Weeda Stamps: News


FOX TALES ON STAMPS Edition #483 Friday, November 13, 2009
Englishman River Falls Provincial Park
	While Fall may be a tad cold for camping and swimming at Englishman River Falls Provincial Park it's a lovely and uncrowded time to hike. The Englishman River begins in the Mount Arrowsmith area, ending up in the Salish Sea (the Strait of Georgia) just south of Parksville. The lower portions of the river are popular with fishermen looking for steelhead and sea-run cutthroat trout. Within the Englishman River Falls Provincial Park are two sets of spectacular waterfalls. The upper falls boasts an 80 foot drop into a deep and narrow chasm, the lower falls spill into a deep crystal clear pool popular with bathers and daredevil cliff divers alike. In the area between the upper and lower falls the river runs through sheer granite cliffs draped in the luxuriant mosses and other types of growth that this often wet climate promotes. The Englishman River Falls Park is known mainly as a popular summer campsite and a renowned swimming hole. Its neighbouring park, Cathedral Park, is world famous for its stands of massive old growth trees. This is not to say that Englishman River Falls Park does not have its own arboreal giants as evidenced here. Here's a look at the lower pool. As you can see there is a large boulder wedged between the two cliff faces at the upper end of the pool. In the spring or after a heavy rain the stream flow actually increases in volume enough to cause water to flow both under and over the rock. The bridge that I am on is a great vantage point for watching the intrepid divers. This is the view looking downstream from the bridge. On a hot summer's day a spot like this is hard to beat. This part of the river is as far upstream as the small numbers of indigenous spawning salmon can reach. Even though these old growth giants are quite massive they don't weigh all that much. Here I am putting back in place one that I noticed had fallen over. All kidding aside, back in December 2006 there was a huge wind storm that affected large parts of Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland. You may remember having seen footage of the devastation that occurred in Stanley Park in Vancouver. Numerous trees in this area were also toppled. The force required to shatter one of these trees into splinters is almost beyond imagining.
Hallowe'en in Japan
	A customer of ours living in Japan sent us this photo to show us how he is introducing the tradition of Hallowe'en to his students.
The Salvation Army Quiz
	We show you a minute portion of the design of a postage stamp. You have to determine which stamp it is. Send us an email with your answer. We hold this contest every second week. For every correct answer we will donate $1.00 to our favourite charity, the Salvation Army. Click here to go to the The Salvation Army International Home Page to see what services they offer to communities around the world.
Answer to Last Week's Salvation Army Quiz
	We received six correct answers to last week's stamp identification quiz. That means a $6.00 donation to Salvation Army. Here's the portion of the stamp we asked you to identify Here's the answer - Canada #539, the 1971 6c Louis Joseph Papineau issue.