Becoming Official Canadian Citizens

    In 1972, my wife and I made a life changing decision.  Tricky Dick Nixon had just been re-elected for a second term as President of the United States by an overwhelming vote, and I realized that I just didn’t trust the American voters, to determine what my future was to be living in the US, so we decided to try to immigrate to Canada, which is what we successfully did in 1973.  It was a decision, I am extremely happy we had made.  We have been very happy with our lives in Canada,

        In March of 2012, our door bell rung and I wondered who it could be.  Its a good thing I didn’t spend any time trying to guess, because I would have never been able to do it.  It was Vince Vecchio.  That’s Vince standing on the right hand side of the photo.  He is someone I had often seen in town, but I don’t really know him very well.

        Anyway, when I opened the door and saw Vince, he handed me the photo you see above.  I didn’t have my reading glasses on, but I could tell the photo was an image of a group of people, but little else.  Vince said he was rummaging through some of his old papers and found it, and he thought we might enjoy having a copy.  I thanked him and was appreciative of his effort, but I still didn’t really know what the photo was about.

        After he left, and I was back in the house, I put my reading glasses on and saw that what Vince had given me was a newspaper photo taken of the small group of us that had gotten our Canadian citizenship in March, 1979.  I had forgotten that it had happened on my mother’s birthday.  I went back and found my 1979 diary in order to refresh my memory about the event.   I hadn’t written much about the ceremony, except to say that we drove the 50 miles to Valemount and it had been short and sweet.

        It was really nice of Vince to bring the photo by.  I colorized my wife and I in the photo, so you could identify us among the small group of local, newly-legalized, Canadian citizens.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Still Photos Compared: Camcorder vs iPhone

     For years, the photos you have seen on my blog have been taken with my Sony Handycam (FDR AX53).  I liked the way they turned out, and the comfortable easy way the camcorder sat in my hand.  I also love the focal range of the camcorder, from its zoom, to its very close ups.  When I would import the photos into my computer, I did often tweak them, giving them a little more contrast, and just a bit more intensity to the color.  

    I bought myself an iPhone 16 in December, and soon became very impressed with the photos that it was giving me.  I was amazed that the focal range on the iPhone, which gave me similar shots to my camcorder.  I do have more difficulty holding the phone in my hand when taking a photo. 

      Since I got the phone, I have been using more and more of the iPhone photos on the blog.  (Yesterday’s photos of the elk were taken with the iPhone.)  The iPhone is always in my pocket and is easier to take with me, for unexpected photos.

    I had read an article about how mobile phones do a lot manipulating of the photos you take, without you realizing it.  That made me curious, so I did a bit of experimenting.  I took a shot with my camcorder, then a shot of the same scene with my iPhone to compare.  On the photo above, the upper half was taken with my camcorder, and the lower half, with my iPhone.  

    You can see that the iPhone photo is a tad more colorful, and distinct.  (Those are both things I usually tweak on my camcorder photos anyway.)  The same differences in color and contrast show up in the photo posted below, with the camcorder shot on the top half and the iPhone photo beneath it. 

    I have noticed that sometimes the phone digital photos come out a bit “too much.”    I have really noticed that on some of the photos I took with my iPad--everything is just way too distinct, which I find disturbing.  

    Anyway, that was my little experiment.  I will keep using both my camcorder and iPhone for the photos on my blog.  I am satisfied with the photos I get from both of them.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Herd of Elk

     Most Saturday nights we go visit with friends over on Hinkelman Road.  Now that we have had the time change, it means that it is light outside, when we go.  Since then, it seems like we always see something photo-worthy as we make the trip.  Last time, it was the sunlight illuminating the top of Beaver Mountain.  Last night we rounded the corner, and there in front of us was a big herd of elk (Wapiti) feasting on some of Terry’s hay bales.

    As soon as I stopped the car, the elk became suspicious and in a line, started heading away toward the middle of the field.  I grabbed my iPhone and took these photos.

    Back in the 1970’s, there were no elk in the Valley, although there were some in Jasper Park.  It is believed that Parks, started shipping problem elk out of the parks and depositing them in the Robson Valley.  The elk found their new surroundings to their liking, with all the fields of crops, hay bales in the winter, and they really thrived and their population increased in their new home.  

    The elk were not welcomed by the farmers, because they causd a lot of problems, particularly in destroying the bales of hay that were stored outside over the winter.

    While it is always enjoyable for me to see the big herd of elk, local farmers don’t have the same reaction upon seeing them.  A friend of mine who has horses, had to continually get up in the middle of the night, after hearing her dog barking.  She had to quickly dress, run out into the field, and then chase the elk away from the hay she needed for her horses.  

    

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Throng of Thrushes

     While it may not be unusual to see a group of birds together taking advantage of some available food, I have been really surprised at the number of Varied Thrushes that have been feeding outside our house these last few days.  While I was aware that there are Varied Thrushes around here, it is a bird I usually just hear in the forests, it is a bird I rarely see.  

    I was surprised at the beginning of March to see a couple of them searching for food in the few spots that were free of snow.  When that snow had melted, they kept busy scratching around in the leaves, looking for food, which probably didn’t offer them much.  

    Then at the beginning of the week we got a foot of snow (30cm) which blanketed the ground, and the thrushes were in trouble, because the meager source of food they were depending upon was suddenly covered up.  I took mercy on them, and spread some rolled oats around in a few spots where I had seen the birds looking.

    I was surprised at what then happened.  Suddenly, there was a flock of Varied Thrushes that appeared in my yard.  I counted sixteen of them at one point.  It is the male birds that migrate first, giving them time to establish a suitable territory for  mating, the female will come later.  So all of the thrushes that appeared are males, and you know how males generally act;  they keep chasing other males away.  That is what the throng of thrushes are doing in my yard as they eat, they are also keeping busy chasing the other male birds away from the food.  

    Male Varied Thrushes look a lot like Robins, but are more decorative (photo below).  It is a treat to see so many of them, and watch all of the activity outside.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

The McBride Snow Pillow Graph

     BC is largely made up of mountains.  Knowing how much snow (and rain) has fallen on those mountain tops during the winter is very important information.  It gives some indication of what kind of things the province might experience in the upcoming summer.  Might there be flooding?  Might there be drought conditions?  Will there be enough water in the rivers for the electricity that is generated by the dams?  It is good to know those kind of things in advance, so preparations can be made to help minimize potential problems.  

    To get that sort of information, BC uses a technology called “Snow Pillows” which they place in alpine areas around the province.   These pad-like items measure the weight of the snow that is on top of them.  If rain falls on the snow, that also adds to the weight that is measured.  That information is electronically sent to a center that has gathered and recorded the data for decades.

    The graph above shows what has been recorded this year (the dark blue line), the amount of snow recorded last year (the green line), and the pink line that shows the historical amount of snowfall (and rain) on our local mountains over the years

    Seeing that the blue line is just above the “normal” range is good news for the Robson Valley.  For several years we have been experiencing drought-like conditions locally.  Of course, we could still experience a summer of drought, but at least there should be a good deal of water in the local creeks and springs that are fed by the snow in the alpine.

    Sunbeam Creek, where we get our water, had a very low flow last year.  Hopefully, things will be back to normal this summer.

    Below is a photo of some of the snow-capped mountains, where the local snow pillow is located.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Emergency Food Relief For Desperate Birds

     I was very surprised at the beginning of March to see the arrival of a Robin and some Varied Thrushes out in the snow looking for food.  It seemed to me they had come a bit too soon.  Luckily for them, it had warmed up and the snow in the yard had melted.  

    I usually don’t see the Varied Thrushes in our yard, but I could sometimes hear them in the nearby woods.  This year I have been surprised to see about six of them hanging around in the yard, scratching around in the leaves.  In the summer, they find insects to eat in the leaf litter, but I doubted they were finding many this time of year, since it is still basically winter here.

    Then on Tuesday night, we had a major snowfall of more than a foot, that covered the yard.  Yesterday, I began to see fragments of leaves on the edge of our front porch.  They had come from a very narrow strip of dead leaves that were still showing at the edge of the porch.  I knew why they were scattered there; the poor hungry Varied Thrushes were trying to find food in those few dead leaves that were still showing at the edge of the porch.  They were looking for food at every possibility.

    When I cleared my driveway with the snowblower yesterday, the machine had removed all the snow, down to the ground in a few places.  Later in the day, I saw that the Thrushes, we scouring those bare places looking for food.  They seemed pretty desperate, so I figured I’d better do something.

    I spread some rolled oats around the bare spots where I thought the Thrushes would find them, and almost immediately they did, and were pecking away, picking up the flakes of oats.  I did do a bit of research, and I guess the migrating Varied Thrush does vary its diet a bit during the winter to include nuts and berries, so they shouldn’t have problems with the rolled oats.

You can view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

What Happened to Spring?

     I guess I should have kept my mouth shut about all of those various signs of spring that had begun to appear.  This morning we woke up to 12-15 inches (30-38 cm) of fresh snow and a temperature of -8°C (17°F).  There was no painting for me today, as soon as I had finished breakfast I had to go out, crank up my snowblower, and start clearing the driveway.

    I spent 1 1/2 hours maneuvering the machine around, trying to see where I was going while a lot of snow was spraying back into my face.  I was not able to entirely complete the job, but I did managed to clear all of the areas that we needed to get up to the road.

    First thing I always have to do in the morning as soon as I get up and dressed, is carry Kona outside to pee.  It always maddens me that she just doesn’t immediately get down to the business at hand, instead she starts forcing herself (she can barely move herself) to some distant area that she finds appropriate.  Its painful to watch her try to walk (scoot), and even more painful watching her try to do it through deep snow.

    Today, after she tried to find the right place, she gave up and didn’t pee, so I carried her back inside the house and cleaned off all of the snow that was clinging to her.  I figured once I had cleared some of the driveway, Kona would have an easier place to move around in, while she searched for the perfect place to pee, and that was what happened, after I got done clearing the driveway.  

    The photo below shows Kona sitting in the deep snow, after giving up on her first attempt to pee.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Who Came Around Last Night?

     There is usually a lot of nightlife activity that goes on around here after dark, that we don’t know anything about.  One of the interesting things about snow, is that it can give you a clue about who had come for a visit.  The photo above shows the track of a Timber Wolf that had ventured around our place.   Usually the animal tracks I come upon, are not as exotic a wolf; normally they belong to more common critters. 

    The thing that got me going on animal tracks was finding the tracks of our neighbor’s cat, who likes to live its life outside.  On my many trips walking around our pond I have many times noticed that the cat seems to have a regular nighttime circuit that includes the path circling my pond.  The cat heads up by behind my greenhouse, across the yard, and then makes a beeline for my barn.  The cat seems to make this circuit several times a week.

    Immediately below is a trail left by a Field Mouse and at the very bottom, tracks of a Snowshoe Hare.

Feel free to look at my paintings:  davidmaarchant2.ca

Red Heart by James Alexander Thom

      This is a novel I have been wanting to read for years.  I had enjoyed reading several of the other novels written by James Alexander Thom, based on historical figures who had existed in the early settlement of the midwest.  I had become aware of Red Heart years ago, but hadn’t been able to find it, until I discovered it as an ebook in Apple Books.  

    The novel is based on the life of Fanny Slocum.  The novel begins In 1778 with five year old red-haired Fanny living with her pioneering Quaker family in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania.  During an Indian attack, Fanny was kidnapped by the three Indians, who killed and scalped one of her older brothers.  The Indians gagged Fanny and carried her off on horseback, traveling quickly for days, before they eventually getting her to an Indian village.  There she was given to an Indian woman who had had her daughter killed by Whites when they had earlier attacked the tribe.  

    As time went by, Fanny slowly learned the tribe’s language and she slowly adapted to her new life with the tribe.  Her red hair was was always an attraction with the other Indians in the tribe.  While initially missing her birth family, she soon found love with her new mother, and began to really enjoy the freedom she found living with the Indians, which was not as restrictive or structured as her life had been with her Quaker family.  She began to see that the Indian culture was similar to that of her Quaker family, with their values of peace, kindness, and honesty.  Fanny loved being part of the religious ceremonies for planting and harvesting, even though they were so different from the religious traditions she had known as a very young child.

    Although Fanny was accepted and became a member of the village, the Indians in her village hated Whites, and it didn’t take Fanny long to see why.  The Indians worked hard to grow the garden crops needed to get them through the hard winters, but time after time, White armies would attack the villages in the fall, before they could harvest, burning their gardens and their wigwams.  This forced the tribe to retreat further and further away from the Whites, and having to start all over establishing a new village.  This destruction occurred, year after year, as the white settlers, took over more and more of the Indian’s land.

    With another white army about to attack the village, Neepah, her Indian mother who Fanny had come to love, arranged to have Fanny sent away to live with Neepah’s elderly parents who lived in a village near Niagara Falls.  Neepah, who had stayed behind to help protect their village was killed by the Whites.  Neepah’s death was very traumatic, for Fanny, but she soon found love and became the adopted daughter of Tuck Horse and Flicker, Neepah’s elderly parents.

           The attacks of the whites continued year after year, destroying the wigwams, crops, and Indian villages wherever the Indians tried to establish them.   White traders sold the liquor that destroyed Fanny’s first husband, and later one of her children, who was killed by a young drunken Indian.   Fanny soon learned to hate whites too and never trusted  them.  She hid herself from them, fearing they would take her sell her back to the Quaker family she could hardly remember.   

            Red Heart covers a fascinating and untold story, full of the history, the struggles, and the culture of the Native people of the time.  I found it immensely interesting and enlightening.  I was very touched toward the end when Fanny an old woman in her seventies, finally got to meet her two brothers and a sister who were still alive.   Fanny Slocum  lived an amazing life, and I happy that James Alexander Thom, had presented it in such a readable and gripping novel.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Kona, Waiting for her Food

     With her terrible hip dysplasia, Kona’s life has become very restricted.  She can’t do much on her own now, and needs my help to carry her from place to place.  What she still can do is eat, and even though eating has always played an important part in her life, now it has really become her most central focus.

    Yesterday, when I was in the kitchen preparing her dinner, I happened to glance into the living room, and there was Kona on the couch, her head resting on the arm of the couch, watching me with great intensity, anxiously waiting for me to get done fixing her food, so she could e\\\

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

The First Sprouts of Spring

     With all of the craziness of the weather, I find it reassuring to find that Nature responds the way that it should.  This morning I was happy to discover that the first green sprouts of spring have dared to show themselves.  Their buried bulbs are planted in the narrow strip which lays between our sidewalk and our house.  That face of the house gets direct sunlight in the morning and the heat radiating from the house’s sunlit wall warms the area, giving the bulbs an incentive to get growing.  

    I am never quite sure what these initial sprouts are until they develop a bit further, but I am just happy to see a tiny bit of the newly discovered bright green color of the buried flower bulbs.

view my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Springtime in the Rockies

     Welcome to Spring.  Up here in the Canadian Rockies, today’s official start of Spring does not really mean anything as far as the weather is concerned.   Spring is a season of weather changes as part of Spring’s transition, and we are certainly experiencing that.  After many days of rain, this morning we woke up with snow covering the ground.  At present, it is raining again.

    The cartoon is one of my early ones, probably drawn in the first part of the 1980’s.  No doubt it was inspired by a more extreme weather transition, than we are getting today.

    I took the photo below this morning on my walk around the pond.  The pond ice is melting around the edges, and this shows the open water on its way to the pond’s outflow.  The remains of the old fence is part of the fence that existed in the 1970’s when we bought our property.  I didn’t take it down when I had the pond built.

Take a look at my paintings :  davidmarchant2.ca

Population

        Back in 1970, I remember reading a book called “The Population Bomb”, which discussed the fact that the human population was growing faster than the food supply, and that meant big trouble ahead.  The book got quite a bit of buzz, and so did the phrase, “Stop at Two” that encouraged people to not have any more than two offspring.  Both the book and the phrase are long forgotten, and in the 50 years since then the population has doubled in size.

        Population is at the root of so many of the world’s problems today...hunger, poverty, wars, and environmental degradation, but it is rarely discussed, because it might upset people’s religious, and cultural beliefs.  Religions and cultures that give all the power to men are one of the basic causes, since birth control can be available throughout the world.

        Everyone alive deserves the same high standard of living that is available in the developed world, but statistics tell us that presently the US alone uses up 25% of the worlds resources.  There are just not enough resources in the world for everyone to live the way North Americans do.  It spells mega problems ahead for everyone, except the ultra-wealthy.

       I have  read that the number of people living today, is greater than the total number of people who have ever lived, and died, on this planet.  That scares me, because there seems to be no apparent concern or solutions.

        Tragically, there are prominent and powerful people today who are actually pushing for increases in population (preferably for them: the White population).  Men, like Elon Musk and JD Vance are two proponents of more people.  Today’s world, with all of its increasing limitations, brought on by climate change, leaves our earth struggling and unable, to provide for all of its current population.  The last thing the only planet we can survive on needs, is more people.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Where Do The Cartoons Come From?

         n the little Robson Valley community where I live, I am usually introduced as “the guy that draws the cartoons in the paper.”  That seems to be my claim to fame.  One of the most common questions I am always asked is, “How do you come up with all those ideas?”

        It is a complicated question to answer, because there is no single answer to the question.  The ideas come from everywhere.  Things I see, things I hear, sometimes, things just pop into my head, and I have even gotten ideas in my dreams.   Most commonly, the ideas result from something that happens to me in my life.

        In the cartoon above, you might be able to figure out where the idea for the cartoon came from.  Basically, what happened was that our cat Lucifer was so eager to get into her fresh litter box, that she jumped into it when I laid it down to take my boots off after cleaning it.  She did not even give me a chance to put it in its spot.  Usually, I just take a humorous situation like that, and make it more extreme.  That is what I did in this cartoon.

        I used to do a cartoon every week for the local paper, in 2013 a second local paper asked me if I would do cartoons for them also, so I was doing two cartoons every week.  The second paper disappeared, and last year the local weekly paper went down to just publishing every two weeks, so there is a lot less pressure to come up with a cartoon for me. 

        If I can’t come up with a cartoon, I can always redo one of the many old cartoons I have drawn.  I have discovered that after three years, people don’t remember the cartoons anyway.

You can take a look at my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Wind, Then of course, a Power Outage

     Yesterday, was day of strong winds and blowing snow.  Eventually the snow petered out, but the wind kept blowing.   Because we live in a rural area with a lot of trees, when we get strong winds, that often causes a tree, somewhere along the long power line that feeds our house, to blow over onto the line, resulting in an outage.  So I wasn’t entirely surprised late yesterday afternoon when our power went off.

    Initially, our power went off, then came back on, then off, then on, in a rapid repeat.  I knew that sort of thing can play havoc on electrical equipment, so I went to our electrical box and just flipped the breaker for the whole house off.  I figured I would leave it off for about twenty minutes, hoping that by that time, things would have settled back down.

    Twenty minutes later, I flipped the house breaker back on and was surprised when nothing happened.  At first I wondered if something had happened to the breaker, but then realized that more than likely, we were experincing a power outage.

    I got my cell phone and went to the BC Hydro (our electricity provider) website to see information I could glean.  It took what seemed like forever for the website to load, because McBride just has G3 phone connectivity.   Once the site loaded, I found out that yes indeed, a tree had blown down across a power line.    The power outage had begun shortly after 4:00, and the website said a crew was on its way (they have to come from one hour away) and it was expected that our power would be back on by 6:00.

    Six o’clock came and went, but the outage continued.  By 7:00 the temperature inside out house was starting to get cold (17°C, 63°F) because our electric baseboards weren’t working, so I built a fire in the wood stove to warm things up.

    Every time we have a long outage,I become aware of just how dependent we are on the internet to pass the time.  We can use our phones, but as I mentioned, with just G3, everything takes forever to load.  Fortunately, I had a downloaded eBook on my iPad, so I was able to read about 4 chapters, while we sat in front the fire in our wood stove waiting for the power to come back on.

    Finally, at 8:00, we heard the beeps of our electrical equipment, alerting us that they again had electricity.  It is always such a treat to finally get things back to normal.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Snow Now, Lots of Rain Later

     Last night we were pounded by strong winds and blowing snow.  The strong wind even blew my snow shovels that were hanging on hooks in the carport off, and onto the ground.   At present, it is still snowing and we are living under a snow warning, but that is to change later in the day when the temperature rises, and the snow turns to rain.  I would rather it just kept falling as snow, since that is easier to deal with, than slush.  

    There is an “atmospheric river” moving into BC from the Pacific.  Vancouver and the Lower Mainland will be hard hit, and are in for a real drenching for days.  Even up here in the middle of the province, our forecast calls for rain and showers until the weekend, when some flurries, are forecast.

    March is generally characterized with a lot of changeable weather, but I wish a little more sunshine was mixed in to those changes.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Evening Sun on Beaver Mountain

     We go visit our friends, the Milnes, every Saturday night.  Last night when we headed to their house, we sure noticed the recent time change.  Instead of making the trip at dusk, last night the sun was still above the Cariboo Range of mountains on one side of the valley, illuminating Beaver Mountain, a prominent peak just east of McBride, on the opposite side. 

    Of course seeing the snow-capped mountain glowing in the direct sunlight, delayed our trip to the Milnes because I just had to stop several times to take photos.  Here are two of them:

You can see my paintings at davidmarchant2.ca

Wild Looking Kona

     Although poor Kona is looking pretty wild in this photo, she is no longer able to be the wild dog she used to be.  Now crippled with hip dysplasia, she can no longer even move herself from room to room, and she has to depend on me to pick her up and carry her from place to place.  She is on a lot of pain-killer pills, and although I know she is often hurting, she doesn’t complain.

    Despite her drugs and pain, her instincts are still very active.  The other day when I carried her outside to pee.  When she was sitting in the yard, a deer who was not paying much attention, came meandering out of the woods heading for the bird feeder.  Although the deer didn’t see Kona sitting in the snow, Kona sure saw the deer, and began barking in a fit of outrage, hobbling in the deer’s  direction, scaring it back into the woods.

    Kona didn’t really get very far, and quickly just sat down and waited for me to pick her up and carry her into the house, but kept barking even though the deer by this time was deep in the woods. 

    Kona still has spirit and craves our affection, something we are happy to provide.

Tae  look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca