Braemar Station - Ranching in New Zealand

After two weeks in Christchurch we headed south to the Mackenzie high country for a week at Braemar Station. The sloping Canterbury Plains gradually get drier and barren as we gain altitude. Before us we see the outliers of the Southern Alps and soon we will drop over the edge of the ridge down to Lake Pūkaki.

While pretty along the road verge the introduced lupins are a threat to several bird species nesting in the unique braided gravel river bed ecology of the South Island.

Braemar Station overlooking Lake Pūkaki is an oasis of trees, gardens and hospitality. Julia and Hamish Mackenzie manage a huge block of land on which they run sheep and deer, offer a unique New Zealand golf experience and welcome visitors. We settle into modernized Pine Cottage, one of the original dwellings on the station relocated to a ridge top granting a stunning view of the lake and mountains. On our arrival we enjoyed a calm, sunny evening. We later came to realize this was a meteorological anomaly.

Erin and Hector hit the road. Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's tallest mountain and a sacred site for the Ngāi Tahu (Maouri) iwi, rises above the Tasman valley at the head of the lake. Aoraki and his three brothers, sons of Sky Father, took their waka (canoe) down from heaven to visit their step-mother. On attempting to return to heaven however, the waka tipped on its side and was turned into the South Island. The brothers were turned to stone, Aoraki becoming the highest mountain, the brothers making up the rest of the Southern Alps.

Stephen fished both ends of the lake with equal success. Although he saw fish there were more interesting things about and we remained on a fish-free diet. None of this however impaired his pleasure in standing beside the water and enjoying the day. In contrast my attempts to hike in the braided stream environment nearby resulted in a knee deep immersion in a quakey sandbar so it was nearly humans 0, fish 1.

The end of the road takes you to Mount Cook Station at the confluence of the Jollie and Tasman rivers. The station, originally established in 1864, remains in the hands of the founding family, epitomizes the dramatic diversity of New Zealand stations. In addition to deer and sheep the station has a large pine tree plantation.

Sheep at eventide in the Shearer's Paddock, Braemar Station. Especially placid in the evening, during the day sheep and lambs scamper off over the horizon as soon as they see you coming. And that's why the musterers have well trained dogs helping them manage the herd.

During our tramp up the rain swollen Jollie River we witnessed logging operations and got to meet Sam and Chad, and friendly dog (who doesn't run a chain saw), during their lunch break. We sat and traded stories of hunting tahr here and moose back home. Chad's looking forward to a Yukon visit in October to go hunting.

Glaciated mountains and lakes create their own weather. We had several stunning storms during our stay. The wind rose, clouds thickened overhead and staggering bolts of lightning split the sky, blinding us. Seconds later we'd hear the thunder rolling up the valley. Like an operatic production of Ghost Riders, the cascading rumbles passing overhead shook our small cabin and only gradually dissipated their energy into the glacial valleys surrounding Aoraki. The Sky Father sending messages to his earth bound sons?

In the morning the skies were clear and bright and a double complete rainbow bridged the lake. A cleansing wind still swept around our cottage. Struggling against the steady gale - I had to lean into the wind and then let my leg swing forward - I made my way up the hill in Shearer's paddock. On top, with its splendid view of Aoraki, I found I could, rather I had to, lean on the wind simply to stay in place. It was an extraordinary experience. Later in the week the park interpretor at Aoraki told us the Met. station wind recorder that day measured winds up to 172 km/hr before it broke.

Andrew admires the rainbow from our front porch. Braemar Station gave our family a fascinating and engaging experience of high country station life. The atmosphere is relaxed and casual, the hosts friendly and helpful, we enjoyed the immersion in the rural life of New Zealand.

Rapaki Track - A Sunday Morning Walk

Erin and Stephen invited us to meet them for a tramp today. They were starting up the Port Hills from their place and suggested we head up the Rapaki track and meet them on the Summit Road where we could look down into Lyttleton Harbour. We "slipped on a shirt, slopped on the sunscreen and slapped on a hat" and headed out.

Joy gave her hat to Andrew.

Leaving behind the suburbs we climbed up the Port Hills, actually the sides of a long collapsed volcano, the core of which is the now the harbour. Lyttleton harbour is the largest harbour on the South Island and the community hosts a popular farmers' market every Saturday.

Looking at the Port Hills from the inside of the caldera while waiting for a latte.

The hills are mostly pasture for sheep on one side of the track and beef up the hill. One large willow provided some welcome shade about half way up. There was a strong warm wind blowing downslope. At one point we thought we heard a horde of cicada but it was the wind humming the high tension wires of a nearby transmission line. We know what we wanted to hear and were sympathetic to people who live near these arteries of modern civilization.

At the top we met Erin, Stephen and Hector and rested briefly with the runners and cyclists who were out in considerable numbers. Looking over into the harbour Erin pointed out a couple of places including an island in the channel where Shackleton kept his dogs in 1914 before embarking on his Trans-Antarctic expedition. Shackleton's leadership on this disasterous four year expedition ensured that not a single man was lost, a model for contemporary leadership training. They also got to miss the bulk of the First World War which they hurried back to once they found out it wasn't yet over.

Going down was pleasant but Hector had had enough travelling by then. We took breaks whenever shade offered and giggled together as we witnessed all the small wonders of the world. Our last stop was under a Manuka bush, the source of a healthy New Zealand honey and a tough hard wood that Stephen used in making the batons for his kubb game.

Christmas in Kiwi , or maybe Hobbit, Land

 Andrew, Joy and I, not the Magi, but also drawn by a (southern) star made a long journey to enjoy our family Christmas this year. Starting from just below the Arctic Circle we left a -30C Whitehorse early in the morning and, over the next 72 hours, crossed the Tropic of Cancer, the Equator, the International Date Line and the Tropic of Capricorn, thus pretty much covering off the whole of grade 8 geography. Air New Zealand, festooned with Hobbit land paraphenalia, claimed we'd arrived in Middle Earth where we stopped for snack before the final leg to Christchurch.

The whole point of the trip was to become acquainted with our first grandchild, Hector Mason. We found him with his Dad relaxing under a shady tree in the back garden. Erin and Stephen's world has contracted around a new centre and we were pleased to join them for a grand Christmas day.

We opened presents. Not surprisingly most were for Hector, though all of us got a treat or two. The sheer joy of having a multi-generation Christmas did not overshadow my own nostalgic reflections of Christmases where I've been the child, the adolescent, the adult and the parent. Now I'd crossed another line on a different kind of, and much longer, journey through life. What a delightful experience this has been. Life, especially new life, is wonderful stuff.

A New Zealand Christmas is usually at the beach. This year though our arrival in the middle of Christmas morning, and the coolness of the day - only +20C, meant we'd settle for a picnic in the backyard.

After our Christmas meal, it was time to play with Hector, again, and we all took turns practising jumps, flying and talking. His grins, and yawns, were infectious and we enjoyed a very mellow afternoon.

Then it was Hector's turn for a snack and a nap. And "after dinner the Uncles lay out in the sunshine, loosened all buttons, put their large moist hands over their watch chains, groaned a little and slept."

Zombie and Andrew do the Uncle thing.

Later, in the evening, all refreshed from naps and walks, we settled in for the traditional Kiwi pavlova. A great start to a family visit in New Zealand.

Freeze-up: Ice crystals and slush

The Takhini River throwing ice into the Yukon in late October.

Gilbert White's introduction to his Natural History of Selborne (1789) describes the benefits of careful observation of the world about us. His letters provide a collection of lyrical epistles on the natural landscape of a small corner of southern England. White, a product of the Enlightenment, was sure much could be learned from nature through simple observation and the application of human reason. He also sounds an 18th century clarion call to fulfill a long time wish of mine; the examination of the freeze-up of the Yukon River. 

"The Author of the following Letters takes the liberty, with all proper deference, of laying before the public his idea of parochial history, which he thinks, ought to consist of natural productions and occurrences as well as antiquities. He is also of the opinion that if stationary men would pay some attention to the districts on which they reside, and would publish their thoughts respecting the objects that surround them, from such materials might be drawn the most complete county histories.... If the writer should appear to have induced any of his readers to pay a more ready attention to the wonders of the Creation, too frequently overlooked as common occurrences; or if he should by any means, through his researches, have lent a helping hand towards the enlargement of the boundaries of historical and topographical knowledge... his purpose will be fully answered."

I have two copies of White's book. A lovely illustrated version of the letters published in 1993 which I like on the shelf but rarely look at and, my first copy, a soldier's edition published by Penguin in the early days of the Second World War. Clare Leighton's nostalgic wood engravings of the English countryside illustrate the book. The most striking image however is the front inside cover advertisement. Apparently the British Army was convinced that troops imbued with rational thought, cogent powers of observation and healthy teeth would be more than a match for the poor Germans burdened with Mein Kampf.

No doubt a trophy from Dunkirk.

Having recently retired from full time work, that is, I am now a "stationary man," I felt I ought to approach my district and publish thoughts respecting the objects that surround me. Under White's guidance I spent two weeks observing the freeze-up of the Yukon River just north of Whitehorse. I purposefully did not talk to my hydrologist friend nor did I check the internet for background. I would join Gilbert in spirit and the two of us would wander the river bank to watch the water, rising and falling, flowing and foaming, and gradually stiffening into the ice which will stay until spring.

On October 29 I noted that both the Takhini and Yukon rivers were low. The wide banks showed a drop of a metre or more from summer high water, and the tempestuous rapids broke up the moving sheets of ice.

From my vantage point at the end of the Takhini River I saw rounded pans of ice. It appeared that larger sheets of ice, probably formed on Kusawa Lake upstream, entered the river. As the ice banged against other flows and the river banks the sheets were tinkered into round flan pans, with raised edges of crushed ice, which spun crazily in the current.

The Yukon River just below the Takhini confluence.

The Yukon River is free of ice until the pans from the Takhini entered. Below the confluence the pans traced a river in a river as the cooler water of the Takhini swung back and forth across the Yukon River waters around it. Although the Yukon River also has a lake as its source the Whitehorse hydro electric dam both stops the ice and the friction of the water blasting through the turbines appears to raise the temperature to keep ice forming for some distance down river.

A floating mat of connected ice pans.

A little further downstream the river curves north and a large back eddy collects ice pans too close to the edge of the current. These gradually coalesce into a knobbly ice sheet lightly attached to the small shelf of shore ice. The current line is clearly marked by the smooth edge of the sheet.

Getting close to the shore ice shows its very different pattern of crystallization. The ice is black, lacking the air which has been absorbed by the pans during their journey. And the ice crystals are clearly visible in three dimensions, imperfections on the ice surface acting as anchors for the condensation of the moist river air as it passes over the shore ice. These intricate and delicate, feather-like structures rise a centimetre into the air.

Nearby Little Takhini Creek, its water source up Heckel Hill, seen in the distance, now frozen, has dwindled to a slow trickle below a thin sheet of icy snow. And down by the Yukon River the stones from the fall's campfires are still visible and the water flows on unmindful of the winter to come.

Set in Stone: Completing the Family Cobble Patio

I finished the cobble patio in late September. My final design varied from my original plan for a couple of reasons. I had envisioned a four pointed star but as work progressed I struggled to come up with a reason for a western point. The eastern point was obvious, it pointed at the house and so was the way home. If you want another beer, you headed east. And the cobbles weren't the best thing to put a picnic table on. I also admitted that perhaps the romance of setting cobbles had some limits. I substituted much easier to lay large squares of cut stone.

Fire is the centre of the patio. A fixed, unending circle, providing life supporting heat and light, the fire is the love between my wife, Joy, and I. Without it there wouldn't be much point to anything else in the circle. Much of what brings meaning to my life wouldn't even exist without this fire.

The Polaris point addressed my own fascination with the night sky. I enhanced this quadrant by infilling with black, a crescent moon and the Big Dipper. The red cobble outlines mark the sunrise and sunset of the summer solstice. I thought about adding equivalents for the winter solstice but figured they would be under a metre of snow during their time of relevance so let it go. The quadrant also speaks to my affection for my far away sky daughter, Celeste.

  

The home quadrant is a metaphor of the Yukon's cultural diversity. It includes shards of Italian clay planters, volcanic pumice from the Yukon River shallows below Robert Service campground, a large flat slate from the top of Grey Mountain carried out by hiking group friends, a set of colourful rocks from the McQueston River where my son, Andrew, and I launched our Magician's Nephew river tour of spring, 1992 and the CBC mug I won for a story about my Siberian auntie. The coffee mugs are especially attractive to the two little girls from next door who regularly dig them up to see what's in them. I plan to add a "cache" of goodies to the mugs for next summer's explorations. Surely the natural and cultural diversity of our home is something that should be enjoyed and shared.

The southerly point is actually a bearing of 220 degrees True North, a line connecting Whitehorse with Christchurch, New Zealand, the home of our children, Stephen and Erin, and new grandchild, Hector. The point marker is a heavy ceramic electrical insulator which Stephen and I wrestled off a recalcitrant broken fence post abandoned beside the road. What odd ways we stay connected - Blog, Facebook, Mother's emails, your emails, Skype, occasional  visits - each offering snatches of a full lived reality, each disconnected from the other, yet all speaking to what is going on and how we doing.

If I understood how to manage these I'd probably keep my blog much more up to date. Instead I have a backlog of great ideas and experiences, some eventually get posted, most just drifting off like the wake ripples behind a canoe. In the same way we each have our own lives and they are full. We share what is interesting, new or meaningful and let the bulk of the routine that envelopes us become as invisible to others as it is to us.

Winter arrived earlier this week. Today the patio is under 25cm of snow. The wind plate in the fire pit is still visible but the yard has turned to a smooth white surface that will lighten our winter nights by reflecting moon, stars and aurora.

 

Bran Muffins - Gray Day Comfort Food

On a day like this its nice to turn the oven on.

 October can sometimes be mild but this year it has decided to be windy, cold and snowy. The potted rosemary and thyme have been brought into the kitchen window, the new raised bed remains unfilled, the compost and soil frozen solid before I had a chance to shovel in. I was too frantic trying to get the potatoes out of the garden before they froze. This morning it was -10, there was thick overcast and more fresh snow blown over the cars. As I made my coffee I knew it was time for bran muffins.

Coffee is an essential element in successful muffin making.

I started baking muffins about 25 years ago, maybe more, maybe less, I don't remember stuff like that. But for a long time I've been making bran muffins. I made them in earnest when our kids were small and just kept it up. Served up hot with butter or cheese or cream cheese they were popular. As time went on I moved beyond the traditional raisin bran muffin and started adding cornmeal (adding a little crunch), sunflower seeds, blueberries, cranberries, what ever we had in the house. This morning I added some salty green seeds I found in the cupboard, not sure what they were, tasty though. Might have been pumpkin.

Fresh bran muffin with a lovely aged herb Gouda left behind by some generous dinner guests.

The Recipe

In the busy days I'd get the dry ingredients ready the night before so that I could get up and have the muffins in the oven in about ten minutes in the morning. The kids seemed to like them for breakfast and it made me feel like I was actually being a parent - straying up late and putting hot food in their bellies.

• milk                                    185 ml
• cornmeal                             60 ml

• unsifted all-purpose flour     185 ml
• baking powder                       8 ml
• baking soda                           3 ml
• salt                                       3 ml  (less if adding salted seeds)

• butter                                  60 ml 
• brown sugar                      125 ml
• molasses                            60 ml
• eggs                                     2 

• raw natural bran                375 ml
• raisins/seeds/berries         125 ml

Preheat oven to 375' F.
Mix cornmeal and milk and let stand.
Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl.
Place butter, brown sugar, molasses and eggs in a large bowl and beat 2 or 3 minutes until creamy and blended.
 With beater slow add milk/cornmeal, flour mix, bran and raisins/seeds/berries until just mixed.
Turn mixture into an oiled muffin tin. Makes a dozen large muffins.
Bake for 18 minutes.

 

Baldwin House - Erickson's 1963 Modern Home

Baldwin House nestled in forest on the south shore of Deer Lake.

We are spending Thanksgiving week at Baldwin House, an early Arthur Erickson design epitomizing his development of the West Coast style. Combining Scandanavian and Japanese features in a rain forest environment, the house has been an interesting dwelling place.

Burnaby, British Columbia, can be proud of their greenspaces. A part of the lower mainland of the Fraser River valley, the city has some old parks, but it has also reclaimed property from earlier industrial and institutional uses. The western shores of Deer Lake were, from 1912 to 1991, the site of the Oakalla maximum security prison farm. Only traces of the prison remain in the park, most buried beneath a large condominium development on the remainder of the site.

Built into the steep lake slope, Baldwin House is experienced as a series of cascades.

Across Deer Lake there was already a suburban development of small holdings that has more recently transformed into a densely packed urbanscape of single family houses. Eagles Estate, a lovely English style bungalow set in a large garden built in 1930, is a remnant of the older community. Built for Blyth and Violet Eagles, the house was sold onto the City of Burnaby in 1993 when Violet passed away. The building and its maintained gardens are now the regional offices of The Land Conservancy of BC. The TLC is also the manager of Baldwin House.

The Living Room with its original furnishings and finishes.

The Baldwins, friends of Arthur Erickson, commissioned the house in 1963, the same year the Erickson/Massey firm was surprised to win the contract for the design of Simon Fraser University campus. The house has a stepped concrete foundation, the rough faces generally covered with cedar panelling or stone tiles but two lower slabs still show the rough plank formwork. Rising from the foundation almost like a mist are vertical glass plates and horizontal cedar beams. Looking out from the house offers beautifully framed views of the lake and the changing sky.

Evening, a dramatic sky and views of Grouse Mountain.

Early morning, an aura of calm and peace. Nice to have a canoe.

Artful views are offered from every room.

The range of materials, textures and colours offer an interesting contrast with the natural setting of the house.

Living in a fish bowl.

The City of Burnbaby runs an active recreational education program at Deer Lake. Every weekday large numbers of middle school students launch canoes and head out on a voyage. We were surprised to find that the first stop was always the little cove of Baldwin House. With some 80 young eyes all staring through the transparent walls of the house we were glad that we'd already dressed.

A week in Baldwin house allowed us to appreciate the skill and thought that went into the design and orientation of this dwelling. It is not a house offering comfort and security - definitely not in the pioneer tradition of refuge. Rather the structure engages it's occupants with the forest, water and life about it.

Standing by the edge of the floor - the glass offering no sense of wall - you are not watching nature, you are a part of it. The house was at its best in early dawn, watching lake mist rise and obscuring shore, tree and mountain, offering a blank slate and then the sun tints the opposite shore, the mist evaporates to reveal the new day. And in the evening with the red sky reflected in the water and calling for thoughts on the acts and passions of the day just passed.

Perhaps a week of clear skies and bright sunshine was an unusual event in Burnaby but we will have to return to see and experience Erickson's invisible house in the rain.

The house appears to float in its watery setting. Erickson claimed Dal Lake in Kashmir as an inspiration for Baldwin House.