Forum Overview :: Dwarf Fortress :: Parts of Vancouver Island are quite nice, indeed.

[quote name="Jerry Whorebach"]The capital city of Victoria, for example, is one of the sunniest cities in Canada, and receives less rain than Seattle. What's more, most of that falls during the rainy season - during the summer, Victoria is (incredibly) <i>the driest major city in Canada.</i> The climate down there is practically Mediterranean! They grow <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arbutus_menziesii">Arbutus</a> trees, which for my money are one of the most beautiful sights in nature. It was the perfect place for a walk in the woods, and I fucking loved it. If you try walking around here, though, you won't get very far. The ground is so choked with vegetation as to be impassable without a machete and a poncho. The treeline might as well be a 2D texture map on a solid polygonal wall. The forest is perpetually bathed in darkness and rot, and the only breaks in it are man-made. Tofino is nearly as bad, but being on the coast, you have access to those gloriously long, sandy beaches. What we have is a narrow inlet where the trees grow right into the water, which in turn rests on a thick sludge of untreated industrial waste colloquially refered to as the "fibre mat" (a product of the local pulp and paper mill; once the town's chief source of employment, now our chief source of unemployed millworkers). I guess what I'm saying is, the rainforest is a nice place to visit, but you wouldn't want to live here. Jesus, that sounded a bit negative. I'm really not unhappy in person. I'm trying to catch a laundry thief, for God's sake! Just thinking about it makes me smile. Anyway, here's how that's going: I discovered that the parking garage across the street affords an excellent view into the laundry room. So as not to attract attention during my stakeout, I'm going to wear a flat cap and pretend to read a newspaper. If that doesn't turn up anything, I think I might like to do that thing where you pin a bunch of photos to a cork board and string yarn between them. Oh! And a toothpick. I'm going to chew on a toothpick. And maybe a nice bear claw from the bakery. I should probably start carrying a detective's notebook to keep track of all these great ideas.[/quote]