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

Droning On (Looking like an old man who’s lost his drone)

It’s gone. No doubt about. My first wee drone is buried in the jungle just above the beach. I know about where it is but I’ve looked for hours. Unless I know exactly where it is, there’s no hope. My bush-ape eyes are really good at seeing things in the wild but this little devil is about the size and colour of a fallen arbutus leaf. I could be three feet away and I not see the damned thing. There are millions of those leaves, the bushes and underbrush are thick and for all I know my little flying machine is stuck up in a tree. Damn me! I knew better.

The virgin drone pilot
“He sat on the edge of the field looking like an old man who had lost his drone.” A drone’s eye view of the nut holding the controls.

My home as seen from my drone. WOW! I live here!

I’m taking my expensive lessons and am turning them into something more valuable: what not to do! It is a bad habit I learned as a farm boy from a poor family. In an effort to save money I habitually go to what appears the cheapest route. Over a while, I end up spending far more than simply buying something good in the first place. It is said that to buy good clean fresh oats you must pay a fair price. Ones that have been through a horse cost slightly less. I thought I’d beaten the system by buying a slightly used virgin drone. Ha! The price of that is gone. There has been a lot of frustration and I have no drone. This behaviour is what keeps poor people poor. Buy one decent car every twenty years, or buy inferior ones before the last one is paid off. A quote I never seem to listen to is “If you can’t pay for it once, how will you pay for it twice.” Uhuh!

“I’ve got it up!” First flight of the new drone.

Drone School. I actually bought a copy of ‘Drones for Dummies’ The foam was my innovation to protect the control sticks and the screen.

Someone else’s toy. Prices start over $160,000 An Audi R8

With a V10 engine in the back seat there’s only room for two people. OK! No roof racks please.

I’ve since learned that the first one I’ve bought has a wee habit of zooming off on its own, especially in the hands of a rookie. So, I’ve been wandering around with a look in my eye like an old man who’s lost his drone. Thazme! I’ve now gone and bought a brand new one for a tremendously good sale price, too good to resist. It is a DJI Mini 3. This manufacturer seems to hold a lion’s share of the drone market. When I first turned on the controller a screen appeared entirely in Chinese. My heart sank. I did not know what to press next. I’ve persevered and now bought the manufacturers insurance in event of damage or “flyaway” loss. I’m progressing slowly and have to admit that I’m a bit frightened of screwing it up again. But, there is an excellent manual written in proper English and there are several online video tutorials which actually show you good things to know. This wee flying computer has amazing capabilities. Samples of video footage taken by this product are stunning and I am actually a bit excited.

Now get this. I’ve just watched a video that shows how to use the “Find my drone” feature. If I loose this expensive new puppy there is a mode which allows me to track down the lost bird by tracking it with an onboard GPS map and compass. There is also a button to push which activates an audio alarm in the drone. This klutz can’t ask for more. No it doesn’t work if underwater.

I’m determined to beat this flying brain. It may be artificial intelligence but it is smarter than my genuine stupidity. I am humbled but I am learning to trust its capabilities. In the meantime, I’ve posted my latest photo of a flower on my page on Fine Arts America. With over 700 images posted I am quite capable of posting my own descriptions. This time it wrote one for me in thirty seconds and was very articulate. Death of the writer approaches.

While watching a video taken in a Mexican dance hall I noted one lady twirling about in the arms of her partner. As they danced her mobile phone rested on his shoulder while she texted someone with an ubiquitous thumb. Really! I can’t help but wonder what happens when she’s making love! “ Honey look, they’re having a sale!”

No! We have not abolished slavery! Our world spirals on. Black hole or toilet bowel we have to stay away from the edge.

In the Age of the Almighty Computer, drones are the perfect warriors. They kill without remorse, obey without kidding around, and they never reveal the names of their masters.

Eduardo Galeano

Droning About

I call it a Gravel Cosmos. I don’t know what this amazing flower is really named but it amazes me. It is rooted in bone-dry, baking hot gravel. It sits beneath the blazing oven of a white stucco wall. Begs a question or two about life don’t you think?

drone the male of the honey-bee; someone who lives on the labour of others, like the drone-bee; a lazy, idle fellow; a deep-humming sound; a bass-pipe of a bagpipe; a pedal bass; the burden of a song; a monotonous speaker or speech; an aircraft piloted by remote control; to emit a monotonous humming sound; to talk at length in a monotonous or expressionless way; to say in such a tone. – Chambers Dictionary

Phew!

When I was a wee boy, very, very long ago there was one toy I coveted above all else. It was a little tin helicopter modelled after a Sikorsky S55. The real thing was a state-of-the-art heavy lift rotary wing aircraft. We had not yet begun to fit helicopters with turbine engines. This beast sported a massive radial pistion engine which thundered in the agony of overwork. By today’s standards, it was a club of a

thing barely able to lift much more than its own loaded weight, but it was what the world had. Anyway my toy appeared in both the Sears and Eaton’s Christmas catalogues. My heart burned.

The object of my intense desire was a small tin machine with a turning rotor on top. There was a long cable trailing out of its belly which ran to a small gearbox with a crank handle. If one spun the crank hard enough, the rotor would turn and the flying machine would rise into the air. To me, it was utter magic. I vaguely recall visiting someone at Christmas time and the boy of that house had just received one. All the toy did was fly the little bit that the driving/retaining cable allowed but it was my wildest fantasy. Imagination did the rest. I’m sure it would have soon broken, especially as I had a penchant for taking those tin toys apart. Metal tabs, gears, springs and adjoining bits never went back together properly. “Made in Hong Kong”, we’d sneer way back then. Ha! If only we knew!

The roundabout. If in fear or in doubt…put it in L for lurch and drive right over the bugger. Note the tire marks. In Europe these expedite traffic flow for millions of drivers daily. They seem to confuse many of us.

Almost seventy years later I have something unimaginably better. It is humbling me. To enhance my photo and video efforts I’ve finally acquired a small drone. There were too many wonderful exploration and travel videos for me to resist. Of course, everyone sells the best and the information soon becomes confusing. Transportation Departments rightly have a set of laws about the size, type, and purpose of drones. There are licenses and certificates, just like manned aircraft. These can be avoided by staying beneath a weight restriction of 250 grams. Many birds weigh more than that but then most bullets weigh less than that. These toys need to be operated responsibly. Who me?

I do have an old and very dusty pilot’s license, long unused, so I understand what not to do. Stay the hell away from any sort of airfield ( 3 miles) stay away from people or crowds, respect other’s privacy and always bear in mind what invasive, noisy and annoying wee machines these are. I have actually waved a shotgun myself at one that once hovered persistently over my boat.

As for operating one of these machines skilfully, well I’m a pilot. Right? Flying a helicopter can be described as rubbing your tummy and patting your head at the same time. Flying any aircraft correctly is decribed as ” Using your superior judgement to avoid situations which require superior skill.” That’s while you are inside the thing! Add a remote dimension from a varying distance outside. Drones are an amazing amalgamation of computer intelligence and miniature electronics all compressed into a package about the size of a small box of candy and…..are quite affordable. They are smarter than I am and I do question my own value in the modern world. Well, others have mastered the necessary skills, so will I. So far I’ve pruned a large maple tree and crashed into the middle of a blackberry patch. I have retrieved the drone, cleaned off the green smears and recharged the battery. There will be another dawn patrol.

It is the morning of yet another hot day. The dogs are already hunkered down. They know. Outside a murder of crows sing in their dry rasping voices in a chorus of foreboding. In the distance one mourning dove coos out supplications of calmness and I am instantly transported south to the desert where they thrive. I am always filled with longing for that land when I hear them. I have met folks here who hate their sound. I love it. But then while folks gasp about the heat there are thousands of these same people who pay big money in winter to go south for this very climate. A week ago these same characters were bitching about how cool the weather has been.

I’ll take it as it comes. What choice is there? I live in dread of the smell of smoke and choking orange skies. Maybe we should lock everyone out of our woodlands when the forests become so explosively volatile. I wouldn’t want some geek with his drone starting any trouble.

So…. I’ve booked a techno man to come and sort me and my drone out. At least then I can blame him. But I can’t now. I took the drone to the beach in the early morning light and cool calm air. I hovered it steadily and took a photo. Then I zoomed it up to a hundred feet and resumed hovering. That is when it took a dive into the trees behind me. Thwack! Finding a needle in a haystack has nothing on looking for drone burrowed into the forest. Smile damnit!

See! I could make it hover controlably enough for me to take a photo. Then it was gone.

Life is hell being a dinosaur

nothing makes sense anymore.

I won’t survive if I don’t evolve faster

but then maybe it’s best

if I continue to stay my own master.

Spare Parts

Canada Day. Morning glories and blackberries.

It is July 1^st. The weather is perfect. The temperature is just right. My wee doggies are sleeping peacefully after our morning walk. The second half of the year begins.

Canada. It’s a big place. Go see it. It’s yours!

I’ve promised myself not to go on about recovering from my surgery. It is a tough grind with constant pain. Soon it will be down to the level before they rebuilt my knee and I’ll be able to feel it was all worthwhile. I can say that I am fully impressed with all the medical folks I’ve met. They have taken great care of me, promptly and compassionately. To constantly do what they do, all day, every day amazes me. Frankly, when I hear the incessant howling about our medical system I am angry. If you truly believe there is something better out there, go find it. Maybe a few days in Gaza, or the Sudan, or almost anywhere else is just what you need to change your perspective. Oh Lordy, we are SO spoiled!

My girls, my joys. What friends! they’ve really helped my recovery.

We live in one of the best places on the planet in consideration of political climate, geographic climate and economics. Most of our concerns are about pinpricks in our comfort zone and which we are too damned complacent to deal with ourselves. And the nicest thing about living in West Coast Canada is that if you are truly unhappy here, your are free to leave. There is no emigration quota. Good bye.

Meanwhile this old sack of spare parts is hobbling along toward a recovery as fast as I can. They’ve rebuilt me here and there through the years and the future is up to me. As is often said, “ If I’d known I’d live this long, I would have taken better care of myself.”

And so it goes. There will probably be fireworks in the harbour after nightfall. That will upset the dogs in town including our two girls but it will pass. The sun will rise in the morning and our lives advance. Happy Canada Day.

Old spare parts hisself. All rebuilt and ready for the next adventure. Photo by Jill

” We peer so suspiciously at each other that we cannot see that we Canadians are standing on the mountaintop of human wealth, freedom and privilege.” Pierre Trudeau

Clickety Clack

(Nimrod’s Silver Chisel)

The old handle. It’s something I whittled out over dark and stormy nights in my boats. the ball bearing in the beak makes a good impression when necessary. The physiotherapist told me, in a room full of people, that I was using it wrong. WRONG!

Bummer! You should see the other guy! This is the back side of the new improved knee. Dead sexy! Photo by Jill, what she has endured to care for me is beyond any degree of love. Thank you!!!

This is what the knee feels like. Believe it or not, this was the main battery ground wire in my trailer. It severely overheated and it is a miracle that the trailer did not burn down. This cable was 2″ from the propane line. The cable was too light a guage and poorly fastened. I should have checked it months ago. Lucky guy!
ASSUME NOTHING.

Way back while working on the tugs I regularly sailed with an engineer I soon named “Clickety-Clack.” Lord he stank! He was a good engineer, even enthusiastic, but his personal hygiene was not a priority. There was a reason. As a boy, he was heading for a local fishing hole on his bike when the home-made pipe bomb in his pocket exploded. That he lived is amazing. Missing an arm, a leg and a few other body parts, he healed and soldiered on through life with a cheery optimism. The noise of his prosthetics could be heard over the incessant white din inside the tug. Showering with only one arm and leg would have had to have been a huge challenge, especially at sea.

“Clickety-Clack.” Now that noise is me. I am hobbling along behind one of those lightweight tubular contraptions called a “walker.” The Brits call them “Zimmers.” And so I remember a former shipmate. My knee replacement surgery is already a week past. I came home a day later and have lain through long hours, night and day for the last week in a narcotic haze and a welter of pain. I finally clattered out today simply to stand beneath open sky. It was glorious!

In position. Libby, the light of my life. How i have been smitten by this wee dog.

Jill loaded me into her car today and hauled me off to a favourite pub in Crofton. It was a perfect day, the weather was flawless. It felt especially so after being housebound for a full week. That’s just not my style. It is summer solstice and I’ll be out there. I’ve shed that damned walker for a home-made cane and I intend to able to hoof over the hill sooner than anyone expected. SPRISE!

Most communities like to describe their hospital as the worst ever. There is one on Vancouver Island, which in repeated experiences, has proven to be such a place, but it is certainly NOT Duncan. The building is old and a new one is under construction but the present hospital crew are wonderful. YES I said that, the old grump hisself. ALL, to the last person, convey a sense that they truly care. The worst thing was a sandwich. The day before surgery wore on, and it was well into the evening before I could ask for food. I was brought a limp sandwich made from two slices of white bread which clung to a thick grey smear of protein-like substance. It was labelled ”Beef Sandwich.” Yum! I took a breath and swallowed it down, thinking of all those folks in Gazza. Burp, fart, all’s well that ends. I was hungry. Isn’t it amazing? How do we go into a shit-brindle brown monster building wholly staffed with total strangers and those who deliberately render us unconcious then cut up our bodies to reconstruct them? Trust? When you are in pain and fear, the risks you’ll assume are beyond reason.

Vultures circled outside the surgery window.

The surgeon, named Nimrod Levy, (REALLY) worked his magic fingers on my old bones and I’ll soon be leaping over the outhouse once again. My pal Nim phoned three times to follow up his surgery! Yes, three! He is a great guy with an actual personality. It’s restored a bit of faith for me. After my major heart rebuild, there were never any calls. Ever. Enough said.

I now sit in my living room now with my leg jacked up and inside an ice machine. It’s on the summer solstice afternoon looking out through the dirty swirls on the glass door. I’d just bloody cleaned that into crystal sparkles two weeks ago. Funny how that goes.

How’d this character cross the road? I carried it. It was huge!

“ there is no better surgeon than one with many scars.” Spanish Proverb

New Adventures

Dark blue sails. A perfect tack into a perfect wind on gentle seas. Sitting on the beach, this old sailor’s heart aches.

I was leaving today. That was the plan. An important appointment out of the way, my birthday past, the open road beckoned and I would be gone, trailer and all. There is a dear old aunt in Manitoba whom deserves a visit and that shining idea has kept me going with something to look forward to. The borderlands of the Canadian Prairies are beautiful this time of year. Then the phone rang.

Finally, much to my surprise a date has been set for a knee replacement; June 20th. I was told “Perhaps in August” so yeehaw, there goes my summer. Maybe by sometime in August I’ll be out and about. I am not complaining, there are times when I want to take an axe to this throbbing horror so the notion of finally being rid of that incessant ten-pound toothache has great appeal. I know there is an ordeal of pain during the recovery that awaits me but all I see beyond that bridge is bluebirds and rainbows. UHUH! Ordeal or adventure; that attitude adjustment is entirely up to me.

Pipe birds. “Look at the pecker on that one!” The birds are sitting on wooden pipes four feet in diameter. They run for miles and supply water to the local pulp mill.

Meanwhile there’s a urine yeller peecup truck sitting in my garage. I’ve been thinking that I should take the rear brakes apart and have a look. I have not yet since buying it last fall. Thinking of towing a trailer almost half-way across Canader…. and being the former aircraft mechanic obsessed with preventive maintenance! Uhuh again. Then came a brake squeal and a clunking in one rear wheel. After beating the brake drums off I discovered a wonderland of black muck and rusted everything. Clearly the previous owner had regularly launched boats into the ocean. The brakes had been working wonderfully. How, I cannot explain. There is now black brake soot all over the garage floor and the knees of my coveralls. It’s all part of the familiar but with a knackered-up undercarriage and a lame hand everything takes longer than in the good old days. I clearly understand why old farts can be a bit cranky.

My liuttle shop of horrors; or is it a Taliban training center? Fortunately, nothing goes on forever. My strata neighbours loath me and my redneck ways. But, they don’t mind calling me to fix something for them! Almost all of them *are* nice people.

Then there’s the business of jobs like this and working with eye glasses. There is a challenge that comes when you’re humped over like a three-legged dog trying to fornicate with a greasy football. Your glasses, or goggles or spectacles, as you will, keep wanting to leap off your sweaty face. You grab them with one mucky paw and stuff them back into position but of course everything’s a blur now with goop on the lenses. Then the phone rings and you get an itch and then you have an urge to pee. The romance of it all, sweaty testicles. I meant spectacles, spectacles! After injuring my left hand in a motorcycle crash. My existence and survival have depended on that paw all my life. Now it is painful, weak and unreliable. All my days I’ve been life support for that hand and now it needs to retire.

The job is done, the brakes work well. Then a tree swerved in front of me.

No seriously, it’s all good. Then the handle for the engine hood release fell apart. It’s fixed. I checked online and a new electric Hummer is $131000. Plus tax! Think I’ll keep what I’ve got.

My wrench-bending days are coming to an end but I can appreciate other folk’s passions. I don’t know what make this car was once but it is NOT electric.

Just think, I was going to look for a copy of “ Do It Yourself Knee Replacement For Dummies” I’ve already got a meat saw and a hammer and chisel. It is truly wonderful what modern medicine can achieve. I’ve talked to folks who’ve had this procedure and they all describe it as worthwhile. So I take a breath and jump. I look forward to being able to walk confidently and explore beyond the end of the road. Head Bashed-In Wheelchair Jump.

Imagine the stories still held within this wee wooden rowboat. Feel the spring as wooden oars pull her forward and hear the gurgle of the passing sea water. Think of the loving hands that shaped her lines. There is nothing made in plastic to match it.

To get anywhere, all those wee legs have to work together. That’s a political lesson!

Got bugs. There were several of these nests one day. I can’t find a name for these pin-prick sized gangsters but I’ll bet they have a nasty bite.

Warm and fuzzy. Peace and serenity, a harmless wee pup. This mini daschund ( smaller than pictured) chased a black bear away a few days ago. Libby is 100% dog, in all ways.

Berry blooms in the rain. There is a deep slurping sound in the woods today.

Remember that a weed is just a flower someone else doesn’t like.

“The only disability in life is a bad attitude.” Scott Hamilton

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