The first sign of Spring in Prince George is surely not the snowy weather and gusts of hail that we've been experiencing lately. No, Spring arrives with the tree planters. These intrepid young men and women arrive from all parts of Canada to get their hands dirty and their backs sore in order to reforest our clear cuts.

There's a vernal pattern to the planters' life in Prince George. On their days off from the bush, they descend to the city to get their laundry done, visit Value Village and then traipse to the library to use our free WiFi.

Read Charlotte Gill's delightful book Eating Dirt about the tree planting life in B.C.

On Monday May 7th, Canada and the rest of her allies during WWII, celebrated 67 years since Victory in Europe was declared and that awful war was over - at least in Europe.

Listen to live broadcasts from the BBC Archives from that time and the anecdotal stories from those who lived during the blitz.

BBC war reports. World War Two, on air and BBC war reports. World War Two, the home front

On April 21st, the beloved English novelist Charlotte Bronte will be commemorated by all readers who love her. She is apparently to have written in her journal in 1847, "I shall be thirty-one...My youth is gone like a dream; and very little use have I ever made of it."

She had four novels published and was 20 pages into a fifth when she died at the age of thirty-eight, possibly of typhus. She was pregnant with her first child.

Here it is, the day my mother says is an auspicious one for her, but for others, maybe not so much.

Never mind that we woke up this morning to hear that many Air Canada's pilots are suddenly 'sick' and can't fly their planes today, or that an earthquake has struck both Oaxaca Mexico and  Palermo Italy. We should be grateful that we've gotten off lightly. North Korea's satellite launch proved to be a bust for them yesterday (their Friday 13th), the Costa Concordia sank off the coast of Tuscany in January on Friday 13th and Italy, along with eight other countries had their credit rating downgraded on the same day their cruise ship sank.

Apparently, on this day (March 23rd) in 1913, Jack London, the author of The Call of The Wild and other books, brazenly wrote to Winston Churchill, George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells asking them what they got paid for their "stuff."

Really Jack, have some class.

Read a fascinating biography on Jack London called Wolf: the lives of Jack London .

Sheesh!