Here and Everything In It

And Now, Back To The Rest Of The World

Today we're ferrying out of the Islands, back to the mainland, and back to life on a Schedule. Boooo! But wait, who am I kidding? I'm retired! From here on in, my schedule is what I make it!!

... oh wait. The baby.

Right.

All these delusions of fall afternoons spent quietly drinking tea in my peaceful afternoon living room, or filling entire winter mornings with inspired creative writing ... this won't be my reality, will it?

Hm.

I'll just have to develop an excellent inner peace; a mantra to fight those crazy stressed out days ... and I'll regularly use this picture to recall times less pressing and involved, when throwing back the covers in the morning or heaving myself up off the couch was only necessary for biological reasons (involving a trek out to the kitchen or outhouse), and exercise consisted of leisurely walks in the sun and sand when I spent an inordinate amount of time dawdling over which washed up agates and shell pieces I should add to my collection (bending over to pick those things up is hard!):

Well, objective achieved: we are now relaxed and ready to return to Life. And considering what life's about to throw at us, I think this was a pretty good way to prepare.

Pretty Beach Things II

 

... and also a slug:

Who is also pretty, in his own sluggy way.

Likin' The Lichen

Sorry. That title is silly. But it was either that or a pathetic attempt to link lichen with werewolves, and then ultimately with Twilight, and I just couldn't do it. So Likin' The Lichen it is.

And, I do:

Although, I guess it could be moss ...

These hang from the trees all over the place here, and when it's overcast they have a really strange and creepy look about them, though in the sunlight, they kind of remind me of something. I think it's those big creatures from Where The Wild Things Are, but I'm not sure.

McDonald's For Everyone

We've run out of the healthy dog food we brought with us and are now feeding the dogs the kibble we could find at the local grocery store, which tastes about as good (and lacks about the same nutrition) as human fast food. Not knowing what garbage they're eating -- just knowing that it TASTES FANTASTIC -- the dogs have been practically falling all over themselves at mealtimes, all OH MY GOD REALLY?! WE GET TO EAT THAT FOR REALS??!?! Brad's also been adding meat and vegetables and whatever leftovers there are from our human food to the dogs' bowls, with the result being veritable rivers of drool flooding the floor during the preparation stage:

 

Ridiculous.

Ancient Relics

It’s weird how certain things can become a part of a landscape, and you don’t see them for what they are until they’re pointed out to you, or you actually take a moment to process what you’re looking at.

We recently went for a hike to look at the former site of the Golden Spruce, which led us through a partially preserved stand of old growth Sitka Spruce and Hemlock. The trail wound around giant trees, and Brad and the dogs took turns jumping up onto the enormous, car-sized stumps left behind by loggers before the trees in the area were protected. Most of the stumps, for all their size and solidity, were covered with moss and were slowly being broken down to blend into the forest. Some had already become nurse trees and were covered by other trees of all ages which were using the stumps’ decomposition for nutrients.

 

But I was taking pictures and admiring the lush greenness of the place before I really realized the significance of what we were experiencing. These stumps had, until recently, been enormous trees that were centuries and centuries old, and now they weren’t anymore, and all that natural effort, all that time and energy and endurance had probably amounted to no more than some house siding, part of a fishing boat, or a few thousand newspapers.

I mean, it’s not like I didn’t recognize them as stumps right away when I started taking pictures. But it’s strange what you come to accept. It’s rare to see a forest full of intact trees, especially ones as big as these. You sort of expect to see humanity’s stamp somewhere, and it takes a while for the historical significance to sink in. It’s crazy to think that we will never in our lifetimes, or in the lifetimes of our great great great great grandchildren, see the revival of these old growth forests. 

Cutting down these trees was just so ... definite.

Maybe this feeling comes from the fact that there are so few of these giants left in the world. I’m sure that when loggers walked into these forests a hundred years ago, they looked around and saw a limitless resource. It probably didn’t seem as important to save the history of these giant trees then, since there were so many of them it was overwhelming, and their value lay in the idea that they could be extracted and used, like gold in a mine. I’ve also read that a century ago, you wouldn’t have been able to convince a logger that humans could make a dent in the forests of Western Canada;  the trees were just too dense, too sprawling, too big, and loggers had little more than spike-soled boots, axes, and oxen at their disposal. Hardly the ruthless, mechanized process of today.

On the other hand, buried in this forest was another reminder of the past, full of human stampiness, but with a totally different historical feel about it:

Can you guess what it is? It’s an old Haida war canoe, partially finished, but abandoned in the forest before it was completed. Maybe the carvers couldn’t find a path to the water, which is something you’d think they would've thought about before they cut the tree down. But maybe there was an emergency in the village, or people got sick, and there weren’t enough workers to complete the project.

Either way, here is a boat that never did float:

 

 

 

Pretty Beach Things

 

 

Environmental Terrorism, Death Threats And Genetic Anomalies

One of the first things Brad and I did after we got settled in a week and a half ago was peruse our cottage’s book selection. Choosing from amongst a variety of Philippa Gregory novels and the Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1972 Edition, we both picked up (and read – one after another) John Vaillant's The Golden Spruce – a non-fiction book a la Krakauer’s Into the Wild – about a disgruntled former logger named Grant Hadwin who deliberately cut down a three hundred year old Sitka Spruce near Port Clements on the Queen Charlotte Islands to protest the rampant logging of old growth forest on the Islands and mainland BC. The tree was reserved by the logging company that owned rights to the land it grew on because it had the rare genetic disposition of growing golden needles as well as great cultural significance for the local Haida people. Not to mention, it attracted tourists to Port Clements in droves.

(this is where the tree used to live)

Hadwin’s point in cutting down the tree was that people had been too easily convinced to accept so little from big business logging in return for a clear environmental conscience; by attaching so much significance to this odd specimen (this “pet tree”) and ignoring the devastation that logging companies had wrought on the surrounding old growth forests (full of trees older and bigger than the Golden Spruce), people were selling out, acting like hypocrites, turning a blind eye to reality, and not seeing the forest (or lack thereof) for the tree.

Maybe cutting it down wasn’t the best way to protest, but I see Hadwin’s point. In an interview after he cut it down, he seemed to imply that had he known about the cultural significance of the tree, he wouldn’t have destroyed it. 

(as a side note, the home of the Golden Spruce also sported another genetic anomaly: an albino raven. Unfortunately, the White Raven died shortly after the spruce was cut down (he was electrocuted by power lines), so the crazy gene factor in Port Clements went from two to zero in a matter of months, even though the raven still got stuffed and put into the local museum):

Anyway, we went out yesterday to see the hewn spruce, which is in fact still just where it fell (according to the book ... and Brad thinks the fallen tree in the bottom right corner of the first picture is the tree itself), even though there were some proposed plans to carve it into a big totem pole, or divide it up amongst the Haida tribes on the Islands so each group could make their piece into representative art ... but the different groups never came to an agreement, so the tree stayed where it fell thirteen years ago, and now the wood’s rotted beyond use.

But some thinkers took some cuttings from the tree before it fully died and grafted saplings, one of which is now growing in the churchyard in Port Clements, surrounded by a eight foot chain link fence topped with barbed wire.

You know, so that people can enjoy nature.

The plot thickens, though. Five days before he was to appear at his court hearing in Masset (on Graham Island in the Queen Charlotte’s), Hadwin set out to kayak from mainland BC to the Islands via the Hecate Strait. But he never actually showed up in court, and even though his kayak and camping gear “washed up” on an Alaskan island some time later, there were suspicions that these belongings were placed by Hadwin himself to look as though he’d been lost at sea. Some think that, faced with the death threats and open hostility coming from the Islanders, Hadwin decided to pull a runner instead of putting himself into the hands of an angry and vengeful courtroom audience. He hasn’t been located or heard from since his disappearance. 

So, who says Canada has no intriguing mysteries!? Let’s just hope the Canadian Film Board doesn’t get its hands on it and wreck it with quaint accents, crappy acting and a melodramatic “Canadian” score. Well, only if they can convince Tom Cruise to play Hadwin’s role, because then Brad would be in heaven.

Ocean Dogs

 

Shipwrecked

We hiked out to a shipwreck on the east coast of Graham Island, which was pretty cool, since we`d never actually seen a real shipwreck before. No pirates or anything cool like that, this was a logging ship that ran aground in 1928 ... but beggars can`t be choosers.

(The dogs had to be tied up because as we came closer to the wreck, it became clear that it was being swarmed by children, which made the dogs lose their heads ... which was slightly alarming if not for the fact that it was also kind of funny.)

Yaaargh!

Dog Rule #3574

So far, I've been impressed with how much the ocean doesn't smell. I don't know, I thought that living by the sea meant being constantly barraged in the nose by rotting seamatter strewn across the sand, an occasional washed-up corpse, and general fishiness. But, no. Sitting on our deck in the evenings we're mostly breathing in fresh ocean breezes, tinged with just a little saltiness.

But I've recently discovered that it's also a matter of proximity; it all depends exactly where you are on the beach that determines how easily you can breathe without gagging. Case in point: we were recently on a hike to round a point we could see in the far distance to the right of our cottage, enticed along the way with really pretty (and not smelly) seaweed covered rocks exposed to the air during low tide:
 

 

 

But then we rounded the bend and found ourselves in a crab, clam and rotting seaweed GRAVEYARD, which, of course, smelled like the inside of a city garbage dumpster during a heat wave.

And I'm sure you can imagine what all the dogs did once confronted by this new and deliciously disgusting gooeyness: all three of them found their own repulsive pile, flipped over on their backs, and proceeded to grind the glutinous mess into their fur. Because, of course, Dog Rules state that if a dog smells something that's dead and decaying, s/he must then coat him or herself thoroughly with said substance, especially if this action prompts his/her human pack members to shriek and wave their hands in the air like demented monkeys.

Mummy WAS NOT PLEASED.

Finding Fun Where It Is To Be Had

Brad discovered this make-your-own-art thing on the window ledge in the cottage, and has recently spent quite some time designing his own version of [nail] impressionist art. Though he toyed with the classic extended middle finger design at first (unfortunately not pictured), he ultimately settled on a (profile) replica of a carbonited Hans Solo:

... but then made another one which he thought looked a lot like the Mummy's sandstorm face.

He appears to have been working on his Jack Nicholson impression as well ... all here's Johnny! and all that. No video games and no chocolate milk make Brad something something, it seems.

Wherein Scarlet Discovers That Swimming In The Ocean Is HARD

I was happily snapping photos of everyone enjoying the surf before I realized that instead of actually paddling to reach the shore, Scarlet appeared to be sinking:

Since I was using the zoom lens and wasn't anywhere near the action, I couldn't do much, but Brad at this point had already shucked his backpack and was preparing to wade into the depths to save his favourite girl from the undertow ... though she managed to make it out of the water by herself just seconds later, no worse for wear ...

... though most likely having learned nothing from the experience save that Daddy really doesn't like to get his shoes wet for the sole sake of a certain princess' need for drama.

Pictures of Beach Life

Here are some pictures we've taken over the last couple of days. Most of them are of the dogs, but if you look in the background, you'll also see some gorgeous scenery.

First of all, here's King Rex surveying his kingdom from our front window, which looks right out at the ocean, and which is something you'd be able to see as well if I were at all camera savvy:

And, of course, the obligatory cottage cuddling:

And some shots of our time spent on the beach: