Industrial Archeology in the Northern Cascades
I’ve noticed a lot of abandoned industrial buildings and equipment molded into the landscape since I moved to Tacoma. For example, old sawmills and a smelter have become waterfront parks; pieces of railroad machinery have been transformed into artwork all over town; a gravel quarry was renovated into a golf course that includes several large structures; rusted valves and other maritime equipment adorn the marina; the list goes on. There are even abandoned and partially demolished structures that were once bars and fishing stores in nonindustrial areas.
Therefore I wasn’t surprised at what I found when we took a drive along Hwy 20 to explore the Northern Cascades before it closes for the winter.
A guidebook led us to a small town named Concrete. You can guess what its main industry was.
This was a concrete manufacturing plant built by the Washington Portland Cement Company (WPCC) in 1914. The company built a town to house the workers and stayed in business for ten years. The property was then purchased by Puget Sound Energy (PSE) and converted to a hydroelectric power generation facility.
The new owners recently began the archeological work.
Industrial archeologists have begun field work to reconstruct life in a company town more than a century ago.
The site has rest rooms and picnic tables, and a small visitor center housed in what was once a lab of some kind. However, the museum and rest rooms were closed for winter.
This view shows part of the tramway used to move hot concrete pellets from the kiln, which is gone but was to the left of the concrete structure to the left of the photo. The concrete silos were filled with–you guessed it–Portland cement by a screw device on top of them, which is apparently still installed but not open to the public.
This building was connected by the tramway but the signage doesn’t explain everything yet; this is a scientific investigation in progress. After what I’ve seen around the area, I am not surprised at all by PSE taking an interest in such a humble project.
PSE constructed this dam on Baker River. I think the building is the original generator house, but they haven’t installed detailed signs yet. There is a new facility just downstream that appears to be using the original plumbing. The transmission lines are on top of the hill, where this photo was taken, but I don’t know if this antique is still operating; there were several power lines leading down to it however. Hydroelectric generators last for decades, but this one would have been inefficient and probably not very useful today.
But you never know…
The National Park Service visitor center was closed for winter, but PSE had a small facility located a few miles further up Hwy 20. We stopped to stretch our legs and discovered a pedestrian suspension bridge crossing the Skagit River … and guess where the trail led.
About a half-mile walk led to a hydroelectric generation facility that was in use until recently. It was used to power a sawmill. Two water turbines/generators can be viewed through the window in the middle of the building, but they weren’t spinning and no water was flowing through the output spillway to the right.
This is one of the turbines that ran the generator.
PSE maintains a small sculpture garden that includes this representation of a salmon nest in a stream bed. In the background, you can see the edge of an arch built of electric insulators from the power station.
Final Thoughts
Industrial archeology wasn’t the principal reason for our journey through the Northern Cascades, but it was a welcome and rewarding addition to a great fall weekend in the Pacific Northwest.
Ecology Notes from Tacoma Nature Center
Today’s field trip took us to the center of Tacoma, where the city operates a nature center focused on education and outreach programs.
We weren’t looking for birds, but this display showcases some of the birdhouses constructed within the area.
We walked the entire trail system, which is almost three miles, and noticed several signs indicating stops on different self-guided tours. Unfortunately we didn’t have a guidebook. This post is about learning from experience. (LOL!)
The trail climbed about 100 feet to a ridge that gave a great view of Mt. Tahoma (aka Mt. Rainier) on a beautiful day. Note the cloud trailing off the top of the mountain in a northerly wind.
Snake Lake was dry and the deciduous trees in the wetland were losing their leaves, so I didn’t take much interest in them. It wasn’t until we followed the Hilltop Trail that I began to notice the different ecosystems juxtaposed in this seventy-acre site. The rest of this post, therefore, will focus on trying to salvage something intellectual from what started as simply a walk in the woods.
Tacoma Nature Center supplies a catalogue of the flora and fauna located within its limits. I took a couple of photos and, when I got home, discovered the lists they supplied on their web page. Thus, instead of guessing what I’d seen, it was more like a homework assignment with a limited number of choices.
Trees
This is a list of the trees known to exist at Tacoma Nature Center. The ones I identified are in bold typeface.
- Sitka Alder
- Oregon Ash
- Cascara Buckthorn
- Black Cottonwood
- Douglas Fir
- Pacific Madrone
- Scouler Willow
- Garry Oak
(A) This young tree still had all of its leaves, so I used my copy of Pacific Coast Tree Finder to identify it. (B) The leaf shape and vein structure was critical. If I hadn’t already had a list of possible choices, however, this would have been a lot harder; in fact, my answer may well be incorrect.
I’ve seen enough Douglas Firs to guess these conifers, especially since it is the only native conifer found within the nature center; all of the old-growth forest was clear cut and this species planted because it grows fast and is a good source of lumber.
Shrubs
This is where my homework got very difficult. So I asked for some assistance from ChatGPT, but I fact-checked everything it said and, after a long discussion, we agreed on the final identifications. It may have read everything ever written, but it can’t see what isn’t visible in a photograph, and it is prone to making things up–just like people.
As with the trees, I’ve emphasized my answers in bold type.
- Baldhip Rose
- Beaked Hazelnut
- Black Twinberry
- Bracken Fern
- Clustered Wildrose
- Common Snowberry
- Creeping Snowberry
- Douglas Spirea
- Dwarf Oregon Grape
- Evergreen Huckberry
- False Lily-of-the-valley
- Indian Plum
- Oceanspray
- Orange Honeysuckle
- Red Elderberry
- Red Huckleberry
- Salal
- Sword Fern
- Tall Oregon Grape
- Trailing Blackberry
- Western Trillium
This bramble of shrubs contains five separate species of shrubs or ground cover from the list. I’ve circled examples of each and discussed them below. I supplied ChatGPT with close-up images to get its input. It was very useful, but not infallible. In fact, I identified (A) and (D) on my own, after taking a closer look at the photo–and using Wikipedia as a reference.
(A) Bracken Fern (Pteridium sp., family Dennstaeditaceae) is the oldest known fern, with fossils from the Eocene epoch (~55 my). If you zoom in on this area, you’ll notice that each branch has perpendicular stems, which then have perpendicular leafs. The entire plant reminds me of what I’ve heard about fractals in nature; a simple pattern repeating over and over.
(B) Baldhip Rose (Rosa gymnocarpa, family Rosaceae). There are two roses on the list, but their leaves are very different.
(C) Dwarf Oregon Grape (Mahonia nervosa, family Berberidaceae). Wikipedia redirected my reality check of ChatGPT’s identification to Berberis nervosa. The explanation was that Mahonia is an alternative scientific name to the accepted one. Not being a botanist, I don’t care about such subtleties. The name, Berberis, certainly fits the family lineage better. I’ll leave the name as is and include these notes.
(D) Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum, family: Dryopteridaceae). This more modern cousin (note the different family) of the Bracken Rose has a simpler leaf design: it has one broad leaf growing perpendicular to the main stalk. I didn’t notice such a blatant difference when the two plants were right in front of my eyes!
(E) Creeping Snowberry (Symphoricarpos mollis, family Caprifoliaceae) is my best estimate after a long conversation with ChatGPT, examining photos of several species, and comparing their growth habits. This example is more like ground cover than an erect, woody plant. I wouldn’t bother with the species name except that the catalogue lists two species. I’ll look for the other one next time I get to the nature center.
Final Thoughts
I hope that everyone who reads this takes more notice of the plants they encounter wherever they go. And you can always take a picture.
And don’t be afraid to ask a Large Language Model (e.g. ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini) for help identifying whatever you find. They are knowledgeable, unassuming, and fun to work with.
And they will readily admit when they are wrong…
Autumn at Kubota Garden
It was a beautiful fall morning that brought us to Kubota Garden in Seattle (https://www.kubotagarden.org; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kubota_Garden). Links aren’t working on WordPress so I inserted those two as references. The garden is 100 years old next year, but it has been a public park since 1987.
We wandered around the 20 acre area on meandering paths lined with every kind of shrub you would expect in a classic Japanese garden. I used ChatGPT to tentatively identify some of the plants.
ChatGPT had high confidence that this is Weeping Blue Atlas Cedar (Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca Pendula’).
The park has a central pumping facility that recirculates water through several waterfalls and a dozen ponds, making for a very serene environment.
ChatGPT tentatively identified this reborn, small tree as Japanese Plum Yew (Cephalotaxus harringtonia). It was recently cut back, but it is growing vigorously now.
This is a fascinating hedge because only one of the bushes is being trimmed while the others protrude, almost like sculpture.
There were many pagodas and ponds with stone bridges and private spots, creating a sense of privacy in a public space.
Mahonia eurybracteata subsp. ganpinensis ‘Soft Caress’ is a fall-flowering plant.
Lacecap Hydrangea (Hydrangea serrata or a lacecap cultivar of Hydrangea macrophylla) has two sets of flowers; the typical hydrangea flowers, and an outer layer of decorative petals to attract pollinators.
There were red berries everywhere. I’ve had Euonymus several times over the years, but they were never as colorful as Burning Bush.
Weeping Conifer (likely a Weeping Hemlock) said goodbye at the exit, just as a Weeping Cedar greeted us. The aura of evergreen was overwhelming beneath its boughs.
Final Thoughts
Kubota Garden is a great place to spend a couple hours. There were a lot of visitors, and even a youth naturalist activity, but it didn’t feel crowded; however, the parking lot was full and we had to park a couple hundred yards up the street.
As part of my expanded interest in local sights here in the Pacific Northwest, I’m learning about plants. ChatGPT is an excellent assistant in this endeavor, but I can’t memorize a thousand species names. It referred to taxonomic FAMILY several times today, so I included this photo from Wikipedia as a memory helper. I will try to remember this when I report on ecology in the future. I will go as far up the plant family tree as I can in the future.
The only thing missing from this gorgeous fall morning in the park was a fresh cup of coffee. Alas, Kubota Garden is in a residential area and there isn’t even a Seven-Eleven nearby.
Later…
The Olympic Mountains
The Olympic Peninsula is home to the last old-growth temperate rainforest in N. America. It is also dominated by the Olympic Mountains, a wilderness area only accessible on foot for the most part. However, the north side, facing Juan de Fuca Strait and Canada, is only a few miles from US 101 and Port Angeles; and less than three-hours from Tacoma.
It’s late September and the tourist season is about to end in Olympic National Park, so we fit in a weekend visit to the Log Cabin Resort on Lake Crescent.
The highest peak in the Olympic Mountains is Mount Olympia, standing at 7980 feet, and there are many peaks over 6000 feet. None of them are volcanoes, however; they were formed by collision of N. America with the tectonic plate underlying the Pacific Ocean. I’ll discuss that in another post.
Lake Crescent was created when a landslide blocked the outlet of a valley cut by alpine glaciers over the last couple million years. Its maximum depth is 600 feet, and it contains exceptionally clear water because of a low nitrogen content (no pollution) and thus no algal growth. It is twelve miles long and thus popular with sport boaters. I didn’t see anyone fishing, so maybe no algae means no fish.
We followed the Spruce Railroad Trail 1.7 miles to this tunnel, which is huge when you pass the smaller entrance; however, it is only a couple hundred yards long. Nevertheless, as the sign says, it is very dark inside, especially later in the day. It leads to a favorite site for visitors.
The Spruce Railroad Trail circumnavigates Lake Crescent (about 11 miles), but we didn’t go that far. Devils Punch Bowl is a deep hole with steep cliffs and a walkway. Adventurous young people were leaping into the cold water and sunning on the nearby rocks, but I didn’t see anyone jumping from the top of the cliff more than 60 feet above us.
This is the view from our back yard. I took some photos of the half-moon when it was still light, but this is my favorite because of the moon’s reflection on the still water of Lake Crescent.
We spent a very quiet night in our log cabin, which had a modern heating system and was very cozy, then drove to the Hurricane Ridge trail head. The trail was asphalt paved and climbed about 1000 feet in (supposedly) 1.8 miles. It was steep near the top but wide enough for wheelchairs to use easily. This is the view from the top, which was at an elevation of about 5500 feet; that’s Mount Olympia across a deep valley.
This is the view looking north. That’s Vancouver Island, British Columbia, across the cloud-covered Juan de Fuca Strait. The brighter area above the two peaks is Victoria. We were there last month.
This photo shows the trail we followed along a ridge like those seen in the background. The many sharp peaks are reminiscent of the Cascades Mountains, but these were formed by alpine glaciers in combination with a high uplift rate, rather than volcanic processes.
Final Thoughts
The weather in the Olympic Mountains was exceptionally nice this weekend. The drive was easy and traffic low because it was the last day of the season. Overall, I can’t think of a better place to spend a couple of days.
Try to make it if you’re ever in the Pacific Northwest…between April and September.
Port of Tacoma Tour
Every year, the Port of Tacoma and Pearce County operate a series of one-hour tours on a cruise ship. There is no charge and passengers have a timed ticket, so there are no long lines. It turned out to be a rainy day, but that didn’t dampen the enthusiasm of the Tacoma’s residents.
The Spirit of Seattle usually runs various tours around Seattle, operated by Argosy Cruises. It was only half full for the port tours so there was plenty of space to move around on the deck.
The first facility we saw is the tank farm, which temporarily stores refined petroleum products for distribution by tanker trucks. There is also a small refinery on the port, but the guide didn’t say anything about that.
This power plant was used to generate electricity for the port, but it is no longer operational. In fact, it is for sale.
This is s roll-on-roll-off ship that, as its name suggests, is used to transport vehicles that require no special handling. However, it also transports heavy equipment, some of which requires partial disassembly to fit into the ship’s hold.
These are the main cranes for handling container ships. The one in the foreground is unloading a ship (One Strength, registered in Singapore) that can carry about 14,000 TEUs–twenty foot equivalent cargo container–or about 7000 40-foot shipping containers. The largest container ships can carry 24,000 TEUs.
Along with storage facilities for cargo, an aluminum plant, and a couple of gypsum plants, there is a repair facility. It is currently preparing an ocean-going fishing ship for the upcoming season.
The Port of Tacoma also handles grains and cereals through a modern facility that can load these bulk ships in all weather. The corn, soy beans, etc arrives by trains that arrive practically year round, mostly from central and eastern Washington.
Final Thoughts
Dreary weather didn’t hamper my interest is seeing the Port of Tacoma up close. This place can handle everything a nation needs to import or export. Places like this are the real backbone of our economy, not computer chips and programmers.
But running a complex facility like this isn’t easy. The smelter that used to operate along Commencement Bay produced so much pollution that my back yard was part of an EPA Superfund site, and there is a current site along the eastern shore where an aluminum plant operated for decades. We have a long way to go, but the waters surrounding Tacoma are the cleanest I’ve ever seen in my life.
A Quick Visit to Portland
Mount Saint Helens is only 25 miles as the crow flies from Portland, so we stopped by our southern neighbor for a visit. It was raining, so we opted for indoor activities.
World Forestry Center
The World Forestry Center is next to the Oregon Zoo, and it was a dry place to wait for our next stop to open. It turns out that it is a children’s museum. A new exhibit had just opened so we toured Siberia by train, China by boat, the Amazon by a tree-top crane, and…
South Africa in a 1960s International Harvester Scout. I was ready to go, but the engine wouldn’t start.
Someone left a 22 caliber rifle in this tree back in the 60s, and it became one with nature.
This fake evergreen tree extends to the ceiling in the middle of the World Forestry Center. There were lots of activities for children of all ages, so this is probably a good place to visit with the family.
Japanese-American Museum of Oregon
After discovering forestry around the world, we went to the museum.
JAMO is small, but very interesting.
The early Japanese immigrants lived much like the Chinese, whose accommodations we saw in a previous post. By the 1930s they had established themselves throughout the West Coast, especially the PNW. This is a representative display of a general store.
There were dentists and all the trades because, despite being legal residents–many of them American citizens–they were prevented from fully participating in the American dream.
They lived in nice homes, owned businesses, spoke English better than most of their fellow citizens, but…
There weren’t enough of them to overwhelm the government’s demographers (unlike the German and Italian Americans), so they were rounded up in a show of national security; they were shipped to places where, if they were lucky, they shared a room like this with their entire family.
The JAMO has a lot of documents to read, but I focused on physical objects because I forgot my “museum glasses”, which focus at six feet. You’ll need to visit the museum yourself to learn the true history of the Japanese-Americans.
One brave activist violated curfew after release from a detention center, and found himself in jail for nine months. He eventually won in the courts, but at a high personal cost.
This terrible injustice wasn’t as horrific as what was done to the Native Americans, but it was pretty bad. The U.S. government eventually apologized, in the 1990s, but that was little consolation to those Americans who lost everything during a period of national paranoia. Some of them actually received a few thousand dollars in reparations (I guess they used 1940s dollars, not adjusted for inflation).
Wing Luke Museum: A Guided Tour of an Immigrant Hotel
Wing Luke was a pioneering Chinese American lawyer, civil rights advocate, and the first Asian American elected to public office in Washington State. When he died in a small aircraft accident in 1965, the community formed the Wing Luke Museum in his honor. It celebrates Asian-American history and culture, and owns a hotel it purchased to display the lives of early immigrants.
The Yick Fung Corporation was formed by a group of Chinese immigrants because they were legally forbidden from owning property in Washington. This store served as a supplier to restaurants throughout Washington.
South Weller Street led directly to the tidal flats where the church steeple stands today. As part of a downtown reshaping, several hills were flattened and the soil used to fill in the nearshore area.
In addition to supplying regional restaurants, you could buy a third-class ticket to Hong Kong (or maybe Shanghai) for $1500 in today’s money. The store remained open until 2008.
To circumvent some of the financial restrictions, the Chinese immigrants formed associations of people from the same villages back in China. This is the meeting room of one such group. They assisted newcomers and planned civic activities. It was kind of like the YMCA.
This is the game room, where people played mahjong and other games.
The hotel contained about 180 apartments, but some of them had up to three rooms. This was the home of a family with eight children. The hotel remained a center of immigrants until it was closed in 1974 because of updated fire codes (after the deaths of twenty or so inhabitants in about 1972). The Wing Luke Museum purchased it and is renovating it as part of the display.
Every room was required to have a door and window. Most of the rooms were small. That is the light shaft out the window; it didn’t lead anywhere and only extended to the second floor, just for light and air.
Living out of your suitcase?
Here’s the light shaft. During reconstruction the building was modified and reinforced.
The museum also had exhibits displaying artwork and pictorial histories of many Asian immigrants, including Hawaiians. Overall, it was very interesting and worth the price of admission. I think it was $22 for a senior like me.
Fort Steilacoom Park and Lake Waughop
After spending the last five days walking around the back yard, digging the rain garden, I drove my FJ40 to Lakewood to take a look at Fort Steilacoom Park.
This play area was the only fort I saw.
But there were several old barns in various levels of disrepair. Apparently, Fort Steilacoom was the first U.S. military post in Washington, built in 1849 during the dispute with Britain over sovereignty. These barns are remnants of agriculture and the Western State Hospital, a psychiatric facility. The hospital superintendent from 1880 to 1897 was Dr. John Waughop, who turned the site into a botanical garden for non-native plants as part of his rehabilitation program.
The Coast Redwood isn’t native to the Tacoma area, along with many other ornamental species planted by John Waughop.
Lake Waughop was named after the hospital’s most popular superintendent. It is a kettle lake, created from the melting of a huge block of ice after the last ice age while sediment collected around it.
This invasive species is common to Washington. It is bull thistle (Cirsium vulgare). I also saw several thriving thickets of Himalayan Blackberry along the trail. These plants were not part of John Waughop’s ornamental plant garden.
Another ecosystem within the park is the oak savannah. It is the remnant of a native woodland that has been altered for thousands of years by the indigenous people of the PNW. The trees are Garry oak (Quercus garryana), the only native oak species in Washington. This area would have become a conifer forest if not for controlled burning by the local people.
After a three-mile circumnavigation of Fort Steilacoom Park, I finally made it back to my vehicle; unfortunately, there wouldn’t be AC for the ride home on this warm afternoon.
Three Days on Vancouver Island
If you’re ever in the PNW, you can drive to Vancouver Island on the M.V. Coho, a ferry commissioned in 1959, which plies the route from Port Angeles, Washington, to a berth in downtown Victoria several times a day. Victoria is the capital of British Columbia–that’s a province in Canada. In this post, I hope to show you how much there is to explore without venturing into the wilds of an island that is more than 280 miles long.
This is going to be a long post because the culture and geography are so intertwined that they cannot be experienced, much less discussed, in isolation. However, I will present my geological survey in a separate post.
Let’s do it!
Downtown Victoria
We stayed a couple of blocks from the waterfront, where British Columbia’s legislature meets (Victoria is the capital). On this particular weekend, which had spectacular weather, there was a free concert on the waterfront for David Foster, a Canadian music writer, publisher, etc, who comes from Victoria. They had a massive celebration, with Jay Leno as MC, beginning with an aerial display by the Snowbirds–the national aerobatics flying team–and ending with a fireworks display that lasted 30 minutes.
You can catch a tour in either a single- or twin-engine seaplane. They take off and land right in the harbor. That’s crazy, but somehow they don’t have enough incidents between aircraft and boats (including cruise ships), to make the news. I checked.
This is one of the most interesting waterfronts I’ve visited, probably because it is summer; however, Vancouver Island has the warmest overall climate in Canada. Food for thought.
Beacon Hill Park
We like to walk, so we strolled towards the coast and discovered beautiful gardens and some of the bedrock exposed, with steps leading up to it; but this isn’t Beacon Hill proper.
Beacon Hill Park is occupied by a flock of Indian peafowl (Pavo cristatus), which apparently are okay with the mild winters in the PNW.
From Beacon Hill itself, you can see Mount Olympus (about 8000 feet elevation) across Juan de Fuca Strait. It is the snow-covered mountain, only forty-six miles distant.
Royal British Columbia Museum
The museum had a display of Egyptian artifacts focused on death and the afterlife, but you can see something like that almost anywhere…
My favorite exhibit was an incredibly detailed recreation of life in Victoria about 100 years ago, which showed how the island evolved through the twentieth century. As an aside, I have a license to drive that Ford Model T, but that’s another story.
Craigdarroch Castle
This luxurious estate (originally 28 acres) was built on a hill overlooking Victoria in the early 1900s by a coal baron, who didn’t live to occupy it. But his wife and children did. It served as a military hospital during WWI, which saw more than 200 thousand Canadian casualties. That’s a lot for a smaller country; those with long-term disabilities were sent to recuperate in places like this. The property fell into disrepair after the war, the property was divided into parcels for the surrounding homes, and eventually purchased by a non-profit society, who is restoring it to its original condition.
The interior is an eye-catching, and confusing, 4.5 floors of engraved wood and paneling, even the ceilings. The carpentry was completed by a Chicago company that had worked on several other mansions.
I’m sure that Robert Dunsmuir (the builder) would have enjoyed this oversized pool table. But the balls seem a little small–I guess it wasn’t for regulation play. The entire house was decorated to this detail.
Dinner is served. The kitchen has also been restored and tourists are encouraged to handle the stove and other appliances, but I wanted to keep this post as short as possible. LOL!
Port Renfrew
We finally used our car to drive the 68 miles to Port Renfrew. I don’t know why it’s called a port because it is a temperate rainforest with a few inhabitants, mostly catering to ecotourists. Obviously, this is not old-growth like Olympic National Park in Washington, but it’s working hard and fast to recover. We walked for a mile BENEATH a dense growth of ground cover, which had assumed monumental proportions. Surreal.
The tidal range is 7-10 feet, so a vast intertidal area exposes rock (I’ll address that in a later post) and a huge number of tidal pools, hosting a myriad of sea creatures.
I took this photo in a tide pool scoured in sandstone, about two-feet across and one foot deep. According to ChatGPT the circular animals are sea anemones whereas the shiny critter is some kind of chiton (a distant cousin of snails and clams). While I was studying the rocks, everyone else was staring into the huge number of tidal pools scoured into soft rock, each a tiny world that is never dry because the tide comes in twice a day.
The Butchart Gardens
This incredible garden was constructed in and around an abandoned limestone quarry, by the owner of a concrete company–kind of like the castle built by a coal baron. They had a vision and a plan, which included international experts and a commitment by their children. This is the sunken garden. The meticulous care given this floral extravaganza was displayed by workers pulling weeds by hand, and dead-heading the flower in full public view–well worth the 46 Canadian dollar price of entry. No senior discount.
This display cannot be adequately shown in a video. The “pond” running through the sunken garden is 40 feet deep and pristine–and I mean PRISTINE. Ferns and other climbing plants were meticulously planted in cracks in the limestone walls of the quarry. It ain’t a quarry anymore.
Butchart Gardens is more like an amusement park than a flower garden. Among the specialty gardens, I recall a Japanese garden with streams running throughout, the soft murmur of water encouraging me to take a seat on one of the many benches. There was a rose garden, with every plant labeled. An Italian garden. The topiary displayed in this photo was evident everywhere it was appropriate. And plenty of coffee bars…and washrooms (Canadian for toilet).
Mount Douglas Park
The sign welcoming us to Mount Douglas doesn’t say anything about blue trails or black trails. We learned about that when we climbed (not hiked) 600 feet in less than a mile–very similar to Piestewa Peak in Phoenix. By the time we found ourselves on a ledge overlooking Victoria, we figured out why the lettering was black on this trail.
It was a little scary, like riding The Hulk at Universal Studios the first time, but it was invigorating; neither of us got light-headed, except from the view…
That is Washington across Juan de Fuca Straight. The low cloud bank covers the water between the U.S. and Canada. Snow-covered Mount Olympus can be seen in the distance.
Looking east from the summit reveals a suburban landscape rather than a metropolis because Victoria’s downtown is north of Mount Douglas.
It was a busier day at sea on our return to Port Angeles. We saw two container ships, one smallish and one large, half-filled one, and this vessel. It was several miles from our ferry when I took this pixelated image, but ChatGPT identified it as probably the Seaspan Lions, an LNG bunker vessel; this is a new class that transfers liquified natural gas to larger, oceangoing vessels from Vancouver or other Canadian ports. I mention this because I’m fascinated by technology (real tech, not digital bullshit). These smaller vessels transport LNG from ports too small to accommodate large vessels, which are three times as long and ten times as heavy.
Final Thoughts
What a ride!
If you ever take a cruise to Alaska to see the glaciers, or even a cruise to Hawaii during the off season, take a couple of days to experience Vancouver Island. Despite being the capital of British Columbia, the only contact with North America is by boat, even from the city of Vancouver–British Columbia geographic names are confusing.
The best thing about this trip was that we never felt like we’d left home. Victoria feels like Washington, and even The United States in general. They don’t have the humorous Canadian accents I’ve seen on TV. They drive the same cars, shop in the same stores, and even go to the washroom–just like I did, growing up in Arizona in the 60s and 70s.
Best short vacation EVER!
Flaming Geyser State Park
The park is located at the upstream end of Green River, where it enters a gorge. This is one of the best places I’ve seen anywhere for taking a stroll through nature; the path is moist but not muddy, and well trimmed, with breathtaking natural scenes like this. A veritable Garden of Eden. This post is an overview of the park; I discuss the geology and flora in other posts.
With a name like that, I’m expecting a spectacular show…
I’ll summarize what you can read if you zoom in on the information presented in this billboard. An exploratory well was drilled here about 100 year ago, looking for coal–they found it, along with methane (natural gas) and other gases produced by decaying vegetation at several hundred feet below the surface. The small well produced a flammable gas that has burned intermittently since it was first lit by a geologist.
Flaming geyser wasn’t very active when we visited, but it was burning. To repeat, this is NOT a natural seep, but the result of a well drilled a century ago. Nevertheless it has become a local tradition, and it is relit whenever it goes out.
Bubbling geyser is a lot more fun. This video shows small bubbles of methane, as well as hydrogen sulfide and other, unnamed, gases. Methane is odorless, but this area smelled strongly of H2S, which is added to natural gas to help detect leaks.
This is a beautiful example of survival. The surface roots have all been exposed by erosion, but the tree is thriving; its roots have turned into separate trunks. I read somewhere that these conifers in the PNW send their roots out for hundreds of feet, far beyond their canopies.
This is where Green River Valley turns into Green River Gorge. The water was perfectly clear, with a slight green tinge, even though there is no algae visible. It reminds me of Commencement Bay, which is also devoid of aquatic plants. And it is all natural, simply a unique ecosystem.
If you wear waders, you can walk on water here.
Final Thoughts
This is a place you have to visit for yourself, especially on such a gorgeous summer day. The temperature was in the mid-seventies, the sky was clear, and people were filling the huge number of picnic areas, carrying their supplies and tubes, ready for a fun day of floating down one of the best rivers I’ve ever seen.
You’ve got to see it for yourself.
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