One of the now rare species of oysters in the Pacific Northwest is the Olympia oyster, Ostrea lurida, (Carpenter, 1864). While rare today, these are British Columbia’s only native oyster. Had you been dining on their brethren in the 1800s or earlier, it would have been this species you were consuming. Middens from Vancouver Island's norther tip to California are built from Ostrea lurida.
The Pacific Northwest is an area of extreme natural beauty and rich fossil deposits. While we do not have the dinosaur bragging rights of our cousins to the east and south, we have beautiful plant, mammal and marine fossils that can be counted as some of the best in the world.
When the 47million-year-old fossil dubbed 'Ida' was revealed to the world, attention soon turned to the anonymous German shale pit where it was first unearthed.
The astonishingly well-preserved remains of the primate-like animal could prove to be the so-called 'missing link' which would help prove Darwin's theory of evolution.
Bounty draws a crowd. Fossil enthusiasts will be heading up to Cache Creek, the gateway to B.C.'s Cariboo Country for a weekend of riding, big, open fields, cowboys and the Eocene fossil beds at McAbee and Kamloops Lake where fish, insects and plant fossils abound.
There is beauty in strange places. An ordinary life can leave traces of us that gather into something oddly appealing. Something more than the sum of its parts.
Kidding, Fresh Kokanee: The Pathways of Salmon just seemed so bland. Just testing out a wee hypothesis. Human with an opposable thumb and all that? Still reading this? Good. Thanks for that commercial break. And now back to Kokanee.
Summer is coming. The time of camping and icy cold drinks. I've been working on developing a freeze dried beer that comes in a small pack and rehydrates fully carbonated with all its alcohol intact.
"Wash that for you?" If you were a fish living in the warm turquoise waters off the coast of Bonaire, you may not hear those words, but you'd see the shrimp sign language equivalent. It seems Periclimenes yucatanicus or Spotted Cleaner Shrimp is doing a booming business in the local reefs by setting up a fish washing service.That's right, a Fish Wash. You'd be hard pressed to find a terrestrial Molly Maid with two opposable thumbs as studious and hardworking as this wee marine beauty.
"Wash that for you?" If you were a fish living in the warm turquoise waters off the coast of Bonaire, you may not hear those words, but you'd see the shrimp sign language equivalent. It seems Periclimenes yucatanicus or Spotted Cleaner Shrimp is doing a booming business in the local reefs by setting up a fish washing service.
