A Twenty-Two Thousand Dollar Camping Trip

What’s warmer and fuzzier than a child playing with a dog, especially when it’s a dog who usually doesn’t like children. This moment made my day.

Nearly everybody loves a parade. Especially if it is their own. Yesterday while driving home from Nanaimo the highway was clogged. Our sleepy little island has become what I call “Surrey West.” There is every style of driving at play and how our roads are not heaped with bodies daily is indeed a miracle. The passing lane was backed up yesterday although everyone was hurtling along well above the speed limit. There was no room for error.

At the head of that zooming parade was a pickup truck with Washington license plates pulling a very large Grady White powerboat on a trailer. It had two 300hp outboards hanging on the transom. A thirty foot boat with 600 horsepower is insanity! Nevertheless what what I really noted was the huge American flag flapping from the boat’s rigging as the T-Rump undergraduate declared his self-absorbed arrogance. When I described this aberration to my wife she declared it an act of aggression. I think she is right. It seemed an American solution was in order, one which involves several machine guns. Do NOT come into my country to piss on my head. This Canadian is not inclined to be warm and fuzzy toward such an affront; eh! Maybe we should build a wall!

It’s that time of the year again. The annual salmon spawn is on.

The elk are getting into the mood. The incumbent patriarch is chasing off an usurper. His defeated rump is dissappearing into the brush on the left.

One of the issues on our national plate these days is to continue the plan to purchase a load of several F35s from the US. At this summer’s Abbotsford Air Show an F35 was part of the spectacle. A news story had an expert describing the wonders of this aircraft and how it was “The most technically advanced fighter aircraft ever.” The flight demonstration was cancelled at mid-point due to “technical difficulties.” Say no more. Through my lifetime of being around things mechanical, the ultimate sophistication is always about simplification. A friend recently described problems with his electronic kitchen faucet. He loved the device but parts and support were in Toronto. I suggested a simple turn-the-knob tap from the local hardware store. Yeah but…

In a documentary about a village in rural Russia running water there involved a well with a windlass and a bucket on a rope. The water was murky. You run home with a pail in each hand. Everyone gathered around the well waiting to crank up their daily water declared Russia to be the best country in the world. Da! Perspectives. Here, we’ve had a rainy twenty-four hours. The earth slurped it up greedily. But now it is early autumn, all teetering on that one day of desperately needed moisture. Hopefully a majority of gringos are going back into the woodwork as we grab a few days of residual summer.

The sad state of our island railroad. We desperately need it back in service. There is little hope apparently.

In the interior, Indian Summer comes after a first frost. Here it is after that first serious day of rain. The weather at the moment is perfect so… we know that only fools and newcomers predict the weather. Frankly those girls on TV wearing tight skirts can go to hell with their atmospheric rivers and predictions with newly invented words. I am an old-school pilot and mariner. I can still out-predict them usually with an eye on the barometer and the sky; and know that I’m no smarter than I look! Just get in tune with the home planet.

Last week we went to a place called Saratoga Beach Resort. It is halfway between Courtenay and Campbell River. It looks out across broad white sands to Mittlenatch Island, Desolation Sound and the coastal mountains beyond. We have been driving past this place for forty years and wonder how we have missed it. The RV park is small and patronized by quiet and friendly people. The beach is stunning with spectacular views of the the mainland coast and the rugged mountains inland. I know that part of the coast intimately and take great comfort in seeing old familiar haunts even if from ashore.

A view to mainland Canada and Desolation Sound.

On the drive up from Ladysmith it was once again obvious that our old yellow pickup truck was a little too light for towing our trailer. While doing a quick search online to see what decent used trucks were available, and affordable, (virtually none) I found one at a used car lot only two miles away. Go figure! We went for a look. All I’ll say is that this is the story of a twenty-two thousand dollar camping trip. Any other similar used truck was easily twice the price. Jill has done an amazing job of shaking our scrawny money shrubs and she gleaned what we needed. We’ve just bought a house and the ribs on the piggy bank are showing. My imagination is beggared at what folks are paying for used vehicles with very high mileage. New vehicle prices, for me, are incomprehensible. How the hell do people survive while supporting such high prices? We have an enviable lifestyle and nobody is shooting at us, yet, but we seem determined to live within a growing hairball of need and greed.

Das Voody. Locals line up for burgers cooked in the old bus.

A Dodgy truck, a 1960 D100. The Dodge I bought is 68 years newer. It is very nice but I think I’d rather have the old one. Despite the rust-hole, it is in amazing condition.

At this time of year many folks are able to flaunt a well-bronzed body. However every year one of the signs of summer’s end is men in shorts with a glaring fluorescent pair of shanks. Where they’ve been since spring, with their legs hidden away, is anyone’s guess but Geez Louise! They sure stand out. It is an annual phenomenon which perhaps precludes the winter shorts gang who are out in several feet of snow with glowing red legs. There are also other folks already in wool toques and parkas which leaves me wondering at the togs they’ll sport come winter. It is a cute wee conundrum to have along with taking for granted having food, clean water, hospitals and other infrastructures for all who want them. God bless us every one.

On a final note of how we are so blessed here I sat yesterday on a bench beside the Nanaimo River. The dogs and I were out for our daily walk. The water was crystal clear. I soon noticed that I could see spawning salmon swimming up in mid-stream. I am always drawn to think of their incredible journey, out into mid-Pacific and then back to exactly the same place they were spawned. To have fish and a clean river full of fresh water is an abundance we take for granted. Autumn arrives and the cycle of life continues.

Is this a sign of autumn or did a passing dog leave a pee mail?

“When you get to the end of your rope, there’s often a little more rope.” anon

More rain tonight. Looking out from my desk as I post this blog.

A Rude Awakening

Ya missed it. By 40 years! It is hard to hold a sense of time, and of infinity in this vast place. Here on the coast, where land now seems valued by the square inch, it’s hard to comprehend the openess even when you see it.

Abandoned bridge for sale. Well not really; it’s just sitting there. Once an engineering feat, now it is someone’s nuisance.

An abandoned railway trestle. Can you see steam locomotives chuffing across this amazing structure? The photo shows about half of it. I mentioned beautiful air-dried old growth timber. Here’s some. It looks as if the post in the foreground is propping the whole thing up. The trestle is somewhere east of Sakatoon.

Boom, boom, boom, boom. The noise came from far away. I didn’t know or care where. I just wanted to stay deep within the sleep I’d been enjoying. Then I remembered. I was on my bed in my trailer. I was on a ferry boat. Oh shit!

I’d driven from Salmon Arm, planning on stopping for the night somewhere along the way. I knew a place but drove on by, then another until finally I was in Hope. No campgrounds appealed to me. Now the gauntlet of the Fraser Valley Trans Canada Highway lay before me. I remembered the ordeal in getting out of the lower mainland. Reasoning that if it was that bad during the day, then in the morning when the whole world was rushing into the city area it would be very, very bad. Westward I went and soon enough the traffic was bumper to bumper, lurching forward up to 100kph then slamming to a stop. There were the usual idiots trying to weave in and out and the worst were the heavy trucks. Then the rain became serious. It poured. I hoped the thick layer of prairie grasshopper DNA on the trailer front was softening.

The rain continued as I boarded the ferry at Tsawassen. There was room for only one highway tractor behind me. I slipped into the trailer for a wee nap. Two hours later, boom, boom, wake up old man. The poor buggers must have been wondering what they had on their hands. I stumbled out groggily to find myself and the truck stuck behind all alone on the vast emptiness of the lower vehicle deck. There was a tribunal of unhappy deckhands standing with arms crossed. Then my key stuck in the ignition and would not turn. Finally the nightmare ended as I drove off the ferry and into the cloak of darkness. In the morning I discovered that despite nineteen feet of metal trailer to pound on, one star had decided to break a window. Collateral damage for my stupidity. The truck stuck behind behind me on the ferry passed without a friendly toot, toot. All’s well that ends.

Lenore, downtown. All of it. Typical of hundreds of small prairie towns desperately clinging to life. I was inclined to join them. There is a certain peace knowing what is not coming. Amazingly, many of these communities have memorials going back to WWI. This one had a monument flanked with genuine vintage Lewis guns.

I include a motley collection of images from my trip. In retrospect I should have continued in my meander mode and not rushed home. There were no events I could change in person, I simply needed to demonstrate that I cared. They knew that and the world turns just fine with or without me. I’d go again in a flash, the leaves were just going into their autumnal tones and a spectacular photo season is about to begin. I regret not stopping in so many places which held some great photos. I have long looked forward to exploring Drumheller for example, but the pretty town in a lovely valley seemed like a bizarre Disney effort with people swarming everywhere. The Rv campground I saw looked like a version of hell. I did not stop and dragged the trailer up the steep hill on the other side of the valley. My recently rebuilt knee did not feel like it wanted to wander far on foot.

“Son, here’s a tire gauge. Go check those tires. There’s only fifty of them.”

Here is the pusher truck hooked to the back of that trailer. I could have used it at times!

I don’t know what these enormous tanks are but I wouldn’t brake-check the trucks carrying them.

Yeah, yeah just another shot of my little rig. Now look out on the highway behind. That is one rotor for a windmill. Compare the blade’s root to the tractor carrying it. The trailer is clamped on far behind. Whoosh! That thing twirls around like a kid’s toy.
It puts things prairie in perspective.

The outskirts of Calgary are a sprawling urban mess with mega houses (Note I don’t say homes) up long lanes behind hideous gates. If it is an impression they’re trying to make, they did and it wasn’t positive. Banff has become a hideous neo-faux attempt at a glossy Western theme with waves of tourists wandering everywhere and sipping sexy little coffees in outdoor bistros and wondering what in hell they paid so much for. At a gas station there, I discovered a bidet. In a gas station! Imagine going to the attendant and complaining that the bidet was malfunctioning. “fired me right up against the ceiling!” I also remember being stuck in rush-hour traffic on the “Circle Drive” around Saskatoon. It was hot and the air reeked of hydroponic marijuana smoke. Not a stereotypical home prairie moment. Well, maybe these days it is!

Ya missed it. By 40 years! It is hard to hold a sense of time, and of infinity in this vast place. Here at home on the coast, where land now seems valued by the square inch, it’s hard to comprehend the openess.

Much of the old prairie has disappeared. Old homestead buildings and machinery are mostly gone. I’m told they are often simply buried. Whole little towns are gone or going until at times there is only a name board left on the roadside. Train stations and the metal rails have vanished and the nostalgia days of the prairie pioneers are forgotten. One lady, whom I flagged down for directions, know nothing of the old Miner Creek school. It turns out that her house was built on the exact same site of the historic one-room school building.

Agriculture has become an industrial monster which sits in the same show circle as mining, oil/gas, transportation, neo energy. The romance of any of it is lost. It is an industry. Art has become science. Soon the entire Trans Canada Highway will all be a four-lane hurtle-shute and with our modern vehicles, folks won’t even need to look out their windows.

The bright lights of Manyberries. An old stock yard, a few houses, no post office, corner store or gas pump. The wind whistles through it. The station is now someone’s house but nobody was home.

On the broad lawn of the Orthodox church near Smuts, thousands of these beauties sat in the grass and trembled in the wind.

There were copious motorcycles on nearly every road. It seemed that black-clad riders sat on bellowing black Harley Davidsons and rocketed along in small groups. It looked glorious. I did wonder at the riders with no face protection and what taking a grasshopper in the eye, at ninety miles an hour, was like. It must certainly deplete one’s testosterone level. I repeat that if you find the prairies flat and boring, you are flat and boring. The nuances and visual dramas are everywhere and the beauty is overwhelming. I can also say I met no-one I disliked.

Due South. We can fly, the grader’s just been by. He’s a smooth operator.

It’s amazing how buildings begin to crumble once they’re abandoned.

The ubiqitous prairie slough. If only you had one of these! Can we call this waterfront property?

1″ clear cedar tongue and groove in the ceiling! You cannot find lumber like that anymore.

Despite all the work, the dreams, the suffering, all things eventually return to the earth.

A bee falls in lust with its reflection in a screw head on my kayak.

A public school. Can you smell the dusty books?

Smoke, heat , dust and wind, It was a prairie summer day.

Isn’t it amazing how this all works? These grain cars will probably end up in Vancouver and their cargo will go on around the world.

A small private grain elevator. Could it make an interesting house? Good views!

Another token of the prairies. Horsehead oil wells bob their heads in herds all over the prairies. The arrangements are complicated. Don’t assume the farmers are making a high return from having these on their land.

There are thousands of prairie sloughs, small and large, natural and man-made. With all the grain fields it is heaven for waterfowl… and, for hunters.

Are you drinking enough? That was the sign above the toilet in the tire shop at Tisdale SK. Bemused I discovered a colour chart which showed what your urine should like if you consume an adequate amount of water. Humour, don’t leave home without it, it helps keep you alive no matter where you are.

If your dog runs away you’ll be able to see it for the next three days.

All’s well that ends. I’m home again on Fraggle Rock, with twenty-five miles of Pacific Ocean separating me from the motherland. Vancouver Island is a wonderful place to live but I ache to be on the road again.

Wow! After weeks on the prairie mountains are especially breath-taking.

A bridge in the Kicking horse Pass. I thought it was brilliant. Look at the constant grade it joins.

My greeter. This Pileated Woodpecker dropped by to say hello where I stopped in Salmon Arm. He’s about 18″ long. You never know who or what is just around the corner.

Marcel Proust

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Phew!

Icon of the praires and sometimes a curse, in large numbers they can morph into locusts and destroy crops. In places I could not travel with my hand out the window. They hit like bullets.

They also tried hard to plug my radiator.

The artillery began just as I started to cook supper. It cracked overhead and all around. Lightening, pink blue and white, slashed in evil forks. That wonderful ozone aroma rose as rain turned the mud to dust. A little Asian boy in the camp site next door screamed in terror. Then rain hammered biblically and became mixed thickly with hail. The RV park was awash. The ripe grain is taking a beating.

The harvest is on, fast and furious. A whole year’s crop can be destroyed by a storm in a few minutes. Farmers are natural gamblers.

In days past this tiny contraption is what you rode night and day to bring in the grain. No GPS, no A/C, no stereo.

My aunt has stories of driving a grain truck through the night after a days work in the house and barnyard.

I have been here all day. I have not turned a wheel but still feel exhausted. I’m going to bed as new thunder rumbles and approaches. Rosetown Saskatchewan has a great municipal campground, many prairie communities do, but it’s westbound for me again tomorrow. I was going to simply park for a few days but I have a sense of urgency about things at home. This blog will be a photo essay. It is impossible to convey the vastness of this place. The land holds a magic and beauty I try to convey. I hope you can sense it.

On top of everything else you had to obe able to fix it too.

Inc luding welding. It looks like hell but it held!
The ubiquitous farmer weld. i’m told that at times pieces of fence wire were all there was to use as welding rod.

A quiet industry. It was very peaceful. Each photo has the background music of wind.

They were happy bees and tolerated my intrusion.

Can you hear the faint echo of children playing? Perhaps the slam of a door on a dark winter night? A cloud would form inside the door when it was opened at low temperature. Can you smell wood or coal smoke, perhaps the aroma of baking? There might be a whisper of snow blowing past in the eternal wind.

Always a view. There is a story about an old prairie farmer who did not like his vist to the West Coast. “Couldn’t see anything for all the damned mountains in the way!” Beyond the slough a church stands on the ridge.

This church! The nearest community name is Smuts.

Family and church is what made the whole story work through some very hard times.

In downtown Hudson Bay. A few doors away was the town funeral service…in a mobile home.

In downtown Alvena. It is sadly crumbling.

Did the priest have to get up early on Sunday to light the stove? Did the elderly get to sit closest to it?

Inside the original log structure. Note the welding repairs on the bell’s clapper.

Clearly hand-made. You can see the axe marks. Everything is assembled with mortise and tenon joints and pegs. I believe the wood used is poplar. It is a testament to old-world skills, fortitude and belief in the future.

Still cherished today. I am not at all religious but I admire a communal faith which continues to sustain these hardy people.

Sunday morning finds me waking up in Cochrane Alberta, It was a long haul to get across Saskatchewan and Alberta. There was a vicious SW gale blasting on the nose. Walls of dust rose in the fields. If I were on a boat I’d be sailing on a storm jib but we weren’t and gas consumption was atrocious bucking into that wind. I pulled into one gas station with the low fuel light on. The station was closed. Thank goodness for the jerry can I insist on carrying. We staggered into Hanna on fumes. It kept this old pilot on edge. I’m turning my determined meander into a marathon. Next weekend is Labour Day and BC Ferries will be a hellacious five day gap to try and avoid. This morning I can see mountains. The ocean is just over on the other side. I’ve backed the trailer into a spot fringed with signs forbidding parking. I’ve left my tracks in the mud, so find me if you can.

I cannot help but try to imagine the wide open prairies before we white folks invaded them. Imagine the sense of unbridled freedom. No wonder the first nation peoples felt a little pissed off.

I end up in a campground in Salmon Arm, a long weary day complete. The traffic was horrific but smooth. The Trans Canada is being widened. Completed sections are fabulous with four lanes of whoosh. I prefer the low slow way but that’s my problem. Imagine if old Colonel Rogers could see it now. As I sink into a weary sleep a train passes. I wonder if it is one of the same I heard from my bed in Virden.

Canadians love to brag about their distant exotic vacations. They often tell me how dreadfully boring it is crossing the prairies. Then there is the endless arboreal monotony of Northern Ontario. I guess you have to want to see your country and if you won’t look, well…! I didn’t see half of the place, west to east. If I ever made it all the way across to the East Coast, our country also runs as far north and south. We’re free to see it all. It is ours, the whole place.

A dip in the crick. A lovely pastoral view among the eternal undulating plain. More photos next blog.

No matter where you are, it is important to remember that you are “Almost there!”

For Aunt Florence

For Aunt Florence

(And the wonderful family I didn’t really know I had)

The family farm down in the Pipestone River Valley. This photo hangs in the hall by her door in the senior’s home where Aunt Florence now lives and is well-attended by three generations of descendants. I photographed that image. I’ve been there and it really is beautiful.

A view from Butler Hill Farm; yep that’s the same beautiful barn. My cousin divided his parent’s farm with a daughter and her husband. What a feeling it must be to carry on a family business and a tough but fine way of life.

Near the farm is the little community of Cromer and its church which is clearly dear to my aunt.

“Bringing in the sheaves” Auntie calls the emergency monitor around her neck her “cowbell.”

I have decided to post this blog in honour of my dear Aunt Florence with whom I have spent the past too few days visiting. Getting to know her, her sons, her grand children and great grand children has been very uplifting. I’ve learned much and am delighted in meeting family who are outstanding and all are people to be cherished. I hold my head a little higher.

A beautiful example of a stone house in downtown Virden Manitoba.

There was once a brickyard nearby. I am not, of course, showing the humbler clapboard homes on the same tree-lined streets. This one’s for sale, but let me tell you about the winters.

What would Virden be without the railway? Just another bit of prairie?

My other cousin’s house in Kenton MB. It is over a hundred years old but is solid, and very cosy and homey. I instantly loved it. He bought it for $10,000! It needed a few renovations but… he owns it. Outright!

Sadly it was time to go far too soon. Leaving Virden was not a happy event for me. I drove as far as Yorkton and then turned due North. I decide that while miles out of the way, after all that family business, I’ll probably never be back this way again. I’d better go and try find my mother’s childhood haunts. The scenery changed to scrub bush and swamps. I began to expect moose to leap out in front but I saw none. Finally, a few miles before the town of Hudson Bay farmland reappeared as a mixture of rolling fields and and forest interspersed with plenty of waterways. The area must be a hunter’s delight. It is beautiful to my eye. In the Co-op store I ask an old man if he’s lived here long. He nods, but when I ask if he knows anything about the Eldersley area he says he’s never heard of it. I explain that it is the next town down the road but he’s stumped. Now that’s parochial! Uhuh!

Weyerhauser has an OSB plant there and now on the road, logging trucks compete with all the grain and oil heavies. Roads in swampy land roll and pitch, driving require full concentration. I discover another damned flat tire on the trailer. I change it but cannot find a tire shop and decide to just go find a place to sleep for the night. I was stung on the shoulder yesterday by a tiny wasp. It is still swollen and painful, right up my neck as well, so a good night in the rack is just the ticket. I’ve found a clearing tucked back in the woods out of sight from the road. It has been a very long time since I’ve been in a black spruce forest like this. Short with thick limbs, a whole industry has been built around this forest which sprawls across the entire Canadian Shield.

Best logged in sub-zero temperatures, when the ground is frozen, they have several months of that here each year. It is no country for this old man anymore. But the mosquitoes still like me.

A prairie bush berry. Folks may call them soap berries. They make a lovely bit of colour within thickets of spruce trees.

The apex of my odyssey. The land adjacent is where the one-room school once stood. Nothing is forever but this marks where my moom and all ten of her siblings attended. no-one seemed to get beyond grade 4. Most proved to be clever people who went on to lead interesting lives. I asked a lady but she didn’t know a thing. It turns out her house is built on the ruins of the old schoolhouse.

I drive west and finally see a sign for Miners Creek. This is the site of the schoolhouse which the whole immediate family of my mother. My mother and all her brothers and sisters grew up in a homestead shack within walking distance. The nearest townsite is Eldersley. It is almost completely gone. A few miles west is Tisdale where I stopped for a new trailer tire. One geezer, when queried if he lived here long, replied that he was a newcomer. When pressed, he told mine that he’d only arrived in 1939! Another old fellow replied that he vaguely recalled the family name but nothing more. He did know about the old schoolhouse and confirmed that the site was now a farmer’s house and yard. My family mission was accomplished as far as possible. Home calls.

The Eldersley train station is long gone. I think the small elevator was there. I vaguely remember that from my last visit 69 years ago. My mother probably boarded the eastbound train to Toronto from here with a gleam in her eye. Guess I’m the result!

That old building sits beside the tracks and may be from my mother’s time so long ago. It looks as if there may have been a baseball field there at one time.

Miners Creek trickles on. Some day it will arrive at some ocean. The name remains a benchmark in my sense of family history.

Somewhere in a near radius of where I stood to take this photo is where my grandparents, and all their chidren, tried to carve a homestead farm out of the forest, one tree at a time. They did not know it couldn’t be done but perservered. It took the next generation, and the next, to find a foothold. Life goes on. When it rains, these dusty prairie roads become muddy trails the oldtimers call “gumbo.”

Tisdale. A priaire landmark. i don’t how old this water tower is but it marks what were the bright lights of town for the surrounding farmers. I’ve repeatedly heard a lot about going to Tisdale. I vaguely remember the broad main street of the old town. It wasn’t paved back then. While I waited for a new trailer tire, I ate at Tim Hortons, then headed west.

I should mention all the splendid photos I’ve had to drive by. Shoulders on prairie highways are narrow, steep and soft. It was too dangerous to stop and capture spectacular sights when dragging my trailer. Today finds me in a RV park just on the outskirts of Rosetown Saskatchewan. Morning light sifted through a heavy fog and I drifted back to sleep. I awakened to the music of snarling crop dusters taking off from the nearby airfield. I’m staying the whole day as the warm prairie wind rises now and begins to moan. It was a near-incessant sound which, apparently, drove some of the homesteaders insane. Others endured quite nicely.

A girl on a swing. Still looking good at 87. Her life as a prairie girl and farm wife (67 years) deserve a book. Wow! the things she knows! The hardships and triumphs and surrounding family leave me feeling humble and very, very proud. I love you all.

“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can.” ―Frida Kahlo.

Prairie Schoonering

A prairie schooner was apparently the name given to the covered wagons and carts used by the first white settlers. Apparently, from a distance, they held the appearance of white boat sails. It sounds romantic. Uhuh!

Aliens! If I saw one of these on my lawn I’d come out with my hands up. They are appently called air seeding drills. the discs furrow into the ground then compressed air blasts in seed, Beats hand-casting I guess. Not cheap I’m sure.

Yesterday was weird. The day began with a missing pot of margarine. It had utterly vanished and I cannot tell what happened. Just a crack of senility I guess. Then I hit the wee deer. To ice my cake I lost my second drone. I drove on into the gathering darkness and rolling squalls until I finally found a level paved place. I settled in as a dog barked in the distance. ( Next morning there are two pots of margarine in the fridge! WTF?) Is this senility or just stupidity?

As I finally drifted into sleep, a raucous chorus of deep barking broke out right outside my bedroom window. Two big white dogs had appeared and seemed determined to roust this interloper. They spent the night laying beside the trailer and taking turns re-waking the dead. Dog-lover that I am I was not about to go out into the dark and try to make friends. This morning they lingered until I opened my door. Gone! I am knackered. I’m starting the day with a stout coffee as I write this. There is some tinkering to do on the truck, a bath and some breakfast and then my little wagon train will lurch on eastward. Actually, by morning, I realized the dogs were barking at coyotes who lurked all around within the wandering herds of cattle.
Maybe they were guarding my trailer.

When I stepped out of the trailer there she was! The big girl was there, all wiggles and waggles. She’d been there a long while. I have the suspicion that she had been abandoned. Bits of her fur hung in the fence. Was she waiting for her last human to return? The other dog must have gone home to some distant farm. This beauty was gracious, sweet and completely endearing. Lame in one foot, covered in dreadlocks, emaciated and begging for love she had found the king of the dog-lovers. Damn and double goddamn! How I wanted to bring her along. I fed her and petted her.

I rationalized my conundrum both ways. Ultimately, cold practicality won over passion and even our instant bonding. She is a big girl and there is not enough room for her in the passenger seat. We already have two dearly loved dogs. I have a long trip ahead. I can only pray that someone will open their heart as she waits at the turnout. Driving away from where my drone had hidden itself was not at all as heart-rending as seeing this beautiful girl in the rear view mirror. I shed tears and will wonder at her fate for a very long time. Wot a sop!

Yeah? Well you might have a hot tub in your RV but I’ve got a sandbox! This is the second cleaning.

I drove onto a gravel portion of highway, dog thoughts overwhelming me, I forgot to close the roof vents in the trailer. They very efficiently inhaled what seems like a bushel of dust. It is insidious stuff and I’ll be cleaning it away for months ahead. But what’s a little dust to this incredible open land. Wildlife abounds here. From amazing flowers and birds to pronghorn antelope and deer, I even saw a huge black cow moose! As I write this I am beside an old corral where I’ve spent the night. The prairie wind moans softly through those roof vents. It is very peaceful. I fight the urge to turn back and look for my dog friend. Here, I am endeared by a tiny ground squirrel. Sop! East, old man, east!

A sqinny, also known as a thirteen-striped ground squirrel.

I am overcome with a sense of wonder at the vastness. It is very much like being out at sea. It is endless. I swear I have passed through a trillion acres of fertile open land. How we humans have fought to conquer it. I see the remnants of homestead farms, some abandoned entirely, some have clearly prospered through the following generations. Everything is huge. The machinery, the homes, the size of the farms. How did anyone think they could prosper with a quarter-section of land and perhaps a horse? But they took joy in their freedom and never looked back. Nearly everything was done by hand. That’s one reason families were so huge; manpower! It also was a good way to stay warm on a bitter cold prairie night and what the hell else was there to do?

My musings shifted and I looked at all this land. You can drive all day and it stays the same. Vast is such a tiny word to describe something so incomprehensibly huge. Then it occurs to me that all this land is broken, tended, seeded, harvested, then shipped. The product is distributed globally and processed so that some green-belly self-proclaimed environmental fantasist can go into any corner cafe and have a muffin! All of that industry requires the consumption of incalculable amounts of diesel fuel. We are ALL part of the problem. DO NOT start talking about electric tractors. It won’t happen, not even with ten times more windmills planted out in the fields.

How do! Downtown Maple Creek Sask. after a cloudburst.

Bear in mind also that this massive hairball of food production is utterly dependant on the whims of nature. One badly-timed severe storm, a drought, a too-wet season, a wildfire, the dark possibilities are endless. Yes even locusts and grasshoppers. As I drove along with my hand hanging out into the rush of warm air it began to be bulleted by these flying protein bombs. I’m told they’re tasty fried, and crunchy. They hurt like hell too! This year is very dry so the wheat is now at its peak. There is a massive frenetic effort to get the crops in. Often at about this time of year, there are a few minutes of devastating hail or rain. Then it is zero for the home team!

It was as if I’d landed in small-town Quebec. Tabernac!

Finally I have arrived arrived in Weyburn. My truck died here. I went skidding sideways through a highway intersection, the trailer trying to pass me. I’d blown out a brake component. I am sitting and writing in my bug-spattered trailer, the truck is in the hospital. The town has a wonderful municipal campground, easily located and adjoined to a huge playground. All the folks I’ve met are lovely. The internet is pathetic and I cannot check my e-mail or post a blog.

It is cool-my-jet time. I need it.

Doiwntown Weyburn. Tommy Douglas and always the wheat.

One of the things I wonder about in the south of these Canadian prairies is lumber. There are obviously no forests here. All the boards for the houses and barns and train stations and grain elevators had to be imported. Probably most of it came from Northern Ontario and British Columbia. It would have been expensive. Some old places I’ve seen are built of logs. Where did they get them? The buildings as they were abandoned were generally left, it appears, to fall down and rot. If nothing else they were a good source of dry firewood. That lumber, aged old growth dried planks, surely was precious to someone. It sure is now. Prairie folk are noted for their thriftiness but then they also clearly abandoned their redundant machinery. It is a question I wish someone could answer to my satisfaction.

The wind moans incessantly, but there are no answers blowing in it.

A root cellar, meat locker , and storm cellar.

Day two in Weyburn dawns with a clear yet smokey sky and a gentle wind. Just me and my resident houseflies in this small trailer. Damn they’re irritating! I’m waiting for my truck to be ready. While I wait I’m going to exorcise some more dust, the bathroom is loaded with it. I began to understand the prairie dust storms of the 1930’s! It is rich stuff if you can nail it down. This afternoon I hope to do some laundry and be on the road first thing tomorrow morning. I’m a day’s drive away from Virden. Meanwhile incredibly long trains gently rumble through town day and night. There is something reassuring about their steady throb and heavy clatter as they flow along the arteries of the nation’s commerce.

KAL Tire, Weyburn. Those folks were excellent! That’s my front ball joint. I wonder if my old knee joint looked something like that? It looks like it had no more potholes in it.

I met a couple from Victoria. They’ve followed the exact same route which I have and pitch a tent each night. They are not youngsters. We all marvel at the vastness and compare notes of wonder at the pioneers who first came here. What they went through on their odysseys from Europe can only be a speculation. Just to spend endless weeks in the guts of some sailing ship would be a lifetime adventure; and that was just the beginning. There would have been a bone-wracking railway journey through a huge landscape far bigger than any imagining. Then they finally arrived to confront this vast unknown. You’re here! Oh yeah, winter’s coming.

Few of us today would have the physical or mental stamina to begin, let alone endure, the ordeal. I find the simple effort of driving wearing enough.

Checking the weather this morning I realize that I am presently equidistant from Hudson Bay, The Great Lakes and the Pacific. That is one very long way from the ocean. What a huge country! I’m still not halfway to the Atlantic. I marvel that we are known as a nation of snivellers and bend-overly polite people. I’ve previously hitch-hiked across this expanse, travelled it by train, flown over it in big and little aircraft and still can’t grasp the magnitude of our country. With our tiny population and huge resources, we should own the planet.

Yeah but…..!

Is this anywhere near Kansas, Dorothy? Hello…hello Dorothy?

“He had seen it often, from the verandah of his uncle’s farmhouse, or at the end of a long street, but till now he had never heard it. The hollowing hum of telephone wires along the road, the ring of hidden crickets, the stitching sound of grasshoppers, the sudden relief of a meadow larks song, were deliciously strange to him.”

― W.O. Mitchell

Wounded Knee Rides Again

“Honey I felt the earth move!” The Hope Slide.”

I got up early to catch the ferry. With the wait in the terminal it took half a day to get across to mainland Canada. I spent the actual two hour crossing in my own dark, cool, comfy bed in my trailer. I have my own bathroom so there was no need to go to the upper decks for anything. What they don’t know won’t hurt them or me. The drive eastward was hell. With clear blue sky above It was hot and smoggy. The traffic was horrific as I drove through the murk. There is random construction. The roads were clogged both ways. Nearly everyone is a road warrior and recent gruesome fatalities on this highway slowed no-one.

A clever homebuilt expedition vehicle from Nevada. I had to stop. SWB, 4×4, diesel, someone smart fitted a trailer to the flat deck to make this beauty. Don’t laugh, she’s paid for!

So, finally I made it to Hope. Now all fuelled and grocery-ed up I’m parked in the bushes beneath the Hope slide. Odds are, all those car- sized boulders perched thousands of feet above me will stay put for one more night. If not, well it is meant to be and it probably won’t hurt a bit. I am just off the highway but well hidden. The flies are bitey friendly and it’s toasty warm (31C) but once it cools down I’ll go to bed in hope of an early start. My little truck clearly does not like dragging the trailer up long steep grades on a summer afternoon. Even the front fenders were too hot to touch.

Faces in the rocks above at the Hope Slide

My early start shuffles past eight o’clock. Rain spattered sweetly on the roof through the night. Now thunder rumbles and echoes between the towering cliffs above me. The purpose of this frivolous trip is to visit a dear old aunt in Manitoba. I am doing this on the generous means of my dear wife. I have to remind myself that I am to meander, there are no deadlines and I need to restore my soul which has suffered after two dreary years of death, illness, surgery and poverty. Just be, old man, just be and remember, how you once travelled with a backpack and your thumb. Best years ever. As for Jill, getting me the hell out of her face must be a reward on its own.

Forest fire smoke has proven to be a constant all the way across the prairies.

Yesterday’s inferno has passed for the moment. There were spatters of rain through the night and at the break of day it was gloriously chilly. I ( had hoped to drone the Hope Slide but the wind was gusting and there were squalls of rain, neither are good for the drone, especially at the hands of a rookie. I headed east and groaned up one long, steep grade after another. The engine wanted to overheat on each one and I stopped more than once to cool things down. The worst was the zigzag crawl up to Anarchist Summit from Osoyoos. All the day long the temperature was as hot as yesterday and thunder rumbled overhead. Finally, nearing Greenwood the truck began to steer oddly and once in town I discovered a nearly flat rear tire. I changed it myself as thunder-rain spat down. A lady stopped, but not to offer help. Her dog was missing. Gabby the collie had run off. I hope that girl is home safe and healthy.

The grind up from Osoyoos called Anarchist Hill. “Oh Lord, your hill is sooo big, and so is this damned trailer!”

Now in Grand Forks, I am parked in a large feral field beside a fleet of logging trucks. A young boy is riding his tiny motorbike, with training wheels, round and round in a cloud of dust. A friend tries to follow on a small electric John Deere tractor. I’ve been told that I can stay here by the folks at KAL Tire. I wheeled in there with my sick tire just before closing time and wholly expected to be told I’d need a new one. They could have, I wouldn’t have known. It was simply a bad valve stem. They refused to charge me. It follows that I inspected the other three tires and they need the same treatment. I’ll go back in there asking about the problem with being nice to a pain in the ass. Of course the answer is: they come back! I have a friend here whom I’ve known for fifty years. A visit is due. I already like this town and mucho kudos to the tire shop boys.

The next night finds me parked in a gravel pit beyond Yahk, which is not at all romantic as it sounds. My poor little truck staggered up the numerous long steep grades. If it were a mule it would be on its knees with tongue over shoulder. It is frustrating when you cannot go over 50kph whenever and wherever you’d like just like all the folks passing you at 140 kph. I just don’t want to cook my motor. There was a car and then a motor-home burned to a crisp along the roadside. I got the warning. Haste makes waste. In days past, even at my trundling speed it might have taken two weeks instead of two hours. From the top of the passes you can see valleys and mountains stretching into apparent infinity. The smoke adds a mystic touch to the scenes. It is still hard to grasp how big our single province is. There are all those others beyond. The grand thing was being able to smell the fragrance of the sub-alpine forest at the summits, those indelible aromas of balsam and spruce and buck brush that waft out into the summer air. There must be an air freshener called ‘Alpine.’ What memories those aromas bring!

You just never know what you’ll find. This delightful fusion of odd bits is in the lovely bakery in Greenwood.

In the morning it turns out I’ve backed into a spot on the edge of an impromptu fire-fighting depot. A helicopter comes and goes and I remember my heli-days so long ago. One whiff of jet exhaust and the clap of rotors brings so many recollections. That was me? In a single life?

Still a thrill for me. Helicopters have always amazed me and later ones are an incredible blend of technologies.

The day wears on. Leaving Cranbrook, a lovely spotted fawn suddenly appears in front and there’s no chance to stop. There is the expected sickening crunch and I bound out to have a look. The fawn has disappeared and truck in not damaged. It is not my fault but I feel sick for the rest of the day. I wonder what happening to this once great white hunter.

Finally at the Frank Slide, just into Alberta, I stop and get out the drone. This is where an entire half-mountain crumbled and buried the town of Frank. Itis horrific. I’d promised myself to make this my first good drone footage, so first a test scan. Out a hundred metres, up fifty then I press a wrong button. The drone lands instead of returning home. The last image I receive is a bleary view between rocks. I activate the “Find My Drone” and go hobbling down between the treacherous rocks with my cane. I slip and fall, loose my glasses, manage to retrieve them from a narrow crevice. By the time I clamber over to where I think my drone is, my controller has a message that says a rotor was jammed so the drone has shut off its power to prevent overheating. No more homing signal. Then came the return clamber, empty handed and feeling like a very stupid old man.

The Frank Slide. There is an entire little town, and its inhabitants, buried beneath that crumbled mountain.

I don’t know the story but it looked to me like part of a building sticking out of the massive lumps of rubble. Can you see my drone?

It is a place that leaves one completey humbled.

The limestone rocks are house-sized and smaller. Jagged, sharp, loose and dangerous it is no place for an old man with a walking stick.

Fortunately I’ve bought some insurance for just such an event but I do not feel any better. I was not employing my own advice about caution and certainly feel the diminished rookie.

Drive on old man, drive. Eastbound was a spectacular show of wondrous clouds, rainbursts, lightening, brilliant ladders of light between the clouds onto the foothills. They were all juxtaposed over columns of massive whirling windmills. I could not photograph any of it. The rocketing traffic made stopping too dangerous. Tonight I am parked on the side of the road at the former townsite of Whiskey Gap. It was a smuggler’s town in the 1930s. Now there are only cows bellowing from the ridge at the top of the coulee. A few miles back was a signboard noting the location of Aetna. But it’s not on the map either. This will be the norm I think.

In Fort McLeod. There’s a definite flavour of the old west.

In the Silver Grill. A Chinese menu with margaritas.

DRAW!
Downtown Fort McLeod on a Sunday evening. “Git his boots.”

And so I progress into the prairies. I will meander along the southern roads and explore the beauty of this vast and windy land. It’s a long way from the sea.

” A ship is safe in the harbour, but that’s not what ships are built for.”

Gael Attal

Spring Grind

Dogwood blooming at the corner of Seemore and Do-less. This is the ubiquitous four-way stop in downtown Ladysmith. It seems to utterly confuse a lot of folks. First come, first go but some people prefer to park out there and give directions.

A harbour view. Ladysmith is picturesque.

It is Saturday afternoon, (Well it was when I started this blog) the last one in April. The wind is gusty and brings fusilades of thick rain. The Corona umbrella is still furled up in the garden shed. Typical spring weather, it comes sandwiched between forecasts of an impending drought.

The weather inside my head is just as spring-like. “Use it or lose it.” That’s how it works. Efforts at writing are both pithy and pissy so I go and tinker at projects I invent. I’ve had the suspension on my trailer rebuilt. New parts throughout and the axles were remounted beneath the springs. The trailer is now 4” higher. The scrape marks on the bottom of the sewage holding tank are that much further from the ground. I’m not afraid to leave the pavement now.

“Dunno how it happened boss. Everything was fine until I went under that bridge.”

So no more excuses other than lack of money. I’m going to break out of this suburban gulag where there is a constant drone of lawnmowers and the distant wail of sirens. Struth! Just go sit outside for five minutes and simply listen. What a world we’ve created! We don’t even hear it. A neighbour recently complained to me about the sound of mourning doves!

There are billions of them. I wonder at times about the drive to live no matter what.

Wouldn’t it be nice not to question the meaning of life?

Vanilla plants in bloom. If tied up in bunches and hung in an enclosure these will make a natural insect repellant.

May

Now it is a week later. I’ve just walked the dogs and am having my last coffee of the day. I started doomscrolling, that process which so many of us fall into with our cell phones. Then I was hit with these two quotes.

“When you get lazy you are being disrespectful of those who believe in you.” The next went, “A winner is just a loser who tried one more time.” Bugga! Those hit me below the belt. I’ve been thinking of quitting blogging all together but then I find quotes like. People also send notes telling me that I’ve made a difference. And so life goes on. The weather forecast this week is for perfection in the skies. Maybe we’ll drag the trailer to a beach and see if a winter’s tinkering was worthwhile.

Two weeks later

Paddleboard dog. Heading up the San Juan River. The yellow streak is pollen. It has been a bad year for sinus problems.

San Juan River morning. The last bend before it meets the sea. A bear was ambling around in the meadow across the river.

And so we did. The drive to Pacheedaht is less than three hours from home and entirely on pavement. The pavement is badly heaved a lot of the way and so there’s no point in hurrying. It is a very popular route for motorcycles although the lurching sections must be hell. One can leave Victoria, make your way first to Port Renfrew, then Lake Cowichan and Duncan and finally back to Victoria all in one day. Or, go the other way around. We arrived late and had to settle for a spot next to the north end of the one-way bridge. “That sun brings ’em out” the lady in the office said apologetically as I picked a remaining spot. For the next three days we listened to the thump thump of vehicles taking their turn at the bad plank on the bridge just above us or the blare of their stereo as they waited to cross. We did have a spectaculat view of the last bend of the San Juan River where it meets the ocean just below the bridge. The wildlife and constantly changing tide provided an intriguing and peaceful show.

Where the river meets the sea. These houses look out the bay to the open horizon. Jill took this photo while I napped with my achy knee buried in the sun-warmed sand. Very nice. Meanwhile blappety motorcycles were thumping across the bridge. Our trailer was just on the other side of it.

There was indeed a tremendous number of motorcycles, almost half of the traffic at times. Of those, half seemed to be rumbling Harley Davidsons. I don’t understand their popularity but that’s fine too. It is a culture beyond my interest, wheeling a behemoth through the traffic and along our winding roads holds no appeal. I’ve been a mechanical guy long enough and I hold no interest in what flavour of pistons someone has installed in their ride. Whatever floats your boat! I seem to prefer feeling like a circus clown on a tiny bike but even that is beyond me at the moment. I am waiting and waiting for a knee replacement and hopefully after that I’ll be a little friskier.

Other folks paddled their kayaks and paddle boards up the river. One dufus had a boom box tied to to his board and proudly ascended the river stroke stroke, change sides, stroke stroke, bringing crashing rap culture to the forest. It is a good thing that I had brought no firearms. And…he was no teenager!

On the first night there was a spectacular display of Northern Lights which apparently were seen across the entire width of Southern BC. Always humbling and awe-inspiring’ the dome of throbbing light all around overhead reminds us of how tiny we truly are.

Well tiny as we are, we’ve found our way home again. Yet again, I’m having coffee after walking the dogs. I’m waiting for the truck motor to cool down; then I’ll treat it with a set of new spark plugs. Damn! I just paid more per plug than I did for my first car! I haven’t changed them since buying the vehicle so now I’ll know when they were done. Hopefully $140 worth of spark plugs will be amortized in fuel savings. I am finishing this on my new whiz-bang laptop computer. It seems odd, everything is new and feels it, all the keys have a letter clearly inscribed on them. It still seems to make spelling mistakes, I couldn’t find one with dumbo keys for banana fingers.

Trailer for rent. Quiet country setting. A gardener’s delight.

Time passes. So do we. The beauty of the day is all we have.

So now I have a fully functional computer, I can hit the road. I live in a truly beautiful place but once in a while one needs to see things from a distance. A fresh focus can only be good. Boots and saddles, wagon ho!

The first wild rosebud I’ve seen. Once they have bloomed and their petals are falling it is summertime.

If you know you can do it, why go in the first place? …Iohan Guearguiev

A Quick Trip

Heading out. The view from my Astoria motel room. Sliding under the Columbia River Bridge, within the hour she’ll be over the Columbia Bar, will have dropped off her pilot and be setting a heading for somewhere in Asia. Magic! The white exhaust means she’s switching over to burn Bunker C, a thick, toxic fuel oil which is much cheaper to burn.

The bogman goes to town. Astoria is a fascinating town to visit, with shops, restaurants, architecture and scenery which should interest everyone.

I can only guess the rest of the story. Astoria, like most Westcoast communities has its share of dead-end stories. I don’t think this was one, vbut there was no sign of happiness here.

February 28^th sees a torrential rain with dire warnings for the whole day. I messed around until noon, waiting for the rain to ease before taking my two wee dogs out for their daily walk. They waited patiently. When I was finally getting ready to go, I discovered a very neat dogpile on the floor in front of the toilet. Now that’s a clear, simple political statement. Dogs can teach us so much!

Local talent. Roosevelt elk are indigenous. At Fort Smith they provide an organic solution for cutting and fertilizing the lawns.

Coffee Blues. Buildings are painted boldly in Astoria, there’s a taste in cuisine and music for everyone.

This forepeak will never go to sea again. The old hull has some fine lines, but no living thing goes on forever.

Home, Sour home. Someone’s shelter. The garbage seethed with fat, brown rats.

Little boxes. No more buzzing in the crossed wires.

Mechano Spawn. The art galleries are fabulous. I could have spent thousands.

I’m home again after a grand weekend in Astoria at the annual Fisher Poets gathering in Astoria. From Ladysmith it is a three hundred mile drive plus a twenty-five mile ferry ride. All went well, my readings were well-received, I was MC at one event and met up with old friends and new. Astoria is a delightful town and my one regret, as usual, is heading home again so soon.The weather, for once, was decent, but Highway 101 south of the town named Forks, has deteriorated badly, so with ferry connections the trip is the best part of a day each way.

Retro town. The cherished architecture of Astoria is grand.

An old railcar is slowly recycling itself.

Wanna buy some good used chain? Each link is about 10″ long.

Dennis performs. He’s hilarious! The event has grown to present over 100 readers and musicians.

Doreen is in her nineties. She’s eloquent, fresh and feisty. Many of the younger performers are also incredible.

I stop to talk with pretty girls. This is Stella.

Astoria has several excellent Mexican restaurants, ‘El Jarrocho’ is the newest and is fantastic.

Hung by the river. Some old rigging from days gone by. The pigeons love it.

I wannit! Left-hand steering; an ultimate 4×4 truck.

The line. Ships anchor in the Columbia River to take on cargos as far inland as Idaho.

“Skipper, I see fish.”
A rare find, a new fishing boat under construction. The openings are for a bulb-bow and a bow thruster.

The two pm ferry trip back to Victoria meant I had to leave my Astoria motel by 06:30 and arrived in Port Angeles 6 hour later after an intense drive. That’s when the fun began. The boat did not have a large load but it would prove to be a memorable trip, especially for all those not of nautical experience. All the way from the Oregon border (Columbia River) I had been chased by an advancing cold front. Gusting blasts of wind and a heavy cold rain hounded me up the twisting route. Now it was arriving at the Strait of Juan De Fuca. Tugboaters know it as “Wanna Puka.”

The Coho swings in for a stern-to landing in Port Angeles. It was poetry in motion.

This cable layer was laying at anchor facing east. Then the squall-line hit. She abruptly swung 180 degrees and settled in for the blow about a half mile from where she’d been. You can see that she’s actually heeling to a big blast of wind.

The spit at Port Angeles which shelters the bay, and the open strait beyond.

Salt water window wash. Perhaps this little girl will always remember her ride.

A fierce westerly hit the bay at Port Angeles. There were no large waves but a suddenly a flat foam raced across the ocean’s surface. A small sloop with its genoa out took a serious schooling. I went to the front of the boat and took my photos and video early. I knew what was coming and did my best to keep my smirks to myself. I know the ‘M.V.Coho’ as the stout and seaworthy ship she is. Outside the buoy on the spit the plunging and rolling began. It is amazing how quickly large seas can build, especially when an ebbing tide slams into a gusting thirty knot breeze. Within minutes the passengers were practicing their silly walks, clinging to anything apparently solid. Some made their way to the front windows which were now regularly covered in inches of sea water blowing over the bow. One twit decided it would be manly to go stand at the forward flagstaff and show the world how daring he was. Fool! Most of the water was going over his head but one errant lump would have taken him overboard without a trace. I was not going out to tell him so and clearly neither were any of the crew. Those inside he thought was posing for also saw him as an idiot.

Four more goofs joined him but were soon back inside, soaking wet and hypothermic. Other passengers gave them a wide birth. Meanwhile, the stewards went around with armloads of sick sacks. Theyv’e clearly seen it all before. If you close your eyes and remember Julie Andrews singing, hear the revised lyrics: “The decks were alive with the sound of puking.” Kansas, or wherever these folks came from, will never be the same again. They’re smarter now. It is not a recommended weight lose program. This old salt wedged himself into a corner and had a nap through the mayhem. I was at home. Aaaaar Billy!

The old boat, with her keel laid in 1959, is a marvelous sea boat, completely at ease in heavy weather and never has crippling maintenance issues. I dare to guess, that with the proper maintenance she clearly gets, she may be only at mid-life. She is owned by the Blackball Ferry Line and so far as I know, is a private business with no grants or subsidies. I wish BC Ferries, a crown corporation, would have a look at how things can be done. They, whenever the wind rises above a seagull fart, tie up the fleet and constipate coastal highway traffic massively, sometimes for days.

“Thank you for sailing BC Ferries.” As if we had a choice! Now imagine if we also had to pass through customs and immigration at BC Ferry terminals. Two of our vessels were built in Europe and of course delivered here on their own keels. Surely they can handle the Strait Of Georgia. It can get darned rough, but not like Juan De Fuca.

“Traffic, Starboard bow.” Both ships followed the book of course and all was well. Cameras have a way of making waves look much smaller. This wall of water was about twelve feet tall. You know it is blowing seriously when the wind is shaving the top of the waves.

Last Sunday, the old ‘Coho’ kissed the dock three minutes late. Guided ashore prompty, I cleared customs and was home in little over an hour. Simple.

“The unavoidable price of reliability is simplicity.”– Tony Hoare

(It follows that whenever government becomes involved, simplicity, and so reliabilty, vanishes.)

Thwack

Mt. Baker from the BC Ferry as it nears the Tsawwassen Terminal. It was a gorgeous day. There was no hint of the terror for me coming in the minutes ahead. Accidents happen when least expected.

Two blogs ago I used a quote about how it is always in season for old men to continue learning. It’s true.

I had another quick lesson a few days ago. I’ve been healing ever since. I took my motorbike on the BC Ferry to Tsawwassen to visit a friend. Usually when the ferry arrives, motorcycles are disembarked first and have a chance to scoot ahead of the herd. This time, there were only two of us and we were held back to be finally released within the main herd. Folks are determined to drive like rabid lemmings, ignoring speed limits, cutting each other off, tailgating then slamming on their brakes. It is not a place to be on a motorbike, and yes I was a bit tense.

I held back, trying to maintain a three-vehicle distance ahead of me. A fellow in a pickup truck tailgating me decided that that gap ahead needed to be filled. He passed on the left over the double line into the oncoming lane, swerved in front of me then slammed on his brakes behind the next vehicle ahead. I believe I had a nano-second to choose between slamming the back of that truck or laying down on the road. It all happened very quickly and I cannot honestly recall the blur of the next few moments. I braked as hard as I could and then I was skidding along the road on the face of my helmet. What a noise it made! I recall worrying about being run over by the vehicle behind.

Skidmarks. That full face guard saved me from a nasty injury. Imagine what my face could have been ground down to. What a hell of a noise it made!

One vehicle’s driver yelled to ask if I was OK then roared on ahead. A young man with a, get this, unicycle, on the road shoulder came to assist. He got me on my feet, helped pick up the bike and gathered bits of mirror and other collateral damage. I was very grateful to say the least. The motorcycle seemed entirely roadworthy. I was numb and incredulous about how lucky I was. I rode on to my friend’s home and did a full assessment. There were some tweaks required on the motorcycle and some permanent honourable battle scars. Profuse thanks were offered to my friend. He’s a seasoned motorcyclist who finally convinced me to wear proper protective clothing. Both my gloves and riding pants were in use for a first time. I couldn’t thank him enough, delighted that simple common sense had overcome a testosterone rush.

Received from a friend, I’ve no idea who drew this. Full kudus are due. We all know the feeling.

I hurt in several places, my left hand has been useless and is swollen like a football, but everything is slowly improving. I would have been a bowl of pudding without the protective clothing. Frankly, it was the autumn temperature that demanded the riding gear, but they’ll be a fact of life from now on no matter what the weather. I fully realize how very, very fortunate I am and accept my pain as the price of being alive. I have had a dark image of a beige hospital ceiling and a tangle of hoses and wires while the electronic bleeps and blips marked every pulse. I’ve been there and don’t want to go back. I was too thumped-up to ride the bike home, I’ll have go back and get it. That might be a long ride home and I have some decisions to make.

Hot Head. I know it’s rude but that’s the way it was. My fellow rider was the same age as me and also recently returned to riding. He wore this replica German Army helmet while he rode his beautiful Harley, all the way to Mackenzie BC . He did have electrically-heated hand grips and vest.

Should I treat this as a lesson or a warning? Am I too old to be a safe rider? I do not have a lifetime of riding confidence and instinct to rely on. Part of my safety agenda is knowing that I am no longer a snappy young operator with the instincts of a wasp. Was my incident something for which I can blame myself? What could I have done differently? Dunno. I think of some of my heroes and just cannot let my age be an excuse. Many of then were seniors before they started out on their exploits. Things happen so quickly. It was as if a big hand with a monster fly-swatter had reached down from the sky and given me a wee tap. I then remember the last thing to go through a bug’s mind as it hits a windshield. His bum. Part of the lesson may well be to simply not over-analyse. Get on with life.

Harbour glow. Life goes on, no matter what happens to who. Grab every moment you can. There are no second chances.

“Only a biker knows why a dog sticks its head out of a car window.” – anonymous

No I Don’t

A little bit of rain and back they came again. Torrential rains in the forecast for tomorrow.

Often before I go to bed I cruise about on my computer looking for various distractions to clear, or blur, my brain in preparation for hopefully drifting off into a sound sleep. Last night I stumbled upon a fellow named Tokasin Ghosthorse. (Isn’t that a fine Irish handle?) He is, in fact, a Lakota philosopher and teacher who was nominated once for a Nobel peace prize.

Here are some of the things he had to say:

“It’s easier to lie to children than tell them the truth.”

“We’ve educated the wisdom out of ourselves.”

“Education is about domination.”

“Humanity must shift from living “on” the earth to living with it.

Take it, or leave it, you can look him up or forget him. I was impressed with how he spoke. Clear-eyed, with an inner peace and strength, this is a man of substance. There are certainly few enough of those around. I woke up this morning as impressed with his words as when I went to sleep and I will learn more about him and his wisdom. With all the darkness swirling about us these days, both at home and around the world, it is lovely to have some fresh mindful thinking to explore.

I went to Vancouver yesterday. Some people do that every day, once will be enough for me. I haven’t been over to the big smoke for a long time. There was not a lot I recognized anymore and I felt absolutely like an alien. The Bog Trotter in Xanadu. And, God forbid, masses of people actually live in that swirling concrete mess. How? You have to evolve into a different sort of creature. It’s clear. I first hit Vancouver over fifty years ago. Intimidating as it was to me, there was a very different flavour to my senses then. The city seemed easy-going, relaxed with even the hint of a frontier town. It’s very different now. There is certainly nothing relaxed about it anywhere. I once sailed my boats into False Creek. I’d anchor there and conduct my business and pleasure there, using my boat as accommodation. I could not be at ease enough now to do that in the maelstrom of stone-faced humanity, din and harshness that the city has become.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been? I’ve been to London to visit the Queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there? I frightened a little mouse under her chair.

I rode across to Downtown Vancouver on a recently instituted ferry service for foot passengers called HULLO. Once their Nanaimo terminal was located at the end of some convoluted routing with poor signage, the rest was a breeze. The staff were all grand, the boat amazing, and the trip was a dream. I’ve never been on a passenger vessel with seat belts before, but having made my living out there on the open strait, I’m sure some days they’re necessary, especially when skimming along at near-flying speed. The boat was immaculate, the ride was magnificent and on time. You are delivered into the bowels of Vancouver a few blocks from the Seabus / Skytrain terminal where for $2.10 I was whisked off to the far east side of the city. Full Kudus to HULLO and to the Vancouver transit system.

The hi-backed seats hide how many passengers there are. There is also an upper deck.

Then this which I much prefer. Jill and the doggy girls take me for a stroll in magic land.

No comments on what has become of the city. It reminded me of that old Blade Runner movie. Nor would I have been surprised to see a naked Arnold Shwarzenegger character throwing cars around. To me everything seemed surreal and the people completely abstract. My sleepy little Ladysmith is a much more comfortable place for human beings like me.

In comparison to Hullo, my return trip to Vancouver Island, now with a vehicle, was made with BC Ferries. “Thank you for travelling with BC Ferries.” Yeah right; as if we have any damned choice. I often rant about the general inefficiency and ineptitude of this crown corporation. Here’s my latest experience. I arrive at Horseshoe Bay at about 5 pm. I am told that the next boat will depart at 6:35 pm but, chances are that sailing is already full. I’ll probably be on the next boat at 10:10 pm. Yet I could be lucky, “Ya never know. Stay in your vehicle!” I’m hungry and want to walk into Horseshoe Bay, but fair enough, shit doesn’t always happen and I’ve already missed enough ships in my life.

The signs indicated to follow lane 6 for Nanaimo and so I went, pulling up behind a magnificent Ural motorcycle and sidecar on a trailer. A BC Ferry worker in a 3/4 ton 4×4 with beaucoup flashing lights pulls up behind, and tells me that I’m in the wrong lane. My ticket says lane 4. So, at his behest I back up a very long way and settle into place for my long wait in the longest line. I knew that I had no hope of getting onto the next boat. My stomach is growling but I cling to a ridiculous faint hope.

.At 6:45 there is yet another garbled intercom announcement that ‘Queen Of Surrey’ from Nanaimo is now arriving. The wait continues. No vehicles drive off of the boat and finally comes another announcement that the ferry is having problems with the ramp but will have things sorted “momentarily.” Finally there are three blasts of the ferry’s horn, the reversing signal. Now another announcement, the problem can’t be solved and the vessel is moving to a different dock.

To make this long story a bit shorter, let’s just say I did make it onto that next ferry, there was only one vehicle behind me that was squeezed aboard. I was stunned to find that same motorcycle on the trailer four places in line ahead of me. WTF? Of course the boat is crowded now with hundreds of tired, confused, hungry, grumpy passengers. Screaming babies seem to be everywhere and no-one is inclined toward graciousness. I shuffle into line for the cafeteria. Baa! It moves at a glacial pace but it’s the only game on the boat. Finally I arrive at the order counter and note to a worker that there are no more trays. “No there’s not,” she agrees, “we’re short-staffed!” The meal I wanted was “All out.” It was simply a mushroom burger and apparently not something which could be cooked on demand. I agree to something else. “That’s OK, I’ll just carry my meal to a table on top of my head.” There was laughter in the line behind me. Finally some tiny trays were produced and slammed down, then my food was slammed down.

I survive by looking for the humour in things but it was goshderned hard to find any there. The crew DID look stressed and weary but that should not be the passenger’s problem. I heard one kitchen worker explaining to a passenger about how very distressing the stuck ramp ordeal had been. Really? You were all down there working on it? Wow, you don’t even have any dirt on your apron! Once again the announcement came thanking everyone for sailing BC Ferries. Uhuh! I so happy to drive off of that ferry. At 10:10 pm I passed the Nanaimo ferry parking yard which was full of vehicles hoping to make it to Vancouver yet that day.

The new dog uber. What I drove home from Vancouver. The Hemouth is gone. Here’s something simple, affordable and easy to find in a parking lot.

Mating season. Maybe there will be more little trucks.

I’m finding plenty of fungal photos this fall.

Years ago I experienced a very odd loading protocol on another ferry trip. When I said to a deckhand “You’ve got to tell me what that was all about,” he replied, “No I don’t.” That sums it all up I’d say. When I compare BC Ferries to Hullo or to Blackball Ferries I am simply embarrassed. An old proverb says that a “Fish stinks from the head first.” Could be.

What can be finer than to wonder as you wander?

“It is always in season for old men to learn.” Aeschylus