Abby's sister found a Travelbug, and decided to leave it on Burnaby Mountain, where Abby and Erin's university is.
Abby forgot to take pictures of me at the university itself this time, or eating lunch (you missed the dropping a piece of sushi into soya sauce, which then splattered and ran all down Abby's legs fiasco, sorry), but I was in on the geocaching experience.
We had to walk down a trail to get to the one that we were looking for. Lemmy was particularly excited because he was accomplishing a life mission by going for a walk in a forest.
Eventually the trail led us to this field.
And we found the cache! We left the Travelbug inside.
A little further on, there was this large park, right on the side of the mountain. Apparently it's very popular for tobogganers in the winter. The trees are fairly high now, but behind them there is a view of Vancouver.
Here it is closer up.
I found a fire pit.
Erin was looking for another cache, so Abby picked salmonberries for us to try. Because there are nasty bugs in the first, neitherof us felt like leaving her bag.
On the other side of the park, we discovered what looked like partially constructed totem poles.
Above them were three stones explaining the art. The first one said:
Kamui Mintara - Playground of the Gods
This Burnaby Mountain setting inspired the carvings entitled, 'Plarground of the Gods'. It is the story of Japan native peoples, the Ainu, and of the gods who came down to the earth to give birth to them.
In the large foreground sculpture of bound poles, those with animals on top represent the Ainu gods, while the smaller poles represent the people. On Earth the gods assume the shape and spirits of animals, such as the bear, the owl and the orca.
The second one said:
These sculptures were dedicated to the citizens of Burnaby in 1990 to commemorate twenty-five years of goodwill between the Sister Cities of Kushiro, Japan and the District of Burnaby, Canada.
The exhibition was created by Noburi Toko, a renowned modern sculptor of the Ainu, and his sone, Shusei Toko. The Ainu are the aboriginal people of Japan who inhibit the northern island of Hakkaida.
The third one said:
Ainu Mythology tells us of a culture closely connected to the water. The sculpture to the lower left with the four supposrts symbolizes the ocean. To the right of this three pairs of poles and a single pole represent the orca god of the sea.
The sculpture on the far left points ot the west symbolizing a bridge of friendship that connects the sister cities of Kushiro and Burnaby.
After a long day of hiking, it was time to go home. I was so tired that I went straight to sleep.
