Farm Markets and Great Blue Herons

We saw a number of other interesting things while we were in B.C. now nearly 10 years ago, so here's a motley collection before we finish.  We visited several local farm markets, as our daughter preferred to 'buy local' when possible.  We also visited, more than once, a Great Blue Heron Sanctuary which was fascinating.  And of course there were the waterfalls.

Among the three farm markets we visited, this one was interesting for its educational programs.  This store not only had live animals but also an operating dairy with robotic milking you could watch.

Outdoors there were turkeys, a goat, a pony and pigs.  Inside was the dairy operation.  

And for each there was information provided in the hopes you would learn a little about where your food came from!  These farm stores operated by bringing together crops from numerous farms in the Fraser Valley.

The Great Blue Heron Sanctuary on the banks of the Vedder River, east of Abbotsford, was a popular destination.  As you can see by the map, there are several trails you can walk, including the observation trail (the purple one) where you can see the herons from a safe distance.  The heronry is the lighter patch of green forest.

And this is what we got to see, since we were not there during nesting season.  Great Blue Herons are colonial nesting birds, building huge nests high in the branches.

And again there was some educational info provided.

Right outside the interpretive centre were some hummingbird feeders.  This was an Anna's Hummingbird, known only from the west coast, so I had never seen one.

And finally I'll leave you with another waterfall, Devon Falls, located right inside the subdivisions of Abbotsford.  One more history lesson and then we'll move back to Ontario.

Clayburn Creek Trail

Our daughter lived at that time, in a mountainside subdivision bordered by deep ravines, and there was a trail down one of those ravines (there was a road down the other).  The trail followed the route of an old narrow gauge railway that led to a brick factory in the village of Clayburn.

The entrance we followed to the walking trail goes right between two houses, and is easy to find.

Once you get there, it's a smooth gently-sloping trail, often 10 feet wide.  I could picture a small freight train going down the trail quite easily.

Here's a map of the Clayburn Creek Trail, winding down the ravine.  You're never far from the houses, but they are far above you through the rainforest.  The valuable clay deposits are uphill on Sumas Mountain to the east.  'Burn' is the Scottish term for a creek; you can see how it got its name.

As long as you're heading downhill it's an easy walk - until you come to those stairs!

I took it as an opportunity to learn a couple of western trees.  This is Western Hemlock, almost identical to Eastern Hemlock, but it grows so much larger.

And this is Western Red Cedar, similar to Eastern White Cedar, but also it grows so much bigger!

And this fallen leaf is the Bigleaf Maple, with deeply cut leaves that are almost twice as big as a typical Sugar Maple leaf.  This leaf was about 8" across!

It certainly gave me an introduction to the west coast rainforest.  There was thick moss everywhere!  I had never seen anything like it!

And then of course, the going downhill stretch ends and you're faced with those stairs.  They are very well built and quite attractive, but they go on forever!  If memory serves I think I counted 365 steps!

The trail doesn't go this far, but originally it went to the tiny company village of Clayburn, of which the Clayburn General Store is the most obvious evidence.  This was B.C.'s first company town, complete with houses for workers, a church, a school, the store and a doctor.  Several of these are provincially-designated heritage buildings today.  The bricks they made are found all over Vancouver, and were shipped worldwide.  You can look up the details on Google.

In Search of the Hidden Waterfalls

 I spotted a tiny note referencing 'Hidden Waterfalls' on Google Maps someplace near our daughter's home, but unfortunately it was in the middle of undifferentiated forest cover.  Never-the-less I was determined to find these, and roped in our grandson as a guide.  It took two trips, but eventually we did find them.

This was the best of them, once we eventually found them.  I had no tripod with me, and these necessitated absurdly long hand-held exposures, so some are a little blurry, but our grandson and I had a grand adventure.

The stream was tumbling over rocky sections, and slushing down flatter bedrock.

There was no open trail here, we were bushwacking, and in most places branches blocked my camera's view, at least partly.

In other places we were struggling down steep-sided fern-covered valley walls.

Moss on the huge old stumps looked like a miniature forest itself.

And someplace we came across this sign, in a place where cattle had absolutely no business being!

Often I thought the view of the rushing stream was better than the small waterfall.  Though sorry for the blurriness!  But it was indeed a grand adventure!

Bald Eagles!

 Bald Eagles are a rare sighting here in southern Ontario, but we saw so many in B.C. that they became familiar! They were perched in trees, guarding huge nests, or catching fish.  It was just such a surprise compared to back home here!

It got to the point where it was not unusual to see a large mature Bald Eagle with its white head wherever we were driving.

Yes, this is a picture of those swans, which spend a lot of their winter on the fields of the lower 

Fraser Valley.  But did you notice the eagle?  And the huge nest?

Here's a close-up for you.

And here's an isolated eagle clear against a backdrop of forested hills.

On yet another occasion we visited a Great Blue Heron Sanctuary, spotting an eagle high in the treetops.  Before I could get a picture we heard a high=pitched scream and a second eagle flew in to join the first!

And here's your closer view.

Of course we frequently saw eagles overhead, such majestic birds.  This is the only view I might typically see here in southern Ontario.

Driving toward Chilliwack one day we saw cars parked along the road, and photographers with big telephoto lenses.  Well, that was a signal to stop!  We were overlooking a stretch of the Harrison River known as Nicomen Slough, and there were both eagles and gulls splashing in the shallows.  I think we saw eight Bald Eagles here altogether.

Here are three of them, feeding on salmon on the shallows.  I hope you get the impression that there was another Bald Eagles everywhere we went, for that's what we saw!  Such a memorable experience!

Cascade Falls

 On our first adventure on that trip out west, we headed for Cascade Falls, on the north shore of the Fraser River.  It was a short but steep hike up to see the falls.

We drove over the Fraser river and into the lower mountains.

After a bit of the hike we came to the stairs.

The whole trail passed through more of the west coast rainforest, with prolific moss and Sword Ferns.

And then we came to the falls itself, a beautiful cascade..

Of course I fiddled around with camera settings.

The river below the falls was a pretty as the falls themselves!

And then we were back to the start of the trail.

Back to B.C. 2016

 I'm going to try something different and instead of taking you back to late fall hikes I've done here at home, I'm going to take you out to British Columbia, to Abbotsford specifically, where we visited our daughter.  The two trips out there are among my favourite memories.  First, an introduction to the Fraser Valley.

The Fraser Valley is the location of the big flood a few years back.  The farmland is flat and bumps up right against the mountains.  The Trans-Canada Highway cuts right across the photo in the lower third,

In places the flat farmland really does bump right up against the mountains!  These are blueberry bushes

Development all occurs on the mountains, as you can see.

These are the steps that let you get back up from the Clayburn Creek Trail.  They quickly became our favourite!  Sadly this trail was washed out in the floods  of 2021.  It's still not open.

The narrow valley harbours a Pacific rainforest, with complete walls of Sword Fern, and a thick layer of moss everywhere!