Canada‘s Great Bear Rainforest sweeps along British Columbia’s Inside Passage and is more than twice the size of Yellowstone National Park. In the middle of this broken wilderness, more than 150 miles (240 km) from the nearest paved road, is the King Pacific Lodge, a floating fishing lodge based on the serene waters of Princess Royal Island’s Barnard Harbor, home to black wolves, grizzlies, black bears, and a maximum of thirty pampered guests. Photo by: andrew mcgarry

The flights there takes you over nothing but trees, lakes, and rivers, the lodge’s isolation is genuine enough to lure A-listers such as Kevin Costner, who is longtime devotee. Every spring the unique lodge, moved from its winter home in the coastal town of Prince Rupert to its summer surrounds on Princess Royal Island, where the lodge’s seventeen rooms offer either wilderness or ocean views and access to everything that true wilderness is meant to be. Photo by: SevillaSD

Guests can kayak to uninhabited islands or take guided hikes to as-yet-unnamed peaks. If you’re lucky, you may be even fortune enough to see the rare Kermode ”spirit bear” – a black bear with a recessive gene that gives it a white coat. King Pacific Lodge sits on an old navy barge and was designed by a team of marine architects. A Toronto-based firm was responsible for the hotel’s interior, which features furniture made from driftwood. Its hull contains freezers and coolers to store meat and fish, and vegetables are flown in weekly with the hotel’s guests. Photo by: andrew mcgarry

Photo by: andrew mcgarry

The Olympia Lodge is nestled in a valley, surrounded by two majestic mountain ranges. Olympic Lodge is located in beautiful Klamath Falls, Oregon. Adjacent to public golf course 2 miles from Victoria, British Columbia Ferry 4 miles from Ediz Hook, 16 miles from Lake Sutherland. It’s All At The Doorstep Of The Olympic Lodge.

All of the 50 guestrooms are completely equipped, cosy and convenient!

Amenities: Air Conditioning, Refrigerator, Telephone, Television (Cable/Satellite), Microwave Oven, Non-Smoking Rooms, In Room Wireless Internet Access, Television, Daily Maid Service, Coffee Maker.

No other hotel in the area can boast a swimming pool, gymnasium, sauna and sunbeds all on the same site.

No-boarding is a young sport that is like the traditional way of snowboarding but with a knobbed polymer traction pad and a heavy-duty bungee rope, which transform a snowboard into a no-board. Without highbacks to straps to hold feet in place, the pad prevents slipping, and a firm grip on the rope keeps the board in place and is like surfing -riders adapt to pitch and snow conditions by moving their feet and center of gravity.

In recent years a six-year-old company near Revelstoke, British Columbia, is promoting the sport. The kit is available in snowboard shops in Alberta, British Columbia, Alaska, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, Europe and Japan. No-boarding is the ultimate backcountry tool and wouldn’t be possible without current snowboard technology. For riders who have the chance to try the sport, no-boarding delivers aspiration and innovative spirit and bring people closer to the backcountry. Pulled up the rope and swooped down the hill, a graceful freedom….

Photos by: Jenna Low

British Columbia will host the “greenest games ever” in Vancouver February 2010. The city has constructed a series of stunning  structures in preparation for upcoming events, and has also kicked off its naturally-wood website, which provides a free digital tool kit for Building Green with Wood and insight into how BC’s sustainable forestry helps leed the way for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. 

The Richmond Olympic ring is an emerald of a speed-skating, with three levels and a massive wood wave roof inspired by local ecology, using lumber affected by the Mountain pine beetle. The sport event includes energy-saving refrigeration and rainwater collection, and $16-million oval roof claims one of the world’s largest  wooden structures, around the size of four and a half football fields.

Vancouver Convention Centre also features a living roof of 400,000 native plants, free of chemical fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides, that also captures rainfall to use within the building and for irrigation, and a seawater heating and cooling, on-site water treatment, marine habitat built into the foundations, and shoreline restoration.

The 2010 structure is designated as a LEED Gold structure, connecting two distinct spaces for multimedia and community affairs and decked out with submerged logs and concrete countertops utilizing post-beetle mania pine chips. The buildings will remain alive and well even after the games have ended.

Horseback riding, bear and  whale- watching trips, kayaking, trekking – these are just some of the activities available at Clayoquot Wilderness Resort, possibly North America‘s only luxury safari-style resort. The whole resort is like a camp, surrounded by verdant rain forest in the area near British Columbia‘s Tofino designated by UNESCO as Biosphere Reserve.

The twenty tents offer lots of space and homey features, such as remote-controlled propane woodstroves, Adirondack furnishing, and an abundance of candles and kerosene lamps that muster up a wonderfully rustic atmosphere at night.

The ranch cookhouse has a huge stone fireplace and an open kitchen where up to six dinners can watch culinary maestros prepare the resort’s delicacies. An area called the Healing Grounds boasts there cedarwood hot tubs, seawater baths, and four massage and treatment tents, plus a new spa building with two indoor treatment rooms for water therapies.

Add in the exotic, untamed surroundings and wealth of wildlife and it’s safe to say today’s urban explorers have never had it so good. This resort offer extremely sophisticated resort in the wild.

Location: Vancouver Island, Canada

In the Pacific Ocean, in British Columbia, the Queen Charlotte Islands are peaks of a submerged mountain chain. The seven largest islands of the 1,884 islands and islets in the archipelago are Langara, Graham, Moresby, Louise, Lyell, Burnaby and Kunghit. Just 2 km into the sea, the continental shelf falls away dramatically to the immense depths of the ocean, and this is Canada‘s most active earthquake area. Photo by: marc_guitard

Naikoon Provincial Park, in the north-east of Graham Island, covers a range of diverse environments including sandy beaches and dunes, sphagnum bogs, ancient forests and rivers. The landscape was formed during the last Ice Age out of the deposits left by retreating glaciers. The main attraction here are the endless stretches of broad sandy beaches. On the north beach is Tow Hill, a 100 m outcrop of basalt columns which make a dramatic landmark. Also worth seeing is Rose Spit, an ecological reserve, where you can spot migrating birds travelling over the Pacific. Photo by: g d gustafsson

The Gwaii Haanas National Park Reserve and Haida Heritage Site is in the south of the archipelago. The wilderness area of 138 islands stretching 90 km from north to south is only accessible by boat or charted aircraft. Mountains rise steeply to the west, and the coastline is dotted with stunning inlets, coves, bays and islands. This is great place to observe whales, bald eagles, nesting seabirds, black bears, river otters and sea lions. Photo by: Sam Beebe / Ecotrust

Rainforest and upland bog, salmon steams, estuaries and kelp beds sustain a rich diversity of life there.
When to go: April to November. Population: 4,935. Getting there: Fly to Vancouver or Prince Rupert to Sandspit, or take a ferry from Prince Rupert. You should know: This is a tranquil area with little development, so do not expect busy resort hotels with all the tourist comforts. Photo by: Yonn Yeth-Lachance

Photo by: Stef Olcen

Anthony Island is an Island in the province of British Columbia, located at latitude – longitude coordinates of N 52.1 and W -131.2167. One of the most southerly of the Queen Charlotte Islads , Anthony Island (known as SGang Gwaay by the Haida) holds rich culture.

Today, a columns are like giant arrows directing attention to the West Coast aboriginals’ life of yesteryear on Anthony Island, some 60 miles off the British Columbia coast.

On the southern tip of the island, the protected Ninstints village has been transformed into an open-air museum of sorts, with ten cedar dwellings offering the last links to a former world.

The park has the first historic traces of a European presence in the Americas, the ruins of a Norse settlement from the 11th century, with wooden and earth houses similar.

Quadra Island lies between Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia and is the largest and most populous of the Discovery Islands. A short ferry ride from Cambell River takes you through whale- and dolphin-rich waters to this island of ancient temperate rainforest. Photo by: jenisthebest

With its rich woodland, diverse topography, and plentiful wildlife, Quadra Island has become a huge draw for outdoor enthusiasts. There is an extensive system of lakes and rivers for kayaking and canoeing and many paths and trails for hiking and mountain biking. Guided bird watching and fishing charters run during the summer months, as do seaborne whale and bear watching trips. Its lakes are home to an incredible variety of wildlife, including black-tailed deer, river otters, harbour seals, sea-lions, cormorants, snowy owls, the great blue heron and the rarely seen peregrine flacon. Photo by: bcshooter

Its remoteness at the top of the Strait of Georgia helps this island community retain an idyllic charm. Aboriginal and European people live side by side, and whilst tourism is growing it is not overwhelming. Photo by: GerryT

When to go: All year round although the ferries can get crowded in the May to August period. Population: 2,650. How to get there: By ferry from Campbell River or Cortes Island. Photo by: MT-FOTOS

You need lots of fingers to count the island in the rocky Alexander Archipelago, which stretches for 485 km, hugging the southeastern coast of Alaska – there are about 1,100 of them. Deep fjords and channels separate mainland and islands, which have inhospitable, irregular coasts. The whole area is densely forested with fir woods and temperate rain forest. Most part of the archipelago is protected from development and teems with wildlife. The main economic activities are tourism, fishing and logging. The largest islands are Admiralty, Baranof, Chichagof, Dall, Revillagigedo, Prince of Wales and Wrangell. Photo by: brookb_phx

People there are thinly throw in various directions throughout the vast area, with the main centres of population being Ketchikan on Revillagigedo and Sitka on Barnov, each with some 8,000 souls – the latter was once the capital of Russian America. The archipelago is traversed by heavy boat traffic along the Inside Passage, a sheltered route that follows a path between the mainland and coastal islands of British Columbia and the Alaska Panhandle. There is no point to pretending that Alaska is a tourist destination. There is no road access, so the only ways in are by sea or air, but those who make the effort will dive in the ultimate wilderness experience. Photo by: gabidra

Cannas are tropical and subtropical flowering plants with large, banana like leaves. They can be grown as annuals in cooler regions, where they add an instant touch of the tropics to gardens. It is a genus of approximately twenty species of flowering plants.

The cherry blossom is Japan’s unofficial national flower. There are many dozens of different cherry tree varieties, most of which bloom for just a couple of days in spring. The cherry trees is known as Sakura in Japanese.

Bleeding hearts usually reach 2′-3′ in height with a similar spread. The bleeding heart, which ranges from California to British Columbia, has several varieties of garden interest. The plants’ flowers are either pink or white, and they appear in April or May. 

Poppies are showy early-summer flowers with petals like crepe paper. They grow 2 to 4 feet tall and bloom in white and all shades of pink and red. These flaunt their gorgeous pinks, reds, oranges, or whites in May or June like silken swatches spread across some central Asian bazaar.

Ixora may be the most common cultivated in South Florida and ‘Nora Grant’. There are some 400 species in the genus Ixora, vary with leaf size, plant height, and flower size and flower color.

The Gulf Islands are a group of mountainous islands situated across the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the mainland of southern British Columbia. They are part of a larger archipelago that features the San Juan Islands just to the south in Washington State. By the way the easiest way to get to is Saltspring Island – also well known as Canada’s arts and crafts island. Its mellow pace, breathtaking landscapes have drawn artists from all over the world. It has recently become the haunt of several Hollywood film stars.

The next island is Bucolic Mayne Island with medley of rock bays, forested hills and once the agriculture hub of the area. Saturna Island is tucked away at the southern end of the island chain. This one is very rural, sparsely populated and difficult to reach.

The Pender Islands, also emerged as the ”Friendly Islands” have over 20 public ocean access spots to visit along its beaches and coves. The Penders are great hotbed for outdoor activities. Galiano Island (displayed in the picture above) has always enjoyed a reputation for being the most welcoming to visitors. The early settlers opened their homes to tourists as a way of earning a living.

As a group the Gulf Islands are still underdeveloped and many of the best lodges and restaurants are hidden away down forests tracks.

When to go: All year round, although the islands are little crowded in summer.

]]> http://www.wayfaring.info/2009/06/18/gulf-islands/feed/ 0 http://www.wayfaring.info/2009/06/10/innovative-knitting/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=innovative-knitting http://www.wayfaring.info/2009/06/10/innovative-knitting/#comments Wed, 10 Jun 2009 11:29:55 +0000 misha http://www.wayfaring.info/?p=10224

Today there is a new form of urban graffiti in the world and it’s extremely interesting and enjoyably – urban knitting. I mean like sweater -wearing tree or all yarn covered corners with some of the best examples of knit/crochet graffiti.

The images display entitled ”tree cozy”. The impressive outfit was made by Carol Hummel and took her 500 hours from start to finish and stood for a 3 years outside clever land heights city hall until just recently.

Top left – a knitted handrail cover near Tullikamarinaukio Square, Finland, by Knit Sea. Top right – a tagged guard chain in Stockholm, left by the prolific Masquerade Crew. Bottom left – a mooring ring tagged in Stockholm, again by the Masquerade Crew. Bottom right – a grateful and warm lampost in Houston, Texas dressed by members of Knitta Please.

The picture display territorial knitting, an unauthorized project by Lauren Marsden. Her aim was to cover the signs of every street on which she has lived in Victoria, British Columbia, with knitted replicas.

Vancouver, British Columbia is a host city for the next Olympics Games, 2010. Despite of the fact that it is only 35 miles north of the U.S. border, Vancouver feels and looks different from any other big city in the United States or, for that matter, Canada. With its glass-and-steel towers, Vancouver could be in Asia.

There has been a lot of construction going on in Vancouver in preparation for the Games — and beyond. After the Winter Games, the 16-building Olympic Village, which will house about 2,800 athletes, is to be converted into a 730-unit luxury condominium complex called Millennium Water. About half the units have already been sold.

Most of the part of the peninsula is surrounded by a sea wall, which is ideal for walking, biking and jogging.

There are no freeways through the city. Those who want to head north to Whistler, where the Olympic skiing events will be held, can use the Lions Gate bridge, which spans the first narrows of the Burrard Inlet.

A statue of runner Harry Jerome stands against the Vancouver skyline.

No one knows for sure what Vancouver will be like after the Games!

The Desert Cultural Centre is designed to be a specific and sustainable response to the building’s unique context – the unusual Canadian desert found south of the Okanagan Valley in Osoyoos, British Columbia. Sited adjacent to a remnant of the Great Basin Desert, this interpretative centre is a part of larger 200-acre master plan that includes a winery, golf club and a resort hotel.

The building features outdoor and indoor exhibits that celebrate the culture and the history of the band and is designed to be an extension of the remarkable site, and reflects the brand’s role as stewards of the land. The desert landscape flows over the building’s green roof, held back by a rammed earth wall. The partially submerged buildings is sited very specifically to focus the visitor’s eye away from the encroaching development of Osoyoos to the west, with the height of the wall set to create a layered view of the desert rising up in the middle ground and the mountains in the distance.

In British Columbia is located Silver Star village, which is a small glamorous town sprawling cousin to the west. Sitting in the Okanagan Valley, Silver Star is one street village includes board sidewalks and Victorian storefronts that have a very cosy feel to them.

During the winter, Silver Star suggest 115 ski and snowboard trails, including 13 double-black-diamond runs. If you are rested in such a wonderful snow-world its advisable to hangout in Bagaboos Bakery, which is a lovely place with tables inside and out. There fresh European- style pastries and Dutch hot chocolate ordered at the counter make for a comfortable end-of-the-ski-day ritual.

The atmosphere in Silver Star is very delicate.There is no real grocery store in town, only three shops in which to buy souvenirs and experience little crazy night life. Many of the boutiques serve more than one purpose!

During the years the resort has becoming ski area with fantastic way of living. The village is very small as I mentioned and it’s easy to coordinate skiing with wall-climbing lessons.

As investment in the resort has increased, so have the housing prices, real estate agents say. An older two-bedroom condominium can still be found for 219,000 Canadian dollars, but some houses are starting to sell for a little more than 1 million dollars, and a three-bedroom condominium at the new Snow Bird Lodge, left, sold for 1.6 million.