, the kids were in heaven, especially Lucy who had Judy's undivided attention for the day!  I was really looking forward to Abba, and so was bitterly disappointed to discover they were a couple of fat Kelowna housewives in silver platform boots and mini skirts, thinking they could sing like the legendary Anfridthingy and Annasomething else!  No matter, lots of dancing and beer helped with that!

We thought it was such a pretty place that we went back the following weekend with some Big Whiters!  Next to the beach there's a heritage house, and seeing as we were there, we thought we'd check it out, so....this'll make you laugh!  It's a house next to the lake, lived in by a family who emigrated from the U.K, bought the land, built a house, planted an orchard and raised a family there. The house is open to the public 2 days a week and is celebrated for it's history and age...guess when it was built...1912!!!

 View from the steps of the house...what a spot!

Hike to Ronda Lake

Ronda Lake sits at the bottom of the Cliff Chair, it's completely frozen in the winter but in the summer it's rumoured to be beautiful...and it was!

 And we even found some left over snow..in August!

 So, on the right of this photo is The Cliff, you can just see the chair lift, and on the left is The Easter Shoots...great skiing through those trees, so Charlie and I hiked up for a look!

 The water was freezing!

In the gully at the top of The Shoots.

Sicamous

We were invited to go to Sicamous with a family from school who have a holiday house there.  We had a whole load of fun, messing around on their boat!  The lake there is massive, a huge H shape with 600 miles of coastline and with the temperature of the lake at a steady 78 degrees centigrade, even I didn't mind going in!

 Charlie's hair after tubing...hours of entertainment looking at that!!

 Who's the dude driving the boat?

 The goods trains go through Sicamous ALL the time!  This one was 130 carriages long!  Ned counted!!

Kelowna Mountain

We heard about Kelowna mountain from Lucy's teacher who had been there the week before, so we decided we'd go and investigate.  The visionary behind the project has bought 640 acres of land that was burnt during the fire of 2003.  He intends to set up a ski resort, winery, housing and golf course with the intention of turning the black landscape green again.  I tell you if he pulls it off it will be an amazing achievement, however, rumour has it, it's a lame duck as he has failed to get permission from the authorities and has no amenities in place, no sewage, water or electricity.  Not deterred by this he has sold many real estate plots (what I believe has financed the project so far) and has installed a chair lift and built a series of amazing suspension bridges, reputedly the longest in North America.  So, The Carrs and the children's school buddies, The Brunts, went for a butchers after soccer one day, hence the rather bright yellow shirts. Minus Jamie who didn't even get onto the first bridge!!!  Check it out at kelownamountain.com

 Slightly dodgy workmanship!

 View over the city.

Meeting the relatives

I've been in contact with my father's first cousin Dorothy for some time now, emailing back and forth, trying to find out about my Canadian relatives and finding out about how our families are connected. For the past 40 years, she has been travelling to Mara Lake, about 2 hours from Big White, to meet up with her sisters.  So, this year she asked if we wanted to go along too, so it seemed like a great opportunity to meet them, en masse, without having to travel halfway round Canada!
My grand father on my dad's side was one of four siblings and the other three all emigrated to Canada in the 1920's.  The only reason my grand father didn't go too was that he had already met my grand mother and she refused to leave England!  My great Uncle Fred settled on a farm on the Canadian prairies and these are his descendants.

This is Dorothy on the left, with her sister Jean in the middle and her sister Fay on the right.  Dorothy lives in Calgary, Jean lives in Vancouver and Fay still lives not far from where her father settled on the prairies.  Mara Lake is 'roughly' half way between them.

 The bloke on the right is Jean's only son Michael, which makes him my second cousin, and the little girl in the middle is his daughter Ava, who's just three years old.  She is Ned, Charlie and Lucy's third cousin.  Pretty hard to explain all that!

 Ned, Charlie and Lucy with their 'new' cousin!

Ava took a bit of a shine to Ned, she kept saying 'hello boy' to him!  I think he was flattered the first time!!

San Drift Lakes

I know I keep writing about the vastness and remoteness of Canada but I really do find it staggering. Take San Drift lake, as the crow flies it's about 20 miles from Big White, not far really except the only way of getting there is down logging roads, un-maintained, un-tarmaced, made from nothing more than dirt, cutting through the forests with the odd sign of human life when there are patches of active logging.  You definitely do not want to break down, there are animals out there that you can only dream of, bears, wolverines, cougars, moose, most of which would have you for breakfast.  Not the moose maybe, they'd just kill you for the sheer hell of it because they're soooo stupid!  Not even the loggers would provide a safe haven, they are men not to be messed with!
One of Lucy's friends at school was having a birthday and she wanted to go camping for her birthday, but had asked if we would go and spend the day at the lake.  Good job she didn't ask us to camp as there's not a cats chance in hell I'd camp out there!!
So, with no mobile signal and with no sat nav or map we set off!  Just relying on old fashioned paper directions!  Luckily, we made it with no problems at all and it was such a lovely spot, peaceful and so pretty.  We roasted weiners on an open fire, played hide and seek, ate cake and drank beer in front of the lake.  Awesome!

 Lucy and her friend Tosh