Summer School Continues...

It is so hard to believe that three weeks of the four week summer school program have already passed! Each field trip challenges the students' English in new ways, and gives me insight into their personalities and how they will fit into the International program for the coming school year.

The week before last began with a trip to Grouse Mountain and ended with an evening watching the BC Lions play the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. Grouse Mountain was... wet! However, our guide for the day was fantastic, and we had Phil, the ecowalk guide we enjoyed so much when we went up with Ruth and hte boys. The students had been forwarned about possible inclimate weather and most came prepared. It was their introduction to Canadians not letting the weather stop them from having fun outdoors. Only a few complained about being wet and cold, but they enjoyed themselves nonetheless.

Our day at the Aquarium was perfect! It was nice weather for watching the Beluga show outside, and to enjoy the dolphin show. I caught a great photo of one of the Pacific White-sided dolphins at the beginning of the show.



Truth be told, football is really not my thing. However, the game we went to was very exciting! It was very close, although the Lions lost in the end. Sherlock, my student from Hong Kong, was very excited about going to see a "football match." I explained that in Canada the term is "football game", which also differentiates it from what he thinks of as "football" and we call "soccer."

We had several extra tickets to the game, so Paul tagged along. At the last minute, since there were two remaining tickets, we called Donna and Alvin and they met us at the stadium. Both are avid football fans, and it was fun to have them join us with the students.

Some of the students enjoyed the game - especially due to the close score. However, quite a few were ready to go home after the second quarter. The game didn't end until about 10:45 pm, and we spent a very long time sitting in traffic trying to get out of the city. This got us back to the school at almost midnight, and Paul and I only got home to be in bed by about 1 am. I had to park the bus, alarm the high school and lock all the gates.

Paul and I had to be up at 5 am the next morning to get me to Cultus Lake for the regatta. Regatta day had that dream quality all day, as I was operating on adrenaline alone!!



Last week we shuffled some activities around based on weather. As you can see, we had perfect conditions for a day at Crescent Beach in South Surrey. The tide was out during our time there, which created a lot of different options for the students as they decided how to fill their time there. The boys had a soccer game going on out in the tidal flats. Other students dug up clams and baby crabs, and found egg sacs and dead jelly fish. Of course, there was also frisbee and kite flying - and before we went home, I bought everyone icecream.

The day after the beach was even hotter, which was perfect for a day at the waterslides at Cultus Lake, near Chilliwack. All the students enjoyed a full day of running up to the top, and screaming all the way down the slides. Lineups were fairly long, but the students were patient, and except for the odd sunburn, everyone had a great time!

We also went to Science World one day last week, and on Friday visited the Mountain View Wildlife Conservation Centre near Fort Langley. The latter has a goal of raising and breeding endangered species from around the world. The centre is only accessible by appointment, and only two tours go out each day. Over the 2 hours, the students saw some very unique animals and heard a lot about conservation. The owner's daughter attends Pacific Academy, and we noticed one compound that had been donated by the school. Each habitat area is as big as the natural territory for each species.

It has been a fun summer so far, and I look forward to next week's adventures!!

Cultus Lake Dragon Boat Regatta

Last Saturday, August 11, my dragon boat team, the Fort Langley Paddle Pushers, competed in a women's regatta at Cultus Lake. The weather was perfect, and the lake sure felt warmer than the Fraser River, which is where we train.

The day begins with the blessing of the dragon boat, and at the mid-day break there is a special breast cancer survivor ceremony. The breast cancer survivor teams do an honorary race. After the race, pink carnations are dropped into the lake as a memorial to those who have died of breast cancer. It's a nice gesture, and quite moving.

We raced consistently in three heats, reaching our best time ever of 2:47 in the 500 m race. This was enough to win first place in our division, and we were ecstatic! In each regatta we try to better our times, which we accomplished again. However, the feeling of winning a race is pretty amazing regardless of the time.

In the above picture, I am the fifth paddler from the front on the near side.

Summer School Begins

Well, July 30 marked the end of my summer holidays. Once again, I have taken a fun contract working with the new students who will be in the International program for the fall. The first two days are filled with a lot of administrative details, such as purchasing school uniforms. To keep the students busy, we did a scavenger hunt throughout the campus, went grocery shopping for picnic lunch supplies, and spent some time in the high school gym.

This year's group of students isn't as self-motivated as last year's group, so it's been a challenge to keep them busy in the "down" time. We've got students from Korea, Taiwan, Japan and Hong Kong right now, and will have a couple coming in from Mexico for September.



On Wednesday, took some time to make our picnic lunch, then drove the students to Derby Reach Park, along the Fraser River. Besides eating, the students enjoyed croquet, bocce ball, frisbee and badminton.

After lunch, we drove over to Fort Langley and the students explored the fort. We watched the blacksmith make a candle stick holder, which was a very hot activity on an equally hot day. As well, there was a chance to learn some Chinook language, and the kids had fun finding words on the list that looked like English words they new. A few tried panning for gold, but no one found anything.



On Thursday, we left Pacific Academy at 6:45 am to drive to North Vancouver to catch the train to Whistler. Like last year, the weather was perfect. The trip begins with breakfast, then the observation cars are open. The views are amazing as the train winds up the coast along Howe Sound, then through the Cheakamus Canyon. The students spent time chatting, and moving around from car to car taking photographs.

In the picture below, the student next to the window is Sherlock. He is living with Paul and I until August 10, when his home-stay family will be back from vacation. He has been a joy to have in our home! He is helpful, and loves to chat while I'm making supper. Sherlock will be in my Grade 10 class this fall, and has come out of the British school system in Hong Kong. Unlike the other Asian students, he has a better sense of multi-culturalism by virtue of his homeland.




When we arrived in Whistler, we were shuttled by bus into the village. After eating lunch, we took the students up the tram to the top of Whistler Mountain. For some of the students, this was the first time they had seen snow. The trail we hiked a year ago was closed due to snow and construction for the 2010 Olympics, but the students were more than satisfied to have a big snowball fight with my colleague, Rick.

We returned by tram to the village, and had some time to explore and shop before taking a luxury bus back to our school vans in North Vancouver.




En route, our driver stopped at Shannon Falls, near Squamish. We got off the bus and hiked up the trail to the falls.

It was almost 8:00 pm by the time we returned to Pacific Academy, and the students - and teachers - were tired. It was a wonderful day, though!





After a long day, we had only planned a 4 hour session for Friday. The original plan had been a field trip to the bank, but the bank cancelled at the last minute. We wracked our brains for an alternative plan on short notice - and in the process found out that we couldn't use the school vans after 11:00 am. This narrowed our options.



We decided to go to Planet Java, a coffee shop within public transit range of Pacific Academy. Rick shuttled us over by school bus. We spent a couple of hours playing pool and drinking coffee (well, I drank coffee....). The kids had a great time, and we introduced them to an activity that they can do with their friends in their free time. I had purchased transit tickets, and we took the public bus back to the school - a good introduction to local public transit for most of the kids.

We've had a long weekend after the first week, which has given me time to prune my Yucca plants, repot several of my indoor plants, and generally regroup after company and my first week back at work. I look forward to the adventures in the weeks ahead!

Ruth and the Boys - Day 1

Ruth and the boys arrived in time for supper on July 22. There were bodies everywhere - the spare room, the living room, and the family room. We really had a lot of fun during the 5 days of their stay, and saw a lot in a very short time.

These blogs, Days 1 to 4, are least recent to most recent, which is a bit backwards, but it is how the holiday progressed, and the four blogs do go together.



We began our adventures on Monday, with a trip to Stanley Park and the Aquarium. James had been to the Aquarium with me a year ago, but another wing has been opened since his visit. We took the horse drawn wagon tour of Stanley Park first.

It was a rainy day, but the wagon was covered, and there are wool blankets just in case anyone gets cold.

The driver gives a commentary throughout the ride of the history of Stanley Park and Vancouver. It was day one of the municipal strike in Vancouver, but except for some picketers, our ride was uneventful in relation to the strike.

Our guide stopped at various points of interest, and we had a few minutes to get out and look at and read about the totem poles. This is the first time I have visited Stanley Park since the winter wind storms, and the devastation in real life is much more heart-rending than pictures on the news. The Red Cedar trees, so prevalent in the park, have a shallow root system, with one tap root that reaches into the earth. When exposed to high winds, they easily blow over. The parks board and local scientists have come to an agreement regarding what needs to be removed to prevent a fire disaster and what must stay in order to keep the ecosystem healthy. Some standing trees have been marked with blue dots for possible cutting. The clean up process is going to take a long time, and parts of the park are still closed as the sea wall collapsed and has yet to be rebuilt.

In the Aquarium, they have built a new wing that contains more jelly fish tanks, including a series of tanks showing the various stages of the jellyfish life cycle. In the new wing, there are lots of hands on exhibits, including a new children's area. There is also a theatre in which we attended a 15 minute talk about Great Horned Owls. An injured owl was brought in for the talk, so it was "up close and personal". The owl has been used for teaching after losing one of her wings when hit by a car. So the talk was partly biology and partly about environmental responsibility.

Ruth got some great shots in the tropical rain forest exhibit. Outside, we took in the beluga whale show, and spent a lot of time watching my favourites, the otters. It was a great way to begin a week that was full of fun!

Ruth and the Boys - Day 2

On Tuesday, we got up really early in order to drive to Tsawwassen to catch the 8:00 a.m. ferry to Vancouver Island. The weather had been wet, and it was a bit overcast when we left, but thankfully, through the crossing, the weather cleared up.


When we arrived in Victoria, we began our day of touring at the Royal British Columbia Museum. Parking was as bad as when I took my students for the field trip in June, so I made use of my "top secret" parking location. We walked 8 or so blocks past historical buildings that are now bed & breakfasts, and past the BC Parliament Building. I'm not sure why the legislature in BC is called "parliament," but think it might be due to the British history of this area.

The end of the lineup at the museum was actually in a different area than the regular lineup, because there were so many people waiting to get in. We staked a claim in the lineup, and spent the wait eating our lunch, then checking our knapsacks.

Once in, we began our visit with the Titanic Exhibit. This time I was a French woman who was married to a Haitian man and had two children. We were travelling in second class. At the end of the exhibit, I found out that I and my two daughters had survived, but that my husband had gone down with the Titanic.

James was Benjamin Guggenheim, and was travelling with not his wife, but his mistress!! He did not survive, but in the exhibit, found a quote attributed to Guggenheim that he thought was pretty cool. "We are dressed in our best and prepared to go down as gentlemen."

After Titanic, we explored the Natural History, First Nations History and Modern History galleries. This took us a few hours, then we decided to make our way over to the Wax Museum.

The Wax Museum doesn't take too long, but it really is a lot of fun. We didn't like the crowds much, though - especially Eric. After the Wax Museum, I was wiped, so I sat on the promenade people-watching and enjoying the sunshine while Ruth and the boys went to the Undersea Gardens.

Afterward, we walked along the promenade, looking at the various booths set up by artisans, and watching the buskers. Eric was especially entranced, and thought it might even be a career option. We watched one fellow juggling torches on a unicycle - but he was really funny at the same time. The kids all put money in his hat.

We finished our day with a meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory before making our way back to the ferry. The weather was perfect for the crossing back to the mainland, and we could even seen Mount Baker!

Ruth and the Boys - Day 3

Paul was able to take a break from work on Wednesday, so we all drove to North Vancouver to go to Grouse Mountain. There are two ways to get to the top of Grouse Mountain. The first is the famouse "Grouse Grind", which is a steep hike up the mountain. People like to better their times for this hike, so it is not for those who like to smell the roses. The second way to get up the mountain is to travel in a hundred-passenger gondola. That was our route of preference. The views of Vancouver and across to the islands were spectacular! It was a perfect day, weather-wise.



Once at the top of Grouse Mountain, there are several things to do. The first event that we took in was the Lumber Jack Show. The show is very entertaining, and demonstrates skills used by early lumberjacks with a lot of humour thrown in. The audience is divided into to two, with each half supporting one of the lumberjacks with cheers and encouragement. There is a sawing competition, as well as log rolling, tree climbing, and several other events. Things get wet, and even blown up. The finale is a "stranger" who climbs to the top of one of the very tall poles, does several stunts up top, then jumps off via a zip line.

After the lumberjack show was over, we decided to go on a guided hike. Our guide was very enthusiastic about his subject: Grouse Mountain and its natural and native history. He explained how this high up the mountain, the vegetation was primarily hemlock, Douglas Fir and Yellow Cedar. Unlike its Red Cedar cousin, Yellow Cedar has deeper roots and is less likely to blow over in heavy winds. Thus, there was little damage in the November wind storms to the top of Grouse Mountain. Stanley Park, full of Red Cedar trees with shallow root systems sustained a lot of damage.

The snow is at least 30 feet deep in the winter time, so the trail markers are very high on the trees so that snow shoers and cross country skiiers can still use the trails in the winter. There are downhilll ski runs at the top of Grouse Mountain, as well, and many hiking trails to other summits in the area.

There is a long house built in the woods, as well as a carved tree called the Grandmother Tree.

After our hike, we spent a great deal of time watching Coola and Grinder, the two male grizzly bears that live in a 5 acre fenced area. This was the first hot day after a series of cooler days, and the bears were quite active. I took a lot of video footage, including commentary from our guide about the bears, which I can't post, but did take some stills as well. The 5 acre area will be increased as the bears grow older. They cannot, for reasons I cannot remember, be rehabilitated into the wild. The picture below is Grinder, the smaller of the two grizzlies, playing in the water.

Our last outdoor activity on Grouse Mountain was the Raptor Show. There was a talk about birds of prey, followed by demonstrations of several raptors. We saw a Great Horned Owl, a Turkey Vulture, a dessert variety of hawk and a young Bald Eagle. They swooped from post to post and back to the falconer, with Mount Baker hovering in the east-facing backdrop.

After a full day at the top of the mountain, we took the gondola back to the parking lot, then spent over 2 hours in bumper to bumper traffic getting home. Talk about contrast: the beauty and solitude of nature vs. the manic pace of society!

Ruth and the Boys - Day 4

On Thursday, Ruth, Ross, Eric and I got up very early and set off for North Vancouver once again. Our objective was twofold: to allow for congested rush-hour traffic, and to beat the rush at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. We arrived before the park opened, and were the first people allowed in for the day.

The suspension bridge has been around since 1889, and is the oldest tourist attraction in the Vancouver area. After crossing the bridge, there is a series of board walks on which to hike, with information cards posted throughout.


The forest is a bit different than that at the top of Grouse Mountain, although this forest is at the bottom of the road leading up to Grouse. It is comprised primarily of Red Cedar trees and Douglas Fir trees. To get an idea of the width of this trunk, Eric stretched out his arms.

Along the walkways, there were rest spots and lookouts. The highlight of this park, however, is the Treetop Adventure. To get to the treetop adventure, one must first climb into a two-story treehouse. On the first floor, there is a weather report, as well as weather-measuring equipment such as a barometer. From the tree house, there are several suspended walkways that go from tree to tree. A platform has been built around each tree, so that it is possible to enjoy the view before walking across to the next tree. We were walking midway up the trees, so not quite in the tree tops, but high enough to make anyone with vertigo feel a bit uneasy.

After our time at Capilano, we decided, since the day was still young, to drive into Vancouver. We took the Lions' Gate Bridge from North Vancouver across Burrard Inlet to Stanley Park. From here, we drove into China Town. Our first stop was at the Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden.

The garden is a scholar's garden, so not at all traditional in the western sense. All the plants have been arranged deliberately with balance and symmetry. Lava rock is interspersed with the vegetation. The garden is divided between halls and courtyards, with the centre of the garden being a pond surrounded by vegetation and a pagoda to the side. There are a few turtles in the pond, as people release them for good luck. The views from the halls and walkways are framed with ornate borders, so the impression is that one is looking at a picture of a garden.

After we had toured the garden, we spent some time walking through and shopping in China Town. All the signs are in Chinese characters, and the small, street-side markets contain fruits, vegetables and sea-related food that are unfamiliar to the average Westerner. Everything is inexpensive in China Town, so we picked up a set of rice bowls and matching dishes and spoons for James. Ross and Eric each bought a Chinese sword (immitation) for half price.

After a very full morning, and early afternoon, we drove back up the valley and home. I had dragon boat practice that night, so Ruth and all three boys came to Fort Langley with me. While I was out paddling, they spent time at the Fort.

Here, Ross is dressed up as a coureur de bois.

James and Eric dressed up as regimental engineers.

After I had finished dragon boat practice, we all went back up to the Fort for a campfire story time. As it happened, we were actors in a reenactment of the signing of the documents transferring ownership of the Fort from the Hudson's Bay Company to the British Empire. James played James Douglas, I was a judge, Ross was a Native Indian leader and Eric was one of the regimental engineers. After James read the proclammation, we all walked over to the flag pole to take down the Hudson's Bay flag and raise the Union Jack, while singing "God Save the Queen."

We all signed certificates indicating our participation, then roasted marshmellows and drank iced-tea. The mosquitoes had a go at eating us alive, but a bit of "Off" took care of them.

The next morning, Ruth and the boys started the road trip back to Alberta.

Bronze Medal Winners

On Saturday July 21, I was up with the birds to drive to the Fraser Valley Dragon Boat Festival at Harrison Lake. Instead of 35+ C temperatures like last year, this year it was cooler and wet. Although this would be unpleasant for those who enjoy sunbathing, from a dragon boat racing perspective, the conditions were perfect.

In the preliminary rounds, our times ranged from 2 minutes and 47 seconds to 2 minutes and 50 seconds. We made it into the Women's Recreational Team medal round, and won the bronze medal with a time of 2 minutes and 44 seconds. For the Fort Langley Paddle Pushers, this was our best time to date. We are a once a week, April to September dragon boat team and are only in our second year together.

Thankfully, the heavy rain held off until about 4 pm! We had to break camp in some very unpleasant conditions, but overall, it was a terrific day.

Photograph: I am third from the right in the back row, wearing a blue ball cap.