The title of this post sounds, I know, rather over-the-top dramatic and gothic, but I just couldn’t resist putting all those words together.
And it really is an accurate title; being about my image “Raven Kiss” located on an interpretive sign at Devils Lake, near Mission. BC.
The story, from my perspective, started in 2021 when I was contacted by designers working with the Kwantlen on a series of interpretive signs to be located in the Mission Municipal Forest in the Stave West Forest Recreation Area.
The Stave Lake area is known to the Kwantlen people as an area where the Raven people returned after a devastating smallpox epidemic. The story is told on the sign below.
The designers were specifically looking for a photograph showing ravens as intelligent and family-oriented birds — just the reality I love to reflect in my images! I sent them a selection of pictures I thought might work and they chose Raven Kiss.
It’s been almost two years since the signs were installed along part of the Devils Lake loop trail and I’d been meaning to go out and visit them for that long.
Finally, on the spur of the moment, we decided to drive out there earlier this week.
It’s about an hour’s drive to the head of Stave Lake, on freeway and paved smaller roads.
Beyond this point, the road becomes an extremely pot-holed logging road — so don’t think of taking your brand new sports car up there. Or any vehicle with low clearance!
After a bouncy twenty minutes or so, we arrived at the Devils Lake park
This is the first of the interpretive signs, and you can see that ravens are a recurring theme.
Wooden walkway through the forest
The trail winds all around the lake, mostly through the forest, but with access to lakeside beaches at a few points along the way.
The interpretive signs continue along the trail for about two kilometres. The one with my raven image was, I think, the third to last sign in the series. All of them provided a wonderful view of the land from the perspective of the Raven people.
The trail along the far side of the lake was rockier and through forest that had been logged a long time ago.
Younger trees growing from the stump of a long-ago-logged bigger tree
The stump in the photo below shows the letterbox-shaped notches where loggers wedged in springboards above the flare of the tree — a point at which two fallers with a crosscut saw could perch to do their cutting.
Phillip in the Forest
Bracket fungus in autumnal colours
Me and Geordie on a rockier section of the trail
At the other end of the lake, there’s a floating bridge to get you back to the parking lot. I forgot to take a picture of the bridge as we got talking to a couple of young women who were swimming in the lake off the bridge. They were two of only four people we saw on the whole hike!
The view from the floating bridge.
It’s a very quiet and magical spot, so if you feel like exploring: wear good boots; bring a walking pole for the rocky, steep bits, pack a rain jacket (the mountain weather is changeable) and bring a snack. The loop took us about two and a half hours, with photo stops.
Oh, and I almost forgot to mention: we did see a raven! He or she flew above us, calling through the treetops and stopped for a few moments when we called back. They even returned our calls a couple of times before flying on to more important raven business.
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