Fish and Sirens - The Cleveland Dam (Part 3)

 Hullo!! We are still at the Cleveland Dam (I know... multi-post adventures!)

We are on our way to the fish hatchery...

There is a great interpretive centre here...

And you can learn all about the different types of salmon... all of which are beary yummy...

Ummm... this is left over from Covid!

We pretty much had the place to ourselves.

This is a nice display... explaining about salmon spawning...

And then had little aquariums (aquaria?) with baby salmon!!

A tad too small for lunch.

These are steelhead salmon... well... steelhead trout... kind of. They are a type of rainbow trout that is born in fresh water, goes to the ocean, returns to the freshwater to spawn but doesn't die! They an do this cycle multiple times while regular salmon can only do it once... spawn and die.

And over here.. we have real salmon!!!!

Big salmon...

I guess... we can't have them for lunch, eh? Sigh.

After the salmon hatchery... we climbed and climbed on the other side of the river (300 feet down... means 300 feet up!)... and saw the dam from a different angle...

You see that big white thing? It's a massive rotating drum. And when it turns, it releases water from Capilano Reservoir. Back on 1 October, 2020, the engineering guys were doing some testing and the drum accidentally opened and released an enormous amount of water down the Capilano River. With no warning. One lady walking on the dam when it happened got a picture...

This is what it normally looks like...

There were a lot of people on the river that day and two of them, a father and his adult son, died. Other people almost died. You can see a video here... The river went up almost 12 feet in spots.

And... this has happened before... In 1975, a 9-year-old girl died after water was released unexpectedly. In 2001, four fishermen were trapped in the river when the water level surged without a warning after the spillway's drum gate inadvertently dropped open. After that one, WorkSafe BC issued a number of recommendations which included "public warning signage and warning alarms". The "warning alarms" bit was ignored... until after the 2020 deaths. Hence... the sirens.

Oh... and from up here... you can see the Doorway to Nowhere...

There it is!! Cool, no?

I wonder how many teens try to climb up there... and squeeze through? It would be dangerous...

Anyhow... that's our visit to the Cleveland Dam. We learned lots and had fun... all part of a great adventure!

Blackberry Season!

 Hullo!!! It was blackberry season in early-mid August!! And we went blackberry picking... several times.

Well... this little bear technically "supervised" blackberry picking because: (a) blackberry juice and bear fur do NOT mix and (b) blackberry canes are prickly!!

Ooohhh... look at them all!!!

So big... so ripe... (this was the first crop)... so juicy!!

We were out in the early morning and started picking and...

Within 20 minutes... our 2 litre bucket was full! Enough for what we have planned.

We are going to make blackberry liqueur... or blackberry cordial if you prefer (did that just rhyme?)... We are going to make 2 batches...

First you need a ridiculous amount of sugar (3 cups)...

Then you need 3 cups (750 ml) of good Canadian (*cough*) vodka.... We read labels you know...

You pour the vodka on top of the sugar, add a cup of water... We use 2 litre jars...

Then you add 3 cups of blackberries and pray the whole thing doesn't overflow (it did not)...

Then you set it in a dark place and turn it once or twice a day so that the sugar dissolves... See... it's already changing colour!!!

Stay tuned for updates..

Wandering Below the Cleveland Dam (Part 2)

 Alright... we are at the Cleveland Dam and... almost down to the level of the river (which means we've come down 300 feet!

They have some big old fir trees here!

Isn't it magnificent?

Beary impressive!

And down near the river, we came across some beary finely layered clay...

Which is glacio-lacustrine clay from the Ice Age time... laid down in glacial lakes... nifty.

We are down at a view point in the canyon and... this plague said that there is a door below the dam... say what?

Over there? Way over there???

Oh, we need a slightly different angle... 

OMG!! There IS a door there! Well... a gate... let me see what we can get a pic of... it's just above the centre of my hat...

There!!! Do  you see it?? OMG! It's like the Gates to Mordor in the Lord of the Rings! What the heck?? 

Well.. apparently it leads to a tunnel system that was used during dam construction. There used to be a wooden staircase that led up to the gate... And it is used by workers to visually inspect the dam from below.

See... that's it on the botom right... cool!

Alright... and now where to... what is that down there?

A fish hatchery is down there??!! That's definitely on our list!

And yes, a lot of people go fishing here... it's a great salmon river!

This is the bridge over the river and...

See... no fishing above this bridge.

But we are not fishing... but we are going to look at the fish!

TO BE CONTINUED