Favorite Pictures of 2008

As I was looking over a few of the pictures i've taken in the past year I thought I might make a random post of some of my favorite pictures. You can enlarge pictures by clicking on them if you wish to see more detail.

This house is across the road from where we live. Frost has replaced the leaves on these trees.

We look down on the old grainery which now houses Dawson Creek's museum.


I love flying near the puffy whites.



Night flying adds a whole new dimention to your views.

One of my puzles were made from this picture.

Dawson Creek sunset taken from my patio.

This was taken rear Bennett dam.

Bennett dam power station.

Bennett dam

My baby sitting at Dawson Creek airport.

Looking down on the town of Hudsons Hope. Population: 1000

A couple of moose making a run for it. This was taken approx. 4 miles north of Dawson Creek.

Bennett Dam agian.

Peace River near Hudsons Hope.

9:30 am sunrise in Dawson Creek.

Rocky Mountain range.

More rockies.

Can always use more cloud pics.

The wood frame building is a duplex that I am building. Notice the size compared to the houses around it. Maybe i designed it a little too big for the lot? :-)

Tumbler Ridge train tunnel

There is a train tunnel that runs through these mountains. This tunnel is 82 miles, ( 132 km.) long. The tunnel was used to transport coal from Tumbler Ridge B.C. to Prince George from 1983 to 2003. You can see the tunnel entrance in the clearing below.
You can view the pictures full size if you click on them.
Getting a little lower you can see the tracks leading up to the tunnel entrance.

Valley Bennett Dam outflow

This puzzle picture was taken south of Bennett dam. To read the related blog click on the title.

Bennett Dam

On Sunday June 22nd Gord Jarvie, Doris, and myself drove the scenic route to Bennett Dam. The week before I flew over the dam with my son Shaun. I think they need to provide a landing strip so we could visit more often without the long car ride.

To the right of the dam you can see the 10 large columbs that are the inlets for the 10 turbines. The blue "cabin" on this end can travel across to each inlet and is equiped with the ability to block any one inlet to allow maintanance work. Williston Lake in the background is the biggest lake in B.C. ( Man made or otherwise.) It is 250 miles long and averages 3 miles wide.

This is looking down from the northern look-out over the dam outlet. From here the water travels aproximatly 20 km. to the Peace Canyon Dam where the water is re-used to generate more power. Site "C" is in the planning down stream. When traveling the valley from Fort St. John one can see signs indicating high water levels thoughout the canyon. Another huge lake will be created with this third phase of dams.

The earth filled dam was made from material found 5 miles down stream and was transported to the dam site via the longest conveyer belt in the world. The centre consists of fine sand which is held in place with larger rock placed on either side. The dam is 2 km. long and 183 meters high, 800 meters wide at it's base, and 9 meters wide at top and contains enough material to build a wall 4 meters wide and 4 meters high from Vancouver to Halifax.

The picture above was taken from the viewpoint parking lot on the north side of the dam. The picture below was taken several days earlier from the air in my plane. I found it very interesting how simular they were. Just above the left outflow you can see a portal where we traveled in a bus into the dam 500' below the water level. We then walked into the generating room which is three football fields long and

The W.A.C. Bennett Dam, completed in 1967, was a colossal project in its time and remains one of BC's most impressive to date. As one of the world's largest earth-filled structures, the dam impounds BC's largest reservoir - 1,761-sq km (680-sq mi) Williston Lake, which took five years to fill!

On our way to "tour" the dam from the air we flew through several small rainstorms. They lasted for a very short time.

We were flying quite low towards the mouth of the dam. We flew through another 30 second rain storm. The dam itself is situated between a narrow valley. This is the beginning of that valley.

Rounding the corner this channel of water leads to the spillway of the dam.

You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them.

The small valley opens up to the dam edge.

Here you can see two of the three tunnels that were built to devert the river creating a dry river bed to build the dam on. They no longer have a function. Just left of the picture there is a concrete spill way where water can be released should the dam become too full. The spillway turns up at the end to send water into a "spray" so as to control erosion. For some reason I don't have a picture of this.

W.A.C. Bennett Dam and generating station form the larges hydroelectic facility in B.C. Hydro's system, with the capacity to product more than 2,730,000 kilowatts of electric power. There are over 30 dams in BC and the Bennett dam together with Peace provide 30% of all of B.C's power.

The town of Hudson Hope is situated approx. 16 km east of the Bennett Dam. We thought we would stop at the airport and stretch our legs. This is the largest building at the airport. It is at an elevation of 2,200' above sea level.

My son Shaun came with me on this flight.

Here is my baby sitting on the tarmack at Hudson Hope airport.

The run way has a few cracks in it.

Taking off from the airport i took some pictures of the town of Hudson Hope. It's a quaint little town situated along the rivers edge. Looks like a town where I would like to live. One would think the existance of Hudson Hope began because of the dam construction. However Hudson Hope existed long before. Hudson Hope is B.C.'s third oldest community. Current population is 1000.

Dawson Creek welcomed us back with a rainbow! If you wish to know more about the Bennett dam click on this blogs title. This will link you to BC Hydro's Bennett dam web site. Have a GREAT day my friends.

Louisiana Pacific

Louisiana Pacific, ( LP), is an OSB plant in Dawson Creek BC. If you would like to read some interesting facts about this company just click on the tital to be taken to their home page. There are three large OSB plant within 1 1/2 hrs drive of Dawson Creek. One in Fort St. John and also one in Grand Prairie.

The amount of trees one of these plants goes through is beyond comprehension. The picture below was taken from almost 2000' above ground. There are three piles of Poplar logs. The building is very large yet dwarf ted by piles of logs. You can enlarge the pictures by clicking on them. This shot was taken from another angle about 1000' above ground.

Another shot of the same area. I thought my camera batteries were dead but i guess I got a few off. :-) The train tracks are brought right up to the building and may even enter.



This picture was taken from the Alaska highway. It gives a little more perspective as to how big these piles of logs really are.



Flying into the vicinity of Dawson Creek it is easy to get oriented as to where you are by the plumb of steam rising from the plant on the north edge of town. This plant is located 3 miles from mile "0" of the Alaska highway.








While I was taking pictures from the road I observed six "B" train logging trucks arrive to be unloaded.

I also observed at least two of these large hoes, with grapples, unloading trucks. Large bundles were unloaded at a time.

Reaching up to pile the logs as high as they could. I would estimate a lot of the pile to be over 20' high.

Looking down the road it seemed that the piles went on forever!

The large building just disappears behind the logs. You wouldn't know it was there if not for the plumb of steam.

You may have to click on the picture below to see the logs rising above the back of the building.

As you can see spring is just around the corner. The snow is disappearing. I'm ready for it!!