Kootenay Coldsmoke

This weekend our local ski hill Whitewater Winter Resort has been hosting the second annual Kootenay Coldsmoke Powder Fest. It has certainly been an interesting weekend for us local folks as ski professionals, outdoor adventurers and local enthusiasts showed their talents in alpine, nordic, telemark skiing (called free heeling here) and snow boarding. There were 40 clinics scheduled ranging from beginner avalanche training to advanced off-piste telemark skiing.

The resort was bustling with the buzz of the three main competitions and the base area was transformed into a demo village of ski tents and state of the art gear for next years market.

Writers and photographers from National Geographic Adventure magazine, Off Piste, Back-country and Skiing magazine were there to cover the events along with our very own photographer. An article in our local paper stated that last years event attracted media attention that brought $4.5 million dollars in earned exposure for the Kootenay Rockies tourism region!

Our photographer managed to get a perfect position in watching the Valhalla Pure Boondocks Booter Slopestyle Competition. Here is a selection of his photos - the full catelogue will be published on his Flickr site in the near future. We think you will agree these guys are totally rad!

We stayed until the end of the Saturday events and managed to catch the prize giving at the end.

All the prizes were duly awarded including new pairs of skis, avalanche shovels, backpacks, gloves and the usual type ski goodies but there was one prize left over at the end. It was a very nice 60L Arc'teryx backpack and the guy on the microphone said "oh we have one prize left and we will give it to someone here" well this little kid who looked about 9 years old pipes up "I'll have it please" so the guy said "OK Dude here you go" the little kid got the biggest cheer from the crowd and he looked really pleased with his new backpack which was bigger than he was!

We also wanted to include one of our favourite photos below, capturing a heli-skier on his way up to the top of the mountain. Breath-taking!

Just to finish on a different note we have enjoyed the first BBQ of 2008 - it was minus 5 degrees outside but the buffalo sausages from our local farm shop were crying out for the flame grilled taste!

Bye for now,

Love Rachael, Shaun, Harley & Phantom

xx

Canada Flag Day

This week we have discovered Canada Flag Day. Unfortunately there was no Public Holiday attached to the day but we thought you may find the history quite interesting. After some research on t'internet Wikipedia provided the most comprehensive account as below:

"The National Flag of Canada, popularly known as the Maple Leaf and l'Unifolié (French for "the one-leafed") , is a base red flag with a white square in its centre featuring a stylized, 11-pointed, red maple leaf. Before this flag, Canada used variants of the British Red Ensign with the shield of Canada charged in the fly. The Red Ensign that took familiar shape in Canada was introduced by Prime Minister Mackenzie King after the First World War. From the 1940s until 1965, Canada made several attempts to create its own flag by holding national contests, but the Red Ensign still flew for Canada. A serious debate about a flag change did not occur until 1964, when a committee was picked by Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson. Out of three choices, the maple leaf design by George F.G. Stanley was chosen as the winner. The flag made its first appearance on February 15, 1965, which is now celebrated annually as Flag Day."

The history of the flag is described on the link above and shows pictures of the flag designs that were proposed and originally used.

The culinary creation for this week was Focaccia from Antonio Carluccio's Italian Feast recipe book. Here are a couple of pictures of Rachael's creation topped with rosemary.

It was quite a large bread - here it is sliced ready for eating - sat on a standard sized dinner plate to give you a sense of scale!


Antonio's book is very good and contains recipes that even a bucket chemist like Rachael can follow - we would also recommend his Tiramisu Di Allesandro which we made to take to one of our neighbours pot luck parties. One of the couples who hosted the party were Italian and said that it was the best tiramisu they had ever had! Good old Antonio.

This evening we have been watching Knight Rider - it is the premier movie of the new series to be shown in 2008. If you manage to come across it in the UK it is certainly worthy of viewing and David Hasselhoff even cameos as Michael Knight. It features KITT who is a Ford Mustang Shelby GT 500 in disguise (kind of). He still talks and came even change colour!

Finally to continue the washing machine story we have been training Phantom to programme the washing machine - but as yet he hasn't been able to put the clothes into the drum before grabbing for the control buttons.

Well it is Sunday evening here and we are signing out for this week having undertaken 11 hours of skiing / snowboarding in the last two days!

Enjoy the blog, love Rachael, Shaun, Harley & Phantom

xx

A Catastrophic Power Malfunction

This week we have been lucky enough to see some more snowfall in town and at the ski hill. We have seen 41cm in the past three days which has made for an excellent weekend of skiing and snowboarding. Shaun has been practicing his jumps on the skis and has successfully landed numerous attempts but also made a couple of really big face plants, the last one leaving him upside down with skis sticking skywards - very funny to us observers! Must hasten to add that I did stop to check he was OK before pelting him with snowballs and riding off down the hill.

There has also been a catastrophic power malfunction which was reported in our local paper this week. A pacific frontal system dumped 25cm of snow on the mountains on Wednesday night but a power outage south of Nelson and a scheduled road closure for avalanche control forced the closure of the Whitewater ski resort on Thursday. This meant that Rachael missed out on a days skiing but it was made up for this weekend when there was still some untouched powder to be found both on and off piste.

Other news we have found out locally is that in 2008 we are celebrating BC 150 Years - The Best Place On Earth. According to the tourism website, in 1858, James Douglas delivered a proclamation that put a name to the best place on earth: British Columbia. So, this year is BC’s 150th anniversary - so there are various events happening across the province which we shall keep you updated on throughout the year. Here is a link to the tourism advertisment BC150 - we hope you enjoy it.

We have more local history for you - the City of Nelson was founded in 1867 and was a mining settlement following the discovery of gold and silver. The city website has some great guided tours for you to experience including the walking tour and the motoring tour which show some of the local features and some of the heritage buildings. Many of the buildings on the tours still look the same today. For those of you who have see the film Roxanne check out number 9 on the motoring tour - you may recognise the Nelson Firehall.

Following on from the washing machine story we brought you a couple of weeks ago, we have a follow up photo. Phantom and Harley were amazed by the sight of the washing going round and round in the machine. We couldn't resist sharing this with you. Here is Phantom watching the washing.

Hope you have a good week and we look forward to hearing from you.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Phantom and Harley xx

No Friends On A Powder Day!

We have had a lot of snow this week and couldn't resist letting you know a few of the figures for snowfall. Last night we had 5cm (2") which meant we had a total of 7cm (2.8") in the past 24 hours but over night Wednesday we had a HUGE dump of snow which meant that over the past few days we have had 40cm (15.7") of white water!

It goes without saying that on Thursday morning when Shaun heard on the radio that there had been more than 24cm (10") just over night he was more than a little bit excited. At 7.30am he called his Boss who said he could go to the ski hill for the morning - cool!

He arrived at the parking lot by 8.45am and from the adjacent car which pulled up next to him a girl jumped out grabbed her skis from the boot and shouted to her friend who was still in the car getting her boots on "see you on the lift - no friends on a powder day!" and off she scooted to the line up to get the lovely untouched snow.

From the figures on the Whitewater website the snow level at the top of the Summit lift is now 250cm (98.4") deep.

We did manage to watch Look North on Friday and saw that Driffield and the East Yorkshire coast caught some snow as well - get those skis out and head east - if it is still there?

On a different note we have spotted some more wildlife around our house. Whilst clearing the driveway after work one evening we saw a full size female deer wandering up the road grazing on anything that was around. It was a surprise how big she was. Apparently there are a number of deer living in the forest behind the house.

All the pictures above taken at Whitewater resort.

Rachael has been testing her cooking skills again, this week making bread baps following a recipe from Delia Smith's Complete Cookery. Here is a picture of the finished product.

The only problem was that they didn't seem to last very long as they were so tasty. Good old Delia!

That is all for this week - hope to hear from you soon.

Love Rachael, Shaun, Harley & Phantom

xx