Banff Mountain Film Festival

We have spent three evenings this week attending the Banff Mountain Film Festival which has been showing here in Nelson. The following information is taken from the festival magazine for you: 'just days after the Banff Film Festival finishes in the Canadian Rockies, the World Tour begins with approximately 480 screenings around the world. Between November 2007 and October 2008 over 200,000 mountain film enthusiasts in 32 countries will share the heart stopping action and mountains of inspiration' Apparently this year there were 296 films submitted to the competition, of which 55 were selected to be shown and of those 30 of the best go on the World Tour. Over the three evenings we saw some stunning films ranging from just 7 minutes through to hour long documentaries from around the world. The adventures included skiing, snow-kiting, mountain-biking, mountain-uni-cycling, canoeing, deep water solo climbing, mountaineering and rock climbing.

The scariest film was of a female base jumper - this is where you throw yourself off a very high mountain then open a parachute just before you meet the ground - very scary stuff - she was the top of her sport and then had an accident which she was lucky to survive. She fractured her leg in 33 places and was going through surgery to be able to walk again. It was very interesting to hear her psychology behind jumping and also her thoughts on the accident.

There was also a great film of a young lady biologist who was interested in observing a group of wolves who had never had any contact with humans - her film footage of the wolves was spectacular.

Needless to say we were extremely surprised and very pleased to see that there was a climbing film called 'Committed To Grit' which was part of a film based in The Peak District on climbing at Burbage and Stanage Edge. It was really nice to see the Peak District countryside again! It was also impressive to see one young chap climbing a new route called 'The Promise' which is the hardest route in England and is graded E10.

The whole Festival was an excellent opportunity to see some adventure sports, we think that there will be some showings in England too, so if you get chance we would certainly recommend attending. We think we shall both be looking for an opportunity to try some instruction in ice-climbing at some point very soon!

Well we are currently acclimatizing to the colder weather - it has been around -3 degrees today and it looks like we are expecting more snow over the next couple of days.
As we are awaiting our first big dump of snow we have posted for you this week a picture from the bridge at the end of Banff Avenue looking towards the mountains that we took when we were over in Banff in March this year.

That's about all for this week, next week we shall hopefully be able to post more snow pictures and in a couple of weeks we shall be off to the ski hill and will certainly share some pictures with you.

Enjoy your week and we look forward to hearing your news.
Love Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom
xx

Fletcher Creek and Flurries

The news of the week is that we have had SNOW. It started on Wednesday night as a flurry then appeared to be getting in to a blizzard, then we woke up on Thursday and it had all gone!

Here is a quick snap we took of our back yard from the deck. Locals seem to think that the snow is on its way next week and apparently there is already a base of 80cm at the ski hill car park. We have got a ski and snowboard carrier for the truck.

Some exciting news we have received from England - Rachael's mum has had a photograph published on the BBC Look North website. Well done - famous landscape photographer in the making - check out the picture here - Derwent Dams by Helen Hill.

We met up with a couple of our friends for an early breakfast & coffee yesterday and went out for a hike where only the locals seem to know. It was on the way to Kaslo heading north on the Kootenay Lake to a location called Fletcher Creek. It was a beautiful hideaway place with a beach and a lovely waterfall. In the spring time the snow melt makes the waterfall swell - so we shall go back then to take another picture for you. It is not very often we get chance to have a picture taken together so we thought we would post this one for you.

We came across a funny story in our local paper which we thought you might like to hear about.

It was reported that two City of Nelson Police stopped a car in town on a Saturday night as they suspected they were driving under the influence of either liquor or drugs. The driver was handcuffed and put in the back of the police cruiser for questioning a bit later. The police then decided to investigate the car and passenger. Whilst this was underway, the arrested man in the back of the police car managed to clamber through the small hatch from the rear of the car into the drivers seat and steal the police car, of course, whilst remaining firmly handcuffed. Harry Houdini would've been proud of this dude. Presumably all of this happened in true Police Squad style. It was reported that the police car and new driver were recovered shortly afterwards. It could only happen in Nelson! This was a big news story as there is so little crime here, people leave their doors open, leave bikes, canoes, power tools unlocked in their gardens. They leave cars unlocked, with windows open and belongings left on the seats. Needless to say we can't bring ourselves to adopt this haphazard approach to security.

This week is going to be a busy one again, Shaun is finishing off some more of his pottery creations ready to be glazed and Rachael is finishing off her jewellery projects so we shall take some pictures to share with you when we have our finished products.

We also have tickets for the Banff Film Festival which is a three day event coming to Nelson on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. At the moment the titles of the films haven't been released but we have been told to expect some films on hiking, climbing, paddling and various other adrenalin-fuelled activities - we shall let you know next week what was on.

We hope you enjoy this weeks news and as always we look forward to hearing from you soon. Feel free to let us know if there is anything you would like us to post or tell you about in future blog posts?

Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley

xx

PS. Just a quick message for The Foster Clan - your email address is still returning our emails, not sure if there is a problem your end - please let us know if you have an alternative email address.

Happy 50th Birthday - Big Orange Bridge

This week the Nelson Bridge or Big Orange Bridge (BOB) celebrated its 50th birthday. It was opened on 7th November 1957. The Mayor of Nelson recreated the opening of the bridge and from an article in our local paper reported that after the ribbon was cut by the Mayor the Kootenay Lake Vintage Car Club drove over the bridge escorted by Nelson City Police in cars from the period. Apparently over 4000 cars crossed the bridge on the day it opened. In the 1950's the bridge cost $4million and took about two years to build. It was originally silver in colour has three trusses and 15 steel girders. There were also toll booths as the crossing cost 50 cents for a one way trip, today the use of the bridge is free.

The first picture shows BOB from Lakeside park and the second shows it from the boat launch at the park.

Rachael has just returned from a weekend conference in Kelowna which is about 4 hours north west from Nelson. It was an Optometry conference which was held in a really smart 5 star hotel.

The highlights of the trip were the wine tasting evening that was hosted by ten of the local Okanagan wineries, the luxury hotel and the four course dinner dance we had on Saturday night. Oh and I guess I learnt a bit more about optometry too!

Today has been a Bank Holiday for us here in Canada for Remembrance Day. We get a Bank Holiday every month except for February apparently.

The weather has turned finally, after beautiful sunny Autumn days we have had a whole day of rain. But the positive side of this is that we have snow on the tops of the mountains and the ski slope is starting to get a good covering.

The local forecasters have said that the snow will come to town in the third week of this month.

It has been a slow news week this week but we have been busy at our night classes and badminton club.

That is all for this week - we hope you enjoy reading the blog and we always look forward to hearing from you.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom & Harley

xx

The Ski Swap

November is here and we seem to be seeing the start of the 'ski swap' season. This was a new one to us and so we decided to join in the fun. The idea is in the name really but if you have any ski / snowboard equipment you would like to sell you take it down to the ski swap venue 2 hours in advance of the sale. The volunteers there then charge you $2 to put it into the sale. The sale lasts for 2 hours but it seemed that people started queuing to get in for the best bargains about an hour early!

We really went to see what was happening but came away having found that some of the local outdoor stores also have stalls there of clothing and equipment. Shaun found some new boarding boots and coat which were half price as they were 'last years colours' how black and brown can be so last year I am not really sure but hey we didn't mind! Rachael found a new water & wind proof jacket for running again less than half price and the even better news was that there was no taxes charged on your purchases either.
There is another event happening in a couple of weeks which we will probably go to, then starts the season for craft fayres ready for xmas.

This week we have joined the Nelson Badminton Club and attended our first session. There were about 16 people there and 5 courts we could use. We started playing at 7pm and played continously until 9pm moving round to play with different folks. Everyone was really friendly and guess what - there was an English chap there - these Brits get everywhere!

Needless to say it took a couple of days to recover having not played for a number of years!

We also discovered that the Canadians don't know what a shuttle cock is - they call it a tweet or a bird.

On the subject of different words Shaun also found out at work that the guys didn't know what 'Blue Tak' was, apparently over here it is called poster putty.

The weather is now around 7 degrees during the day and zero at night and it is forecast that this will continue to cool down until we are due to get a big dump of snow the third week in November.

Later this week Rachael is off to Kelowna, about 4 hours from here, for an optometry conference. It is being held at a 5 star hotel and includes evening entertainment so it should be interesting. I think I have signed up for sessions on 'Marketing and Selling Frames', 'Contact Lens Fitting' and 'Managing Your Optometry Office'. Just a million miles away from dietetics.

Oh and obviously I have signed up for the evening entertainment and the wine tasting!

Looking back at last week Halloween was a hoot! The children who came along to the door didn't just carry a little bag to collect their candies they carried HUGE bin bags or pillow cases! One group of older kids who came to the door when Shaun was in got a big handful of candies each from us then Shaun said "well you have got some candies, what have you got for me?" one kid put his hand into his HUGE bag and gave him a bag of crisps - how cute!

Our pumpkin is still doing well sat out on the deck looking out at passers by. Apparently people leave their pumpkins out until they start to put out their xmas decorations in a couple of weeks - we shall be off to Walmart to buy some new fairy lights for the outside of the house - must keep away from the 20 ft inflatable santas!

Well, I didn't know what picture to include for you on the blog this week but when I was flicking through the images currently on my camera I came across this one of our Photo Editor in action at Kokanee Provincial Park.

Next week I am looking for your suggestions - what would you like to know more about?

More local Nelson history? More local interest stories from our newspapers? More of our adventures? More pictures?

Let us know and we shall incorporate your ideas.

Hope you enjoy this weeks blog and we always enjoy your replies. Keep in touch.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Harley and Phantom

xx