Moose Tracks and Wood

Last night I went for a walk at dusk with Sanford. This was after spending four hours splitting and stacking wood with Harry Dick, who lives in a trailer down the street from me. He used a gas-powered splitter, on loan from Neill, who is Tracy's father (her mother and step-dad built the beautiful house I now rent). Tracy and her family, husband Scott, their two kids and Neill brought me a HUGE HUGE HUGE load of wood yesterday in thanks for walking Sanford. The last batch they even dropped off with an excavator!

Harry and I worked until the machine ran out of fuel, and plan to finish the rest of the pile this afternoon. He is an interesting fellow, and was born here at the hospital in Bralorne, which is now in the slow, small-town speed process of being torn down. Bralorne is a town ten kilometres up the road from Gold Bridge, with a population of about 60. Those who live there tend to be younger than the mostly retirement-aged folks who live here in Gold Bridge, and the main industry is the Bralorne Gold Mine, which opened again this May after twenty or so years of hiatus. The Mineshaft Pub also employs a number of people, and there is even the Lone Goat Coffee Shop up there, although the two times I tried to go it was closed.

Back to the walk last night. What a beautiful place this is! I headed out fully clothed for the -9 outside, picked up Sanford, and we walked through the snow into the woods. I could not believe that one of our usual trails was still completely unmarked by traffic, even though the snow had fallen days ago. We set off along the old road that leads to a now-abandoned mine shaft, and the bare tree branches let in a complete view of Mount Sloan and the dammed Downton Lake to our right. After about a hundred yards we started to see the animal tracks. Deer big and small traipsing across the road and up the bank, the impressions of rabbit and grouse. And then... MOOSE TRACKS!!! A moose was on the path that we wander down all the time! How cool is that!? We followed the tracks down the road for quite a while  before I lost it. Sanford had beaten me there and walked all over it and in circles where it left the road, and the light of my headlamp was too dim to see which tracks were his and which belonged to the moose. I'll have to check it out again in the next couple of days.

Well, I must go stoke up my stove and get back to some wood-splitting. Happy Sunday :)