Thanksgiving, Canadian style, in Beautiful, B.C.

What a great week I'm having! I arrived in Vancouver on Oct. 10th for a visit with my parents, brother and sister and families. Canadian Thanksgiving is always on the 2nd Monday in October (same day as Columbus Day in the States) and therefore isn't the same kind of "gateway to Christmas holidays" that it is in the USA. It is, however, a holiday that I remember from my Alberta childhood with great fondness. Mom would get the turkey in the oven, and everything else ready, and we would take off on a country road to find a fine place for a fall walk (didn't have to look far for a country road. . . it was a very rural community). Usually it would be a golden autumn day, with crunchy leaves underfoot, bales of hay in the farmers' fields and the Alberta wild roses gone to rose hips. Sometimes we'd see a pheasant or some other game bird and my folks would be pointing out all the beauties of the world that God had created for us. This is one of those "golden thread memories" that runs through the tapestry of my life. This is the third time I've been home for Canadian Thanksgiving since I've been married. My family is in B.C. now and the Thanksgiving scenery is different but every bit as enchanting.

Pausing for a photo on our fall walk in Heritage Park in Mission, B.C. where my brother, sister and families live. The turkey is in the oven and the potatoes are peeled even as we pose! From left is my nephew Dave, myself, my brother-in-law Len, my brother (he never allows himself to be photographed seriously) Mike, and my sister-in-law, Lucia. The dog is Jake, my sister's new puppy.

My sister Elaine, me and my sister-in-law, Lucia. Amazing what you can find under a fallen log in the woods!

Elaine and Len's beautiful family . . . Erin is beside her mum and in the back row from left are Craig, Dave, Brian and Brian's wife Michelle. This was taken on Thanksgiving day.

A somewhat better photo of Mike (taken while he was unaware). He's playing fetch with his dog, Joe. Joe is not the dog to Mike's left!

This is Joe, a border collie with huge amounts of personality. He loves to haul sticks around in his mouth that are twice his own body length.Elaine with her toddler, Jake. She and Len love this pup! If they had to choose between saving me or Jake off a sinking boat I'm afraid I'd have to swim hard! Walking the trails to the Othello tunnels near Hope, B.C. the day after Thanksgiving. The tunnels were blasted to make way for a segment of railway that ran for only a short time. The area is absolutely gorgeous with huge rainforest trees, ferns, a river with clear, glacial blue water, etc. The day was chilly, clear and utterly fresh. Enchanting.

Dave and I about to walk into one of the five tunnels. You could see from one end to the other but in the middle of the tunnels they were so dark you couldn't see your feet. Kind of spooky!

View from one of the bridges between the tunnels. This is zoomed in quite a bit . . . it was a long way down! Look how blue the water is.

A couple of days later with my mom and dad on top of Burnaby Mtn. in a park near Simon Fraser University. Dad is feeding his hand to a giant topiary bird. Another gorgeous day. The views from this park are amazing . . . it overlooks the Burrard Inlet and you can see all the way to downtown Vancouver, the Lion's Gate Bridge and the Georgia Strait.

This was an amazing collection of wood sculpture done by artists from a city in Japan, that is the sister city to Burnaby, B.C. I had my dad go down next to it to get the perspective of how tall these totem-like poles are.

Good-bye from beautiful British Columbia and happy autumn to you, where ever you are. I'll end this with a photo that I took before I left Utah. It's our red flame maple tree and it's living up to it's name.
I love the fall.