High Altitude growing was my jam for 8 years during The Dark Times. Coastal BC, Mainland coast Desolation Sound, Toba Inlet, Bute Inlet. We bred special high altitude strain that was from Himalayas crossed with Timewarp and another I cant remember for the life of me. I had a classic 42ft. ex-salmon troller and a 24ft. aluminum oyster barge and we loaded both up to the gills every year with guano and more clones than you would think possible and spent 6 weeks planting above treeline in the wildest country in Canada, every spring. It was truly epic. You`re bang-on in your terps assessment, and there are numerous other benefits. Security for one. Cosmic rays, UV, good gaseous mix, no competition for space and no valley-effect killing your DLI. Best outdoor grow location full stop, IMO.
Slocan Valley - Kootenay Lake is definitely our own Emerald Triangle. My parents lived in Procter, a wee, wee village on the main lake, across the arm from Balfour where the Kootenay Lake ferry docks. You had to take a cable ferry to get to their place and it was heaven. They had 6 acres and a nice, handbuilt, Swiss Alps Chalet-style house.
The winter snow there is phenomenal. I ski toured the whole region, up to all the cabins and glacier climbing in summers up on Kootenay Glacier. I was up there working search and rescue when Trudeau's brother died up there. Almost went a couple times myself up there, fell through a snowbridge on the glacier once into a deep, deep crevasse. Managed to get my arms and ice axe out fast enough to keep from falling through totally and bury that axe deep enough in ice to pull myself out. I was roped up but it wouldn`t have mattered the length I was on and you get wedged in there real tight from their shape, die of shock and thermo before proper rescue.
My climbing partner went waterfall climbing without me and the entire waterfall collapsed. They fell 150 ft. One dead, and my partner was in the hospital for 5 months. Brain injury, life-changing injuries of all kinds. The snow in the Kootenays is the best I`ve ever seen and I`ve seen all of Canada`s ski meccas. I was into backcountry though, telemark. Old school. That and alpinism. Love the Rockies, but Kootenays is where I learned, was home, and grew indoor hydro weed there too.
If you look at my adult life, and where I`ve lived, Holland, Kootenays, BC Coast Islands, you could be forgiven for thinking a single theme connects them all... I used to think it was a coincidence. Not as convinced these days.
I really hope you get your land Dani, really do. I know you`d do right by it. I`ve been working to turn my patch in the suburbs into a piece of how I lived in `the wild Islands`. This year I finally said `fuck curb appeal`and ripped out all the grass and built a mammoth raised vegetable bed from cardboard and wire. I put down woodchips over the entire remaining space and planted out the corner as a food and fertilizer forest. I assumed the neighbourhood would shun me but the opposite has happened. Now all the neighbours love it and are launching their own projects! They bring me plants, and come and buy the succulents and seedlings I'm putting out for sale every day... Who knew... just takes one person to swim against the tide sometimes I guess. Proud of my neighbours for going their own way too now, full support from me. They just got chicken across the street and aa few doors down fella`s getting goats. My place may appear a Hippy Haven to outsiders, but it`s a sustainable, ecologically responsible and vibrantly diverse mini biome to me. It`s a family project but as the driving force I`m proud of what we`ve accomplished in twenty years. My plans for the next 20 years was to take down the old, original house and place 4 tiny-homes - and a grow shack, on it. I love living in small spaces, it`s an eccentricity, I know, but my needs are simple and I wanted to get some other people on here with me. Now I just hope I can keep it as mortgage rate goes up and our family business of 30-plus years may fall due to covid ramifications. We just lost our two core customers...
thanks for letting me blather on in your thread Dani. I`m having some tech. computer issues keeping me from posting images how I`d like to on my thread but I`ll get it sorted. This forum has become an important social outlet for me. Cheers mate.
