Nothing But Smooth Sailing for SS Bigadore

Only my sworn enemies, whoever they might be, will be chagrined to hear that Cabin Commencement 2013 proceeded without a hitch. We found the shack pretty much as we’d left it back in October, uninvaded by anything more menacing than an unlucky trio of deer mice that had a last meal of peanut butter before springing the lethal trap that served it.

Air Canada delivered us from the west coast at the hideous hour of 0130 hours, Tuesday morning. That seemed too ungodly an hour to demand that a loved one retrieve us from the airport so we’d arranged a sleepover at the splashy new Hampton Inn in Sydney. Cousin Lynn generously collected us at 10:30 the same morning and shared in the long sequence of afternoon opening chores. Serendipity ruled the day: both fridges started readily, the solar batteries registered a deliciously healthy 14 volts-plus. Even Leo, the 15-year-old stallion truck, started up despite having endured eight months of idleness and a Cape Breton winter.

We relished our first sleep in the porch, the only auditory disturbance being the lapping of waves and an occasional chorus of singing coyotes. In the early morning I birded the lazy way: by ear, in bed, waiting for my consort to wake. A pretty good list I accumulated too: five species of warblers, alder flycatcher, purple finch, ravens, a kingfisher and a pair of loons crooning to each other. All from the comfort of the world's best bed.

We walked the land to find that Jan's rhubarb is flourishing and the garlic she planted last fall is already nearly four feet tall. The red astrachan tree, our earliest-fruiting apple looks set to produce a bumper crop. No apple jelly surpasses the red-astrachan variety my better half will produce later in the summer.

June 25 is too late an arrival date to see the flowering plants that were blooming in late May but we have a pretty good selection right now: high-bush cranberry, alternate-leaved dogwood, blue-eyed grass among the most glamorous.

The first day was fortuitously sunny and blithe; since then we’ve had enough drizzle and showers to half-fill the main rain barrel. More is in the forecast. But that’s okay, we won’t start complaining until all three are overflowing.

Though we’re barely settled in another trip is on the near horizon. In a few days we’ll head to the Nova Scotia mainland, initially to see My Dear Old Mum at Truro and sponge off sister Nancy for a couple of days. Then it will be off to Amherst Shore to see pals Garth and Carole before we abandon them in favour of a bike ride to Prince Edward Island via the southeast corner of New Brunswick, returning via the Wood Island ferry and along NS Highway 6 back to Amherst Shore. We haven’t had a bike adventure as ambitious as a few hundred kilometres in length for some time so we were keen to reassure ourselves we’re still at least marginally viable.

We’ll let you know that goes.

Washington Dry, Washington Wet

Hydrophobia altered the course of events. We'd planned on fleeing the madding crowds to spend five June days in the wild east Chilcotin country of BC, around and about Churn Creek Protected Area. The extended forecast called for rain every day. We balked. As consolation prize we considered the Wenas Creek region of dry central Washington. There the extended weather icon was the same: sun, sun, sun. We went. I was first smitten with Wenas way back in 1984 during a birding trip with good buddy Bruce Whittington. I vowed then to return soon. Other things cropped up, 29 years flew past. How many 29-year lots can a fella expect in his lifetime? If he's lucky and looks both ways before crossing the street, he might get three, and shuffle off at 87.

Wenas was magical 29 years ago and it was again. Where else can you clamber into a car, drive 300 km or so and find yourself in a place so utterly different from home? Different geography, different climate, different fauna and flora. Better still, we had Wenas pretty much to ourselves. A prime target was an unlike-any-other bird, the white-headed woodpecker, which I first saw those 29 years ago whilst taking a bath in Wenas Creek. It took most of the first day to see one, then serendipity: six encounters in our day-and-a-half idyll.

And not just whiteheads, but calliope hummingbird, western bluebird, veery, pygmy nuthatch, mountain chickadee, none of which we have a hope of seeing in Victoria. The first night a flammulated owl struck up a conversation just beyond our tent. Had the birding flagged – which it didn't – no problem, everywhere I looked unfamiliar wildflowers bloomed. I photographed dozens.

We moved on to Lower Crab Creek, another '84 jewel. Back then Bruce and I enjoyed terrific birding, climbed a high bluff and got nose-to-nose with a rattlesnake. No such good fortune this time, but Jan and I rhapsodized over prairie falcons and white-throated swifts at the bluff tops and a great egret down by the crick.

The ground we covered was not altogether familiar to me. We went to Columbia National Wildlife Refuge and required new superlatives to describe our day: dramatic high-cliff vistas, spectacular cloud formations, desert wildflowers, big charismatic birds – white pelicans, northern harriers, more great egrets. A refuge ranger confided, apropos the weather and cloud drama, "it hardly ever gets this good".

We moved north along the once-magnificent, now-tamed Columbia River. We passed three dams in an hour or so, Dry Falls, Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph, the latter doubly sad, for the remembered insults given to both the river and the great Nez Perce chief. I ought to have read the augury: we deployed the tent at a state park, Bridgeport. At first all went well – a chilled bottle of Washington pinot gris, a blithe evening, eastern kingbirds entertaining us right by the tent. Things went south at about 10:40 when we were jolted awake: water lashed the tent from not one but three high-pressure sprinklers. With the tent flaps left open for better ventilation, we were instantly soaked. Abbott and Costello might have extracted great merriment from such a scene but the folks in the tent didn't laugh at all. We managed to run the gauntlet and get the tent to an unsprinkled corner of the tenting area. Sleep proved elusive.

After the Bridgeport debacle we crossed the border at Osoyoos and spent a final night at BC's own Manning Park. In the park lodge, not the tent. Manning was good to us. No sprinklers, plenty of flowers and birds to contemplate. While I was busy taking pictures of a gray jay – I prefer the bird's former name, Canada jay – Jan had a choice find, a bright male three-toed woodpecker. Townsend's and Audubon's warblers sang along the road to the Sub Alpine Meadows Area. Pikas, varying hares and mule deer provided generous photo ops. At the Cascade Lookout Clark's nutcrackers and ravens shamelessly begged for chips.

Apart from the one exception already mentioned it was a marvelous, dry time we had in Washington's Columbia Plateau. I certainly recommend the region as a terrific, natural destination. With just one caveat: if you happen to contemplate a night at Bridgeport State Park may I recommend that you inquire about the sprinkling schedule before choosing your tent site.