The View from Pickles' Bluff

I mentioned in yesterday's post that Fern and I visited John Dean Provincial Park in Saanich. The park consists of the summit of Mount Newton and is about a half hour's drive from Victoria. The parking lot is fairly close to the summit and we chose a trail that led to Pickles' Bluff. It overlooks the eastern side of the Saanich Peninsula. The two nearest islands are James Island and Sidney Island, both in the Canadian Gulf Islands. Further out we are looking across the Canada-USA International Border. The sandy looking island is in the USA. It is Spieden Island, one of the San Juan Islands. It is currently home to a number of exotic species of sheep and deer whose ancestors were imported during the 1970s as prey when the island was a private game preserve. Hunting is no longer allowed on the island. That is Mount Baker that can be seen in the distance. I have not been able to discover how our viewpoint, Pickles' Bluff, got its name but the apostrophe leads me to think that "Pickles" was the name of an early settler who homesteaded nearby. There are several other homestead sites on the mountain, one of which was owned by John Dean, after whom the park is named.

Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

A few years ago I triumphantly posted a photo of my first sighting of the ghostly white saprophyte known as Indian Pipe (Monotropa uniflora). I've seen them a half dozen times since when walking in the forest but until sharp-eyed Fern spotted these yesterday I had not seen them at this stage of their development. Now the flowers no longer face downwards but have gone to seed and turned upwards. These were sighted near the summit of Mount Newton in East Saanich.