Grass. The beginning and the end. This large Black Boar is a rare breed originally from Southern England. They are allegedly docile but this big porker’s tusks and punctured ear (from fighting) aren’t reassuring. We’ll call him the Pope of Fort Steele.I am a dog guy but this little black cat won me over. I love this photo and had to share it.
This once mighty great white hunter (I was a classic legend in my own mind) has learned to respect and admire all of god’s creatures, great and small. Photos in this blog are often proof of that. I often conjecture that humans are clearly the only obviously alien life form on this planet. We don’t fit and can’t even get along with each other. I argue that even the lowliest creature we know has a place and a function which, even though we may not understand, ties it into all the other species which we have not yet rendered extinct. But then there is this one goddamned tiny housefly which is driving me crazy.
I’ve reasoned that because the average housefly lives only twenty-eight days this particular vexatious wee monster must, in fact, be several. But I’ve come to see it is a one-of-a-kind and I also think I’ve trained it to be annoying. It lights on my skin, then buzzes off in a second to land somewhere else. Every time I smack at it, the little bugger buzzes away and lands somewhere else. It knows. It flits in front of the computer monitor, daring me to take a whack at that and delights on landing on my knees. They’re both arthritic and I have a job right now that involves constant kneeling so those old hinges are especially painful. The last thing they need is an angry blow. It bloody hurts!
What sort of sound do flies make when they laugh? It is only here in the sticky warm evenings, never in the mornings and goes home as soon as I go to bed. I’m counting down from twenty-eight and look forward to finding it with its six little legs in the air on the middle of my table. Now that I’ve reduced myself to blogging about a single housefly I’llpost the rest of those Fort Steele photos.
“Just ‘cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.” George Carlin
“Hurry up, you don’t want to miss the school wagon.” I wonder when the ubiquitous school bus yellow first appeared.Ft Steele arose in the midst of rich placer mining. This large number of old mining carts is evidence there was also some serious underground mining in the area.No permits, no foundations, still able to provide shelter after a century.More shelter. No transgender outhouses back then.Well, yeah mebbe we can git ‘er goin’ agin. Come back on Tuesday.There is a sense that the town is still alive.What’s a WIFI?One of three hotels in town. One has been refurbished and is again letting rooms.The entire town was virtually levelled in a fire in 1906. This is the front of the town’s original bakery and the evidence is clear that it survived, barely. Now left to crumble at nature’s whim, the old stone ovens in the back are visible.A marriage of wits, steel and wood. This wheel was moved from a nearby mine where it once ran underground pumps.The southern approach. I could live there.As the business grew, so did the house. It would be a full time job keeping all those chimneys smoking.Images of this water wheel are used to identify all things Fort Steele.The REAL thing. This fir floor will outlast vinyl laminate flooring without doubt.I am not comfortable around churches but I’m a sucker for beautiful windows.An eastern view to a steaming tree. Very biblical.The latest in fire suppression. That’s it! A huge wood stove sat in the far end of the church.This old house.No microwave oven, no ice-maker, no big screen TV but the food was good. I can almost smell venison stew and baking bread.After the day’s work was done, you could sew your kids some new clothes. What’s a Walmart?What a piece of cabinetry to have in a clapboard house.What they had…and where they went!A big step up.What skills we’ve lost.The stone and the rope.The center of town. When everything was real horsepower.Y’all come back now.Another dimension of the good old days. Always a wonderful thing to see and hear, this beautiful locomotive is only ninety-eight years old. It cam from Vancouver Island as a donation from the MacMillan Bloedel CompanyA vision from my childhood. Yes I’m that old.A horse’s regard for technology.Granite cumulus. After the rain, heading for Forte Steele. It was a good day.Up the Kootenay River where the paddle wheelers used to go.
“Hey wartlips! Ever think that of all the frogs you’ve kissed, some might have been toads?” This tiny guy was in the garage. I put him in the weeds where he was much safer.My greeter at Fort Steele. She’d be four feet tall…laying down! Methinks there’s a baby donkey soon to arrive.
Where I live in my camper there is an adjoining parcel of land. The small lot is rented by a family who keep a large holiday trailer there. They spend a lot of time here and their two lovely children are often in the yard with a screaming mob of their friends. Last night, the small blond freckled girl sat alone in her swing and began to sob. Between choking wails I heard her repeat “my puppy, my puppy.” I believe she was grieving for the old family golden retriever ‘Roxy’ who had to be put down recently because the old girl was suffering horribly. Of course this “grumpy old bastard” (as I’ve recently been labelled,) was in tears himself. There was no way I could comfort the poor wee thing without someone taking umbrage. I sat thirty feet away and shared her sorrow.
On a cheerier note I have a chipmunk living in my woodpile, darned if I can get a photo of the tiny beauty…yet. And, we’ve had a lovely, steady two day rain. It was bliss to drift off to sleep in my bunk with the drops drumming over my head, and to awaken with the same music. I guess I’m a coastal boy, through and through. For the moment the dust is settled. I took advantage of the weather to visit Fort Steele, a preserved historic town site a few miles north of Cranbrook. I reckoned that with the unpredictable weather, and soft light, it would be a great day to take some good photos. There were few people there and I had a grand time with both still and video cameras. So here is a photo essay about a wonderful place.
Fort Steele was an outpost set high on a bluff overlooking the tumbling green waters of the Kootenay River. I stood looking down on the river and thinking what a good fishing hole I was seeing when a movement drew my eyes up the opposite bank and into a small meadow beside a clear pond. Three whitetail deer, two does and a fawn, were frolicking. They hopped and bucked, whirled round and leapt. They seemed to be dancing. I was too mesmerized to raise my camera. As so often happens, the best photo of the day was the one that got away.
Automatic, fully enviro-friendly, self-fertilizing lawnmower beside a square-hewn log wall. Downtown Fort Steele. Imagine if we traded our lawnmowers for sheep.Boiled lawnmower complete with recipes on the label.Lots of selection, so long as it’s in a can. All the homes had big gardens.Gardens like this, complete with deer fence and outhouse. Solar clothes dryer in neighbour’s yard.The poser. a black cat from the Blacksmith shopNorthwest Mounted Police headquarters and a glimpse into the old parade square. In the back, stables and barracks were hard to tell apart. How times have changed!Nothing personal I’m sure. These guys were more interested in breakfast than in me.The ubiquitous one-room school. apparently there were up to ninety students at times.Enough saidThe assayer’s office. Mining was the center of all activities in the area.In the blacksmith shop. Branding irons, wheel assemblies and a faller’s saw.I have an affinity for blacksmith shops and feel completely at home. Maybe in a previous life…?A trademark image of Fort Steele, I always thought it was a bastion or a guard tower. It is in fact, the town water tower. that’s not so disappointing.Hooped. Old wheel rims.He were going’ ninety mile an hour when the wheel fetched off into the ditch. What is the real story?Plenty of parking in the back.Even big wheels eventually make a final turn. And so the rest of the Fort Steele portfolio will have to wait until next blog. Happy trails.
“ Discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” – Marcel Proust
I’ve often lived where the howl of wolves or coyotes is a regular sound. This morning I sit writing while waiting for the coffee to perk as early dawn softly filters through the trees. The coyotes are there. I love their sounds. Others may curse them but for me it is a song of wildness and freedom that is very comforting. I’m up early so I can beat the heat. In the afternoon the stifling interior of the shelter where I work in a welter of dust and itchy fibreglass is unbearable. Now I sit wearing a jacket. It’s chilly, for now.
A secretIndelible boyhood memoriesMore childhood memories in the making
Tonight I’m exhausted and feeling like an old man. Somedays it seems extra stifling and tonight, in addition to the dust there is a heavy acrid tang of wildfire smoke as well as a warm and fuzzy aroma from a broken fitting in the septic field. It’s a little taste of hell. Still, we’re doing fine and when I hear stories of more Covid19 outbreaks, lockdowns, droughts, floods and military actions around the world, I know we’re OK. I also am happy to report that my old camper now has a functional water heater. It certainly seems decadent to get hot water out of a tap after many months of heating it in a kettle.
I can also report that due to my contribution, someone in Cranbrook is waking up in clean underwear between clean sheets. I took my laundry to town yesterday and it was promptly stolen from the dryer and replaced mysteriously with someone else’s. The price of replacement bedding and clothing is stellar. I found a few items in the thrift stores and then the box stores but I still paid a small ransom to replace my rags. Although we are in the heat of mid-summer, trying to find summer togs was almost hopeless and so somewhere there may go a naked clown. I’ve got his costume. How about jungle camouflage and plaid? I did find some great deals on parkas! *
My tenure here has descended into a sort of madness which I will not discuss but at least now I’m now doing the work I came to do. I’m fixing boats for my duration here and then I’ll be going on to new adventures. So it’s warm drinking water and tepid beer with dreams of palm trees and cactus. I’ve been pre-conditioned.
On Sunday night I sat outside with the computer when a vicious sou’west wind began to blow. I had sat like an old, panting dog and that wind felt so very good. Pine needles and cones rattled down, then the wind eased as quickly as it had begun. Minutes later a solitary raindrop fell on my bare back; then another. A gentle warm rain began and I sat in bliss with the rain on my skin. I considered running naked in the rain and then I saw headlines in my imagination about the sighting of a geriatric sasquatch. So I just sat and savoured every spatter of moisture on my skin. So simple, so pleasant! I came inside and prepared for bed. The air was cool and sweet and dust-free. I checked the temperature, it was down to 27º C. It almost felt chilly! G’night.
Morning dawns with a low muggy overcast. August 2nd, almost halfway through summer. A first vehicle comes crunching down the gravel road above this little community. Another day begins.
DryTired old loaders still earning their way. That’s me on the left helping out in a local gravel pit.Unbelievably I used to sell this type of loader in the early 80sFifty-plus and still working. This old GMC truck has a Caterpillar diesel engine. If it can be started it’ll work all day.Creature comforts, 1970 style. Now just stick the orange wire in here and the blue and pink one there, it should go.
* Astriks
One of my heroes of fifty years ago was a character named Charlie Farquharson who was played by CBC’s Don Harron. This pithy and earthy character wrote a book and produced calendars often punctuated with Astriks as above. They were followed by “feetnotes” and so here are my ass tricks. This morning a co-worker arrived with an armload of folded laundry. Within the stack was most of the laundry I thought had been “stolen”. I was gobsmacked. What the hell? It seemed like a very weird dream. I know I had removed it from the washer and stuffed it into my laundry bag. I used the washroom next door then picked up my bag, tossed it into my truck and headed for town. All I could puzzle out was that some well-intended soul, trying to be helpful, somehow put the right stuff in the wrong bag. Dunno, dunno! That would explain why there was strange laundry in the machine at the laundromat in town and why the review of surveillance video showed no-one tampering with anything. Damn this is confusing. If any four-legged creature wandered out of the woods and began talking to me, I don’t think I’d be at all surprised. Weird! The latest word is that this has happened to other folks here. Apparently we have a prankster. Now I have to go back to that town laundromat and try to retrieve the laundry that had been left there. Good grief! And here I am writing a blog about laundry. Good grief again.
Mid-summer boysWho me?Let”s hoof it!There…hidden.Don’t wiggle your ears, no-one will see you.Spring twins. big and healthy and being weaned.Ahhh All the deer in these phots are mule deer. Just after this photo a moron on a jet ski charged this pair and chased them off.The upstream tack. Sailing close-hauled up the Kootenay River.
“You see, back when we were all young kids we had these things called imaginations. Some of us still have ’em, and we control our lives much the same way we ruled over our imaginary childhood kingdoms.”
