Sandspit, Haida Gwaii

This place is pretty spectacular. Bald eagles sit in the trees across the road, waves roll onto the beach gently, the sun breaks through the clouds in one of those laughably ethereal moments, reflecting on the water and on the snow that frosts the mountains behind Charlotte. The air is so clean that it actually tastes good. Like a drink from a glacier-fed stream.

I think we've redefined domesticity. We travel so much for Jo's work that our version of domestic life is drastically different than anyone we know. And yet, it's not. We still get up and have our breakfast, play for awhile, go out, stay in, change nappies, tidy, have naptime, kiss bumps better, learn new things, do the dishes. We just do it in Haida Gwaii. Or Campbell River. In a plane. On a ferry. Saltspring Island. Prince Rupert. We make home wherever we go. Right now, that's Sandspit, BC, a tiny town of 200-300 people in the Queen Charlotte Islands. It's not much more than a strip of land that's been brushed back from the beach, flat enough for an airstrip. Helicopters occasionally fly past the house--dubbed for Amelia, the "beach house"--sometimes carrying Mummy on her way to work. I feel a little dumbstruck sometimes ... it seems a bit surreal.

I like it though. Last week, I went out hiking by myself up in Tlell, Port Clements and Charlotte. Amelia and Jo stayed back in Charlotte together to play in puddles and go to the library and make puppets out of construction paper and popsicle sticks. In Tlell, the sun came out and I wandered a muddy trail that meanders through the thick rainforest. When the trail came out beside the Tlell River, the sun shining on the water and the wet moss that covers everything was unreal. I tried to get pictures, but they look terrible compared to what it really looked like. I had to take my coat off--not something you do often in the winter up here. I drove back down to Charlotte (about half an hour) and it was dark and gloomy and raining there. I continued on through the little town and followed the road (now dirt) up towards the Sleeping Beauty Trail, a trail up one of the local mountains. I drove until the road was completely snowed in, when I parked and walked up the road instead. It started snowing and I had to wear thick gloves, a toque, layers of fleece and a Gore-Tex jacket. Same day as hiking in a t-shirt. Crazy. I only went up the road until there was a little clearing and I got a view of sorts, a dark, wet, obscured view. Like I said, I like it here.

The next bit of excitement I think, will be to take our truck for a drive down onto the beach somewhere. Although at a sushi dinner last night with friends, we were told the story of a rather sad death of their truck up on North Beach. Shining the spotlight on it for one last look, they saw the waves crashing onto the windshield, the wipers madly trying to wash it away and the horn burbling underneath the water in a sad little death-cry. Ah, ours'll be fine.