“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.” —Edmund Burke

Visit To a 1912 Hydroelectric Station

Posted: May 31st, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: History, Renewable Energy, top | Tags: | 2 Comments »

Just back from an absolutely fascinating trip to The Power House at Stave Falls, in Mission B.C., just 40 miles east of Vancouver. This 52.5-megawatt hydroelectric plant fed sustainable energy into the region’s grid between 1912 and 2000, when it was decommissioned and replaced with a more efficient powerhouse just to the east. Anyone with an interest in green energy would love this easy day trip from Vancouver.
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The Beach Yields A Secret

Posted: May 19th, 2009 | Author: | Filed under: History, top | Tags: , , | 3 Comments »

A few weeks back, I found this artifact on a beach here on Bowen Island while grabbing fistfuls of stones to toss into the sea. It is very weathered, from many decades spent being tossed around in the surf. It appears to be an arrowhead or spear point of First Nations origin.

Arrowhead

Nobody around here seemed to know much about it, so I contacted the Museum of Archeology at the University of British Columbia, and shared this image with them, speculating that it might be obsidian. Patricia Ormerod, an archaeology curatorial research assistant with the university’s Laboratory of Archaeology, wrote back with the following assessment:
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