Bears and Mars in Port Alberni

After departing Campbell River, it was on to Port Alberni we went. We were heading south, and hoping to find the warmer weather we had been promised this time of year. Fortunately for us, it was delivered.

Our first full day involved making our Forestry presentation to WoodTech21 - a group of local men and women from a variety of fields, coming together to plan a path forward for Port Alberni's Forestry and Lumber Industry, bringing it into the 21st Century.

From here, we were taken to PRT nursery, a Christmas tree farm and woodlot, and to Coulson. Who knew that the home of some of the aerial fire fighting appliances, that many of us have seen either first hand or on the news, aiding our fire suppressing operations, was based in Port Alberni Canada. We were very fortunate to be shown not only the helicopters, but also the Mars water bombing aircraft. Amazing to look at, and absolutely huge, the Mars was being prepared for deployment to the US for their summer. We were all fortunate enough to get in the cockpit of the second Mars at the Coulson premises.

At 4 and a half weeks into the GSE, we were all beginning to think that Black bears in the wold were a myth. And then, after a wonderful day in Tofino and Ucluelet, there, on the side of the road, was a black bear. After a whole lot of pointing and shouting from the back of the van, we U-turned, very safely, and were able to observe the bear, grazing and keeping one eye on us. Finally, a big tick next to Bear sighting could be drawn. Thanks to Kenn and Larry for organising the bear to be so accessible to us tourists!!

For the rest of the week, we were busy with Vocational days hosted by British Columbia Forest Service. Our hosts had put together an excellent programme. We were able to observe shovel logging, road building by blasting, paper mill and sawmill operations, and a lucky encounter with a sky crane that was taking off to start heli-logging (see video). And this was only the first day.


After a jam packed week, and many great memories, we were able to wind down at a special dinner meeting for both Daybreak and Noon clubs in Port Alberni, and thank all of the Rotarians that made this leg of the GSE special.



Next stop - District 5020 District Conference

Victoria to Campbell River

After an afternoon of free time in Victoria and with our bags a little heavier from more shopping, we continued our travels to Campbell River. The weather continued to be magic, proving that the sun does shine some of the time!! We arrived in Campbell River with high hopes for the next few days.

In town we met the Mayor of Campbell River, were hosted for a day by Western Forest Products, completed a forestry presentation to a network of Canadian Foresters, visited Campbell River Museum, toured PRT Forest Nursery and visited a Salmon fish farm. With a program this jam packed some of us still found time for 9 holes of golf!!

We all had great fun catching up with the team members who visited us earlier this year from District 5020. And we can now appreciate why they were not impressed by the "mountains" they saw in the Green Triangle.

Shana and Jane were also lucky enough to see a pod of orca.

A picture of our latest bear sighting

Port Angeles to Victoria

West Coast Dreaming

Whoa have we been busy. Is that Lewis or Clarke? - No it is just a Forestry lecturer at a nuclear facility???












Did I say nuclear facility - thats right check it out this place was 85% complete before it was abandoned. It is now a business park where they use the many levels of power redundancy to provide a secure server location where the power never goes out! The acoustics were incredible inside the cooling tower.










A fish hatchery at the community college.















This is what we like to see - pulp and lots of it.

















And the end result!

Clams, paper and education

Friday started early for the team. It was razor back clam digging time. Licences are only available for a few weekends a year, and as we were to discover, thousands of people head to the beaches in search of this tasty shellfish.

Waders on, and shovel in hand, the team, aided by a few local Rotarian's, began digging holes, and jamming our arms, full length, into the sand to pull out the clam. Shrieks were heard by all when a clam attacked Shana, but in the end, we all escaped with a bounty of clams, and memories of a very unique Western Washington experience.

So after an uneventful morning, we were now off to Grays Harbor Paper. We were treated to an informative tour through the facility, from electricity generation, to cooking the pulp, and the steps to making all sorts of different paper products. Grays Harbor Paper produces copy, waxed, printing, and other specialty paper products, and for those of us who had been through paper mills before, this was a great opportunity to see another side to the process.

And now for education, Grays Harbor College was our next stop. Here, we met with the lectures from the Natural Resources programme, and learnt of the history of Forestry education in the USA and Grays Harbor's role in delivering high quality and relevant forestry education. The education system in the USA is structured a little differently to that of Australia's, and best of all, they have plenty of students to teach.

As you can tell, a great day was had by all, and as we attended our final Aberdeen/Hoquiam gathering at the Polson Museum last night, it was clear that this GSE experience has by far, exceeded expectations already, and we still have over three weeks left.

Next Stop Port Angeles

Trees, trees, and more trees

So this is why Forestry is the best job in the world. Check out that view. I mean the view of Mount Washington in the background, all covered with snow.

This week has been jam packed with our vocational days. The photo above was taken at one of Green Diamond's properties near Shelton. We were able to interact with planting, cable yarding, and road construction operations, and yes, the weather was very kind to us.

As you can see, tree planters have it pretty tough in this part of the world. It's steep, there is no ground prep, and there's certainly no mounds or straight lines to follow, in fact neither of us could figure out the system they had for planting the trees in 9ft x 9ft spacings.
While in Aberdeen, a visit to Sierra Pacific Industries was arranged. Our first Saw Mill. This mill takes in approximately 1.2million m3 a year, and processes Hemlock and Doug Fir. The photo on the left shows their scaling operation at work. It was interesting to compare the log delivery points, processing technology and the CoGen plant, with the mills back home. The CoGen plant allows the mill to burn forest and mill waste, to not only create steam to run through the dry kilns, but also to generate electricity through turbines to run the entire mill, and sell excess megawatts to power companies. Overall, we were all very impressed with the capabilities of the mill, and were amazed by the scale at which they operate. Just check out the crane that unloads the truck in one grab, and how about the size of that log pile, it just won't quite fit in the photo. Fortunately SPI are able to keep operating this mill during the tough times the industry is facing over here, and we certainly hope that they, and the rest of the Forestry and associated industries can bounce back to full production in the near future.

Yeow, is it still winter out here?

Hi Blog followers, we have been falling behind with posts because we have been so busy but we have an update today. Yep, thats Andrew at 5500 feet with Mount Ranier in the backgroud. This mountain is huge and can be seen from all over on a clear day. Shana and Andrew were lucky enough to make the trek on our day off on Sunday.

The "price is right" Shana is showing off some lovely Doug Fir logs destined for export from Olympia Port. Logs like this are in the 100+ years old category.

We have all been struggling this week with the conversion from board feet to cubic metres. Although Jerry has been claiming to have completed the conversion in his head the final answer has been indisputably inncorrect and with the brains trust failing miserably the rest of us have given up!

We have made the transfer to the Shelton area right at the southern end of Puget Sound. The hospitality of the local Rotarians has been outstanding as we have come to expect from all our hosts. Weather here has been on the improve and today the temperatures topped 70F!

Today we visited with Green Diamond a family owned timber and sawmilling company with a mere 140,000Ha. We were all very impressed with the professionalism and tidy operations.

Keep tuned for more soon!

Google Map Link

Hi All,

Here is a link to a google map that will show you where we have been.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=47.465236,-123.046875&spn=2.109338,4.614258&z=7&msid=101994170700744657574.000466743d768cc66ab8e

Olympia

On the weekend we arrived in Olympia the capital of Washington. The weather was predictably terrible but neither we nor the locals had expected snow. Apparently the relatively warm??? conditions were the cause of the very large snowflakes. It was very unusual for us to see snow right on the coast!

We enjoyed the Olympia Rotary spirit with a wonderful and snowy welcome party complete with magnificent prime rib. Miraculously the weather did clear up for a short time on Sunday resulting in some gorgeous views of the Cascades.

We must be moving up in the world as we were given a unique tour of the Supreme Court by the Chief Justice. The Temple of Justice has a long history and is a beautiful building. We also had the privilege of sitting in on parliament and toured the Capitol Building. The bill for enhancement of 911 was under debate but was certain to be voted in as the Democrats have a significant majority.

The GSE Team is a cohesive unit now and we are all enjoying the GSE experience.

Keep glued to your screens for more updates soon.

Beautiful Scenery

Big City Lights

Friday, our last full day hosted by the Kingston Rotary Club. We were off on the ferry to Seattle, across Puget Sound. First up was the Space Needle, built for the 1962 World Fair. Although the weather wasn't clear, the view from 520 feet was a must see. http://www.spaceneedle.com/

From here, we were taken on a driving tour of the inner city by our driver, and Shana's host, Fredrick. All week he has navigated us through the Olympic Peninsula, and today we were shown the International District, the Upside down building (it's narrower at it's base), Pioneer Square.

The team was amazed at how many Starbucks there were, almost on every corner.

A highlight of the day was our tour of the Seattle Public Library. A very interesting building architecturally, and functionally. We had a great tour guide, very passionate about books and the interaction we have with them. We were even treated to a tour of the book sorting machine, which is usually only for employee's eye's only. Very sophist acted, and handles 1200 books an hour, and sorts for over 20 library's in the district, plus Seattle itself. Our tour at the Library was followed by a lunch at the Women's University Club. Hosted by Jerry's hosts from the Kingston Rotary Club.

In some ways, lunch continued at Pike Place Market, where samples of all the fresh produce were aplenty. From fresh salmon, to chocolate pasta, fruit, and spicy jam's. With people everywhere, and vendor's promoting their wares, it felt very much like Melbourne's Queen Vic Markets. Oh, the the first ever Starbucks was right across the street.

After departing the market with a bag of fresh, hot mini doughnuts, Washington University was our next stop. The Dean of Forestry is an Australian, an old friend of Jerry's from Forestry School. He showed us around the beautiful campus, and told of the student numbers (~250) within Forestry, and about the program they run there.

We had a great day, full of an assortment of what Seattle has to offer, but I think we all agree that you need more than a day to see Seattle, and that we would have to come back some day.

Elk in Hoh Rainforest

Since the last post, plenty has been going on, although the weather is still the same. Cold and raining.

Vocational days have allowed us to learn more of forest management in the area, visiting Olympic Resource Management's harvesting operation, while also learning of the extension work of of Washington State University in aiding private forest land owners..

Visiting the Hoh Rainforest on Thursday was a highlight. On the way we saw many interesting things, from miniature donkeys, to a cat with 6 toes, and the vampire town of Forks. But let's talk about the rainforest, for starters, it rains 144 inches annually (3.5m). The forest was magnificent, with trees over 500 years old, and over 80 metres tall.

The wildlife was also amazing. We came across elk and evidence of beaver. Perhaps a slow way to cut down trees, but it certainly impressed us.

Kingston-North Kitsap

Since arriving in Seattle on Monday, we have all been very busy. Immediately after landing, we were greeted with some less than warm conditions (~50deg F), something we would need to get used too. From plane, to ferry, we arrived in Kingston and were met by our host families. It was great to be in comfortable surrounds, have a non plane food meal, shower and have a well earned rest.

Tuesday morning came around rather fast, and by lunchtime, we were off to Suquamish, the local Native American Tribe Headquarters. An informative afternoon was shared, learning of the tribe's history in the region, land management regimes - including forestry, and visiting some cultural and historic sites in the area.

In the evening, we attended at dinner at a local Rotarian's home, where we were welcomed by wonderful, friendly people and a great meal. The end of our first full day was now over, and we couldn't wait to get out into the forest for a Vocational day the following day.

G'Day USA

Hi All,

After a successful District Conference last weekend the team is ready for departure.

I can confirm that everyone has made it to the airport on time and has managed to get their luggage under the weight limits. Unfortunately the flight has been delayed for an hour but with an adequate supply of coffee at the airport we dont expect a repeat of what happened at Sydney Airport.

Due to the time delay we will be landing at Seatac later today so goodbye Australia and G'day USA.

Ciao

District Conference this Weekend

The D9780 team consisting of (from left to right) Shana Read, Andrew Matheson Jerry Leech (Team Leader) Jane Charles and Tim McDonnell have been busy over the last few months preparing for the GSE exchange.

We have had generous support from each of our sponsors to whom we would like to extend avery special thankyou - Komatsu Forest, Thales, Cemex, IFA, and Osmose.

This weekend is the D9780 conference which is the first offical engagement for the trip.

Bye for now!