The road was ploughed just in time.  I was down to my last handful of dogfood; also, I was just about out of drinking water.  The well supply is too salty and sulphury for plain drinking so I bought a reverse osmosis filter, but things never happen fast on the Chilcotin so it is not hooked up yet.  Lack of drinking water is not too serious now as there is enough snow to shovel and melt, but it is certainly easier to collect it in cans.

It was another -30C morning so I had to wait a little for my van to warm up (it is not possible to plug it in on a solar power system unless I run the generator, and that would have had to be brought in to warm up first…..)

A trip anywhere means you do half a dozen different things.  As well as water and dogfood, I wanted to pick up mail and go to the dump.  At the dump there were three bald eagles in attendance; two adults in full plumage,

And one very large immature (must have been a female as they are bigger than males.)

The Chilcotin is famous for its fences.  Here are three examples that don’t need posts.  The Russel fence is common across Canada.  It is supported on tripods, and both the tripods and rails are tied together with wire.

A very common one is the snake fence.  It is the easiest to build but takes more trees and uses more space.  Sometimes the top rail is wired.  It can easily be taken apart to drive livestock through – that was both an advantage and disadvantage; when cattle drives were common, people would “borrow” grazing for the night when they were passing through.

The third type is known as horse and rider and I believe it was invented on the Chilcotin.  It generally uses thinner poles.

I never buy factory meat or eggs.  So I called in at a friends.’  His place is a bit rough and ready but it is very “Chilcotin”.  But the important thing as far as I am concerned is that his chickens are very happy.

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