Uncle Travelling Matt

Like keeping a diary...

2010-07-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

Am I lazy? No, I work hard and I play hard. But for me, writing a blog is like writing a diary: the best intentions are quickly usurped by the busyness of daily life. Entry 1: June 1; entry 2: June 2; entry 3: June 3; entry 4: November 12? Yep, the months disappear with a speed that can only be the result of a pair of kids and a thousand projects.

Here's a postcard from Uncle Travelling Matt, a summary of the missed months:

For the past year, I wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper, the Prince Rupert Daily News. Called "The Outsider" it featured weekly explorations into the outdoors landscape surrounding the town of Rupert. Well-received but underpaid, The Outsider ran until a few weeks ago, when the balance tipped and it was no longer feasible to continue. Grand plans? An adventure guidebook for the town at the end of the road.

Having completed a renovation on our living space, we ventured into the rental space and renovated it as well. Months of dusty, damaging work ensued. Recently finished, we're now in the process of trying to track down a tenant. We also took on a massive landscaping project in the backyard and have completed two-thirds of it, finally giving us an outdoor space we can use.

I crossed into a couple of new markets during these blog-silent months, writing a feature article for Today's Parent & Pregnancy and a feature for the snowboarding journal, Frequency.

We travelled some, including a winter trek down to Vancouver Island, a fateful journey that saw the death of our truck; a week-long 3,000 kilometre roundtrip to Kelowna for Jo's mum's 60th birthday, stormy sailings to Haida Gwaii, and many short (relatively-speaking) trips in the northwest.

The plan now? Writing-wise, I'm taking the job to its logical conclusion: book-length projects. The aforementioned guidebook is one, but as more a contribution to the community and a chance at making a few bucks than a career-builder, this is somewhat of a side project, albeit a large and time-consuming one. The other book in the works is a creative non-fiction piece that explores BC in terms of balance between conservation, development, resource industry, and culture. There is some publisher interest and to subsidize the travel associated with the book, I'm applying for both BC and Canada arts council grants this year. I've sold a feature article about one of the locations to be discussed in the book, Tatshenshini-Alsek Park, and I head up there at the beginning of August to start my explorations. I have high hopes for this book.

Meanwhile, back in the day-to-day, we're juggling jobs, kids, and hobbies as best we can. The adventures continue and we pack on the memories. The only normality we see is a the uncertainty of a semi-nomadic life ... it won't last forever, that's for sure, but hey, we're here, we're young, we're busy, and we love to live. As Jason Collett put it, "here's to being here."

On the road again...

2009-09-21T20:56:00.000-07:00

Uncle Travelling Matt is travelling again. We're off this week to drive down to Vancouver (with a stop-off in Kelowna to visit the in-laws) before catching a flight over the water to England. It's Finlay's first big trip so it will be an interesting adventure. There is some nice synchronicity with this trip in that Fin will be around eight-months-old, the same age Amelia was when we first took her over to meet the family. Life on the road, as usual, will be complicated and not only because we're travelling with two kids, a baby and a toddler; my time will be constrained by a need to spend several hours each week on coursework for the instructor's program I'm enrolled in. Busy, busy, busy.

Three Days of Literary Madness

2009-09-15T15:58:00.000-07:00

I did it. I wrote a novel in three days. It was savagely wonderful. With some sponsorship, I managed to rent a room in a local BnB and lock myself away from household chores and the demands and distractions (both good and bad) of kids. I was afraid I'd stall out in the middle, but something about the deadline spurred me on, exactly what I'd hoped for. Ironically, the novel came in at only 31,000 words, but checking in with fellow writers, I've found that that's quite normal for a 3-day novel. Whew! I won't find out until January if the impossible has happened and I've actually won the contest. Not likely, but then, that's not really the point. Until then, I think I'll leave the book alone.

3 Day Novel

2009-08-19T23:53:00.000-07:00

It's official - I'm entering the infamous 3-Day Novel Contest. Over the Labour Day weekend, September 5-7, I will be holed up somewhere in Prince Rupert, consuming vast quantities of coffee and writing madly. I suppose in a way I'm doing it because it's the ultimate motivation to finally finish a novel. Twice I've stalled at around 30,000 words, or about half way. This, I hope, will be the catalyst to produce a complete work.

Cover Shot

2009-03-10T13:57:00.000-07:00

The article about my autumn escapades up in the Rockies has just been published in Cottage Magazine. They chose my photo of the Alpine Club hut for the cover, which was a nice bonus. Cottage did a fantastic job with the layout and I'm hoping I get the chance to work with them again soon. Check out the article online at backcountry cabins or, better yet, go out and buy a copy of the magazine!

Renovation and Relaxation

2009-02-09T14:37:00.000-08:00

The Rupert house reno is nearly finished - or at least as finished as it's going to be before the baby arrives - and, for the first time since December 20 or thereabouts, I'm sitting at an actual desk to work. Bliss. I even have my record player and some records here, an indulgence that gives me much pleasure. We live on Jamaica Avenue, so I've tried to increase my reggae intake as much as possible.

Since my last post, I've barely written a word, my hands instead being used for construction and as a result, they're thoroughly battered and calloused. But I did sneak in a couple of articles, writing with the laptop on my lap amidst a chaos of power tools, half-demolished walls and drywall dust: one for a publication called Northword about Shames Mountain, the closest ski hill to Prince Rupert, and a couple for Monday Mag in Victoria. Check them out in my archive.

Neglect

2008-11-26T14:28:00.001-08:00

Well, I've done it again, I've neglected the news. It's almost December now, which is clearly completely insane, and I've already written and had published the Monday Mag annual Christmas guide. We're making xmas cards, thinking up present ideas, even going so far as going shopping for supplies. Ugh. And this year, we've got much more on our plate - the move to the North. But that's now, and what about then? I never posted a story or pictures from an interlude adventure I managed to sneak in at the end of the hiking season.

In September, I went out to the Rockies - I allude to this trip briefly below - to write an article about one of the Alpine Club's backcountry huts. The article is slated for May publication in Cottage Magazine. My friend Dave joined me for this one. He drove out to meet me in Kelowna, and we continued on together. We stayed in Yoho the first night, camping, and of course the temperature dipped below zero. I lost my voice to a vicious cold I picked up a couple days previous. Fun. That night we talked - or rather, Dave talked, I whispered - to a group on their final night of a Rockies tour. Funnily enough, Gayle Robinson, owner-operator of Robinson's, a popular outdoors shop in Victoria, was on the tour. I stayed up chatting with the tour guide, Tim, until late. In the morning, we packed up and drove to the Marble Canyon trailhead. Amid the tourists, we set off, soon leaving them behind for the stillness of the valley, which was razed by forest fires in 2003. Blue skies kept us warm, as did the exertion. The trail follows Tokumm Creek for about 10 km, until it leads sharply up a gully to the hut. The last 2 km are, as Tim put it to me the night before, burly. We meet a moose by the creek, which is cool, but no grizzlies, which is a relief. I can't do bear calls because of my voice, so Dave has double-duty. The hut, when we finally drag ourselves up to it, is amazing and luxurious. And the stars, when they come out, are startling and intense. We sip scotch and play cards by a fire and sit outside watching the sky for hours.

The article will have more on the hut and the trip, but it was one of those amazing, quick, perfect little adventures. I want to go back and explore the area more - the hut was originally built as access to the Ten Peaks, the easy way up. Suits me.

Check out the pictures from this trip here: Fay Hut

Editorial Review

2008-10-27T21:27:00.000-07:00

I occasionally self-indulge and google my name to see what comes up, just for fun really. Partly, I like to keep tabs on those people out there who share my name (the Matt Simmons Project, forthcoming), and partly I like to see if anything other than my website comes up. Usually not.

Not too long ago, however, I was suprised to find that I've been quoted! I wrote a review of a kayaking guide and Amazon's page for the book quotes from my article. Fun. Check it out here.

I guess someday I'll get used to this kind of thing; I'll consider it blase no doubt. But for now, the novelty's fresh and exciting, and I still get a kick out of it. Jo once said to me, "I wonder if all famous writers used to get excited about their early writing?" Maybe it's just me... Whichever it is, I don't care, I'm having fun.

The Littlest One

2008-10-09T11:26:00.000-07:00

It's an it! The bump grows... And soon enough it'll be ready to fix a death grip on my thumb just like its big sister did almost three years ago. As usual, I'm terrified. But also as usual, I can't wait to meet it.

Busy Summer

2008-10-05T15:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't published any news or stories for ages now, partly because I've been so busy, and partly because I've been preoccupied and I've used that as an excuse to neglect certain things like my blog. Since my last post, I've been busy. I've gone off adventuring a few times, my good lady wife and I released the news of our imminent arrival - our second kid is due mid-February - we've planned to move back up north to Prince Rupert in the new year, I've written and published several articles, and contracted a few others.

First, the adventures: I took off in July to the Rockies on a rock-climbing, backpacking, and camping road trip for eight days with my friend Darcy Mathews. We hit Jasper, hiked the Skyline Trail (50 km in two days!), scrambled near the Athabasca Icefields in a snowstorm, and even climbed at the famous Skaha Bluffs in Penticton on our way home. The trip was a sort of "bachelor's party" for Darcy, whose wedding soon followed. When I got home from this trip, I turned around immediately and went up to Nitinaht Lake on the coast of Vancouver Island to learn how to windsurf. We car-camped as a family and I spent most of time getting slammed down into the cold, salty water. Back from that, and sporting raw, blistered hands, I had a couple of weeks in Victoria, took in a couple of friends' weddings, then headed up to Haida Gwaii again. We spent about a month up there for Jo's work and took the long route back (driving), via Kelowna, where we spent a day and a half. More recently, I flew up to Kelowna for some family stuff, then went on to the Rockies for another hike. I walked 14 kms to Fay Hut, one of the Alpine Club of Canada's backcountry huts. There's an article on it forthcoming. And finally, I'm back in Victoria again, this time it seems for awhile.

The big news though is our little bump, growing bigger all the time, and our plans surrounding this new arrival. Jo's about four months pregnant now, healthy but tired, and we're expecting the kid'll come around the end of February, on Jo's birthday probably, despite its Valentine's Day due date. We're moving to our house in Prince Rupert sometime in January, so we can live off Jo's maternity-leave pay. It'll be a great opportunity for us to slow down our lifestyle a little and spend lots of time together as a family. Lots to do on the house too...

I've written a few arts pieces and a couple of other articles which can all be read in the archive, including a piece on my friend, and local glass artist, Mark Roth. When we move up north, I'm hoping to start writing for a great publication called Northword.

Monday Mag Feature

2008-07-28T12:45:00.001-07:00

Archaeology cover story for Monday Magazine was published last week. Read it either in my archive here, or on Monday's website, here.

Williston Lake

2008-06-18T21:25:00.000-07:00

Pictures are here

I pulled off to the side of the road, horrified, amazed, and awestruck all in the same breath. A barren landscape stretched out from the logging road, the spindly roots of an endless valley of tree stumps bare from erosion, snow and green ice clinging to the dirty beaches. As I pulled out the camera to take a picture—morbidly fascinated—Amelia piped up in the backseat, "Look at all the octopuses, Daddy!" I had to laugh. It's crazy though—Williston Lake is a giant reservoir that used to be a forest and a river valley and now it's the largest lake in British Columbia.

Amelia and I had waited in Prince George for a couple of days while Jo and the rest of the archaeology crew went up to Raspberry Camp, a logging camp halfway up the lake. We headed up alone to meet them. The gravel road in is like a logging super-highway—wide, smooth, and straight. I managed to make it across the lake via the Causeway (not marked on our maps) thanks to the Dutch gas station attendant at Windy Point, just south of Mackenzie. From there the drive was easy and quick, that is, until the maps switched over to 1:5,000,000 scale. Then, things went a bit haywire. I got a little lost and drove the spur roads all around the general area of the camp, and finally pulled into Raspberry Camp about an hour, maybe an hour and a half later than expected. Amelia was asleep in the back. I got out of the truck, relieved to be there, and shook hands with a guy who introduced himself as Dean. He apologized right away, and I didn't understand what for. Then he told me that Jo and Roger had left about half an hour before to go look for me. He couldn't get them on the radio, so he jumped in a big red pickup and took off after them. Long story short—Jo and Roger nearly drove right out to Mackenzie and got back to camp at dark, bedtime for Amelia. (I was told later that Dean had been asked that morning to call me in PG and tell me to stay there because everyone was coming back—there was too much snow and ice to work.) Happy Mother's Day!

The next day we drove out to Mackenzie and spent the night at the hotel. Vashti, Lenore, Roger, and Morley all booked flights back to civilization. Jo and I decided we'd drive to Kelowna to wait for the call to come back up. It was my birthday. We drove that day down to Helena Lake, near Lac La Hache. It was a great little spot to camp and, apart from Amelia strangely filling her pockets with dirt, quiet and uneventful. The loons on the lake were fantastic, hooting and calling in the twilight. From there we made it down to Kelowna, and spent a few days at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I took off for a hike in Okanagan Mountain Park and a night camping by myself at Chute Lake. It was a nice break. Then the call came in on the Friday, I think.

We drove straight to Mackenzie from Kelowna—a ten-hour drive—and met up with the rest of the crew around noon the next day. (Not before taking some epic pictures next to the "Tree Crusher", Mackenzie's pride and joy, which boasts of "leaving in its wake a mass of crushed trees".) Back on dirt roads, we headed up to Raspberry Camp to pick up the quads and other gear, before pushing on to Fort Graham, on the other side of the reservoir. After a long, slow drive on a deteriorating dirt road, we arrived at our home for the next few weeks at 11:30pm. Not fun with a cranky, tired two-year old!

Fort Graham is a hunting lodge and it looks the part. A big log-cabin lodge dominates the cleared area, sitting on a bluff above a bay on the reservoir (dry when we arrived). Inside, antlers, bear skins, old rifles, boxes of shells, and pictures of past wildlife conquests. We snagged the only double bed in the place. Our room had the bigger bed and a single for Amelia. I moved in toys and books and clothes and tried to make it comfy for the kiddo. The night after we arrived, a grizzly came into camp, scavenging the meat from a recent bear hunt. The day after we arrived I went outside to see a dead bear lying across the tailgate of a beat-up blue pickup. Apart from the old rifles in the corner, in those first couple of days, I saw more than once a high-powered hunting rifle sitting propped up on the ground or lying on one of the tables in the common area, where Amelia would be spending all our time. I had my hands full.

But then, so did Jo. She was thrown right into work, a non-stop whirlwind of logistics, organization, and quad-riding. She liked the last one anyway. Plus, right from the beginning, they were finding crazy artifacts and sites. Working with the Tsay Keh Dene First Nations community, they walked the beaches. And when they got back to camp after a ten-, eleven-, twelve-hour day, Jo had to spend another hour or two coordinating different crews, liaising with the Hydro (the client) bigwigs, printing out maps for the next day, etc. It was pretty manic.

They worked six days straight like that. Amelia and I watched Curious George on the computer, went for walks on the little beach (bear spray clipped to my belt), played with dogs. She did her best, but she wasn't overly happy, and bedtime and naptime were especially difficult. A whole thing of hair gel was "played with", and literally everything else we left in the room was taken out, damaged, thrown, whatever she felt like at the time. I've never had to have as much patience.

The hunting guides and the guys who worked around the camp were pretty rough, but friendly. It's funny that Jo and I have been so diligent about keeping our language clean around Amelia—she's certainly been well-exposed to colourful language now. Jordy, the owner and operator of the lodge, was quite the character. He's a big guy and is bursting with hair. He sports a giant grey handlebar moustache and his chest hair pokes through the buttons on his torn and dirty shirt. He carries a .44 magnum in a chest holster everywhere he goes (including up in his super cool Super Cub bush plan). But, despite his booming voice shouting expletives of every kind imaginable (and a few, he must've come up with himself), he was actually very kind. He offered right away to supply Amelia and Jo more vegetarian food if they wanted it.

On the first day off, I took off with Morley (Jo's boss) on a couple of quads and went looking for something fun to climb. It was a great day, clambering up a ridge in the snow, getting treated to a spectacular view. Morley is a great guy to hike with—he's keen, extremely knowledgeable in the bush with navigation and general bush-skills, and easy to talk to.

Back at camp, we had another trying week of work busyness and searching for activities to occupy Amelia. Lots of colouring, reading the phonebook with Vashti in the evenings, fishing with sticks in a pile of sawdust... And, occasionally the dust storms on the lake—where Jo would be working—would make their way into camp as well, and I couldn't even take Amelia outside at all. But we made our fun, and we had some good walks with the dogs down to the, frankly stunning beaches. Towards the end of the trip, she and I rode on a quad together a couple of times, driving (very slowly) down the dirt runway to go for a walk and a play at a different beach.

And then, it feels now like it came out of nowhere but it definitely didn't then, the job was done and we were heading back.

We drove the first day up to Tsay Keh, the reservation a couple of hours' drive away from camp. When a place like that—population 250, still on dirt roads—is a culture shock, you know you've truly been in the middle of nowhere. The next day we drove down to Mackenzie again, and with a little annoying synchronicity, we had a similar mix up to the beginning of the trip. We stopped in Raspberry Camp to pick up quads. When we left, Morley and I were at the front in my truck, followed by the three other vehicles. We took a different road out, but looking back in the dust saw headlights following. About half an hour or so later, Vashti came on the radio saying she hadn't seen Roger and Jo, the last truck, for ages. We waited for a few minutes and then Morley and I decided to go back to look for them, thinking they had got a flat tire or something along those lines. We drove all the way back to camp, did a huge (very worried) loop, left notes, called on various channels on the radio, before we eventually figured out (guessed) what had happened. They took the normal road which was quicker and instead of being behind us, ended up in front of us. Again, long story short, we drove out to Mackenzie to find them waiting for us.

As we turned onto the paved road again, cheering, I noticed that to drive straight, the steering wheel of my truck had to be at about 90 degrees to the left. Shit. We celebrated civilization that night and in the morning, not knowing exactly what was wrong with the truck apart from a bizarre steering issue and a leak of some kind, they all left for Prince George while I waited for a tow truck. It eventually took me and the truck down to PG to meet up with the others. Jo and Amelia and Morley and Roger were to head down south, camping, and I would catch up with them when the truck was fixed. Vashti and Lenore caught planes out of PG.

It didn't take much to fix the truck—thankfully—and I was back on the road, only a day behind my girls and the boys. I drove down to the Lilloet area (Fraser Canyon) and without too much trouble, met up with everyone at an archaeological site called Keatley Creek. Beautiful terrain and a nice little camp spot, and some amazing archaeology. Shortly after Amelia went to bed, however, the skies opened up on our campsite, ironically the driest part of the interior of BC, but we stubbornly sat around the fire in full raingear. The next day, we were home.

Shotgun in the Snow

2008-05-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Morley bumps and grumbles along in front of me on the quad, shotgun slung across his back - the bear-stopper, he says - the sun glinting off his helmet. In front of him, the landscape suddenly opens up to show the Rockies in all their splendour: big jagged peaks crossing the horizon, snow-caps drifting down to a distant treeline. The sky is big and spotless. We explore a little spur road to see if we can gain some elevation before we start walking, and we luck out. The GPS shows we're at around 1000 metres when we park the quads and gear up. It's hot, but not too buggy. Yet.

We ascend easily through a cut-block, but as soon as we hit the trees, we hit the snow as well. It quickly becomes one of those hikes where you strategize - "let's hit that patch of ground there, cross the creek where there's only a little bit of snow, it's not too deep here, let's try this" - and our tracks zig-zag up the hill. As we gain elevation, we're treated to the occasional view, glimpsed through the tall pines. We stop for a break and Morley suggests we try out some cambian - a layer of pine that is edible - and he starts stripping away the outer bark. It tastes sweet and cool, but none of the trees he tries are quite ready, so they all leave a bitter, pitchy aftertaste. The snow gets deeper after. But when we finally reach the peak - 1500 metres - it's all worth it. The view is incredible. The mountains, the giant reservoir and its beaches, the trees descending down below us, the snow covering the ground. I grin and we take hero shots in the snow, before turning and heading back down.

This is a pretty crazy place, staying at Fort Graham, 9 hours from the nearest town. While I do have to keep constant vigilance to make sure my little girl doesn't pick up a loaded gun or watch the trophy hunters skin a dead black bear or get eaten by a grizzly, it's moments like this, looking down at the sheer size of this landscape and feeling a part of it, that make it worthwhile. The other night, for example, Roger and I took off down to the beach on the quads, and when we first got down there, two moose watched us from their drinking spot at the lake. Looking out on a scene like that, the sun going down behind the mountains, the open beach stretching out in front of us, sharing the view quietly with the moose, puts everything in perspective.

A New Snowboard

2008-05-01T13:00:00.000-07:00

It sounds like the title for one of those "educational" stories you read in school, but no, it's not. I won a brand new snowboard from Prior - a Whistler-based company - for entering this in their writing contest. Fun.

Snow ghosts watch me slide past, floating silently on a cushion of fluffy powder down through an empty bowl. All I can see is the pure white, untouched slope below. Not a soul in sight. The sun shoots down through a break in the clouds and lights up the surface of the snow. I laugh out loud to myself, just the tiniest bit crazily. I can't believe I have this all to myself! Over my shoulder, my lone track winds its way down from the peak. I stop at the edge of a little cliff and listen to the silence.

Huzzah!

Caribou Concert

2008-04-20T11:33:00.001-07:00

I saw Caribou. Not the so-called "supermodels of the animal kingdom", but the band from Ontario. I bought a pink t-shirt to commemorate the event. (Hey, I didn't know it was pink, I thought it was red!) I've listened to Dan Snaith's music for years now, first under the moniker Manitoba and now reincarnated as Caribou but I'd never seen them live until last night. It only took about five minutes of them playing to realize that my $18 was well-spent. Snaith fronts the band sideways, playing guitar, keyboard, electronics and drums. Not all at once of course, which means the band has a dedicated drummer. This young guy on the skins (a replacement apparently?) has his kit set up at the very front of the stage, and for good reason. Usually drummers are relegated to the back, providing a backbeat to the overall music, but in Caribou, the drums are the music. And when Snaith jumps onto the second drum kit to bash out hard-hitting, manic rhythms in sync with the sweating drummer, the sound is intense. They play both the same beats, producing just a big, thick rhythmic sound, and complementary beats, sometimes sufficiently complex to make your head spin. Most Caribou songs are a long build from weird sublime melodies, sometimes with Snaith playing a recorder, to manic, barely held-together rhythmic chaos. It's like that part at the end of a song, where everybody lets the feedback kick in and the drummer goes crazy, except that with them it goes on for about five minutes and it has a constant rhythm, breaks and all. The bassist sings as well as Snaith and their voices harmonize nicely, sweetly in tune with the big sound of the eclectic guitarist who plays on a big hollow-body jazz guitar. All in all, a very full sound.

It was weird being out at a show again, but good, and I think it was sufficiently inspiring musically-speaking, that I'm going to pick up the guitar again and start jamming with friends. I'll be sporting my pink shirt for sure.

Horne Lake

2008-04-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ok, I went off on another adventure. This time, I went only a couple of hours north by myself to Horne Lake. After a little hike up to take a look at some crazy rock-climbing and get a view, I spent a night camping (felt so good to unwind beside a fire) and then went down into a cave system the next day on a guided tour. I'm writing an article on it for Monday Mag so I won't really give away the story and I'll post the article when it comes out. But here are the pics anyway: flickr.

News: April 6/08

2008-04-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

Monday Mag article (as below) added to the Western Canada Wilderness Committee (WCWC) website: http://www.wildernesscommitteevictoria.org/index.php?action=fullnews&id=723

Balancing Act (or: A Rant Actually Published in Monday Mag)

2008-04-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

I love the forest. The smell of it is ingrained into my existence from growing up in Victoria, hiking East Sooke, camping in Tofino, wandering along Goldstream, even walking up Mt. Doug. The forest is where I go to lose myself, to let everything around me go and just put one foot in front of the other. Clambering over massive root systems is something that’s become an entirely subconscious, natural act, and one I’ve been teaching to my daughter. But lately, I’ve been torn by a strange brew of ambivalent thoughts.

I remember being little and peering over the dash of a beat up old blue pickup truck with my grandpa at the wheel, bouncing up crazy, steep logging roads—or often, reversing back down those roads as a full logging truck stared us down, filling the windshield with the view of its grill—and loving it. I still use those roads now too, to go to old Forest Service Recreation sites to camp or to hike. I remember the smell of the mill in Chemainus as we drove past; my dad worked there when he was in his twenties. I’ve known loggers, and I know loggers now. I like them. They’re industrious, hard-working types who love being outside. They like hiking and beachcombing and exploring the natural world; they like their jobs precisely because it allows them to be outdoors. But aren’t they, in the simple act of going to work in the morning, taking away these things we love and appreciate? Well, that’s where the ambivalence comes in.

If Canada were to suddenly ban logging, the entire infrastructure of much of B.C. would collapse. Thousands of people like those loggers—good, well-meaning people—would be out of a job. Their families would go hungry. Then what? These aren’t people with a lot of options. It’s not like they can just pop down to the local temp agency to check the job postings. Entire communities like Sandspit, Quesnel and Gold River (to name only a few) would become ghost towns if resource-based industries stop.

But what of the alternative? Do we keep going with this unsustainable rate of deforestation? Where’s the balance? (Is there a balance?) I’m sure there’s someone out there trying to find it; there are probably lots of people. But as average people, we usually only hear about the extremes. On one side, there are the developers behind outfits like Bear Mountain; on the other, there are radical hippy types shaking their fists and placards. Is there anyone in the middle? I, for one, want to hear ideas that come from neither side of this debacle, ideas that speak to everyone. I don’t know if there can (or will) be a solution to this problem until we appease everyone involved; and frankly, as far as I can tell, that means we need to come up with ideas that make money. Lots of money.

One idea I’ve heard bandied around a few times is to keep logs local—encourage people to start building furniture and houses and sundecks and anything else out of the wood we chop down here. That way at least we’re maintaining some jobs and losing a little of the reliance on our big brother to the south. Perhaps a government grant or similar incentive might nudge this along. But is it really a good idea? What about the single parent who can’t afford not to buy her furniture from Ikea or some other cheap manufacturer? I mean, let’s face it, not many of us can afford to buy a $1,900 handmade dining room table made from Haida Gwaii cedar by a local craftsman.

This is a big deal. I went for a hike up Mt. Finlayson shortly after the Bear Mountain project kicked off (unbeknownst to me while I was in another country—some treat to come back to!) and saw the view I cherished from my childhood completely gone. I was livid; I still am. I understand that some development needs to happen—we’re a growing population—but let’s find a better way: in-fill the city, make it easier to walk or bike to work, offer some kind of mass transit to the Western Communities, pedestrianize parts of downtown, build more self-sufficient pockets like Dockside Green. That’s a start. Then, find the middle ground and appeal to the greed of the developers. No one will listen to a protest without a solution.

The recent rally down at the legislature was a good step in the right direction—both sides were represented and the ultimate goal was clear. Protection of old-growth forests and a ban of raw log export were the two points on the agenda for the 1,300 people who attended. Over a thousand people—that’s the biggest environmental rally in 15 years, since the Clayoquot Sound protests of the 1990s. Between environmentalists, politicians and representatives from the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada and mills in Crofton and Nanaimo, the ralliers seem to have sent a pretty clear message to the government. The Western Canada Wilderness Committee, organizers of the rally, outlined exactly what they expect and it wasn’t just a full-on ban on logging. They suggest a more conclusive move to second-growth forestry, a solution that allows the industries to still remain but preserves the old-growth ecosystems. It’s a start, and it seems the important thing is that everyone has to get in on it.

This is a problem to which I don’t know the answer but, like anyone who loves our forests, I’m hoping someone out there finds it soon. What I’m really asking for is a new idea, a balance, a solution . . . perhaps even a miracle.

Sandspit, Haida Gwaii

2008-03-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

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.

The Beginning of Blog

2008-03-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have no idea if anyone will ever read this. The idea is that a blog is perhaps a better way for me to share my adventures with my friends and family and to likewise open up an opportunity for others to read the things I write that aren't necessarily for publication.

I chose the font (trebuchet) because it is synonymous with a medieval siege instrument.