We stopped at Barnet Marine Park in north Burnaby, BC, for a beach ramble. The sun was magnificent after weeks of daily rain and snow.
The big tugs can leave a good wake!
I like that a few bits of the area’s industrial history have been left to explore. It’s hard to believe the area was a near-separate community for decades.
I’m nervous writing this post.
Don’t want to sound like a fuddy-duddy, but that Superbowl halftime show?
Both Yumi and I found it, er, over the bottom, I mean, top.
There were loads of comely bottoms gyrating all over the place, not to mention all the thigh-splayed thrusting. And thrusting, and thrusting, and bent-over butt displaying. . .
And the young girls watching portrayed adoringly mesmerized by those “role models. . . ”
“I have to learn to pole dance, and thrust, and shake my booty just like them!”
Is this empowering? Is this Me Too?
Saw this on the way home from the Burnaby Still Creek recycling center the other day. And yes, the sides were decorated in greater detail along the same theme.
Hope it was being towed to restoration rather than demolition!
It was headed west, but Woodstock is a 44-hour drive east from Burnaby 
.
Yumi the Kid cajoled me into walking over to Ron McLean Park in SE Burnaby for a few runs down the slope.
We don’t get snow that sticks very often in south Burnaby, and this year has been quite the exception. It’s been tough on commuters, so take what fun you can!
It was pretty dark by the time we got out. Most shots at ISO 12,800. Tried a few at 25,600 but those looked overly grainy.
Gateway to fun!
Skytrain zips by in the background
As the salmon spawning season draws to a close on urban Byrne Creek in south Burnaby, BC, I have a few thoughts. . .
Thank you to the dog walkers who ask us when the “keep your dogs out of the creek” posters will go up. You’re some of our best eyes on the creek! You’re out there every day.
Thanks to City of Burnaby Parks who approve posting the posters and oversee invasive plant removals, and thanks to City of Burnaby Engineering who follow up when volunteers report issues with water quality.
I also want to thank the increasing numbers of folks who are aware there are salmon in this urban creek, and who stop and chat with streamkeeper volunteers and ask how the run is going.
It’s emotional for me when the spawner run draws to a close. I feel bereft until I start spotting fry in the creek in the spring.
Yes, we do see alevin popping out of the gravel in the spring, and watch as they become fry. It’s a wonder to behold and cherish.
I’m a prairie boy, Yumi is a northern Japan girl, and we have a common passion in BC salmon that started soon after we moved here some 20 years ago.
A lot of that goes to mentors like Stream of Dreams Murals Society founders Joan Carne and Louise Towell, and ZoAnn Morten of the Pacific Streamkeepers Federation, and our DFO Community Advisors over the years, Maurice and now Scott. . .
Streamkeepers in British Columbia are an amazing community.
We’ve had some hard years, and we’ve had too many low runs.
Here’s to making things better!
I’m an animal lover. I’m a wildlife and nature photographer. I’ve always had pets, always cared for them to their dying days. . .
But I think some folks are ignoring reality when it comes to animals.
Humans are terrible? Sure, some are, hopefully not too many. Of course we’ve had huge impacts on wildlife, not to mention on each other.
And factory “farming” is gross and disgusting.
But have you ever watched a large cat disembowel an ungulate, and start eating its stomach and organs while the ungulate is still alive?
Ever watched an eagle or an owl stripping flesh off of a still-quivering rodent?
Ever seen a 12cm coho smolt gulp down a 6cm chum fry?
Is that somehow better than us killing?
Nature is not Disney. It never has been, and it never will be.
I think Disney and its ilk have done a huge disservice to children who’ve fallen under their spell.
Predators are not sci-fi movies or documentaries. Predators are daily life, starting from plankton all the way up the food chain to carnivorous mammals. . .
That does not mean that humans cannot reduce their footprint by reducing meat consumption etc.
But let’s not somehow put wildlife up on pedestals as shining examples of harmony and love and whatever. . . .
Something I think we need to keep in mind when thinking about issues such as “culling” wolves and seals, or working with species at risk, or habitat loss, or sustainability, or climate change, etc., is that here in British Columbia, our homo sapiens species has gone from a population of about 55,000 in 1851 to some 4,648,000 in 2016.
That’s an 85X increase in only 165 years.
And our population continues to grow at 5.6% a year.
Caribou? Elk? Wolves? Seals? All a drop in the bucket compared to our numbers. . .
We checked out the Heritage Christmas at the Burnaby Village Museum on our way home today. Got there a bit early, would look better darker. Free admission!
I am increasingly troubled by friends and family who are falling into the right-wing and left-wing disinformation worlds.
It’s getting scary.
Friends and family that I’ve known for decades are getting sucked in and spouting shit that a fourth-grader could see vast holes in. . . Be it “right-wing or left-wing. . .”
We have a fragile democracy here in Canada. We have tens of thousands of folks who want to come here because conditions are so crappy in their home countries. Folks who would work their butts off to ensure we have a democracy in Canada because they have experienced totalitarian evil.
China and Russia are both dictatorships. Both have decades of experience and intent in subjugating people, and destabilizing democracies.
Democracies are by nature fragile because they do accept individual thought. That is worth protecting.
People are dying in Hong Kong, people are dying in Ukraine aspiring to democratic freedoms that we take for granted here.
Learn, read, remember. . . Don’t let the bastards get you down.
Those who respond “Ha-Ha” to social media Remembrance Day posts may be sick in their souls.
Particularly those posts that denigrate Canadians of colour, of ethnicity, of different beliefs, who proudly served and who continue to serve their communities as volunteers.
I cannot fathom what imaginary constructs you fear, what you hate. But millions died to keep societies like ours inclusive and welcoming ones.
You have the freedom to hate, because so many loved and died for democracy and freedom.
Why can’t you make wiser choices, and exhibit positive behaviours?
What and why do you fear?