Finally

It is October first, a stellar Kootenay autumn day. The sky is a deep blue, the leaves are turning shades of rich bronze, yellow and red. The tamarack are beginning to turn an amazing gold. The colour comes to the top of the trees and then settles downward until half the forest is brilliant with autumn. A few more cold nights and the bull elk will be bugling. There are indelible sounds I’ve heard in the woods such as the call of elk challenging other bulls and the scream of cougars. The howling and yipping of wolves can never be forgotten and this morning I awoke to a serenade of coyotes. Familiar and comforting, to me it was a fitting song of farewell. I’m leaving, going back to Vancouver Island to reckon out what comes next.

Even my little buddy Squirelly seemed to know I was leaving. He came closer to me than ever before and was not, for once, skittish when I moved. It would not be long before he’d be sitting on my knee taking nuts from my hand but he’s best off to remain wild and self-reliant. After a day and a half of packing, my tools and most of my other belongings were stowed into the truck camper and trailer. I have acquired no new “stuff” but could not fit in all that I had brought with me in the spring. I cannot explain it. I’ve left behind my barbecue and my deck shelter, aka the wedding tent. There is just no room. Both are well-used, they owe me nothing but an explanation about the mystery of expanding stuff. My little trailer is groaning under its burden, the axle and drawbar are bowed from their load.

I’ve finally driven northward from the Newgate area. Wistful about departing I did not look back. The Kootenay region has a flavour which I love but the job went sour (or was it me) and I’m now eager to discover what lays ahead. At the moment I feel old and tired, my body is complaining about all the young man work I’ve been doing, but my projects are complete, the best is next to come, out there, somewhere around the bend. Tonight I’m sitting in some open meadows along a back country road beside the marshland along the Kootenay River just downstream of the village of Wasa. I could here the loud calls of migrating birds as the sun set. Now there is only the distant howl of tires on the highway and the throb and clatter of trains passing along the transcontinental mainline, about a kilometre distant. It is a moonless night. The stars throb and pulse in a black velvet sky. G’night.

In the morning I’m up with a fresh-perked black coffee watching as the world emerges from the dark. Despite a forecast of clear skies there is low cloud catching a tinge of pink. A bad sign, “Red sky in morning, sailor’s warning.” Yet the subtle colours are a visual feast. I move on. 

“Lost on the highway of life, something I’m good at writing about.

Sometimes you’ve been too beat up

or haven’t healed enough

to know a good thing when you’ve found it.

Sometimes you just gravitate to the pain,

it’s what you’re used to

it’s how you recognize yourself.

It feels like home

it feels more familiar to you than love.

So that’s where you go.

You don’t know how to hold on to love, but you know how to hold on to hurt.”

…Bruce Springstein

Did I mention the wolves? I learned about a wolf sanctuary near Golden and drove a long distance out of my way to see it. It tears my heart to see beautiful wild creatures pacing incessantly behind chain link fences yet it is a necessary evil to inform the public about the incredible ignorance imposed on wolves both by government and various organizations who choose to cling to fairy tales about these magnificent and misunderstood creatures.  These were difficult photos to take through the metal fencing. The wolves are well cared for and clearly loved as they pay the price of lost freedom to hopefully improve the plight of their fellows.