alexandra bridge.

You can probably see a theme from my travels up north…snow and exploring. The original Alexandra Bridge was built in 1863, but destroyed by a flood in 1894 and dismantled in 1912. A new suspension bridge was built on the original footings in 1926, but decommissioned in 1964 in favor of a new bridge built a few miles down the river. Lucky for us, there's still a walking trail down to the old bridge, which makes for some awesome photo opportunities, especially when buried under a few feet of snow.

othello tunnels.

The Othello Tunnels are near Hope, BC, which is east of Vancouver. They're a series of five tunnels and a series of bridges over the Coquihalla River that used to be for trains. Now decommissioned, they're walking paths that are open to the public…in the summer. When we went, there was so much snow that they'd been closed and gated off. Never being ones to be easily deterred, we hopped the fence (well…Jeff hopped the fence…he threw me over). It was well worth it, albeit a bit creepy with the chance of falling icicles and rocks above us as we carefully made our way through the tunnels. By the time we were making our way back out, it had started to snow, which made the walk back even that much more beautiful.

stopping in spuzzum.

There are no shortages of places to explore in the general vicinity of Vancouver, BC. Lucky for me, I was able to fit quite a lot in over the course of my eleven days spanning from Christmas Day to just past New Years. Sometimes my explorations simply took me past interesting places, but didn't grant me enough time to actually stop and wander on foot. Spuzzum was one of those places. We almost drove straight through it without stopping, but I'd seen something worth a second look, so Jeff diligently turned his truck around and we made a few laps on the side streets as I instructed him to slow or stop whenever I spotted a photo I'd like to take. This tiny church sat on a corner and felt like it was straight out of a storybook with it's cute little steeple and snow-covered steps. How could I resist?