What's in her name?

What's in her name (Salish Aire)?

Salish
from her new home the Salish Sea

Aire as in a melody of song.

Salish + Aire = The melody of the Salish Sea.

Salish Sea:
In the late 1700's Captain George Vancouver wandered around the waters of what are now known as British Columbia, Canada and Washington State, USA. He did the usual 1700's explorer thing and put names he chose on everything he saw. The names stuck and are recognized and used to this day.

New lines were added to Captain Vancouver's charts in 1872 (after a near war with Great Britain over a pig) which made waters on one side of the line Canadian and those on the other side of the line American.

It wasn't until 1988 (officiated in 2009) that someone finally realized that fish and various critters, (to say nothing of the water itself) were never involved in the boundary treaties and really ignored them completely. (This is best illustrated by the problems that Homeland Security has with Canadian Canada Geese and American Canadian Geese - it seems they refuse to carry passports and have been known to poop on the head of any border patrol person who tries to challenge their right to cross the border when and where they choose!) In reality the waters from Olympia to the well up the East side of Vancouver Island are pretty much one ecosystem.

The Coast Salish are the indigenous peoples who live in southwest British Columbia and northwest Washington state along the Salish Sea and share a common linguistic and cultural origin. The Salish Sea is named in honor of the earliest recorded peoples who plied her waters and learned to live in harmony with her.


Saturday, March 10, 2018

A vacation break to warm Hawaii



March 7, 2018
First concerning Norman’s mother.  After her bought with severe pneumonia she has recovered enough to move back to her apartment in a senior citizens housing project.

We have also posted a compilation of winter projects on Salish Aire at: http://ncgregory.larper.com/Chapter-Pages/Winter%20projects%202016-17.pdf .

I wanted to make sure to include a photo of a weekend outing to the buoy in front of the Allan Point Forest Service Cabin. We had a great time with Jarvis exploring the island, the cabin, and the beach and then awoke the next morning to snow.

Allan Point Forest Service Cabin
Clarice and Jarvis exploring the beach

Sunrise on the buoy

Today we are on our way back home after visiting the Big Island of Hawaii.  We wanted to take a break to a warm climate and since we hadn’t been to the Big Island for over 30 years we decided to go back there. For housing we rented a vacation rental in Hilo on the (very) wet side of the island.  This might seem strange when our goal was to get warm but we really enjoy tropical rain forests and I wanted to revisit the active volcano.

The area around Hilo is an incredibly lush tropical rain forest .

A Hilo area beach

There are a number of warm pools in the Hilo - Puna area as the rainwater percolates through volcanicaly heated rocks.

Waterfalls abound in the Hilo area

A Hilo area bay

Walking through the botanical gardens

Banyan tree in the botanical gardens

Akaka Falls State Park
Rainbow falls from the ground

I was excited that unlike last time we were on the island the volcano was actively erupting so I was able to check “walk up close to an active lava flow” off of my personal bucket list. I started out with a helicopter trip over macadamia plantations, waterfalls, and lava flows.

Our chariot


The pilot

Muana Loa macadamia nut plantation

Series of waterfalls from the air

Rainbow falls from the air
Main source of the lava from the air
Looking from the lower lava fields up towards the caldera


Where lava recently entered the ocean

National Park Service instructions; "leave the road at this point and walk towards the red glow in the distance"

Silver at my feet was still hot enough that it felt like standing near a hot barbecue grill, the red blob in the middle was the newest rock on the surface of the planet just being "born" 
The tongue of this lava falls moved down the hill a considerable distance while I watched, the rock between me and it was too hot and fresh (read "brittle") for me to feel comfortable walking any closer.



Patterns and types of lava within a few feet (walking over the brown chunky lava was quite the challenge).

This lava looked like someone had thrown spools of wire on the ground and then covered them with mud.

Clarice and I both were eager to enjoy warm beaches which we found in abundance when we drove back to the Kona side of the island. We weren't able to SCUBA dive because of the issue of driving from one side of the island to the other required climbing to an elevation that was considered as dangerous after diving.  We did enjoy snorkeling. 

This turtle swam up and when I started to take his photo he swam towards me and then continued to stay about a yard away while he caught his breath before swimming back to the bottom.

A message from the locals

Fish on the reef 

We saw many schools of these yellow fish

A nice surprise was that our daughter and her husband were on a business trip to Seattle from their home in Ontario Canada and decided to come and visit us in Sitka.  Timing worked out so that they actually met us in Seattle and joined us on the final leg of our trip back home.  In the three days we have been here it has snowed, rained, been sunny and warm, and hailed (sometimes more than one thing at once depending on which way you look).

Erin and Paul