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Guests from Two Very Different Climates
In mid April I had two tours with people from the opposite sides of the globe. The first was a group of Eskimos or Inuit as they are now called. They were from Rankin Inlet, a small settlement on the west side of Hudson’s Bay. This place is way up north above the treeline. They were all young having just graduated from Nunavut Arctic College. They were the top three in their graduating class. As a reward their teacher brought them south for a vacation. They wanted to see some big trees and waterfalls.
We met at their accommodation, Tigh-na-mara. We stopped at Little Qualicum Falls Provincial Park, at Fossli Provincial Park to cross the suspension bridge and see the waterfalls, at Sproat Lake Provincial Park to see the Petroglyphs and at Winer Falls. They liked Winer falls the best because they had to climb down some ropes into the grotto at the bottom. At the end of the day we had a few minutes to stop at Cathedral Grove to see the biggest tree.
These kids had never see trees this big, or moss growing on trees, or a landscape covered in trees or even mountains.
 
 
 
The other tour was a couple from Australia, where is quite dry and warm. They also were impressed by the big mossy maples and the huge Douglas fir. They also wanted to see waterfalls. So we went to Fossli, Winer, Sproat, and Stamp Falls. Although they were older, they were reasonably fit and managed to scramble down the ropes to the grotto at the bottom of Winer Falls. They were also quite impressed with the Trout Lilies or Erythronium Lilies that were putting on an impressive show at Stamp Falls at the time.
 
It’s great to see the area you live in, and have become so familiar with, through the eyes of people like these from such different parts of the world.