Kay Knox
On a typically blah November morning, my light hikers took me to Brookfield Creek. It hadn’t snowed yet, but this was a frosty morning. Peering carefully over at the rushing water, I stared down at a large collection of snow-white, flat-bottomed, saucer-sized circles pushed up against the steep rocky wall. More kept coming. I checked the upstream size of the bridge. Nothing, so somehow, these fragile floaters formed under the narrow bridge. Perhaps a piece of floating ice from upstream rubbed against the creek’s frigid edge beneath the bridge and gathered frost. As the water moved it forward, the scrap rotated to form the perfect circlets I was viewing. Continued rubbing fractured the outside edge, pushing shards of ice up to make the raised sides before the current pushed them aside. There they floated.
After looping nearby Wylie Creek, some bush-whacking enjoyed, I was back at the bridge. Temperature now rising, my saucers were obviously softening. “No point in driving you round to see them,” I mentioned to my husband John when I was finally home again. “They will be melted by now.”
Two or three weeks later, those “made-for-walking” shoes had me back at Brookfield Bridge. Instead of floating saucers, foamy bubbles were collecting in the same spot. Now, the ones close to the rocky cliff were circling upstream. At the Kettle, we have watched huge logs do the same thing.
Visitors to Dutch Lake
“Got time for a walk by Dutch Lake today?” asked a friend.
“I’m free,” I responded, jumping the chance.
As we set off through the campground of Dutch Lake Resort, she told me of her happiness in learning that four daughters were gathering in Kamloops where she would be meeting them on her birthday. Starting to respond as we continued walking toward the trail head, I was distracted by movement on the calm lake. “Look at the two swans out there!”
Walking along the trail just above the lake, fall colours reflected despite the dull sky, we watched the swans swim towards us as we continued chatting. With one bigger than the other, they were obviously a pair, mated for life as they do. Eventually they did a gradual about face, probably hearing our voices more distinctly. They were not in the least bit anxious as they floated away towards the large island. Since we did not see them again, we assumed they were taking the full tour round behind it. Like the floating saucers on the fast-flowing creek, they would not remain in our pretty lake for long but we felt privileged to have seen them.
