Signs of Spring

Signs of spring are everywhere in Friendly Cove. Generations of lightkeepers have planted bulbs around the station, so daffodils and grape hyacinths flash splashes of colour and cheer on fogbound days. Yesterday, while the sun shone on the Lower Mainland and bees sang in the blossoming trees, we clung to the rock in a pale blanket of drizzle and fog for the entire day. Visibility two miles. Weather changes frequently. Case in point: thirty minutes ago the sun was shining, the sky blue; now, it is almost overcast again.

When the clouds do break, Lucy and I wander down the trails to the cove, breathing in the sun. Along the pathway, pink fawn lilies blossom. Snakes surprise me, slithering from the threat of my rubber boots, while birds sing in the echoing waves. 

The herring did not spawn this year at Friendly Cove, and Ray has taken away the branches that laid waiting on the dock for weeks. He told me it was sad for his people. First Nations along coastal BC have collected Pacific herring spawn for thousands of years. In his journal, Jewitt spoke of it as a delicacy. For an interesting article on the Pacific Herring, read The Tyee.

Pacific Herring courtesy of raincoast.org