The Glass House

We left Nelson on June 7, 2013, and caught the free ferry over to Crawford Bay.  Crawford Bay is home to several artisans – broom maker, glass blower, and weaver, to name a few – and we stopped in to check out some of their beautiful work.

On the ferry

Ella has an in-depth conversation with a local artisan

Then we headed further south along the Kootenay Lake to The Glass House.  I had heard of this glass house before, and Peter had been there several years ago.  I imagined that it was a little playhouse made of bottles, so I was quite impressed to see the real deal.

For $10 I did a little tour of the house and grounds.  The house, as it turns out, is full-sized and was built to live in by a Mr. Brown and his wife.  As an undertaker in Alberta, he had saved the empty bottles that were once full of embalming fluid, determined to make use of them instead of throwing them out. He asked others to save the bottles too, and in 1952, he began construction of his house on Kootenay Lake.

Pictures of the construction of the house

Lots and lots of bottles

The inside of the house was finished in 1953 and Mr. Brown and his wife lived in it together until he died in the early ‘70’s.  Around 600,000 bottles were used to construct the house and other features on the property.  Because of the interest shown by people passing through, the house was opened to visitors in the summer and staff continues to live in the house during the summer season.

Jackie in front of the glass house

The Glass House is such a cool place and definitely worth a stop.  Mr. Brown was a man ahead of his time!

Awesome landscaping down to the lake

Port Angeles, Washington

We reluctantly left Oregon and headed to Port Angeles, Washington on April 13, 2013.  Washington seemed nice enough, but it just didn’t have the same appeal as Oregon.  We spent two nights at the Elwha Dam RV Park, which was located a short walk away from the original dam site (thus their claim to be “The best RV park by a dam site”).  The dam was removed last year as part of the Elwha River restoration project.

Walking to the lookout

Former dam site

Creatures at the campground

We stopped by the Olympic National Park visitor’s center in Port Angeles, but were informed that the road in the park up to Hurricane Ridge was closed because it was covered in snow.  It seemed like a beautiful park, but the mountaintops were hidden behind clouds the whole time we were there.

Two days after arriving, we were wandering around downtown Port Angeles, waiting for the ferry that would take us back to Canada…

Ella spied this seahorse downtown

Port Angeles mural

Waiting for the ferry