Summer Giveaway

My uncle just got back from Smithers, which is the town in northern British Columbia where he and my father grew up (you can see a photo of the mountains near Smithers here and here).  He sent me this picture that he took at the Smithers Musuem of a beautiful china plate that features a picture of Lake Kathlyn with the mountains behind it.  Lake Kathlyn is a lake just a few kilometres from Smithers and is where my father used to go swimming when he was a boy.

I would love to get my hands on one of those plates, but I bet they didn't make many of them.  Isn't it lovely.  Not only does it have the significance of being from my father's hometown, but it is a lovely squared shape and in such a pretty shade of green.  You better believe I could find a spot on my walls for this pretty.

Speaking of plates - I recently managed to find one of the same Johnson Brothers plates that I have in my dining room (which you can read about here) to use in a giveaway.  If you recall, Johnson Brothers made a set of six plates, each one in a different pastel colour and with different fruit on them and all with sweet rope detailing around the edge.  The one I found, for the giveaway, is green with peaches and grapes on it.  Seems appropriately summery, don't you think?

 

And for the giveaway details:

1. Leave a comment for one entry (with an email address so I can contact you if you don't have a blog).
2. Become a follower for another entry (if you are already a follower, please leave a separate comment letting me know so you can be counted)
3. Mention the giveaway on your blog or Facebook for another entry.

 The contest ends on Tuesday, July 13th at midnight EST.

The Burgess Shale Hike

We are a rock-loving and fossil-loving family.  So when we were planning our trip out west in 2007, hubby requested that we visit the location of the world-famous Burgess Shale quarry.

The only way to gain access to the quarry is to go on a guided tour because it is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.  Through tilting and folding of the rocks, over the past 500 million years, the fossils have ended up near the top of Mount Burgess in Yoho National Park, British Columbia.  So if we wanted to see them we needed to sign up for the guided hike.  The hike is rated as moderately difficult and is 20-km (12 miles) with an elevation gain of 760 metres (2888 feet) - yikes!

So sign up we did (and start excercising - which isn't easy to do when you live in relatively flat Southern Ontario).

See there I am - I made it to the Burgess Shale Fossil Quarry and lived to tell about it.

The lake way down below is Emerald Lake (see the pick axe at my feet that was used in the quarry and left there).

The day after our hike we went to Emerald Lake so we could look back to where we had hiked.  I marked up the next photo so you could see the approximate last part of the route we took and the location of the fossil beds.

This same view of Mount Burgess was used on our old 10-dollar bills.

It was definitely the farthest we have travelled to see fossils, but well worth it!

Friday Photo - A Room with a View

I love taking photos looking out windows - I love the way the view is framed, and even enhanced, by the window frame.  I took these photos at Fort St. James in central British Columbia last summer.   Fort St. James was founded by Simon Fraser in 1806 and is one of B.C's oldest permanent European settlements .  It was an important fur trading post right into the twentieth century.  
 

I've selected two photos taken there, because I really couldn't decide between them and I'm not likely to post something so similar again.  I think I like the first one best, but then again, I like the old glass jars in the window of the second with the view of the hill across Stuart Lake.

Which photo do you prefer?

p.s. Don't forget to enter my giveaway (it ends on Sunday, March 21st).

Friday Photo - Mountain

 Mountains near Smithers, British Columbia

I took this picture of the mountains last summer on our trip out west to B.C..  It was a glorious sunny, warm day when we hiked up in the mountains above Smithers, the town my Dad lived in as a boy.  He used to hike these same mountians as a teenager (but he started from the town and hiked up and we drove most of the way up the mountain and just hiked the top part). 

Friday Photo - Coast Mountains

These two photos were taken last summer when I flew south, from Smithers to Vancouver, British Columbia, in a little baby planelette.  The weather was clear and the view of the Coast Mountains was amazing.  I posted these photos because some of the Olympic events are being held on Whistler,  a mountain that is in the Coast Mountain Range.

p.s. Our new winner of the giveaway is Abby.  Congrats! The goodies will be on their way just as soon as I get a mailing address.