In 1978, instead of shovelling snow in the Kootenays, I was in a much better place - Hawaii!

February

Back in the 60's, Garrow Bay, West Vancouver, was a commercial marina and boat rental. I built a 14' catamaran and kept it there until a log boom broke loose in a storm and just about totalled it. Our middle son, shown here checking out knots, went on to skipper his own workboat in a wilder area of the BC coast. Garrow Bay is now just another beach surrounded by high-priced homes.

March

A sunny morning on March 1, 2004 brought this squirrel out to its favourite perch in a huge old tree where it sits in safety while people jog or walk by underneath, rarely looking up.

April

Canoeing the calm and frigid waters of Link Lake, behind Ocean Falls in the 1980's. Not surprisingly, I had the whole 16-mile lake to myself.

May

1984 - time to go into the bush and get next winter's firewood. Falling, bucking, carting it home in my ancient VW van, splitting, stacking and storing each spring was a necessary chore in Ocean Falls where woodstoves had become the only practical way of heating houses. This situation alone became a great incentive to move to somewhere with natural gas and thermostats.

June

1980 - an historic occasion in Ocean Falls, BC. Residents swarm aboard to welcome the Queen of the North, the very first "ro-ro" ferry to arrive there. For the first time in the town's history, people could easily take cars, trucks and goods to and from Vancouver and Prince Rupert. Shortly after, the government axed the service when the mill shut down, which virtually killed the town, but now a limited service with smaller ferries, aimed at the tourist business, runs in the summer months.

July

1996 - This beautiful wildlife refuge in the Creston Valley wetlands is a wonderful place for some quiet canoeing. Having a leisurely lunch on an abandoned raft, we're toasting the new camel logo on June's canoe in 1996. The electronic gizmo seen bottom left is not a radio or TV - it's a GPS navigation unit I was trying out.

August

1971 - my climbing partner on the way up Mt. Monte Cristo in the North Cascades, Washington. This was one of many memorable BC Mountaineering Club trips I enjoyed in those years.

September

1977, and in Ocean Falls the coho salmon are massed in front of my house at the mouth of Martin River waiting to go upstream to spawn. These local boaters are fishing for meat, not merely sport. Food from "outside" arrived only intermittently, was costly and rarely fresh, so nearly everyone tried to can, smoke or freeze enough salmon in the Fall to last over the coming winter.

October

1957, and I had only been in Canada a few days and I was in Toronto for an interview hoping to land a job as a pilot on the flight test team for the Avro Arrow

I was lucky to find Centre Island just a short ferry ride from downtown. Renting a canoe for a few hours took me to this peaceful spot that gave a welcome break from the turmoil of arrival in Canada and the stress of job hunting. I have to say that Centre Island was the only thing that impressed me about Toronto!

November

November 1973. Escaping Vancouver's dreary winter, we had driven in the dark on black ice to Seattle and flown to Hawaii with Air Club International for only $149. Crammed like sardines into an ancient, dirty Boeing 707, we had a hair-raising take-off from the old field in Seattle but it was all worth it.

I took this photo on a day with strong offshore winds at Waimea on Oahu's North Shore. Figure out the size of this wave from the height of the guy standing up - that's BIG surf!

December

A faded image of Christmas past: opening presents in our little rented house in Lynn Valley, North Vancouver, in the early 60's.

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