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November in the East Kootenay
Bah, November. One minute the East Kootenay is all autumnal glory, with streaks of brilliant colours and crisp blue days and the next, we’re white-knucking down icy roads dodging elk and wishing we’d sprung for the winter tires instead of the four-season radials.
Being born and raised a Manitoban, winters in the warm side of the Rockies are a cakewalk, except for the stretches of overcast and grey, which pervade November.
It is the price for living in mountain paradise. But the photographer scratching at the gishy side of my skin mourns the loss of light.
So I sulk in my office and that invariably means becoming sucked into a vortex of mind-usurping activities like frantically clicking on a Facebook post ’12 unbelievable things you won’t believe happened to this unbelievable kitten’ and such.
Harumph, November… the gateway to winter; the time when ski and sled heads turn childlike and when the Bell curve of our society’s general intellect margin is on display in the form of the morons driving on winter roads like it is a summer afternoon booze cruise.
Anyway, this babble is my way of saying I soiled the sofa when it comes to capturing images for a month. Carrie was also similarly called away from her camera. The following collection is probably our most stretched presentation, but all hail to living in Gold Creek as a place to be desk-chained!
In fairness, November featured a municipal election, which is the busiest couple of weeks every three (and now four) years for journalists.
Now that the promises and backslapping has transformed into new councils, the current groan from the populace is the care and maintenance of our region’s highways, a normal thing, again, for this time of year. But the volume, in terms of voices and numbers speaking out, has been cranked up.
Anyway, here’s an odds and sods of November and winter arriving in the East Kootenay. Stay safe out there and drive to the conditions.
Images in this group are from: Cranbrook and Gold Creek; Elk Valley (bad roads, accidents); Newly elected City of Cranbrook council members, Danielle Cardozo, Lee Pratt (Mayor elect) and Wesly Graham (a photo I took that I didn’t know what to do with); and Kimberley right before the white stuff arrived.
Lead image: Mount Baker, late November.
Click on an image to enlarge and to begin self-directed slideshow…
Ian Cobb and Carrie Schafer/e-KNOW
