We’re currently camping among the trees in the coastal fringe behind Miracle Beach. Isn’t that some name, Miracle Beach? One minor miracle so far? Mostly sunny skies and very little rain! That hasn’t always been the case, as expected late summer/early fall in this little corner of the Pacific Northwest. Earlier, before Miracle Beach:
The waters had receded by morning – still, time to move on!
Miracle Beach is located on a shallow bay, so low tide reveals miles of sand, but when it turns, farewell to the sandy beach, and make a quick retreat to the rocks. You can walk out on a high tide quite some distance with the water only knee high.
The view across the strait is wondrous, miraculous even – coastal mountains stretching each way into the distance, north and south, capped by low clouds.
Coastal fringe (small child crawling into frame helpfully adding scale)
We saw a heron patiently stalking in the shallows and the hunting was good. We were too far away to spot the prey – perhaps small scuttling crabs along with a few fish? We’d seen both earlier.
Fuzzy heron, making waves
We enjoyed watching the tide ebb and flow, the scene one of constant change – ripples and waves on the water and on the sand.
Far out
One afternoon the sky was a series of perfect blues, from dark to light, high to low over the distant mountains.
Coastal blues
Miracle Beach? We thought so, with all that space, light, blues, greens, ripples and waves!
Incoming
Thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
We’ve been out on the coast for the past little while, enjoying the contrast with what we experienced up in the north. Since then, as time has moved on, it is starting to feel distinctly late summery, even early autumnal-ish as night falls sooner and daytime highs drop.
Our campsite is underneath this long cloud, to the right, and just right!
Being on the west coast, we’ve had sunny days, rainy days, misty and foggy days, and sometimes all of those in the same afternoon! The ghostly grey mists and glowing silver seas and skies have been delightful, and after the relative aridity of earlier in the summer, I can almost feel my leathery (yet rugged and really rather handsome) features beginning to rehydrate.
Silver glow
What a transformation, and I now look barely a day over 95… As for that pesky frizzy oceanic hair, let’s just say that ship sailed many seasons ago, so no worries and the cap/toque stays on. (And what hair up top there is does tone really rather well with those aforementioned silvers and greys…)
West coast rugged
We’ll be enjoying the west coast for another week or two before beginning our trip back to Alberta, and having to come to terms with the end of road trip and camping season. Although, winter camping is an option? If Mrs. PC could be persuaded… (Nope, no chance – Mrs. PC)
Big textured skies
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful long Labour Day weekend!
On the road for sure, zigging and zagging, this way and that, and off the grid most of the time, so who knows quite when this will be posted?
We enjoyed our time north of sixty enormously, the Northwest Territories surprising and delighting us all the way. As first time visitors, we didn’t know what to expect, but our hopes were for peace and quiet and time away from what passes for normal – wifi, headlines, dramas (confected or genuine) and shallow people. The shallow ones tend to be the ones involved in confected dramas, or so we find. Poor things…
Find yourself – or lose yourself – here
Anyway, time away from all that – and huge distances away from any of that, or so it felt – meant we could immerse ourselves in enjoying being on the road and off the grid. The Northwest Territories (the small parts we experienced) are spectacular as advertised, but not necessarily in an immediate way. If you have it, plenty of time means the place can seep in, get under your skin…
Take your time
A few facts and figures picked up along the way:
There are only eleven highways!
The population is around 45 000 people in a space larger than Spain, France and Portugal combined! Almost half the population resides in Yellowknife, so the other half has so much space to enjoy…
There is only one craft brewery in the entire NWT – fortunately, the beer is good!
Driving, if you like a road trip, is a delight!
In the four hours we took to drive from Hay River to Fort Smith, after the first hour, when we took the turn to Fort Smith, we didn’t see another vehicle for two hours. Make sure you have a full tank, a spare tire, and you know how to change that tire. There’s no cell service most of the time.
Almost three quarters of the NWT population live in these three places!
All that time and space encourages you to slow down, take it easy – there’s no rush, might as well enjoy where you are. It helps if you like boreal forest, lakes, all manner of wildlife and you don’t require external sources of entertainment.
Northern blue
The long daylight hours were quite something, and again encouraged us to slow down. Why rush to complete things, whatever they might be, if you’ve got all day(light)?! You’ll have all the time you need!
All that light, all that space (Great Slave Lake)
Being north of sixty is a state of mind as well as a geographical location (and, in our case, what we’ll both be next birthday) and it works for us.
The icing on the cake was a glimpse of the northern lights, late one evening – or early one morning. Just after mid August, when it starts to get dark enough, you just might catch them. For our sightings, the lights were little more than pale ribbons, floating silently across the sky, too high to mistake for clouds and eerie to see, I thought – probably because they move so silently, and they are so high up, shapeshifting and mysterious and quite beautiful.
Busy
We’re planning a late winter trip to Yellowknife, when we might, if lucky, see the northern lights in full colour. The wispy ribbons and curtains we saw a few days back has us excited for that.
So much northern fun, on the road and off the grid – spectacular!
Northern fun
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Or did I? Perhaps this is a health and safety advisory? No, all clear here. Goodness, I don’t miss doing the safety assessments for field trips with students. Of course slips, trips and falls – otherwise, why be a child? All part of the fun…
A few photographs this week of our short out and back again hike to Margaret Falls, a lovely spot in Herald Provincial Park, BC.
Reinecker Creek
A narrow trail, criss-crossed with tangled tree roots, follows the Reinecker Creek into a deep canyon as you head up stream. Not too much sunlight gets in, so the tough trees growing in here cling to the steep sides and reach for the light. Tenacious growth! Some have grown too large and heavy to cling on and have tumbled down, falling across the narrow creek, left partially held up by one side of the gorge or other.
Tangled
The conditions are cool, damp and mossy, increasingly so as you approach the falls, and a welcome break, if you’re looking for it, from the warmer temperatures at the nearby lake. When you reach the falls – it is hidden from sight almost all the way by the twists and turns of the stream – it is a noisy and spectacular water force!
Cool
If you’re ever in the Shuswap region, a quick side trip to visit these falls is a pleasant diversion! It’s worth the slight risk of a slip, trip or fall…
Steep
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
It’s Canada Day next week (Wednesday) and, as always, I’m so happy this is my home. I’ve said it before, and that won’t stop me from saying it again: Canada is not perfect, but my sense is, as a nation, we are mostly trying to paddle in the right direction (it would need a large canoe, but that’s ok and all are welcome to climb in)…
January February
The photos chosen this week are one for each month of 2026 so far, in an attempt to share something of the flavour of western Canada. (If you add maple syrup from the eastern side, the flavour improves even more! Maybe throw in a TimBit or two…)
MarchApril
So, if you’re Canadian and choose to celebrate, have visited Canada, maybe would like to visit one day, or simply like maple syrup and the big outdoors, Happy Canada Day!
MayJune
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Sneak preview for July – Stampede starts next Friday!
As I wrote previously, we were fortunate to enjoy mostly blue skies on our trip to the western edge of Vancouver Island. But, it being largely a temperate rainforest location in the PNW, it wasn’t always wall to wall sunshine. There were a couple of almost foggy/definitely misty mornings, times that contrasted pleasantly with the overall brightness.
Misty
I’ve included a few photographs this week highlighting those coastal contrasts. What a wonderful spring delight it was to be in the greens and blues of western BC.
Not misty
We’re back in landlocked AB now, where spring is in the ascendant at last, a time of rising (to near normal) seasonal temperatures, with more than a few rain showers to encourage the emerging plant life to get with being green – or what passes for luxuriant greenery in the space between the mountains and the prairies!
We’re hoping to spend a few days out in the foothills next week, see for ourselves the long awaited switch from chilly late winter (friends in Canmore have – they hope – finally put away snow shovels) to proper mountain spring. It’s a fifteen minute season before full summer…
Cool
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Wandering around the boat basin on a sunny morning seemed a pleasant way to spend an hour. It helped that the bright blue skies and warm sunshine made the scenes even more colourful. Very cheerful!
Colourful
The previous day had been very blustery, and the clanging and clanking of masts, as well as the singing lines as the wind blew through the rigging made for a haunting song of sorts.
So colourful
The eagles appeared to love the weather, sun or rain, blustery or not, and their piercing cries and shrill calls could be heard each day, even over the constant wind.
Feathered friend – can carry a tune
One morning, just before sun up, several eagles flew up into the trees to the left and right of our campsite. There they perched, offering an occasional cry, for a few minutes, almost if as if they were waiting with me for the sun to appear over nearby Mt. Ozzard.
Fanciful, I know, but they flew off mere moments after the sun’s first rays started to warm the harbour. I raised my coffee cup in acknowledgment, but they were gone, no doubt looking for something more interesting than the robust dark roast.
Robust
Rain or shine, wind or calm, Ucluelet Harbour is rarely a dull place!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
Leaving the mountains behind us, our task was to find spring, or at least a place with no recent snow on the ground.
Spoiler alert – task completed
So we headed west across mountains, and more mountains, emerging onto the flatland delta, continuing until the road stopped. There, we got on a ferry to cross the Salish Sea to Vancouver Island, disembarked, and headed west once again until the road stopped again.
The end of the road (the end of a rutted and muddy track)
We have found spring (almost summer by west coast standards) in one of our happy places, and, even better, have been catching up with old friends. Hard to imagine we were cooling beer in the snow a week ago.
Snow? Nope!
It feels as if winter has finally let go for real, spring has arrived for sure, and summer isn’t too far around the corner. Camping days ahead!
Summer is ahead? Yes deer!
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
We do! If you ever have the opportunity, traveling the Hoodoo Trail in the Drumheller, AB region is an interesting way to discover some amazing geological formations in an arid location.
Near Drumheller, AB
I imagine it gets pretty busy – and very hot – in the summer months, but we were lucky enough to stop at the formations shared here on a relatively quiet and pleasantly warm midweek spring day. Early in the season as it was, it felt hot after the long slow start to spring – no complaints!
“Hoodoo? I do!”
It always amuses me that the area is known as the badlands, and I understand why, but they are some of my favourite lands to visit, with such a different geography and geology. Dinosaur territory if that kind of thing interests you…
Spotted this one roaming our campground
We ended our morning with a fine lunch and cold pint at the Last Chance Saloon in nearby Wayne. As with the rock formations, if you ever have a chance to visit, it is great place to stop and cool off.
One of my finest photographs ever, taken through a dusty windshield
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
OldPlaidCamper 