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

Honesty, Stupidity And Little Green Lies

“Nevermore.” This crow sat in the same spot for a couple of hours cawing out a message of dubious meaning.

While posting the previous blog, it was pleasing to realize that my text had not once used the C word which now nestles in our vocabulary to a point of not being noticed. It is like the word “like” which has become a painfully misused preposition. I’m like so in love. I’m like going fast. I’m like really hungry. WTH? What exactly are you doing if you are doing like something? Is there a parallel existence that is like this one? Ya know, like, it really pisses me off. Like actually? How did that misuse of basic language creep in along with all the other strange anomalies we don’t even hear after a while? The word “cool” is now long used to express the same appreciation which, when I was a child, was “hot.” Awesome! There’s yet another. An English friend was accused of having an English accent. He responded “No mate, I am English, I don’t have an accent.” You’re hearing me with your accent. Now then, could you like pass me a beer eh? Yup, I can see how English is a hard language to learn.

Know the feeling? Try to keep your bow pointed for open water. The tide will return.

Reserved parking or recycling? There was a time when old cars were used to try and prevent erosion along riverbanks. Folks were as well-intentioned then as we are now. Maybe we’ll learn yet.

Up the creek. A vital salmon stream encroached on by subdivisions, light industry and shopping malls.

I can hear happy children jumping from the bridge on a hot summer day. This photo is at low tide.

Camp Runamuck . Someone is living off-grid in social isolation beneath the tracks on the edge of town. The site is clean and…mortgage free ocean front. I admire the dignity.

CRA, now there’s another disagreeable C word. Canada Revenue Agency; Mr. Turdeau’s mafia. For reasons of health I am no longer able to do the he-man work I used to. For reasons of age I am apparently not a desirable hire-able. I do under-the-table jobs which a lifetime of experience permits me to do when others can’t or won’t. For reasons of poor luck, translated to honesty and stupidity, I am not financially secure. I’m flat-assed busted broke. But being a responsible citizen, I filed my tax return in good time, weeks before the dead line. There were a few hundred bucks coming back which I really need.

The wooden leopard. Disguised as a dead limb and poised to strike. This rare wildcat waited for its prey above a dog-walkers parking spot. It had acquired a taste for fluffy little dogs.

YouTube, me tube, their tube. This wooden water pipe is part of a network taking water to a nearby pulp mill.

Two of these pipes run for miles to the mill. Pumping water from the Nanaimo River, through more pumping stations, under rivers and streams, never mind the salmon, all so we can have products like toilet paper. Five feet in diameter, they are amazing engineering.

Zzzzzt! It’s a matter of time. A little more wind on a rainy day and this arbutus will provide a cracking light display.

Vanilla Leaf plants. Hung in bunches and dried, these plants have a pleasant smell and were used traditionally as an insect repellant.

Then the Covid Crisis was acknowledged and the government began handing out money to anyone who came up with a vaguely reasonable story, honest or not. Just apply online, three easy questions. The country is being bilked, scammed, and ripped-off for an astronomical sum we have not begun to calculate. I know there are dire and legitimate needs but there is a part of our society which has no conscience nor consideration of consequences. Meanwhile, trying to be an honest citizen receives punishment. After a lifetime of contributing to the GNP I’m treated like I don’t matter. I can also reiterate, from experience, how shabbily a small Canadian entrepreneur is treated. A free spirit? Scum! And over seventy percent of our economy is small business-based.

Another one! I’ve been walking by this carving for a very long time before I finally saw it. Brilliant!

A blurb on the evening news casually mentioned that tax returns filed on paper, the old-fashioned way, had been delayed because of all the other emergency activities. Well, I’m old-school. I checked the mail again, nothing. In the morning I phoned CRA and after a maze of numbers to push I waited for almost fifty minutes to speak with an “agent.” Wonderfully her accent was standard Canadian, and she was pleasant, both unusual in my experience with government agencies. I provided the data so that funds could be direct-deposited to my bank account. I asked the question “When?” I learned that in fact paper-filed returns have been suspended.

Well, guess what queue I’m going to go stand in? My income has been cut-off due to the Covid crisis. Coincidentally, our illustrious Prime Minister has announced today, that the government has banned over 1500 makes of assault-style firearms. Hmmm, interesting timing! Coincidence? A long-time hunter, I know that nobody needs a Kalashnikov to hunt deer. For once I agree with our supreme dude but remember that one pissed-off old citizen with a shotgun can still damage a politician! A pitch fork will work too! Beware angry geezers. They don’t have much to loose!

A little later, I return to my desk after shovelling some gravel for a neighbour. I feel much better and muse about the therapeutic values of splitting fire wood and other simple mindless manual labour. There’s nothing like a good zen sweat. I miss that pre-fossil fuel which warms a body at least twice before it is burned. I watched a documentary about life on a nearby Gulf Island and listened to a fellow who proudly uses firewood for heating and cooking, brag about not using fossil fuels. Stunning! He cuts it with a gasoline chainsaw, brings it home in a gasoline truck and has clearly never thought about what coal and oil came from. Yeah man; ancient composted vegetation, like you know, trees! Then there’s the question about carbon footprints and how many cubic metres of Co2 he produces being environmentally friendly.

This guy has raised his family in a yurt while he builds a big wooden house, with asphalt shingles, glass windows and a deep concrete basement as well as many other exploited resources. When do we ever figure out that each of us is part of the problem? Stop the bullshit and work out the difference between need, want and greed. I understand that there are a lot of very well intentioned people who are poorly informed, even misguided.

Here’s a tiny bit of environmental homework. Do research on the mining and smelting of sand to make all the glass we use. And what of concrete? Mining the rock, crushing it into powder, baking it to make cement all so we go and smother more natural earth somewhere else is a monstrous environmental disaster which few consider. The impact is huge! The production of concrete is one of the planet’s single largest sources of carbon dioxide. And just think of all the energy consumed to make glass, concrete, steel, toilet paper! All those exploited resources, and the energy to take and modify them to suit our ends, so much going into housing, schools and hospitals (Boarded up or not) commercial and industrial buildings, roads, malls, churches, airports all of which will be ripped up and replaced within a few decades. The environmental cost, for example, incurred to produce windmills is huge and not questioned because if we can put some of those twirling giants on display we’re clearly in the groove. Are we doing what we do to be thoughtfully in tune with the planet or are we going through the motions of appearing cool? A friend describes our madness as “Fornicating for chastity.”

I’ve just reviewed the latest Michael Moore documentary ‘Planet Of The Humans.’ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE

I’m not a great fan of Mikey but he was clever enough to keep his pudgy face out of this one. He is facetious, as capable of bending statistics and evidence as his targets, and probably as profit-motivated. I do love the indignant howls of various environment organizations targeted in this film. The information presented is perverted but so are many of the notions he challenges. The message is clearly, “Green Energy” demands as much energy, if not more, than it would have taken to simply consume fossil fuels in the first place. A wise old man once told me that the key to long-term survival is to realize how little we really need. Just think of all the paper tissue products we consume; all for the extravagance of ease and comfort. It is not complicated. CONSUME LESS! WASTE LESS! The documentary is meeting mixed reviews but it does provoke questioning dialogue. If folks would just ask questions the world would begin to improve. Unfortunately we all live in a very broad comfort zone where complacency rules our choices and allows politicians and corporations (One and the same it often turns out) free rein.

My favourites. Chocolate lilies. Rare, fleeting, fragile and beautiful, they mark the ending of the spring lily season.

Camas Jack. What’s happier than a wet dog? …a wet dog that’s rolled on a dead salmon! “I love you dad, let’s cuddle!”

Puddle Break! C’mon, lay down and drink. Taste the mud. None of that clear fresh rainwater for me.

When I was a child the notion of rolls of paper towels would have been dumbfounding. When clothing was too worn to patch anymore, (An alien concept now) it was torn up for rags, which were even washed and reused. Toilet paper was not novel, but many of us with outdoor facilities used newspaper and old book pages. It was how I learned to read. The planet advanced nicely without our present decadence. Think of all the environmental devastation wrought simply so we can clean our bottoms with triple-fluffy poo pillows. Hell, some ads even have the bears using the stuff. Trouble is, the woods where those bears live are being cut down to make dunny rolls. When the Covid panic hit, folks rushed out in panic to gather all the toilet paper they could find. Priorities first!

Here’s one more thought. Suppose some persuasive enterprisers are able to convince the world that the gyprock drywall used in nearly every building is a deadly carcinogen. It has to go the way of lead-pipe plumbing and asbestos products. Can you imagine? Sleep well.

See what happens when you mess with a taxpayer. You get him thinking!

Shack Island squall. These islands, in a beautiful natural bay, were populated during the 1930s. I think it should be a heritage site. Newcomers want the buildings razed although they are all owned in perpetuity. It is a splendid example of people adapting to tough times.

Piper Island woods. A rain squall hit and drove everyone off. We had all this beauty to ourselves and Lord knows, we’re not made of sugar!

Piper’s Lagoon, after the squall. Within minutes of the storm’s passing, whole families magically appeared. The urge to get outside is clearly overwhelming.

From the woods, Jack and I watched a squadron of racing sloops bash their way around Five Fingers Island. We both ached to be with them.

Right then, on my count, stand up and reach high as you can. 1, 2, 3. Hello? Hello!

Young engineers. It is wonderful to see what a little driftwood and imagination can produce. Beats hell out of any video game. My father’s ashes are scattered in the wild roses here.

On a positive note. We still live in a part of the world where we are free to openly voice criticisms. Imagine enduring this pandemic, for example, in Syria or India or an African state. Throw in Ebola, drought, civil war and general desperate starvation. When schools and casinos will re-open are not a concern. Finding a hospital, any hospital is a challenge. A friend travelling in Zimbabwe last year ended up in hospital after an accident. To be viewed, her x-rays were taken outside and held up to the sun. So how many ventilators might they have on hand? Face masks? Yeah right! Toilet paper; what’s that? We’re doing OK.

After hours of shouting ” Six feet, six feet” to the people on the path, Heckle decided a ‘see nothing’ policy was much easier.

“You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference and you have to decide what kind of a difference you want to make.”
—Jane Goodall

Hurricane Warning

Watch this guy. He's pointing something at us. — Watch this guy. He’s pointing something at us.

It’s Thanksgiving weekend; already. Time flies whether or not you are having fun. With a long weekend available I intend to get the hell out of here despite a weather forecast which includes a hurricane warning. The barometer this morning is descending through 990 Mb but so far, there has been only a strange moaning wind in the masthead. Current local weather reports have gusts to 97 knots in Central Haida Gwaii. Seas in Hecate Strait are forecast to rise as high as 9 metres. Here at Shearwater I’m moored within an archipelago of islands and inlets which appear to afford good shelter. Yet they can create a massive funnel effect under certain conditions and produce devilish, destructive forces. It is imprudent to leave a safe haven in rough weather so my sailing plans will vary from hour to hour as the day wears on. These are the leftovers from tropical storm Oho. In Masset, on the north end of Haida Gwaii, a group of surfers have gathered in anticipation of monstrous swells along the Northern Beach. One fellow being interviewed on the radio said “I’m going to tie down the woodpile and head for the beach.” Good for all of them!

A chance of wind and rain. The Thanksgiving weekend, hurry up and wait.

By noon the wind is gusting viciously. It is not a steady blast like a full hurricane but a random series of violent blows, punch by punch. These can be more destructive than a consistent pressure. The boat is healing and surging so sharply that cupboard doors are being flung open. The internet is now down, soon I expect, we’ll loose our electricity. In the afternoon, the wharfinger’s little float house begins to break loose from its mooring. Huge swirling waterspouts race across the bay.

In the evening the power and internet are fine but the wind and rain continue their sporadic vicious assaults. Old ‘Seafire’ skews about like a frightened cat, straining frantically at her heavy, doubled dock lines. It was inky dark by seven pm. I’ve decided to stay right where I am for the night and see what the morning brings.

You know you are getting really starved for company when you leave the VHF marine weather on to play the recorded forecast loop over and over. This morning a sailboat with a man and a dog northbound from Port Hardy have gone missing. One of the reasons I need a cool change is that the only companionship aboard the boat is this computer and CBC Bloody North on the radio. I am fed up to my teeth with the incessant fecal flow about our upcoming federal election. The interviews of silly people and mindless rhetoric does not end. I advocate that citizens have a responsibility to vote. However I will not vote for any candidate whose platform is the shortcomings of his competitors. And they’re all at it. I’m at a loss. No one ever wins an election. Invariably elections are held so that the incumbent government may be voted out. Sadly none of the goofs aspiring to pick up the reins are inspiring any confidence; at least not from this old cynic. Nix! Nada! Nyet! Unfortunately it will be all the non-voters who decide this one. Apathy rules. I suspect that is what the Harper gangsters are counting on and why the campaign has been so lengthy. Blah, blah, blah… baaah.

The kickers are spawning! A load of lease-return outboard motors heads south at the end of the sport fishing season — The kickers are spawning!
A load of lease-return outboard motors heads south at the end of the sport fishing season.

Some clever recycling at the Bella Bella Dock. An old pickup truck box has been converted to an all-weather pilothouse on a locally popular aluminum punt. — Some clever recycling at the Bella Bella Dock. An old pickup truck box canopy has been converted to an all-weather pilothouse on a locally popular aluminum punt.

This Saturday morning the weather has eased, slightly. My plans for weekend exploration have been modified. I’ll wait till noon then tiptoe south to gunkhole among the islands in Cultus Sound, if I can get that far. The trick is to go no place from where you can’t get home due to weather. I have to second-guess the forecast and make sure home is going to be downwind. So long as I get around the corner and can’t recieve the feeble signals of CBC I’ll have a sense of having been away.

We made it! It is Monday evening, we’re back. The weather was horrific. I holed up in a familiar anchorage and endured two days and nights of extreme nastiness. I can offer a testament for the tremendous abilities of my Rocna anchor which held without dragging even in wind which was hurricane-force at times. The rain was a biblical deluge. Explorations away from the boat in the inflatable tender were all cut short by the onslaught of the next squall and the next. Now back at the dock I’m having to admit that this boat is going to be a huge challenge to live in through the coming winter.

Ruggedly built by the Downeaster boatyard in Santa Ana California, the hull is not cored or insulated. It is solid fibreglass. This is no problem in southern climates and the simple solution is, of course, to move south. The single-skin fibreglass hull in this very damp climate is a wonderful water maker when the dew point rises and the temperature falls. The hull sweats. Water condenses and drips and puddles within lockers which hold my clothing and equipment. This is curable either with aggressive ventilation which is impossible because of the locker contents, or can be reduced by insulating the hull in each storage area. Guess what I’m doing this weekend.

Damp, cold clothing is no fun, especially first thing in the morning before stepping out for a day’s work in the rain. My piece of dock space is a long way from my power supply so the electric heater is not operating at peak capacity. I have a forced-air diesel furnace in the boat but I don’t want to rely on it, especially when away from the boat. There is no place to install a radiant heater inside but I’d love to have a small wood stove. I’ll sort through this little dilemma and then there will be new problems to chew on. It’s the time of year when folks are seizing on every moment of dryness and sunlight. The past two afternoons have been sunny and warm. I scurry home from my job to work for a few minutes on my own vessel. Tuning up the cable steering and repairing davits have been my priorities but there’s more of course. There’s always more. Oddly, during these pleasant weather windows, aggressive black flies appear and chew viciously. These tiny monsters remind me of times past in the far north when the black flies must have frozen solid at night and then managed to eat anything alive during the day.

The dawn before the storm. Sunrise over Hunter channel.

A moment of sunlight on a quiet shell beach

Here the autumn forest becomes greener as the wind and rain impose themselves. The storms clear the evergreen limbs of dead boughs and needles. My decks are littered with cedar debris after each storm. The cockpit drains could clog with the stuff and soon rainwater can then overflow into the main cabin. Wintering here is going to be a full time job. I must learn how to glow in the dark if I have to stay for the long months ahead. Right now one yellow alder or a show of crimson leaves would seem very nice.

Doing the Heron Hokey-pokey. "You put your left leg in, then you step right out." — Doing the Heron Hokey-pokey. “You put your left leg in, then you step right out.”

Almost a week has passed since I began writing this blog. The evenings are noticeably shorter in these few days and the morning light is more reluctant. Far to the south, I imagine the faint sound of Mariachi music.

The Mummy is watching you! An interesting rock formation on the shore of Kliktsoatli Harbour., Shearwater — The Mummy is watching you! An interesting rock formation on the shore of Kliktsoatli Harbour, Shearwater

I recommend a wonderful book to readers who are truly interested in this part of the world. All I’ll say is that you won’t regret you investment in this one. It describes the history and culture of this region in a unique and wonderful way. ‘The Golden Spruce’ is written by John Vaillant; I wish I could write as well as he does. Here’s a quote from that book.

“Fancy cutting down all these beautiful trees…to make pulp for those bloody newspapers, and calling it civilization.”

– Winston Churchill, remarking to his son during a visit to Canada in 1929

"Don't encourage him! Look the other way; maybe he'll leave." — “Don’t encourage him! Look the other way; maybe he’ll leave.”