On Saturday, March 15th, Norma and I drove out to the West Coast of the Island for a day of photography. We started the day off with a whale watching trip with Jamie's Whaling Station in Tofino. It was a beautiful sunny day but unfortunately very windy and the ocean was rough. We saw three gray whales but it was hard to track them and photograph them. The boat also took us to a sea-lion colony and then we went past Stubbs Island back into Clayoquot Sound. We saw the historic village of Opitsaht, inhabited for the past 5000 years. After our boat trip we toured the beaches and also went to Grice Bay to see the Tofino mudflats.
The Eik Cedar tree. This 800-year-old Western Red Cedar was condemned after the detection of a column of decay inside the trunk. A felling permit was issued and the chainsaw gang arrived. However, the citizens of Tofino came together to save the last example of the ancient old-growth trees that once covered the peninsula where Tofino now stands. In the middle of the standoff, two Tofino residents climbed eighty feet into the tree to spend the next 28 days in the tree's canopy. Engineers and Arborists conspired to find a way to preserve the Eik Cedar Tree. In summer 2002 the tree was finally fitted with a specially designed metal girdle with ground anchors and steel rods embedded in the bed rock.
The Eik Cedar tree. This 800-year-old Western Red Cedar was condemned after the detection of a column of decay inside the trunk. A felling permit was issued and the chainsaw gang arrived. However, the citizens of Tofino came together to save the last example of the ancient old-growth trees that once covered the peninsula where Tofino now stands. In the middle of the standoff, two Tofino residents climbed eighty feet into the tree to spend the next 28 days in the tree's canopy. Engineers and Arborists conspired to find a way to preserve the Eik Cedar Tree. In summer 2002 the tree was finally fitted with a specially designed metal girdle with ground anchors and steel rods embedded in the bed rock.
