For our second year

Dear friends, guests, future guests and supporters!

Just a quick note to update you all on news at Grizzly Bear Ranch.

We've been working on new packages, activities and a revamped website for 2007 which finally went live today.

We've raised our prices a little, we had to really. Another change is that we are no longer taking guests looking only for accommodation.

Instead we’ve tried to put together some short breaks and holidays that offer the best of the Selkirk mountains and the beautiful river valley we live in.

We've reinvented our grizzly bear viewing, upgraded our mountain tours and added rafting and nature-viewing, a day trip to see our 1,000 year old cedar groves and other local wonders.

Next year we will still be offering fly fishing with Jim, our excellent fishing guide, and we've teamed up with a local kayaking company to offer kayaking on Kootenay Lake.

On the more mundane front, I've reinvented myself this week as a carpenter. (Last week I was a logger, of sorts).

Working with Sonny, a neighbour, who really is a carpenter, we're doing a complete makeover of one of our cabins and adding a bathroom, pine walls and huge windows that look out onto the river. In the spring there will be a new sundeck too.

After a gorgeous summer and autumn, the weather has finally turned miserable. Snow and rain, rain and snow. Today we finally finished fitting the new snow plough, a huge yellow affair with a winch.

The Grizzly Bear Fund, a modest effort to bring over one frazzled war correspondent a year to give them a chance to unwind amid all this natural beauty, is off to a good start.

We collected $470 this year, about half of what we need to pay someone's air fare. By next winter we hope to have our first guest arriving on this scheme. Thank you very much all of you who made contributions this year. (Click here for more details on the fund.)

That's the news for now. Check out our new website at http://www.grizzlybearranch.ca. If you find any mistakes or anything unclear please let us know and we'll correct it or improve it.

Meanwhile we wish you all a good winter and hopefully Kristin and I will see at least some of you in 2007. Looking forward to it!

Very Best Wishes

Julius