My interest in writing has enticed me into three different writers’ groups, one of them in Quesnel. Although I have been a member for some three years, I had never made it to a meeting. When I found out these Quesnel Wordspinners were offering a workshop about publishing (and my memoir may get there one of these days) I jumped at the chance to go. The workshop was super – but, as you can see from the title, this isn’t about that.
A coyote saw me off as I drove through Blackpool in early morning light. Several times between there and Little Fort, pairs of ravens drifted towards each other and away again in a romantic aerial dance. While driving across Highway 24, we have often seen moose – but no animals appeared this time. Mind you, it is much safer if the driver pays attention to the road, especially as it still had slippery sections – and there was only me.
In 100 Mile House, the pond behind the Information Centre was still frozen, but straggly, snow-free tops of muskrat houses poked up through its white surface. As Highway 97 leaves town, it passes Marmot Golf Course, but on this early spring day, these namesakes, hazards during golfing season, were invisible. So were badgers – other than the picture on the “Badger Crossing” sign across the road. How I would love to see that member of the weasel family.
Just a bit further north at 105 Mile, a huge flock of confused geese tried to figure out what they were doing at a small frozen lake. Some circled above, some wandered on land pecking at grass that wasn’t quite there yet, while others walked disconsolately on the ice, as if trying to find a weak spot to break open so they could swim and upend to eat the vegetation beneath.
More geese on San Jose Creek which drains northwards out of Lac La Hache were luckier, landing in every small ice-free section. Trumpeter swans, largest of all waterfowl in North America, swam and paddled beside them in many spots, dwarfing those Canada geese. Some of the birds waddled along broken icy edges, apparently waiting their turn to get wet. Not exactly wildlife, two light brown horses prancing together in another field, necks arched, high-stepping and handsome, with blonde manes and tails had me grinning and complimenting them on their synchronisation. In this same area south of 150 Mile House, John and I have seen hundreds of deer in the past, but not one was showing its face that day. However, several small herds were grazing unconcernedly near the highway when I was on my way home a few days later.
An eagle soared where a ferry once carried vehicles across the Fraser River at Marguerite. The silhouette of that majestic bird looked dark against the sky, feathers on wingtips spread apart to catch every wisp of air current. More swans swam and dabbled their heads in a pond behind a log house in Alexandria where we once visited teachers from the nearby school – now a deserted relic.
I had to keep stopping to scribble down all that I was seeing – my memory not being what it was, you understand! And I wasn’t the only one making the most of that day. In Quesnel, walkers were out in droves on the paths beside the Quesnel and Fraser Rivers. It was, as a Yorkshire friend of mine would say, “A day from the bottom of the box!”