Hardy souls looking for some inner peace

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." 1854 - Henry David Thoreau.

Late autumn conditions begin to give way to winter over this remote cabin on the waters edge at Bowron Lake. Isolated from the troubles of the world, it's places like this which provide much needed tranquility to hardy souls looking for some inner peace.

In search of some peace ourselves we headed out into the Winter conditions that were slowly taking hold of the Cariboo Mountains in late Autumn. For the whole trip the mountains remained enshrouded behind a stormy veil over Bowron Lake. In the in 1860’s the first Europeans came to the Cariboo Mountains to find their fortunes, as part of what became known as the first Cariboo Gold Rush. Originally referred to simply as “Bear Lake” it was eventually renamed Bowron Lake after John Bowron, the first Gold Commissioner of the nearby gold mining town Barkerville, who organised numerous exploration parties into the remote mountains to look for gold-bearing ground.

While out in the mountains we spotted a male Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) displaying his umbrella-like ruff of feathers in the snow. To encourage courtship the grouse engages in "drumming", a non-vocal acoustic display, that involves rapid wing-beating to create a low frequency sound which can be heard for over 500m. When an interested hen approaches, he then extends his feathers into a spectacular ruff as seen in this shot.

There are so many cute cabins out in Northern BC. This little blue one seemed like it was straight out of a Dr Seuss Book

The smaller lakes had already succumbed to the grip of winter and frozen over.

On the way home we stopped at the historical town of Barkerville . While closed for the season you can still access the site and the abandoned isolation makes it even more spectacular from my perspective. Barkerville was the main town of the Cariboo Gold Rush however by the of the 1800’s it had emptied out to only a few remaining residents. Despite a small revival in the 1930s with squatters looking for gold during the great depression, the village eventually emptied out and lay mostly abandoned. In 1957 it was first restored as a historic site by the BC government with part of it subsequently registered federally as one of the National Historic Sites of Canada. This shot is of the St. Saviour's Anglican Church in Bakerville. Designed by the Rev. James Reynard in what is described as Carpenter Gothic, it was built by John Bruce and J. G. Mann between 1868 and 1870. British Columbia, Canada

I am just new to Steemit so I would love to get some feedback ! Do you like isolated places like this? What sort of photography is your favorite ? What you would like to see in my posts?

Rob Downie
Love Life, Love Photography

_{All images in this post were taken by and remain the Copyright of Robert Downie - http://www.robertdowniephotography.com}