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June 4, 2007
Northern BC is the land of avalanches - in fact, we had a large avalanche/ mud slide last week just west of Terrace, about 15 km from where this picture was taken two days before the slide. The main highway is still mostly closed a week later. However, the risk can be minimized. This is a mount for a large gun - a military cannon - that fires an explosive into the side of the mountain, causing the snow to slide down before it builds up and becomes too large and dangerous. This gun tower at Usk on the Skeena River is operated by CN Rail to control the hazard above the train tracks, which run along the foot of the avalanches you see in the distance.
June 11, 2007
Springtime in northern BC often brings raging rivers as well as mudslides and other natural events. Most rivers in the north have been extremely high the last couple of weeks, even causing a state of emergency to be declared in Terrace last week. This photo of the water rushing under the "old bridge" in Terrace gives you a bit of an idea of the power of nature. This flood caused countless trees to be uprooted, many low lying areas to be evacuated, and even the course of the river changed when banks were undercut and small islands washed into oblivion. The water's receding now, but there's still a massive snowpack in the mountains so more could be coming.
June 18, 2007
One of the keys to minimizing damage from the various types of natural events that frequently occur in the North (avalanches, mud and rockslides, and floods) is monitoring and forecasting the weather. When driving the area highways, you often see self contained solar-powered weather monitoring stations such as this one on Highway 16 near Terrace. As there are many sparsely settled areas in Northern BC and the Yukon, it's essential that weather forecasters have access to resources such as this one. In fact, images from our Holloway Bar webcams are often used by Environment Canada's Pacific Storm Prediction Centre in Vancouver to increase the accuracy of their weather forecasts.
June 25, 2007
We like to think that we're pretty technologically advanced here at Holloway Bar - and one of the ways we demonstrate that is through our webcams. Scott and Trevor mounted this new movable webcam high up on our gold plant over the weekend for a "bird's eye view"of some of the mining action as it's happening. When the camera's not watching Scott mine for gold, it's high vantage point (it's probably the highest camera in camp) allows for great views of the Cassiar mountains to the west as well as views downstream on McDame Creek. In the old days, the miners used to look outside to find good mining days - now we go to www.hollowaybar.com and watch one of the many webcams!
