Niut Short Story

Niut Short Story

The beginnings of this trip:

In 1995-1996 I travelled around the Chilcotin region photographing for my Chilcotin book. As always, I knew little about the region. I dropped in to various people I had been referred to; gathering ideas and learning about the country.

One was pilot Dave King (White Saddle Air) and when I told him I was going to do a book on the Chilcotin, he laughed and said “no you can’t”. I was taken aback by his comment but he then said…you can’t do one book on the Chilcotin, you will have to do 4 or 5 to even scratch the surface. I had no idea at that time, but now I know he was right. I still have only scratched the surface of this vast part of BC. But I continued on…searching and shooting as best I could. I was basically a foreigner. I knew so little, but I pushed on anyway.

This trip to the Niut speaks to that topic…about how little I knew then and how little I still know about the area. Here I am 20 yrs later and I am still going out to new areas I have never seen before. It’s vast and I know of many an area I would love to photograph for the first time.

Four years later I met Sally Meuller at a Christmas Fair where I was selling my books as always. Following my example, she photographed and self-published a small spiral bound photo book of her very special Tatlayoko Valley where she lived. She was at the Fair selling her books.

So we met. She was a very special lady and she had made a very special and very personal book about the area she loved. I bought her book (I have it in front of me now) and on the front cover was a photograph of a very beautiful lake with a waterfall dropping down into it from a glacier which could be seen in the distance. She told me it was in the Niut Range. I had no idea where that was, but I swore then and there I would go there one day to photograph. I had to go to that lake. It was that beautiful.

Well, I never did get there, until now.  I wanted to for this book. I called Mike King (brother of Dave King in Flyover) who flies a helicopter. I asked him if he knew where the lake was…he wasn’t sure but he pointed me in the right direction. I scoured Google Earth but there were several amazing small lakes in the Niut Range and I couldn’t figure out which was that specific lake. HOWEVER, I did find another set of lakes in the Niut’s that really appealed to me. They offered three lakes within a massive cirque; each lake appeared a different colour and there were red mountains much like the Rainbows. I could also see that I would be able to easily hike within this valley and get to all 3 lakes. I decided that was where I wanted to go.

I called up Mike King and arranged to be flown in. It would only be a 10 min. flight from his hangar. To utilize all the seats, I asked Teresa to join us. As she was studying photography, I felt this would be an amazing place for her to expand her portfolio and possibly pick up a few photo tips from me in the field.

So Mike, Rita, Teresa and I drove out to White Saddle Air (on Bluff Lake just west of Tatlayoko Lake) where we would fly from. We arrived, unpacked our trucks, and put our stuff in a pile beside the helicopter. Mike told us we would fly in half an hour and that one of his pilots, Les Rolston, would be our pilot. (he was there flying for Mike fighting forest fires)

We were about to fly in to a place I had never seen before. I was so pumped. Finally I was going to the Niuts!

We flew up a large valley past massive peaks, turned a corner around a huge mountain, and there it was…a view up a giant cirque valley…spectacular! It was the Upper Jamison Creek Valley.

I had chosen my camp spot from Google Earth (roughly) so I guided him to the area. We landed…we got out…unpacked…and he flew off (he was in a rush to get back to fire fighting). We suddenly looked around, looked at each other, and said…holy shit!!! We are here! Somewhere! Not a soul for miles.

It felt surreal.  In 10min. we went from the real world to a remote, beyond belief beautiful place in the mountains, the Niuts.  We were stunned and in shock. We didn’t know what to do first…where to start. VERY SURREAL. Other worldly.    (It would be similar to flying out of Calgary a hundred years ago and in 10 minutes putting down at Lake Louise not knowing that such a beautiful place existed)

There are dozens of such places around the Ark (Chilcotin), but few know about them. What we were about to do is actually available to anyone who wanted to do something similar.This type of adventure is the best kept secret in tourism!

Our camp spot was beside a lake and a stream, so we started looking for the best place to put up a small tarp (in case it ever rained) (we were at tree line so a place to put up a tarp was not easy to find) and our tents. We settled in and within an hour we were cozy and settled in to our home for the next three days. The adventure had begun.

Harold, this time I am going to share our three day adventure through images, much like my Newsletter format.

Flying up the deep valley with spectacular peaks on both sides, we passed one last mountain ( the one on the right) when Les banked the helicopter and I saw up this valley that this image is looking down. Sitting in the front passenger seat I had full view of where we were going..it was an amazing sight. Flying through mountains in a helicopter is truly exciting as it is, but when I saw the valley I was going to photograph in, I was ecstatic.

This is another image to show you the valley we were flying up. Following the stream up to the lake where I wanted to have our camp. As you can see we had entered a huge glacial cirque  carved out in the last glaciation. We were to be surrounded by mountains.

Les put us down at the spot I chose beside the lake. We were basically just above treeline; just the odd stunted and wind blown alpine fir. I chose the spot where there was a clump as I knew we needed some protection in case it rained. Out we got, unloaded, and off he went. “Pick us up in four days, first thing in the morning”, were our last words. I made this shot as he took off. We stood there alone in the world and just looked around and at each other in disbelief!

This was the camp we immediately set up. The lake is just to the left of where I made this photograph. We set up a tarp in that clump of fir so we could always eat under it should it rain. We were also protected somewhat from the prevailing wind by that rise to the right of Mike’s green tent. Once set up, we felt at home. After a cup of tea we were ready to explore. It felt so surreal being here. The transition to this unbelievable place, somewhere on the planet, was so fast, that we felt somewhat stunned & disoriented. Where do we go first? What do I photograph first? It was all too much, too fast.

Mike, Teresa, and I set off on a small exploratory trip just below our camp. We made a big circle and ended up hiking back up this creek to our camp just around the corner to the right. It was a beautiful stream, with the freshest melt water imaginable. It was a mixture of fresh rain water and glacial melt water, some of which might be from snow flakes that drifted down to earth 80,000 years ago, or longer. It couldn’t be fresher, and it tasted delicious.

This is the lake at the top of that stream, less than 100 metres from our tents. This was home. I would walk around this lake for the next three days, always beautiful, exquisite, alluring, elegant….. I couldn’t believe being here. We all couldn’t. I was home.

Everyday it was different. Different times of the day, different light, different water. The lake would rise and fall every day according to how much glacial ice would melt up above during the heat of the day and the coolness of night. Never the same. Always fascinating.

The lake changed colour by the hour and by what elevation we looked at it from. It was glacial water so there was rock dust lying in suspension in the water; light reflecting off those particles, and gifting us with ever changing colour. Always different. Always mesmerizing.

Always different. So were the mountains. Their colour changed, so did their mood. Everything around us constantly changed and so did we. Our surroundings changed us, each one differently, and so we each responded differently, and we each made different images according to our changing emotional tide. I was on drugs…one was called ‘light’, another ‘rock’, another ‘water’….what a ‘high’.

There is not a stronger attraction to me than that of ‘form’. I see the world around me as shapes, defined by light, colour, and contrast. Always changing. If I sat here and made an image every hour from this same spot for 24 hours; 24 days, 24 months; and then made a slide show to music, we would all be amazed. Always changing. Always beautiful. Always enticing.

The landscape that we see around us, one one that most see as static, and still, is anything but. This was one dynamic landscape that I felt so enriched, daily. Here in the Niut, that feeling seemed magnified. At a cellular level, I am sure that every cell in my body had a ‘happy face’ on them. Maybe I will live longer for having been here!

So, each time I would walk around this lake, I would see form, colour and contrast; tonal contrast and colour contrast. Light, rock, and water. The drugs were always working. I was always on a ‘high’. I was in the moment. Totally in the moment.

I would look up, I would look down, left and right….everywhere there was form.

On the last afternoon, I turned away from the large shapes of the grand landscape and took a stroll with my eyes looking downward. I left one world and entered another. It’s a world I thoroughly enjoy but I don’t seem capable to entering it until I have satisfied my thirst for the larger scapes. Once there, of course, I could stay there and never look up again. I seem only able to concentrate on one at a time.

Yesterday I visited Mike to get his take on his Niut experience. He got his laptop out and scrolled through several hundred of his photographs. I was amazing at what I saw. It was as if he had spent his three days crawling on the ground, following tiny root systems as if they were major trails or highways. He had captured in a most artistic way the lines and patterns of the plant and lichen world. I felt I wanted to go back to the Niut and see his world next.

Whereas I seem compelled to capture the large world first before I even pay any attention to the small world, Mike appears to approach his journey from the opposite perspective. If we are true to who we are, that will come through in our photographs. Our lenses always point in both directions.

Rita, on the other hand, could also be seen exploring. Without a camera in her hand, she always seemed to be exploring areas that were just a little different than the ones Teresa, Mike, and I were exploring. When back at camp, we would see why. We would return with memory cards full of imagery whereas Rita would return with bags full of berries.
Rita would have spent hours seeking out a world that aboriginal women would have been seeking. She would be totally consumed with the natural world and its many inter-relationships, but on a sustenance level.  Always interested in food, Rita would know where to find what berries, based on the lay of the land. Just recently, Rita brought out a jar of Niut crow berry (above) jam for us all to enjoy. It was absolutely delicious. It was a gift from Rita and one of the many that the Ark gives to us.

On day two we left our little lakeside camp and headed off to another lake that I had seen on Google Earth.

We were going to climb up into what was an inner cirque, smaller and tucked up against the tallest mountains at the very head of this valley we were in. It was beneath mighty Niut Mountain itself. Every moment of every day was so exciting. We were always going somewhere new and seeing something we had never seen before. How often do we experience that? I always feel privileged and honoured to be in these situations.

Along the way we came upon a family of ptarmigan. There must have been about 10 chicks. Teresa is seen here making images of them, but no matter how hard you look at those rocks you will not see one. They were so well camouflaged.

Rita, Mike, and Teresa are seen climbing higher and higher, deeper and deeper into this mighty inner cirque. It was like an inner sanctuary, a monastery of sorts. At the bottom lies another lake, fed by what remains of a small glacier that once filled this whole valley. We felt very small indeed.

It was enriching to see Teresa out here, away from the urban & commercial photography courses she was studying at college. She was back in the wilderness, in the natural world where I gave her her start in photography. I could see she was thrilled to be here and excited to be photographing nature. Teresa is extremely independent, so I shared what I had to share by example, not by instruction. If I were to pass along a tip, it would be done very casually and in passing. Nothing formal.

Teresa and Mike photographing. You will note, Teresa is capturing the grand landscape and Mike is capturing some tiny Kinnikinnick root, or maybe something smaller!

At one point, I came to a cliff and looked down to our small camp which is at the far end of the furthest lake. These are the lakes I walked around daily, trying to capture the essence of where we were on the planet.

As always I am always drawn to light, form, colour and contrast. In the early morning and evening I would be down there at lake level photographing from a different perspective; often looking up to where I was now.

I am always aware of where everyone in the party is. And I am always hiking to spots where I might capture them within the greater landscape. I have done this for decades on my tours, always trying to capture images to market my trips with. Now the images are for my books.

Here, Rita and Mike are taking in the magnitude of their surroundings. What remains of the glacier that carved out this landscape can be seen in the distance against the rock wall. Niut Mountain towers above us on the left.

Beyond Rita is a giant salmon, symbolic of the melt water that originates in these mountains, forming rivers that tie this region together, that form the arteries in which these salmon travel. (you can see the salmon in the previous picture as well)

At the very head of this cirque are the very last remains of this once giant glacier that carved out the entire valley we were in.  Together they are creating artwork to hang in the greatest gallery of them all; one in which the curators re-hang daily.

On one of the giant rock walls beneath Niut Mountain, the last remains of a proud 80,000+ year old glacier holds on in old age. By next year, it will have passed on. Are we responsible for its death?

On Day 3 we hiked down the valley, leaving the world of rock and ice, and entering one of flowered meadows and alpine firs. Then we left the valley and bush-whacked up into a small side cirque, one that would have had a hanging glacier in it.

When we got to this lake, we entered into yet another world. Our valley is beyond this lake, about 300 m lower in elevation. We had climbed into this little bowl of coloured rock which a small alpine glacier had carved out high above the main valley glacier beyond and below this. High above tree line, there appeared to be little live here except the bones of mountain goat which presumably had been caught in an avalanche.

Compared to the massive granite walls of rock that surrouned Upper Jamison Creek Valley below us, we were high above it, in a tiny isolated world, one which was highly coloured and gentle in comparison. We felt differently here; more relaxed.

The intensity of colour on the gentle slopes around us,  appeared even more intense in the lake water below our very feet. As we walked around the lake the colour changed, all dependent on the angle of sunlight.

On our last evening we had clear skies and direct light. I called Teresa aside, set up my tripod, and spoke to the thrill of photographing tonal and colour contrast. I explained that because the images would be abstract, there was no need to keep one’s camera horizontal, or parallel to any horizon. I showed that we could angle our cameras and think of nothing but the juxtaposition of shapes based on shadow and light. She told me no college instructor had ever mentioned this concept to her before.

So we spent an hour looking at shapes and talking about composition. Teresa had let me in, and we spent a wonderful time together, sharing.  I think we both learned a lot.

The last light had us pointing our camera’s in the direction where we would fly out the next morning. We would fly toward the mountain bathed in warm light, and then turn right around the rock wall that I remembered so well when I was flying in and got my first view up this amazing valley we were about to enter for the first time.

In three days, we had but a hand shake introduction to the Upper Jamisson Creek Valley. We had lived fully here for 3 days, hiking its uneven ground, exploring its subtleties, photographing its light, drinking its water, eating it’s berries and appreciating its overall beauty. It was an unforgettable experience.

Ah, but the trip wasn’t over yet! I was hoping that we would have at least one clear night so I could shoot star trails over Niut Mountain. Fortunately it was the last night so it wouldn’t matter how much battery power I used. I could use whatever I had left.

Teresa wanted to join me so this was going to be fun.  We set up our tripods early and made our compositions when we could still see the shape of the mountain ridge line and we could manually focus on the sky. We waited until 10pm when there was just enough light in the sky to capture its mid-night blue colour. This was a short exposure of 329 seconds.

The next exposure was going to be a longer one and I needed complete
darkness. We went back to bed for a couple of hours. It’s always hard
to get up a second time but up I got at 1am. Fortunately there was still no
clouds so I got Teresa up. This time I made an exposure of 8400 seconds (over 2 hrs). Needless to say, we had gone back to our sleeping bags for a further two hour sleep. Up again after 3am we completed our exposures.

What an exciting night to finish our amazing trip on. We didn’t get much sleep but who cared…it was our last night. Tomorrow morning we would fly out and head home to our own beds!

We were up early to have a quick breakfast, pack up our camp, and bring it to the exact spot where the helicopter would land. We all wondered about in our own worlds as we waited for the plane, each trying to take in what we had experienced. We were all on a ‘high’, but we were soon to get higher!

At first we heard that familiar chopper sound and then it appeared around the face of Niut Mountain. What a beautiful sight.

He landed at 7am, we quickly packed our gear inside and within minutes we were off. After one last view of our very special valley, we rounded that last mountain and headed back to White Saddle Air headquarters at Bluff Lake.

On the way I made one last photograph…our pilot Les.

(another sub-story! on the flight in, Les took a few shots at me for not including him in my Flyover book! I told him to give his boss Mike King the shots as he should have introduced me to you. We laughed. But when I took his picture on the way back I said maybe he might make it into a book yet! We all laughed! He was such a happy upbeat guy. He wanted to know all about our trip. He loved flying and we thoroughly enjoyed our two flights with him)