Saturday 19 October 2013

Fog and Smoke



    The visibility hasn’t been very good in the Robson Valley over the last couple of days.  There has been fog in the morning, and smoke the rest of the day.  Yesterday morning we drove up to Prince George and encountered dense fog almost the entire 135 miles (217 km).  The CBC radio told of many flights being cancelled at the PG airport, because of the non visibility.   I was told that in Prince George, which is located in a bowl, that the day before, the fog stuck around all day long.  Luckily, in the Robson Valley it burns off later in the morning.
    The smoke, however, does not.  Around McBride, it sometimes feels like we live in a third world country, where massive amount of wood is burned just to get rid of it.  When we first moved here they carried on “slash burns” in the fall.  After clearcut logging a huge area, it was set alight to get rid of all the remaining debris.  For days, the whole valley would be filled with smoke, totally blocking out the view of the mountains and reducing the sun to a pinkish orange orb in the white sky.
    They supposedly restricted slash burns due to the air pollution it caused, but for some reason forgot to include burn biles.  Now they pile up the scrap logs and debris into huge big piles and light it. Too bad for those people who live in the valley who have allergies.

If you haven't yet seen my painting, "Burn Pile" go to:



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