Local Flavour: Those Pesty Pine Beetles!

Picture from Opinion 250.com

Well, since I'm calling myself the Northern BC Dipper, I figure I'd better tell people what's happening around here.

Besides, there is only so long that one can simply repeat the latest federal news coming from the blogs.

Anyways, you (the reader) may or may not know about the Mountain Pine Beetles that are eating all of the trees that we Northern British Columbians harvest and turn into lumber. Well, everybody around here either works for the forest industry or their jobs are connected to it. Personally I work in a plywood plant. Its quite worrisome thing. I mean, one can see red, dead pine for miles here. I suppose there is a Pine Beetle Action Plan, but I think it is really too late; after all, it's hard to fight a combination of Mother Nature and Global Warming (don't tell me that not happening. I remember -40 C winters in my childhood, something that never happens in the dead of winter anymore).

Speaking of Nature and Pine Beetles, Opinion 250, the local news interent website, has taken a picture of a cloud of pine beetles above that tree (its the dark stuff). Now remember, each beetle is the size of a grain of rice. In the same article, it mentions that the beetle has arrived in the Peace Area (that's North-East Northern BC to you) 8 years early (it was supposed to arrive around 2014). Just great.

Well, I hope I get my university degree before the pine beetle is done with us.