Dianne Bersea Perambulations

Trouble on the Road to Paradise

9/18/2018

An explanatory note:
            A lot of misogynist horror has transpired since I wrote this essay in June of 2017. My fear that my words would provoke strong criticism has been overwhelmed by intervening events. The enforced departure of Harvey Weinstein for assaulting female staff and performers, the endless male perpetuated civilian massacres, and the ongoing display of juvenile anger by Donald Trump has confirmed my premise that there’s Trouble on the road to Paradise.

            My original story:

In four days I’m expected on Cortes Island, my old home place, an isolated wilderness isle in the BC Northern Gulf Islands. In sharp contrast to the heart wrenching events happening elsewhere in the world, Cortes is often said to be and isle of Paradise.
Long sandy beaches, rain forest trails, healthy lifestyles and friendly community are the order of the day.
I could use some of that.
But I feel confused and unprepared for a vacation, or even the idea of a vacation. I’m reeling from the magnitude of human tragedy in Manchester, Paris Brussels, Aleppo, Yemen, and cities much closer to home. How do I respond to men slashing viciously into unsuspecting crowds? How do I respond to mad men gunning down dozens of young children in a classroom?
I attempt to set these anxieties aside when friend Jodi and I leave by car from the silvery sage of the South Okanagan for the coastal vistas of Cortes Island.
Within a few kilometers we turn away from the Okanagan corridor and head West on Route #3 to the coast. At this early hour we are lonely travelers. There’s barely a vehicle ahead or behind.
In the deep valley of the Similkameen, loose gravel and rough pockmarks on the highway indicate recent slide activity from the ragged cliffs above.
My mind drifts to a world where humans too fall among others in catastrophic ways. What of the men who attempt to shield young Muslim women and are murdered for their compassion and bravery? What of the profoundly disturbed men who terrorize unsuspecting crowds? What trauma clings to those who witness these events?
This fragility is difficult to shake. I’m mesmerized by the size of the boulders that rear up beside the road. I scan the steep hills and follow the trajectory of ancient rockslides. I see houses and farm buildings among the boulders and rock fall.
What is the difference between choosing life at the base of an unstable mountain and an unprovoked attack? Both are unpredictable. Rocks fall and rivers flood and crazed radicalized males do attack without provocation.
I find myself reviewing recent terrorist events. I can’t help but note the gender of the attackers. Strange. I sense that I’m not to mention this. Women friends often jump to defend the men in their lives, as if identifying men as the chief perpetrators of violence somehow threatens their own relationships.
We drive onward through flickering light and shade. We pass from cool to warm and back again. I’m grateful that in this moment I am spared rock fall, or flood, or brutal attack.
Beyond the town of Princeton, we ascend into open rangeland and evergreen elevations. But a distant pale gravel slope stained by dark water-like marks and grader cuts unsettles me.
I wonder at this unstable looking slope, the tailings pond at the Copper Mountain Mine operation. Again my mind takes me away to recent stories of tailings pond collapse…the rush of destruction that has followed, then been ignored…and recent reports that the government has approved the dumping of mine waste into a central BC lake.
In my present moment, new swooping highway curves hardly require a change in speed and expose the open landscape on the edge of craggy mountains.
In the high elevation passes of Manning Park light glimmers on remaining snow, and I blink at narrow light through skeletal evergreens that are no longer green. I recognize withered Douglas, Balsam and Alpine Fir. Stately Engelmann Spruce, normally almost black-green, is gaunt with leaden colour and down turned branches.
I sigh and push myself to admire the late dusting of snow.
Beyond Alison Pass we gather speed on a steep decline and encounter another crumpled mountainside. I feel acutely aware of the sharp edged, house-sized boulders of the Hope Slide.
The rock face above is still monitored for oscillations. I mentally review a photo I’ve seen of miners in a tunnel when the mountain ahead had been sheered away, leaving them blinking into daylight where moments before darkness prevailed.
Now we slide down a long hill away from historic disaster and scoot out on the other side of Hope. It’s mid-morning. The veil of interior BC slips aside. The mountains ride low in a soft haze on the far side of vast level fields.
Traffic increases, as does the speed. The sun glances off car windows and chrome wheel covers. I put on sunglasses and pull the visor down. Vancouver hovers on the horizon.
I feel anxious.
Low shiny-roofed barns expel manure-scented air into strangely unpopulated rich green pastures. A plant nursery interrupts the flat agricultural fields with unidentified exotics.
At the huge multi-lane section of highway leading to the Port Mann Bridge and the Fraser River, I am purposefully breathing with Yogic awareness.
“Just don’t leave this lane, or turn off anywhere,” Jodi says, fearful that we’ll be lost in the mysterious streets of endless suburbs.
Abruptly, an exotic sports car driven with masculine confidence by a trim grey-headed man, whips from a right hand on-ramp and abruptly switches back and forth across four lanes. Moments later men in a maroon SUV and a dusty van play tag at high speed, cutting me off with their games.
I’m grateful that stats indicate a continued decline in vehicle accidents since 1995, though I’ve heard men still account for more than 70% of aggressive driving charges.
We finally enter the cities of the Lower Mainland and a myriad of roadways.
On the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge I’m again purposefully breathing. On my right I glance down into Burrard Inlet…the inlet where oil companies directed by male CEO’s, push for an expanded pipeline terminal and an 80% increase in tanker traffic.
On my left the massive superstructure of a tanker seems about to brush the underside of the bridge.
Then we’re out onto the serpentine concrete byways that sort traffic into those headed for Horseshoe Bay Ferry and those rushing to countless destinations, east to Dollarton and Deep Cove, west to Burnaby and Vancouver. We merge onto the Upper Levels, ferry bound, wheeling past high-side retaining walls and tree shrouded off ramps toward Horseshoe Bay.
On the expansive ocean crossing to Vancouver Island we read and people watch. The newspaper shares more horror as humans take out their frustrations on families, each other and our extraordinary landscape.
In mid-afternoon we arrive in Nanaimo. At a simple motel we trundle suitcases up a flight of exterior stairs.
Jodi departs to visit her mom in a senior’s complex. I settle in with my current favourite book, Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us.
I’m fascinated by Weisman’s premise…a devastating reveal of how we live now and how the earth might respond if humans vanished in an instant.
Weisman fearlessly examines our present moment, often in unsettling detail. With well-researched clarity Weisman exposes our 21st Century as it begins to self-destruct within days of our magical departure.
I am especially shocked by Weisman’s description of Houston’s devotion to oil derivatives production, from chemicals to gas. I flip open Google Earth to view the actual physical domination of Houston by this intense industry. I am shocked. (Shortly those very facilities will face the wrath of Hurricane Harvey with explosions, fires and release of deadly chemicals manifesting the very scenario I’ve been reading about.)
Again I’m pressed smack up against the reality of what we have wrought.
We? Women are rarely participants in Weisman’s dissertation, or in most histories…or in most boardrooms and war-rooms where disastrous decisions are made.
I remember checking out a friend’s video he encouraged me to watch. “It’s a really good history of Poland,” he said, “where I’m from.” After dutifully watching centuries of warfare, plunder and decimation, I primarily noticed the total absence of female references. What happened to the women?
I momentarily ponder Weisman’s futuristic world where we’ve all vanished in an instant. I’m tempted to consider a more gender specific dematerialization.
The next morning I wander without direction. I’m sandal shod in a semi-industrial area without sidewalks. I forego a dark underpass for a lengthy trudge to a distant traffic light. The day is already hot.
At a compact mall I push open the door into Tim Horton’s. The sunny morning heat activates the sugary, coffee edged smells. I watch the patrons around me for a moment. Then I pull a small coil bound notebook from my bag and begin to write.
Half an hour later, I tuck everything away to explore other mall offerings.
I walk into an unexpectedly cool, bright, expansive grocery featuring an enormous deli.
To my left, a large woman refills coffee carafes.
She happily walks all the way back to the distant clean-up area to provide tap water to go with my bulky ham and cheese. On the way, she chats volubly with a burly balding man in a hair net who is serving at the luncheon meat display.
“I worked thirty years in the sawmill,” he shouts back, “now I’m here.” He lifts his chin to let a customer know he’s caught her order. Change affects all of us.
At an outdoor table I continue to write. Waves of warmth rise from the sun heated concrete.
The next morning we hum along the highway north to Campbell River.
We enjoy the flowering yellow density of roadside Scotch Broom, and question the thrumming demand for its removal along with hundreds of other invasive plants.
We consider the challenge of aging, a matter of immediate concern for Jodi and her mom.
We speculate on our approaching sojourn in Paradise.
At 1:42 pm we glide into the Cortes Island ferry dock, arriving at last…in Paradise.

Post Script:
On the afternoon of our second day on Cortes, we visit Manson’s Lagoon, a natural wonder of sheltered tidal waters and home to a Government dock.
In the cry of gulls and whisper of ocean wind, we find an island friend unloading his pick-up truck for a dockside boat repair.
We chat in comfortable familiarity of island life and changes. Larger worldly events creep into our conversation. In London, three men have slammed a vehicle into a crowd.
There is a pause. All three of us look away, unable to formulate a response.
With his hands resting on the pick-up rail, our friend says quietly, “I’m sorry.” I look at him. “I apologize,” he says more clearly. I’m still puzzled. “I’m embarrassed to be a man.”
I’m startled. I had no idea I had been waiting for these words.

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When is the time to talk about climate issues...

9/18/2018

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Note: This is one of a series of Nature Wise columns that I occasionally do for the Penticton Western News, a Black Press publication. This one originally appeared in a slightly edited format on PWN editorial page, Wednesday, September 12, 2018.

My column:
Did anyone notice that Justin Trudeau quietly re-named the Environment and Climate Change committee to Environment and Clean Growth?

There is some sense to that if you want to direct our attention away from the Really Big Issue. We’ve been cautioned that “now is not the time” to talk about climate issues, especially, it seems when we’re in the midst of fire and floods.

When is the right time to consider conflagrations in our forests that threaten our health and livelihood? When is the right time to formulate actions to reduce rising temperatures, spring floods, deeper snows and harsh impacts on our forests, agriculture and homes?

When is the right time to acknowledge links between events?

Here’s an example that I appreciate. Over recent decades pine beetles have ravaged our pine forests. Winter temperatures no longer stay cold enough to kill wintering beetle larvae.

When I flew over central BC almost ten years ago, the sea of red, dead pines swept north and south, east and west from the border to Fort St John and beyond. I had heard about the beetle problem but the visible evidence stunned me. What a monumental environmental disaster! Our forests became fodder for fires as hotter temps and lower humidity also became more common.

When are we going to wake up and not only smell the smoke, but do something about it? I’ve just experienced an emergency evacuation so this seems very immediate to me!

We are smart people in many respects. Our huge brains have taken us from a simple life on the land to a burgeoning super computer world of solutions full of complexities that many of us can’t even understand.

We wobble from one intense crisis to another, shocked by images of fires that heat up our skies, dumping carbon particles into the atmosphere. But we hesitate to make connection between what we see and feel and the future.

A friend recently had a Hawaiian vacation cancelled as a Category 5 hurricane swirled toward the islands. “Who knew Hawaii even had a hurricane season?” she asked shaking her head. Certainly Hawaii is not known for storms packing winds of 200 kms or more. Nor are many of the places that are being hit with larger more destructive storms.

Closer to home, when did we recognize that purple loose strife, sulphur cinq foil, Russian olive and puncture vine had become reviled invasive plants? Who knew that they would thrive in our hotter, drier days aided and abetted by disturbed soils often displacing or interfering with our agricultural crops?

I’ve watched our politicians duck and weave and minimize the impact of decisions like Site C dam, the LNG terminal at Kitimat and the questionable wisdom of allowing dozens of anti-spawning mats to be installed in salmon rivers to facilitate the construction of another pipeline.

Did we notice when the emphasis shifted from the consideration of all the steps in acquiring fossil fuels to just that of land based transportation? We’ve been working on a lot of ways to disregard where the product ends up too and what happens when it’s used.

A pipeline is a conduit of a potentially climate altering substance.

Did we forget that? Did Justin Trudeau and the Energy Commission forget that? We’ve all been firmly reminded by the recent Federal Court ruling that suggests serious flaws in the approval process such as overlooking the oil tanker component that could endanger our communities and waterways.

Did John Horgan forget our future when he suggested that BC’s small population size absolves us of responsibility for the impact of the LNG terminal and conduits in and out? Was he attempting to diminish our individual impact, our province wide impact? Was he diminishing the significance of climate change?

When is the right time to pay attention and demand the same of our ‘leaders?’

The time is now.

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Synchronicity - a short story

4/2/2018

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In a peculiar time warp of the 1970’s, a small village clung to the sandy level of a lakeside delta and straggled up the lower benches of the sheltering mountains. In the deepest winter months, craggy alpine summits to the east and west narrowed personal perspectives and shut out all but a few hours of daylight.

During the darkest days, light starved villagers struggled with a spiralling vortex of icy winds, precarious roads, avalanches and a debilitating isolation of the spirit.

The burden of dark days weighed upon assistant clerks, electricians, horse wranglers, waitresses, loggers, mechanics and general roustabouts. Winter blues plunged the hardiest of outdoorsmen and women into shadowy depressions and thigh deep snow, and who, given a choice, would rather be drunk in the bar.
Verbal outbreaks, rowdy drunkenness, silly brawls, cabin fever and its ultimate companion malaise -- ‘spring breakup’ afflicted the strong and the weak. For some, already overpowered by alcohol, experimentation with pharmaceuticals and odd smoking mixtures led to new revelations and a psychic distance from the depression at hand.

One small group of friends, Martin, Charlotte, Maggie and Simon and their coterie of village associates, staggered through their winter world at their own particular angle.

For Charlotte, winter held magical properties and engaged her aesthetic nature, at least during the earliest falls of snow. The unblemished white that blanketed the mountains and church steeple, as seen in contrast with the deep winter blue of the unfrozen lake, stirred Charlotte to charming poetic expression.
“It’s painfully picturesque,” she said.
The brief appearance of the winter sun that ducked behind Old Fox Mountain by two o’clock also received Charlotte’s literary examination. She specifically referenced the short window of time when the sun’s rays reached into the valley town. “There’s sun, then of course, phffft, it’s gone,” she said,

The nearest town with ‘amenities’ meant forty miles along the lake on elevated and significantly guard-railed roadways overhung by avalanche chutes. On that vicious road Old Healey had lost his head, literally, on a sharp sloping bend. And, a well remembered six years past, Martha’s boy, a handsome kid with long limbs, a new girlfriend and job in the mill, had gone over the side, his ‘56 Pontiac pick-up caught in a barreling avalanche of snow.

Charlotte therefore rarely made more than one trip between November and March.

Martin had to work, winter or no winter – driving one of Helmut’s brakeless logging trucks up and down the switchbacks near the top of Boiling Water Creek. “That S.O.B. put such a heap of logs on the landing before the snow, we can keep hauling ‘til spring thaw. And you gotta finesse those fuckin’ air brakes in them damn switch backs.”

If snow fell sufficiently to prevent a logging truck from getting to the landing at 3500 feet, Martin could still count on a job some interior electrical installations at a lower and warmer elevation.

For Maggie, winter presented a serious though surmountable handicap to her romantic inclinations. Her lovers, truckers all, had to cautiously navigate Dingle’s road to Maggie’s place up north of town at the base of Old Fox Mountain. With a trailer on the hook, truckers saw attending to Maggie as a challenge, though evidently a worthy one. One winter, a sharpie parked his trailer in town and just went up with the cab.

“So much for my so-called discreet love life,” Maggie observed a few days later. “That over-confident fool slid off the road just above the mill. And darned nearly everyone turned out to watch the mill crew lever his Kenworth cab out of the sawdust pile.”

Simon on the other hand, claimed winter to be his season despite an observed increase in alcoholic intake and a more promiscuous approach to the town’s willing ladies.

“Hell, I’d rather be right here than fishin’ tuna off the Alaska panhandle,” he’d say, and promptly launch into his tale of going over the stern into those frigid grey-black waters and a fortunate, sheer chance rescue. “If Oscar hadn’t turned around from the wheel just at that moment, I’d’ve been a goner. Five minutes in that water…end of story!”

Compared to the drama of commercial fishing, the valley winter had stability to it. The weather didn’t significantly affect Simon’s electrical work and he could still do a little local fishing. The lake didn’t freeze but in the bays and the rainbow trout weighed in at trophy size. A bad day on the lake merely meant a couple of six pound Dolly Varden instead of a twenty pound trout.

Despite their varying responses to winter, one challenge – the lack of novelty, received a considerable amount of attention. In a village of less than nine hundred people, everyone got fully sick of seeking the same faces day after day, and Simon, Maggie, Martin and Charlotte had begun to twitch like everyone else.

Fortunately, on a typically dark and snowy day things began to shift.

It began in the usual way with folks jawing over coffee in the Postal Code cafe. Martin and Simon each lounged loosely on the bench seats, an arm on a bench back, one big logging booted foot dangled over a knee. Across the battered table with a steamy cup of coffee beside her, Maggie flipped casually through a bunch of flyers and bills from the outside world.

“You know,” she said, “What we need around here is some new blood…someone who can turn this town on its ear.” Maggie waggled an ad flyer in the air as if to suggest the answer lay among grocery bargains and chainsaw accessories.

Simon nodded absently and looked up as Charlotte swept through the café door, little Matthew peeking from a bundle tied across her chest. Charlotte plunked herself down at the table, wrestling herself free of Matthew’s cloth sling. “What’s up? Tell me something I haven’t heard. I’m getting antsy.”

Simon pulled Matthew out of his cocoon and held him as Charlotte flung scarves and gloves onto the table. “Come on, fess up. I need a new face in my life. I’ve seen enough of some people, like those, those Milton-Stiltons.”

Maggie reached across the table to run her hand over Matthew’s fuzzy and rapidly growing hair. “We were talking about that very thing. Well, not the Milton-Stiltons exactly. But we could use some new faces around here.”

“Damn right. I’ve had enough of being stared at by strange old men, trying to keep this little guy happy and talking to myself. Not to mention the Milton-Stiltons!”

Simon nodded again and leaned back against the high backed bench seat, Matthew wriggling on his lap. “The S & M’s aside, we’re not without resources. I’m sure we can come up with something…or somebody.”

Charlotte nodded to Eileen at the counter for a tea. “Yeah sure, Simon. We’ll just invite Ravi Shankar or Paul Horn. They’re bound to wave aside international engagements for this drop in the bucket.”

Still in the after-glow of a good night, Simon embellished his idea. “Well, Burton Cummings did drop in a few years ago…Bruce Cockburn too. How about someone like that? Anything’s possible.”

Matthew’s tiny fist rose out of a bundle of clothing and rotated firmly.

“Matthew likes the idea.”

“I’d like any idea that sets that Jonathan Milton back a step,” affirmed Charlotte.

Mystified by the indefinable barrier that determined who’s in and who’s not, Charlotte and company often looked on from the fringes even when ‘new blood’ could be had.

Among the village’s share of worldly visitations there had been an odd assortment of renown: the Golden Calgarians who swooped in on an old DC3 to rock the village; Bruce Cockburn, all spiky hair and granny glasses, who sauntered through on his way to stardom, and; the Foothills Rockers from Calgary whose transcendent career promptly fizzled after their visit.

Charlotte remained incensed that she couldn’t claim the Foothills Rockers as intimate friends, or Bruce Cockburn either. Though Maggie had taken home and seduced a French horn player on a Canada Council performing arts tour.

Martin’s failure to ingratiate himself with a National Geographic article team still rankled too. “They came to do an article on the life and times of small towns in the Rocky Mountains, and they saw nothin’! They missed the major highlights. Me with my wool pants, steel-toed boots, wool plaid shirt, and suspenders…damn it…my beard, my battered tocque! It doesn’t get any better. The NG couldn’t see the quintessential mountain man.

"And…rude reality, there isn’t a Rocky Mountain within a hundred miles. These,” Martin gestured in a general way to all the mountains surrounding them, “are the Selkirk Mountains for Christ sake!”

In spite of Martin’s clear-eyed assessment, folks like the National Geographic and Bruce Cockburn drew a crowd and landed dinner invites with the local movers and shakers. The owner of the whole food store, or the group renovating the old hotel for a cultural centre…these folks made the cut. These folks had all been photographed for the National G article. When rocker Burton Cummings stopped in to do a little fishing, a cloud of people surrounded him at least three deep. Simon said he’d felt like a jumping jack, bouncing up and down on the edges to see what all the excitement was about.

That sense of miss-entitlement arced through many of their social encounters, and rocked Charlotte’s relationship with Jonathan Milton. “A golden-haired boy,” as Charlotte referred to him.

Jonathan Milton had “stressed her significantly” since he first showed up at her door with an architect and realtor in tow. She’d always felt that no one would be looking for a run-down house like hers. Of course the place had been on the market for the past six months. Now here they were, all smiles and development plans.

The house had no value of course. Charlotte’s small verandahed house, circa 1910, shifted off square by the flood of l927, rotting porch posts and all, still had some very strong attractions…location, location, location. It overlooked the delta of Boiling Water Creek and out onto the southern expanse of the lake, down the slope of blue mountains at least as far as Buck Bay. For the new owner, one J. Milton, development expert, the small lop-sided house was simply detritus, slated for removal to make way for an eight room European style Inn, each room with a lake view. The plans had been displayed in the window of his wife’s gift shop for at least a month, all fake Tyrol and window boxes.

Charlotte felt betrayed and prematurely homeless. “I love my little place,” Charlotte told her friends repeatedly. “Matthew was born there. All summer the sunrise comes over the mountains between Mount Raw Hide and Brewster Glacier. I can see the lake. I can watch the tamaracks turn colour in the fall. I’ve harvested the best tomatoes from my little garden.”

“And you can afford it,” noted the ever practical Maggie whenever this housing litany arose.

“Yes, and I can afford it. I’m still going on my grandmother’s inheritance. If I don’t spend much, I can manage for a few years yet…”

“You usually mention Sandy Milton at this point,” Maggie prompted, having followed the course of Charlotte’s thinking on more than one occasion. Maggie lit a cigarette from the end of one she’d been smoking and waited.

Charlotte’s resentment came to the fore even at a simple social event. Though Charlotte had been known to say, “There’s no such thing as a simple social event.”

Take for example the annual “Winter Soiree,” hosted by Johnathan Milton and his wife, Sandy Stilton. All were invited whose paths had intersected with the Milton-Stilton’s in the preceding months…employees, contractors, carpenters, investors, designers, village administrators, the mayor, the restoration committee, the bank manager, and a number of “sycophants and sysops” according to Charlotte’s astute perspective.

Martin’s invitation came via some framing carpentry he’d done for Jonathan, and Charlotte’s for her occasional participation in Sandy’s gift shop.
On arrival at the Milton-Stiltons, they were met by a golden haired and beaming Jonathan Milton dressed all in white cotton. “My friends, Charlotte, Martin.” Jonathan embraced the air in front of them. “So good to see you getting out occasionally.”

On the receipt of those words Martin had to twirl Charlotte quickly into a side room before she could spit. “Getting out occasionally?? Like, if we’re not here, we’re nowhere. I am going to spit!”
Martin pushed the door shut and faced Charlotte. “So he’s a jerk. We don’t have to like him to eat his ‘houver-duvers’.”

Charlotte huffed. “Oh I know. It’s not like I’m perfect, but every time that Milton and smelly Stilton is involved I can’t be responsible for my behaviour. Him and his big city ideas. Talks all about view lines, streetscapes, invested futures, economic potential, glazed surfaces. The only glazed surfaces are my eyeballs!”

Martin watched Charlotte for signs she might be running down. He opened his mouth to suggest they enter the party room and Charlotte was off again.

“And that’s not all.”

Martin didn’t think for a moment it was.

“I checked his signs. He’s a Libra with Sagittarius rising. That’s a chameleon that likes to be the centre of attention. Always right, sees money everywhere.”

“And that’s a problem?” Martin teased.

Charlotte pulled a breath through her nose that momentarily pinched her nostrils shut. “And another thing…” Martin put his hand up. “Whoa Nelly. Enough already. Either we exit this room and devastate the snack table, or we leave.”

Charlotte puffed her cheeks and released a flood of air. “Okay, okay. But Mr. Milton and smelly Stilton better not treat me like a single mom, wasted hippy, back-to-the-lander who can’t rub two nickels together.”

“Even if you are,” Martin offered.

“Even if I am.”

With that, Martin swung the door open and gestured gallantly. Charlotte spun past him into a large high ceilinged room awhirl with golden people. Charlotte grinned with her lips pressed together, reached for a drink and put a thumb through the center of a hors d'oeuvre, or as Martin would say a houver-douver. She glanced around the room as she devoured, from the end of her thumb, a fancy bacon wrapped scallop. And tapped her toe as she did so.

For this particular remembrance, Charlotte found herself momentarily far from the local café with a blueberry muffin in hand to which she returned without a pause.

“Yeah,” said Charlotte, “In addition I can’t believe Sandy’s Sand Box rejected my dried flower bouquets. I thought they were so cute tucked into a simple clay pot. Have you seen what Sandy has in her shop now? Needlepoint coasters and macramé tea cozies!”

Maggie blew smoke out of the corner of her mouth and looked at Charlotte. “She always displays some of your stuff. I’ve always thought your bark wall sconces were a serious decorator item.”

“You don’t need to be sarcastic Maggie. I’ve heard plenty of bellyaching about all the extra paperwork Jonathan is generating for you, not to mention Sandy’s squawking about sidewalk repairs.”

“Touché. We used to have a nice quiet little village, with a nice quiet little village office. One or two rezoning proposals a year. Now I’m processing four, and Jonathan’s Delta View Inn requires a whole batch of development reviews, water and sewage applications, and a possible archeological survey. And that’s just the beginning. My boss is beside herself, trying to figure out what to do with Mrs. Moxley’s remains among other major village management decisions.”

Maggie set her coffee mug down and carefully centred it in an existing coffee ring. “You know, maybe we do need a change of pace. I think we might follow up on Simon’s idea. Get someone to make some waves in this town. Flip someone the bird at least,” Maggie added, as her eyes followed a big freight-liner downshifting on the hill across the bay.

*****

And so it came to pass. On one of those cold, dark, snow-heavy valley evenings when the streetlights in the village cast only the palest glow, Maggie invited her friends to a potluck dinner. Out of the indigo shadows, the four friends gathered with lentil stew and vegetarian lasagna that filled Maggie’s ancient house with good smells.

Simon brought frozen kokanee that he pan fried in butter as Maggie laid out some cutlery and condiments, and Martin and Charlotte snuggled on the couch.

Later, suitably full and cozy, they followed dinner with a living room sprawl and idle chatter.

Maggie watched her cat wind itself through their legs, mugs and bottles scattered across the wooden floor. “James. I think his name should be James.”

“James?” Simon pulled a beer bottle away from his mouth. “Who’s James?”

“My cat, but also our imaginary but oh so amusing friend.”

Martin snorted, “Imaginary friend? I thought you were too old for imaginary friends.”

“I’m never too old for a bit of fun,” responded Maggie. “There’s no reason we need a real person.”

“What are you talking about, Maggie?” asked Charlotte, who giggled from under Martin’s arm.

“I’m talking about the new blood we’ve been craving. Someone to shake things up a bit. We don’t need a real person for that. We could create someone.”
There was silence in the room, save for the sound of a ticking clock, a licking cat and snowflakes hitting a window.

“Okay,” said Simon slowly, “I’m with you now, but let’s call him James William, after my cat William.”

Simon put the bottle back to his lips and spoke into the neck. “Still needs another name though. We gotta give this guy a serious name if he’s gonna be someone folks will take notice of.”

Leaning on cushions and each other, legs and socked feet outstretched, they pondered the need for a more complex name for James William. Except for the sound of beer bottles being raised and lowered, a thinking silence filled the room. Charlotte looked out the window. She watched snowflakes fall in feathery bundles lit by light from the room.

“White,” she said, “Something white… as in snow white.”

A burst of laughter startled James the cat, who skittered around a couple of socked feet and disappeared into the kitchen.

Maggie waved a match in front of a cigarette. “Well, White, maybe Whitehouse, or, Whitechapel. Or how about Whitecastle? You decide this one, Martin.”

“I’d go with Whitecastle. Sounds classy.”

Maggie blew a cloud of smoke into the room and agreed. “Whitecastle he is. We’re now the proud progenitors of a totally functional fictional human being, James William Whitecastle.” Maggie raised a bottle of golden liquid to the light.
“To James!”

Beverage containers rose in salute. “To James!”

The racket drove James the cat behind the fridge and far from the madness of restless creatives.

Martin pulled his suspenders back onto his shoulders. “Well, that’s enough for me. Gotta get going early. Helmut wants me to take a truck up to the landing for another load of logs. Fucking stupid if the snow doesn’t let up.”

Charlotte rummaged in her oversized bag for a pair of gloves. “Me too. I left Matthew with Penny. I don’t want to leave him too long.”

The group began to pull their legs in and push themselves upright. Empty bottles clattered into a waiting carton, and Maggie tipped an overflowing ashtray into a coffee tin.

Maggie handed Simon his jacket. “I think I could develop a real fondness for James William. I see him as tall and slim. Graying a little."

"Ever the romantic, eh Maggie. Our pal James could be one of those distinguished guys with lots of charm. Used to being prime animal.”

Charlotte swung a scarf around her neck and flipped her long hair out over it. “I want him to be someone who can turn a few folks on their ass. Someone who could put that fancy-dancy Jonathan in his place. Whatever that takes!” She flipped her hair back again and glared.

Maggie turned on the porch light illuminating the caps of snow balanced on her bedraggled flowerpots. “I can see James William will have his work cut out for him. Catch you later.”

When next the conspirators met for a beer and a chinwag, Charlotte wanted to put their James plan in motion. She seemed to see James William Whitecastle as knight errant, jousting and winning against all comers.

“Get real Charlotte,” Martin cautioned. “We’re talking about an imaginary guy. Imaginary. As in, doesn’t-really-exist.”

“Oh, I know, but we can still have some fun, set something up. We could arrange it so it looks like James comes to town, causes a little ripple among the rabble. James has some entertainment potential at least.”

Discussed at length over many a coffee and quite likely as many beers, the James plan became complex and convoluted. In other words, James became an ideal winter diversion. Upon their imaginary friend, James William Whitecastle, they bestowed a directorship of the Vancouver based Lumiere Mime and Pantomime Troop, a background in documentary film and improv theatre, and a fascination with puppetry. Over time, James acquired a publishing career, a National Film Board documentary and an occasional command performance, all to exceptional reviews.

On the ground in real time, sort of, the plans for his deployment evolved. A proposed advert in the local advertising flyer Dollar Wise, with posters tacked up at the post office, would announce that a remarkable fellow with an outstanding repertoire of internationally recognized accomplishments, would be arriving on such and such a date -- to perform, give a lecture, search for the lost Bear Mine, bedazzle with a talent display – a benefit for… well, they’d think of something. The details would inevitably develop as the nights grew longer and colder.

Even so, not fully satisfied with the stew they had concocted, the conspirators thickened the broth even further. Just before the arrival of their personal VIP, James would be abruptly, and magically, whisked away to perform his artistry at a benefit performance in London, “England” Simon insisted. According to the imagined plan, the conspirators would boldly write CANCELLED across the posters. Several weeks later a small announcement would appear in local papers. “James William Whitecastle regrets any disappointment occasioned by his abrupt cancellation of his recent concert. Watch for a future performance date, TBA.”

That huge holes existed in this plan from the “get-go”, as Martin repeatedly pointed out, bothered no one. “Imaginary friends can have imaginary plans and they can be cancelled or go-ahead,” was Charlotte’s philosophical reply.

This remarkable quality of the ‘imaginary friend’ left room for further embellishment. Perhaps a week or so after the ignominious cancellation, another small announcement would appear in the Dollar Wise social notes. “James William Whitecastle, on his return from his triumphant performance in London, negotiated a brief hiatus from his other commitments to spend a quiet evening in town with friends. Special thanks to Maggie, Martin, Charlotte and Simon for a lovely evening.”

As with all good ideas, this one fell down in the execution department. After spending a goodly number of evenings plotting and planning, nothing much happened. James William Whitecastle dropped into a dustbin of winter novelties that helped carry sensitive people through dark days.

As winter days shifted from deep and dark to merely dark, the conspiracy functioned mostly in the way of background hum, a gently shared amusement that could be brought out when other resources faltered.

By late March, James had begun to fade from the scene. In fact, he had rarely rated a serious mention since late February.

Now the streets ran with water and the gravel slurry of melting plow heaps. On March fifth, the tinsel laden tree that someone had plunged into the center snow pile on Main Street toppled over as the snow beneath it melted. A warm wind full of alpine aromas and negative ions blew gently down the lake from Boiling Water Creek and off the aging snow pack of the Selkirk Mountains.

On such a day, Charlotte considered removing the storm windows, storing away the heaviest of winter clothes, or rotating her canning on the pantry shelves. Instead, she simply made herself a cup of tea, doodled in her sketchbook and entertained Matthew, by now a somewhat ambulatory and ambitious ten month old.

Charlotte was thus engaged when Maggie banged through her back door followed by a gust of moist spring air.

“Hey Char, you’ve got to come up to the bar. You’ve got to meet this guy.”
Charlotte felt warm and disinclined to move.

“No, no, you’ve got to. Come on!!” Maggie pulled at Charlotte’s arm and tugged her to her feet. “Come on!” She tossed a shawl toward her, wrapped Matthew in the crook of her arm and towed Charlotte out the door.

Within minutes, they’d driven the four blocks to the pub and rushed inside. “There!” said Maggie as she gestured across the room.

“There,” lit by the picture windows and the reflected light of lake and mountains sat a curious sight. A small form leaned against the head-high dark wood wainscoting, one arm on the orange terry cloth table top, one holding a golden brew glass against his chest.

“Oh my,” said Charlotte.

“Oh my indeed,” said Maggie still holding Matthew who gurgled a similar sentiment.

The small man gestured toward Maggie and they wound their way to his table.

“Hi James, this is Charlotte, and Matthew of course.”

“Ahh, enchanted,” said James as he quickly rose to his feet and bowed slightly.

Charlotte bowed awkwardly and speechlessly. The little man before her exhibited none of the behaviour or clothing choices familiar to Charlotte.

Slightly shorter than Charlotte, the long white hair of this strange apparition fell in beautiful soft waves from both sides of a centre part, cascading into an equally soft wavy beard. Golden brown eyes looked from a warm kindhearted face. When he put his hand out to clasp Charlotte’s, his hand slid from a deep cuff in a soft beige shirt, bloused beyond the cuffs all the way to the shoulders, completed by a wide collar and a dark leather vest laced across his chest.

As James stepped graciously forward, Charlotte’s eyes took in the rest of his attire – a pair of reddish brown jodhpurs flared wide at the hips that disappeared into high leather boots laced from ankle to knee.

“Enchanted,” James said again tenderly taking Charlotte’s hand. Rather than shaking it, he merely held it for a moment and looked into her eyes. “Please join me.”
********

A few hours later Martin accosted Charlotte as she strolled down Main Street with an ever-attentive Matthew peeking from his snuggly sling. “Charlotte! What’s this about some guy James? And what’s he doing in your back bedroom?”

“Don’t get your shirt in a knot, Martin. Maggie met him in the bar.”

“This is news?”

“He’s not one of her guys, Martin.”

“I’m supposed to feel better? Whose guy is he?”

“When did you get so possessive?”

“Okay, okay, let’s slow down a bit. Last I heard you were a single Mom living on her own. Emphasis…on her own. Sometimes things around here change too fast for me.”

“Will you just shut up? James is this amazing guy.”

“You got that right! He moves faster than Frank on a Friday night!”

“Look here. Maggie met him in the bar and thought I, we, all of us should meet him. He’s an artist among other things. He’s traveling, looking for a commune. Someone in Montreal sent him this way.”

“So what’s he doing in your bedroom?"

“Back bedroom, Martin. He needs a place to stay for a few days while he looks around. And he’s going to pay.”

“Well, that really makes me feel better.”

“That sounded sarcastic Martin.”

“Yeah! I guess I think about you and I as an ‘us’ sometimes. I just couldn’t believe some other guy slipped in when I wasn’t looking.”

“Martin, we’re talking about two different things. James is one thing and you and I are another thing… and I’m not always sure what that is.”

Charlotte shifted Matthew around so he could look at Martin. Martin reached out and touched his wispy crop of hair.

“Okay, I can take a hint. But what makes you think this guy will be a good roommate?”

“He’s gentle, he’s interesting and he’s paying. He’s also offered to do some work around my place. I can use some help getting the garden cleaned up, there’s a couple of rotting fence posts to replace, and I’ve been wanting to get more shakes split for the shed roof. If I don’t get tossed out in the next few days of course.”

“Alright, alright! But I can help with some of those things too you know.”

Matthew’s eye’s widened at this news and looked up at his mom.

“Martin, let’s get something straight. You are not going to do any of those things. You have work to do. So let’s not be silly about it.”

“Ahh Charlotte, you always tell it like it is, even when I’d rather not hear it. Okay, so you’ve got some strange guy in your bedroom for a few days. I can live with that.”

“I hope so. James is really something else. You’ve got to meet him. He speaks several languages.”

“…like I’ll be able to talk to him in Urdu.”

“There has been a rumor that sometimes you barely speak English.”

“That’s only when I’ve had too much to drink.”

Charlotte gave his arm a squeeze. “You’re okay you know, but I’ve got to get home. Matthew could use a snack and a change. And I’ve gotta tidy up a bit before James arrives.”

“Okay.” With his hands shoved into his jean pockets, elbows locked, Martin watched Charlotte and Matthew sway down the street and a shared household.
*********
As a resident of Charlotte’s back bedroom, James projected the very best in roommate manners. “He gets up before me,” she told Maggie at their usual coffee stop. “It’s been so quiet I don’t even know he’s there. I sneaked a peek into his room though. He’s there all right, sitting cross-legged, meditating. An hour at least every morning.”

“James seems to be full of surprises,” Maggie responded in her usual off-hand way, a cigarette burning between cocked fingers. “How’s he with the rake and hoe?”

“Well, despite his white hair, he’s really vigorous. He’s going to be very helpful.”

“More help is good,” said Maggie.

“And you know, I’m enjoying his company. Yesterday at breakfast, he told me he’s a surrealist painter, kinda like Dali. He’s had shows in Rome, Alexandria that’s Egypt, and Haifa.”

“Israel,” added Maggie.

“Yeah, Israel. And he speaks Hebrew, French, some Russian, and…”

“English,” Maggie plugged in the obvious.

“Well, actually, I think there was another language too. James is very unusual.”

Maggie tapped an ash from her cigarette. “I thought his apparel suggested something out of the ordinary. If he continues to exhibit exceptional talents, we may have to start calling him James William Whitecastle.”

“It’s funny you should say that. You know his last name?”

“Yeah, Califa.

“Right! In Arabic, Califa means “of the royal house.”

“And how did you get that piece of information?”

“Oh, that’s the other language James speaks. Arabic. I asked him what Califa means. There’s a whole bunch of related words like caliphate meaning ‘royal state or royal territory’.”

Maggie shook another cigarette from her pack and held it. She raised an eyebrow at Charlotte. “So now we have James of-the-royal-house?”

“Don’t you get it Maggie? James Whitecastle, James of the Royal House. We’ve got a James, a James Royal House person.”

“Mmmm, interesting co-incidence.”

They had been sitting at their favourite table at the Postal Code Cafe, Matthew asleep in a basket in the corner.

They sat quietly for a moment. The café windows dripped with cooking moisture. Cinnamon bun aromas, the fresh from the oven kind, mixed with coffee smells, wafted through the warm room. The usual collection of roustabouts, single moms and sensitive logger types hunkered over their tables. Rumour and gossip moved as freely as the moist air and coffee aromas.

Charlotte and Maggie pondered their own thoughts until Simon stepped in for a break. He flung himself down at Maggie and Charlotte’s table and dropped his head.

“I gotta wire a garage this afternoon. They want a 220 service. I’ve never done that before, at least not by myself and Carmine won’t be back till Monday. What am I going to do?” Simon put his hands to the side of his head and slumped further down. “Damn, I’m in trouble here!”

Before Maggie and Charlotte could begin to reassure Simon, before they could get into it at all, James Califa came through the café door. They slid apart to make room. James listened easily to Simon’s distress. He put a hand on Simon’s shoulder. “Would it help if I came with you? I’ve done some wiring in my day.”

Less than two hours later they returned, glad-handing and all smiles. “Damn it man, this guy is really cool. He knew exactly what to do. A breeze. Real pretty work too.”

Charlotte glanced at Maggie. Maggie rolled her eyes at the ceiling.

The strange co-incidences and odd talents of James Califa continued to accumulate. One afternoon with spring breezes and the cottonwoods pushing their leaves into the sky, Charlotte entertained James with a tour of the little town. With Matthew along for the ride in his sling, they ambled toward the beach in comfortable companionship.

Chatting easily, Charlotte and James wandered onto the sandy beachfront arena where each June a logging sports competition rang with the sound of polished axes biting hard wood. They strolled by the pilings where the sturgeon twisted in and out among the poles that Charlotte had yet to see because she was afraid to swim out that far.

Eventually the two explorers finally arrived back ‘up town,’ where they looked across the street toward an old two-story brick building, it’s construction date bricked into a curved panel above the top floor.

“We call it the ‘1894’ building,” Charlotte said, “for obvious reasons. It’s been a lot of things, falling down is what some folks used to call it, but friends of mine bought it a few years ago and fixed it up. Let’s drop in.”

Charlotte loved Deb and Dave, two kindred spirits full of mischief and fun. D & D, as they were affectionately known, bought old buildings for a song, restored them beautifully, rented them out, and sold them when the real estate market rose sufficiently to make a few bucks.

“A few bucks?” Maggie often asked in a rising tone. But Charlotte ignored the fiscal criticism and simply found D & D delightful. Rarely a week passed without a visit.

Therefore Charlotte and James ascended the long dark stairwell that took them to the upper level of the “1894 Building.” As expected, Deb welcomed their arrival without ruffle and superficially at any rate, appeared unconcerned by Charlotte’s companion, perhaps relieved that he was more presentable than some of Charlotte’s friends.

“Lovely to meet you James, and my fuzzy-wuzzy little friend Matthew.” Deb reached forward to muss a tuft of Matthew’s tousled hair and pretend tug his little nose.

“Please join me for tea, and I’d like to hear what’s happening. But first a tour. I’ve been decorating.” The tour took mere moments in the high ceiling, brick-walled second floor apartment where a newly painted wall offered a warm golden glow. From the narrow windows they had a spectacular view of the lake, a beached paddlewheel steamer and the ranks of mountain ramparts marching into the distance.

James however, seemed most taken with the piano set snug against a brick wall and over-hung with the large leaves of an out of control dieffenbachia plant.

“May I play?” he asked.

“By all means, be my guest!” Deb enthused.

Without pause, James pulled out the piano bench, sat down, ran his fingers lightly over the keys, adjusted his position a little and began to play.

Deb, who had gone to put a kettle on…listened for a few minutes, perhaps only a second or two. She walked around the corner to lean against the wall next to the piano.

She closed her eyes and gently nodded to the tempo. Then she pointed her toe and swung her leg to and fro, then her arms. Next she pirouetted into the center of the room, flying in circles and dipping and bowing and turning.

Charlotte watched this performance until she tucked Matthew into a big soft armchair; rose slowly, closed her eyes and she too danced.

Charlotte and Deb spun and swooped, laughing, occasionally colliding, then swooping apart again in happy delight.

After a final dervish-like glissando, James concluded his performance. The dancers collapsed onto the couch. “My god,” said Deb, “We’ve been blessed! Our very own concert, and concert quality at that! Schubert, Ravel, Chopin, Scriabin, Glazunov. Without sheet music! Wonderful! Too wonderful!!” Deb lay back against the couch cushions, limp with joyful exhaustion. “Absolutely astonishing! Bravo my new friend!”

“My, my, my” Deb continued to repeat. A knowledgeable musician herself, Deb had danced professionally and her father anchored first violin in an east coast symphony. Russian music had always been a family passion.

When late afternoon sun streaked across the lake and onto the lower slopes of the east facing shore, the three companions still shared a lively tea, talk of music, the politics of Eastern Europe and finding home. Matthew slept in oblivious baby sleep through all their deep discussions.

  *********

The following day James and Charlotte began the work in Char’s back garden. “Here’s a scuffing-about shirt and some gloves, and you can pull on these old jeans. I don’t know what we can do about your boots though.”

James shrugged. “They’re fine. They’re work boots really. Maybe they look unfamiliar here. I’ll wipe them off when I’m done.”

Charlotte’s gardening outfit on the other hand, included an old scarf tied side ways around her head, a big knot over her right ear and lots of loose hair escaping all round. Instead of her usual cotton gingham, Charlotte had substituted an old woollen dress from the United Church Thrift. Work gloves and muddy gumboots completed her costume.

Before they began Charlotte deposited the bundled Matthew into the playpen on the back deck. Matthew pulled himself up the side of the pen, his large round eyes peering through the side rails.

James and Charlotte followed Matthews gaze to survey the rather sad expanse that Charlotte called her back garden.

“I know it isn’t much, but I’ve always wanted somewhere to grow my own food and…I love flowers and tomatoes. I have a patch of dahlias over there and mauve Columbines come up further down. That pathetic tangle by the side fence is my herb garden. Don’t laugh! I think the rosemary is taking over.”

“I wouldn’t laugh,” said James. “It is sometimes hard for plants to grow. In many places I have lived it is nearly impossible. But this is rich soil with much rain. Our work today will have an impact.”

Glancing at the clouds shifting overhead, James took a rake and shovel and walked toward the jungle at the back fence. He stood for a moment, one hand on hip, the other wrapped around the shovel handle.

The scene filled Charlotte with joy. A man about to work (a novelty in her books), the old fence, stained and leaning at all odd angles, the goat pens and log house across the lane, the shimmering mountain tops hovering over all.

“Magnificent!” Charlotte called down the yard. “Magnificent.”

James turned and grinned. “Indeed!” he called back, and with that he canted the shovel against the earth and began digging at wilted brambles and ancient grasses.

They worked in silence for several hours, Charlotte stopping frequently to check Matthew, until he settled into a blanket and slept. Charlotte smiled happily.

As it drew near to lunch Charlotte glanced down the yard. James called to her. “Do you want more of the brambles out? I will need to dig deeper around the roots.”

Charlotte laughed. “They can be tenacious little beggars! Dig as much as you need to.” When Charlotte looked again, James had stopped digging. He was scrunched down, his left hand steadying the shovel, his right hand deep in the soil.

“Really hard to get them all isn’t it?” Charlotte called again.

James shifted and put the shovel down. Both hands went into the ground. He heaved back and a ball of roots came up with runners tugging through the weeds in every direction.

James laid the root ball aside, and, after brushing some gravel from in front of him, got down on his knees and reached into the ground.

He sat back on his heels holding something in his hand.

“What's that James?” Charlotte asked as she walked down the yard toward him. James continued turning a small object over in his hand. He held it up.

“We have something very special here, “ James said. “Look.” He opened his hand. A small stone, milky green, polished facets reflecting the sky, lay across his palm.

Charlotte bent forward and James carefully lifted and turned the stone so she could see both sides.

“It’s beautiful! But what is it?”

“It’s a tool, a stone tool. See, these are the worked edges where small chips have been broken away. It’s quite sharp still.” James took Charlotte’s hand and encouraged her to run a finger along the edge of the stone. “And if you put your thumb right here, the sharp edge is in the exact position to cut or scrape. It is a scraper of some kind, from the ancients.”

James bent down again and pushed more earth aside. “There is more. I’ll move the earth carefully. It is important not to damage anything or disturb the earth. Here,” he leaned in further, “is another tool. A point, possibly chalcedony, although I don’t know the stone that would have been used here.”

Charlotte kneeled down beside James. He gently scooped more earth out of the way. “I think there may be many other tools. I see also a piece of bone.” James pointed then shifted back. “It may be that these things have been washed down from above when the river flooded, or they may be part of a camp or ritual site that existed in this place.”

Charlotte pressed some earth back and stared down. “I’ve seen markings on the other side of the lake, on those granite bluffs you can see from the front porch. Simon knows about them. He took me other there fishing. I’ve seen stick figures and a sun.”

“Pictographs,” James said. “More evidence that this might be a very important site in your local history.” James quiet tone and serious demeanour indicated that he viewed this discovery as very important.

“We must not disturb anything further. In Israel I have worked on a tell and other archeological sites. It is important to proceed cautiously. I will cover this for now and put this big rock to show us where to be cautious in the garden.”

Charlotte stood. “It’s time to quit anyway. Matthew will be waking up soon.”

She felt awkward. “What is going on here James? What have we done?”

James stopped her gently with a hand on her arm. “We have done nothing. That is why I have covered things again. But we have much to discuss. I have several stories that will be of interest.”

James did have interesting stories to share, and in true Charlotte and Maggie fashion, they were shared to a sprawl of bodies on a living room floor. As soon as Charlotte understood the importance of what James wanted to say, the usual group had been convened. They ate and drank and took turns holding Matthew, then retired to their usual choice of floor space or chair.

Martin leaned against the day bed couch, its plaid blanket cover blending with his red plaid shirt. Simon sat cross-legged, a beer on the floor by his knee. Maggie reclined in a large wicker chair, one leg over the other, a pack of cigarettes in hand. Charlotte found a place beside Martin, slid Matthew into nursing position and tucked her legs under an old comforter.

James stood until everyone settled, then lowered himself into the soft cushions of an old green armchair and nearly disappeared. Into the expectant silence James spoke.

“You have told me about my name sake James William Whitecastle. This is synchronicity. Forgive me if I must be pedantic for a moment, but ‘synchronicity’ is from the word ‘synchronous’ which can be said to be is the quality of having mutual vibrations. That is, objects or processes or events that have the same phase of oscillation or cyclical movement.

“I have always been fascinated by the unexpected that is not unexpected, by events that cannot be explained, by synchronicity, the quality of mutual vibration. It is as we are, you and I, or have been…at one time widely separated but having similar thoughts. How could it not be so? How could it be that I am your James William Whitecastle? We are a coincidence of events that appear to have a significance beyond our expectations.”

Matthew wriggled in his mother’s arms but no one else moved so much as a toe.

“This is what we have, you and I. Synchronicity.” James waved his hand to include them all.

“Now, I am going to tell you a story about synchronicity.”

Martin shifted into a more comfortable position, and silence fell over the room.

“I, James Califa, am a child of Algiers, born to a poor family in Oran. Yes, that is the city of Camus’ plague. And yes, Oran city did have such a plague during my youth, but that is not what my story is about.

“I had an uncomplicated childhood, or as uncomplicated as it could be for an Algerian Jewish boy in a country colonized by France. As I reached manhood, the second Great War, or as you call it World War Two, had torn into the heart of our colonists home country. There was much tragedy in Europe. I was of an age to enlist, though in truth I was conscripted as a simple sailor, a ‘matelot,’ stationed with the French navy in Marsailles, the great naval base on the Mediterranean.

“I will not tell you about the war. That was and always will be an ugly business. But within that ugliness I met a beautiful woman with a beautiful name, Annette Bocuse.

“Annette and I loved each other very much. To find such love in the depths of war….” James raised his hands and let them fall. “Annette was a great passion for me, and her passion was an equal to mine.” James touched his heart with both hands. He took a breath and exhaled. He raised his head…looked closely at each of them and continued.

“We met as often as we could. We often met at a small cafe and then went into the hills near Allauch. That was our privacy.”

“Sadly the war was not the only difficulty. As you know, Germany had occupied all but a small part of France by 1942. You must also remember that I am an Algerian Jew. Annette’s family did not want such a person in her life.

"One day when we had arranged to meet, I waited and waited. She did not arrive at the café. I had many fearful thoughts. But it was not the war that delayed Annette. Her brothers had taken her into hiding in the mountains near Chamonix. We did not see each other again.”

Charlotte gasped and shook her head. “Never?”

James nodded. “That is so. I never saw Annette again.”

No one spoke. Charlotte dropped her head and then raised it with tears on her cheeks. “Oh James, that is such a sad story. So sad.”

“Yes, it was a great sadness for me. I have never had such a passion again. But I have had a very interesting life and I have done many things. When the war ended I followed others to Israel. I again became a soldier. As kibbutzim, I fought in the border war of 1947, The War of Independence. Although not like love, no, very not like love, there was again a great passion, a great sense of comradeship.”

Charlotte rocked Matthew and looked up at James. “Did you remain a soldier in Israel?”

James shook his head. “In Israel at that time, we were all soldiers. But later I became involved with the history, as an archeologist. We investigated many sites which we call ‘tells’. That is, many cities built on top of one another as is customary in that part of the world. This history is very important. Later I also became an artist and a musician. I have traveled widely.”

James didn’t speak for a few minutes and each listener moved only slightly. Matthew slept in relaxed abandon in his mother’s arms. Simon took a swig of beer. Martin put his head back and stared at the ceiling, and Charlotte continued to look steadily at James.

“What is the synchronicity James? Where is that?”

“I have not forgotten. Synchronicity is all part of this story.

“After many years and, in a way, many lifetimes, I began my recent travels. I have been searching for a community, a commune -- a place that might require my skills and that will provide a safe home for an aging man. That search brings me to your town. But the first synchronicity…that occurred in Vancouver.

“There I walked in that city’s famous Stanley Park. I walked on the seawall where artists set up their easels. I talked to an artist whose work appealed to me.
As travellers and artists we had much in common. He graciously invited me to a gathering. It was at there that I met someone unexpected.”

“Who?” Charlotte burst out. “Who did you meet?”

“Lalou,” James paused, “Annette’s brother.”

“Annette’s brother? No, you must be joking!”

“Just the same, it is so. Annette’s brother, her youngest.”

Charlotte handed the sleeping Matthew to Martin, and slid forward until she sat at James knees. She grasped at his hands. “What happened to Annette? You must have asked.”

“Of course. Annette is well. She married and had four children and remains at her home in Avignon.”

“And Lalou? Do you hate him?”

“No. Feelings of anger and betrayal have not been part of my life for many years. Lalou and I spoke as men who have lived a long time in a turbulent world. There is an understanding in that.”

“And Annette? What of her life?”

“Annette married as I said. She raised a family in the mountains, in Chamonix. Her husband is dead now. For many years she has kept a small pension, a guesthouse, in Avignon. Her children live nearby; two are married and have children of their own. A son is in the Navy. The eldest, a daughter, Perotte, is an artist.”

Charlotte gasped and sprang to her feet, her hands to her mouth. “Is it possible that Perotte is your daughter?”

James smiled. “Yes, that is possible. Indeed likely. Lalou told me that Annette was expecting a child when they took her away.”

Again, the group responded with silence.

James sensed their unease. “This, my friends, this is the synchronicity. I have learned of Annette in an unexpected way. I am an artist. My daughter is an artist. I made this journey to learn of that, and to find friends among whom I can share my story…among friends who anticipated me. This is the quality of mutual vibration is it not?”

The group continued to sit in silence, slowly absorbing the strange synchronicity of James William Whitecastle and James Califa in their small lives, of war, romance, loss and reunion.
*********

He’s gone!” Charlotte cried as she flew through the café door and grabbed at Martin’s sleeve.

“Gone, who’s gone?” Asked Martin, turning a chair around for Charlotte as they joined Maggie and Simon at a table in the centre of the cafe.

“James. He’s gone!”

“Can’t be! I just saw him yesterday. We talked outside the village hall.”

Maggie put down her coffee cup. “Yup. He’d just been at the village office. James put the wheels in motion for a full-scale archeological survey of Charlotte’s place. It sounded like he pulled some strings. James has serious connections in the archeology world. In the meantime no one, I mean no one can do anything. Ergo, no development for the time being.”

They all stared at Maggie. “In fact, from what James told me there may be no development at all. It’s possible that Charlotte’s place is an important ritual site.”

The group sat in shocked silence.

“But James is gone!” insisted Charlotte. “He’s not there. Everything is gone from his room. I can’t believe he left, just up and went. Gone!”

“So, no one in the back bed room?” asked Martin hopefully.

Charlotte gave Martin a dark look and continued. “No, not anywhere. I miss him already.”
**********

Charlotte did miss James. Simon missed James. They all missed James. “Even Matthew misses him,” said Charlotte.

James had brought more light and life into the valley than a whole Burton Cummings, the Guess Who, Bruce Cockburn and a Festival Train rolled into one.

After a few days, everyone returned to his or her usual activities. Mail days brought everyone to the post office followed by a coffee stop either at the Postal Code café or the Steak and Ribs down the block. Weekends began to open up with a bit more fishing.

Charlotte continued to work in her garden. In the evenings everyone often just hung out on someone’s front porch to enjoy the longer evenings.

The Milton-Stiltons became tied up in a legal battle over the archeological survey on Charlotte place. The survey, as predicted, had turned up evidence of a major aboriginal encampment that appeared to have been occupied back into the mists of time. The Milton-Stiltons became additionally hamstrung by a caveat that prevented a sale of the property until the future of the site could be determined. This appeared to involve half a dozen governments departments, two museums, several First Nation communities and at least one irate tribal chief…that meant, Martin said, “When hell freezes over.”

Charlotte whispered a thank you to James every day and especially when she went into the garden, now an ebullient show of colour and shiny vegetable leaves.

About a month after James had departed, Charlotte found an odd postcard in her mailbox. The word Patagonia marked the base of some extremely sharp peaked mountains.

On the reverse, “To my very gracious Charlotte. My heart thanks you for your loving hospitality. I am now on a new journey. I wish to tell you that I will always treasure my sojourn in your special valley, with you and your friends. James”

In the fall, the tamaracks began to turn on the upper slopes of the mountains across the lake. Life went on. A few weeks into November Charlotte received another curious postcard.

Standing among the clatter of mailboxes and post office chatter, she held a colourful image, a painting, all bright swirls and bold brush strokes. On the reverse, a few spare words. “My dear Charlotte, I reside now in Avignon. Votre ami, James."

Copyright, Dianne Bersea, April 2, 2018

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Kootenay Keepsakes

10/23/2015

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Welcome to more about the Kootenays. In the 1970's I lived for about eight years in Kaslo BC, on the shore of Kootenay Lake about 55 km from Nelson. Kaslo is a fascinating little town and has provided many gifts including a livelihood as an artist / designer. It's also the fictionalized setting for a series of linked short stories one of which I published to this blog in September. Below you can visit Kaslo in an article I wrote for Western Living Magazine back in 1980. I think the published version is probably shorter and more to the point, but if you have the time, join me on a ramble through historic Kaslo town. (Brackets indicate asides in present time.)

WALKING THROUGH KOOTENAY YESTERDAYS
            Kaslo, B.C. may someday rank with Ontario’s Stratford or Pennsylvania’s Williamsburg as an historic town that made the past a functional and attractive part of the present. Known for it’s beautiful scenery, it’s historic mining past and exceptional sports fishery, the village of Kaslo graces a river delta with old and new.
            Historically, the Kootenay Lake foreshore accommodated rugged adventurers who had followed the lure of mining riches. The discovery of silver, lead and zinc in the 1880’s drew thousands of hardy men and women. Communities such as Kaslo became boom towns overnight, providing services and entertainment to the mining industry.
            So stunningly beautiful even early residents recognized Kaslo's unique landscape and likened the setting to Switzerland. For many years Kaslo was publicized as the Lucerne of North America.
            This was also the era of the famous paddlewheel steamers, long white boats as much a part of Kaslo as the mining, banking revelry and decorous Sunday mornings.
            Names such as the Bonnington, Kuskanook, Nasookin and Moyie spell degrees of ship-board luxury combined with an essential transportation link to the outside world. Freight boats stained with mineral dust, coal and smoke shared Kootenay Lake with the luxuriously appointed S.S. International and others where elegant passengers dined fashionably in the chandeliered main salon.
            Such elegance and sense of fashion were also much a part of life in Kaslo itself. World-renowned visitors left surprisingly familiar signatures in hotel guest books – John Jacob Aster, Oscar Wilde, and the Song Bird of Norway, Jenney Lind.
            Energized by money and hope Kaslo bustled with activity, sheltering more than five thousand seekers after the new El Dorado.
            Building, businesses and home rose in Victorian gingerbread splendour with hints of European Renaissance grandeur. Dance halls and saloons, muddy streets and boardwalks echoed with the sounds of a town on the move.
            Eighty girls are said to have served the needs of mining men at the infamous theater Comique, and twenty-four saloons poured refreshments into the parched throats of carpenters, miners, loggers and businessmen.
            Barbers and café cooks outnumbered schoolteachers, and religious leaders were hard pressed to maintain their own stability, let alone that of a feverishly scrambling mining community.
            But Kaslo soon went the way of mining towns throughout the Kootenays. With the decline of mineral values after the First World War, quieter days arrived, and for some years agriculture provided the chief source of income and attention.
            Indeed Kaslo and the surrounding bench lands were so successfully cultivated, that during the mid 1920’s Kaslo became the Cherry capital of the World, producing a quality of fruit that rivaled the Okanagan.
            Unfortunately, the cherry industry too began to fail when a blight hit the trees in the 1940’s and the fruit declined to commercially unsuitable.
            By 1960 Kaslo had become a near ghost town. Deserted buildings, empty windows and barricaded doorways were a common sight. Two newer buildings presented merely unfinished shells. The small population of six hundred survived on jobs with the government, local school, hospital and Provincial Highways Department. Little outfits with more a sense of independence than a sense of economics continued to work the mines.
            Today Kaslo is undergoing a rebirth as city folks look to the country for opportunities no longer available in urban centres. Small businesses and new ventures are popping up regularly. Far from being a ghost town, Kaslo is experiencing the pangs of rapid growth, with thirty-five new building starts in 1978, new by-laws and new pressures on antiquated community services. (Speaking of antiquated services, during a particularly cold snap while I lived there, most of the water pipes in Lower Kaslo froze. In the process of getting the water flowing again, the town discovered that water pipes had been installed in a very haphazard fashion, including through the foundation of one house into another.)
            But enthusiasm for small town life continues unabated as old-timers and newcomers assess how much Kaslo has yet to offer. Where once “letting things go” was as much as anyone could expect, there is now a sense of renewed purpose. Paint tins and ladders mark many a house front and piles of sheet-rock indicate hope for ragged interiors.
            The current trend, which often sees a potential restoration project in every old building, began a mere ten years ago.
            Residents had set a precedent in 1957 when they banded together under the auspices of the Kootenay Lake Historical Society to preserve the S.S. Moyie. In that year her owners, the Canadian Pacific Railway decommissioned “The Last of the Sternwheelers.” The Moyie never built up a head of steam again. Rather than watch tolerantly as she was either burned or left to rot, the Kootenay Lake Historical Society raised the money to beach the Moyie, creating a museum and historic site.
            This past year the S.S. Moyie received long overdue recognition. The National Parks and Historic Sites Branch of the Government of Canada commemorated her with all due pomp and circumstance.
            The S.S. Moyie is a good place to start, if you would like to survey Kaslo today and walk in gentle strides past other monuments of Kootenay and Kaslo Pioneer history.
            This remarkable example of the sternwheel era is located at the end of Front Street, one and a half blocks off Highway 31A which passes through the heart of town. Parking should be no problem in this area.
            Visitors are welcome aboard the Moyie from the 15th of April to the 15th of October during the hours of 10 am to 4:30 pm. The boat has been carefully preserved and provides a stationary trip in the romantic age of steam. Numerous artifacts, photographs and books are available, and a curator is aboard to answer questions or regale visitors with stories both apocryphal and true. The curator and the S.S. Moyie also act as Kaslo’s Tourist Information Centre, sponsored by the local Chamber of Commerce. (For a winter in the 70's, a team of us worked on the Moyie to catalog the artifacts and historic photos, fascinating project that inspired this article and a series of historical drawings.)
            At the stern of the boat, you’ll find two other historic curiosities. The small log building has been preserved as an example of a typical prospector’s cabin. Note it’s tiny size and simplicity.
            The second building closer to the road is a Post Office that was in use at Mirror Lake, three miles south of Kaslo until 1965. This tiny building is said to be the smallest self-contained post office in the world. (I think every community seems to have one of these!)
            Across the street there’s a recently renovated brick structure. The ‘1896 Building’ as it’s popularly known, blatantly proclaims its construction date. It’s one of the older structures to utilize brick. Through a long and varied career the ‘1896 Building’ served as a bakery, apartment house, church and, in later years languished as an unhappy derelict. In 1976, new owners stripped the interior and façade, and restored the building to its present functional attractive place in the community. (A nicely updated suite at the back of the building with all modern conveniences, was home for me for a number of years.)
            Proceeding west up Front Street, the next notable structure is the present Farmer’s Institute Building. The original owner’s name and business can still be read on the elaborate lintel – “Byers – Drygoods,’ and above the second attached storefront, ‘Geigerich – Hardware.’ One part of the original store sold drygoods with a men’s wear operation. Drawers and display cases towered to the high tin ceiling. Constructed during Kaslo’s heyday in the late 1890’s, this building has been eyed by several restoration enthusiasts.
            From your vantage point in front of the Farmer’s Institute you can pick out a number of buildings that remain from the boom years. Immediately across the street are the former Fletcher’s Saloon and a confectionery that has undergone numerous changes. The Building Supply across the lane to your right is an original building too and will be undergoing renovation shortly to restore some of its historical flavour. The restaurant next door is much changed but note the authentic cornice that remains unaltered.
            From this point, you can cross Front Street and walk south toward the Village Hall built in a busy year, 1898. This building’s stately bulk is visible as soon as you turn in that direction. Viewed from almost any angle it appears to be the epitome of the small town, town hall. From white clapboard siding to Romanesque bell tower, the building conveys a chunky, determined architectural air. Rescued from imminent demolition ten years ago, it has become the first project of the Kaslo Restoration Society. The original architect’s plans for the hall have fortunately been preserved. Copies are on view in the lobby of the building. If your interest in the past is keen, why not join the Restoration Society? Membership forms are available at the clerk’s office within. The interior is worth a visit in any case, especially the third floor courtroom.
            On the corner diagonally across from the Hall stands St. Andrews United Church built in 1893. The church hall is a recent addition.
            The flood of 1894 destroyed much of lower Kaslo only a short time before an equally disastrous fire leveled the business district. These early years were rife with disaster as a newspaper account of the flood day indicates. “…The house went over with a crash, and was carried down the river in splintered pieces, scarcely two boards remaining together. Below the Mayor’s house was that occupied by Mr. Bongard. Here, too, the bank was rapidly worn away, and it also toppled over into the current and was carried down almost whole until it rested against the outer end of the jam….”
            During this terrible flood, fears were constantly expressed that the raging torrent would sufficiently wear away the north bank of the river to undermine buildings such as the United Church. Fortunately the bank held, but a new channel broke through closer to the lake. If you walk past the church toward the present river channel, watch for the gravel bank that cuts below the church hall. You’ll understand how close Kaslo came to losing this religious landmark.
            Returning to the Village Hall, turn west up C Avenue. This quiet treed street is much as it appeared seventy years ago, and provides a reasonably accurate idea of older residential Kaslo. Several house on this street are of special note. The large white house on your left has been renovated recently.   Built in the late 1890’s as a gentleman’s club, this house still outwardly retains much of its original architectural flair. Though sadly a cupola has been lost to the modern taste for cleaner lines.
            Opposite and slightly further west is a quaint, neat little house that does not belong in Kaslo at all. Designed by a California architect for a Mr. S. H. Green, it failed to provide anything akin to adequate northern insulation. The attractive entrance porch has long been closed in against the Canadian cold. This interesting home is presently undergoing a renovation / restoration at the hands of its current owners.
            Lastly, the house on your left at the head of the street is another fine example of Kootenay Victoriana. Build about 1900 by George Buchanan, a Kaslo gold commissioner, it has suffered few alterations other than the inevitable ravages of time.
            Now turn north along 4th Street toward the lake. The first building on your right is one of the oldest houses in Kaslo. It appears in some of the earliest photographs of the town. It has been attractively renovated and is now operated as a whole food store with food displayed and sold in bulk, just as it was eighty years ago.
            Continue walking north to B Avenue which is also Interprovincial Highway 31A. You are now standing at the corner of a very interesting historical project that is highly regarded not only in Kaslo, but also nationally. This is the Langham building that has had a long, varied and well-documented career.
            Built in 1893, the Langham survived the turbulent years of the silver boom as a rooming house and office building. The Bank of British North America operated a branch in this three-story structure from 1897 and onward for some years and Knapp’s Bottling Works churned out beverages in the rear of the building beginning about 1900. Accountants, land speculators and others occupied Langham office space over the years.
            When the mining boom slowed to a halt, the Langham was left with empty rooms and musty offices. By the early 1940’s the building had become another derelict, only to be briefly revived to accommodate citizens of Japanese descent forced inland by the misfortunes of World War II. In later years, the sagging, neglected Langham was condemned as a public building and slated for demolition. The fortunes of the Langham changed in 1974, when the formation of the Langham Cultural Society focused energy and concern on the preservation of the Langham with the ultimate objective of creating a cultural centre for the Kootenays. The successful achievement of that goal stands before you, a symbol of both incredible dedication and Kaslo’s renewed interest in her past and cultural future.
            It wasn’t an easy task. The Langham required massive effort to return to even a minimum of structural integrity. Leveling the building was the first chore of the Society followed by the re-laying of the first floor. Then lathe and plaster had to be stripped away floor-by-floor and room-by-room. When the Lanham finally stood level and bare to the studs, the long tedious job of installing drywall began. At her ‘level’ best, the Langham could not be returned to the square, and every board and frame had to be cut to fit on the spot.
            (I had a hand in this restoration. My job involved working with a team underneath the building to place and operate hydraulic jacks in the most critical corner, the corner that now rests more or less level with 5th Street and A Avenue. A damp, dirty and I suppose dangerous job, though that didn’t occur to me at the time. After the restoration I had my studio and gallery space in the Langham. In a moment of entrepreneurial enthusiasm, I also opened a second enterprise in the Langham, Kaslo Office Services. As usual, the idea was sound but management material I was not. Happily Kaslo Office Services survived me and operated for a number of years under different ownership on Front Street.)
            You are most welcome to visit the restored Langham Centre. An attendant will gladly show the highlights of the professionally equipped theatre, the large bright gallery area and the two upper floors of studios and offices.
            Note the awards display in the administrative area. In 1977 the Langham Cultural Centre received the National Heritage Canada Award and the Park and Tilford Trophy for Community Beautification in recognition of outstanding workmanship and community dedication.
            For those with the energy walk up the hill to your left into what is known as Upper Kaslo. This walk will afford an excellent view of Kaslo Bay and the western slope of the Purcell Mountains.
            On the crest of the hill on the south side of the street, is another and perhaps Kaslo’s best remaining example of Victorian grandeur. This beautiful house has lost little through the years. In fact, age has added a sweep of foliage that wraps the house in gracious summer coolness.
            From this point wander freely through Upper Kaslo or return to the S.S. Moyie as weather and your legs dictate. Wherever you go, walk slowly and let your mind and inner sight turn back the clock. Perhaps you’ll even hear the sounds of Kootenay yesteryears. Was that the steam whistle of a sternwheeler arriving, or today’s children playing? In Kaslo you can never be entirely sure.

Copyright 2015 Dianne Bersea cspwc afca

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Martin Helps Charlotte

9/15/2015

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'Martin Helps Charlotte' is the opening story in a series of linked short stories inspired by life in the BC Kootenays back in the seventies. Your comments much appreciated! Enjoy!
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“Hey, who’s the old fart? He’s been hanging out that window since we got here. Do you suppose he’s never seen a woman before?’

Martin considered that he might not have seen someone like Charlotte before. She was all fabric and scarves loosely draped with long brown hair flung over her shoulders and repeatedly pushed back from a face so full of words, it was hard to take in.

‘Okay, take these boxes to the kitchen. Then the rest can go in the living room for now. God, there’s still a whole darnation load of crap to go. Watch the step.”

Charlotte swung another box through the gate as she spoke. She looked around the box in front of her and stepped onto the porch. Martin followed with a wobbling bundle of bed rails. Then they turned around and did it all over again.

‘Now, what’re they looking at? Can’t a person unload a car without it becoming a national event? Oh, here’s that box I was looking for. Can you take that for me? And put it down easy. I’ve got a ceramic jug in there.”

Charlotte’s commentary carried on as they went back and forth with boxes and bags, pieces of furniture, clothes and bedding stuffed in pillow cases.

“Hey, this isn’t bad. We can really make something of this place. Come on out back. Look at this yard. We can have a garden. Did you bring the seeds in?”

Martin considered Charlottes use of the word ‘we’, but decided to let it go for the moment. He nodded when necessary and shifted a few more boxes. Charlotte’s plans tended to include whoever was within earshot, and he’d already learned that the best way to respond was to say nothing and keep moving.

Charlotte had prattled away nonstop ever since they’d left Vancouver. Martin had tried to keep his mind on what she said, but she just went on and on. Most of it he’d heard before. A lot.

Charlotte had lived next door, as in down the hall, for ages it seemed. And not a neighbour you could overlook. The day she’d moved in, she dropped over, asking questions, talking, telling about her big plan to move to the Kootenays. She had a brother up there she said, Simon, and she had it all figured out. Martin had heard about it… in detail. And after ten months of listening to her dream, Martin had offered to help her make the trip.

In a way, the offer was just to see how serious she was. But after she broke up with Gray she was plenty serious. Within a few weeks she’d quit her job, nothing she’d miss she said… and started packing. A small legacy from a recently departed aunt added incentive. The fact that Gray’s kid was growing inside her didn’t change a thing.

“Well, they got doctor’s up there, don’t they? It isn’t the middle of the Allegheny Canal you know. Besides, I’ll probably have it at home. I’d like to have a midwife. That’s how women should have babies if you ask me.” Martin only nodded. Charlotte knew what she wanted.

There wasn’t all that much to pack. Charlotte had lived in a state of transience ever since she’d left home in 1968. Six years later she’d lived in as many places. Kind of a flower child who seemed completely right for Vancouver’s nearby, free-natured Kitsilano neighbourhood.

Charlotte’s Granville Street Bridge apartment had only two small rooms. A typically bohemian third floor walk-up. And you couldn’t argue with the rent. Martin liked the building for some of the same reasons Charlotte did. Cheap rent. No hassles. Interesting neighbourhood near the crazy 4th Avenue hippy haven and shops, coffee houses, health food restaurants, head shops, and the essential all-purpose social-centre, notice-board laundromats. Good view too, if you looked beyond the bridge abutments and telephone wires. What more could you want for $60 bucks a month?

“I want fresh air. Garden veggies. My own preserves. Mountains. I want to get back to the land. Well, into the country anyway.” Charlotte felt cautious using hippie jargon even though she seemed the perfect hippie with her anti-war attitude and willingness to smoke a joint now and then. But that ‘getting back to the land’ thing felt a little scary, a bit too big a dream what with the clearing of forests, breaking the soil, building a log house, being totally self-sufficient.

‘Getting into the country’ seemed more realistic, more achievable somehow. It wasn’t that Charlotte was naive or irresponsible. She’d been to visit her brother Simon several times. Checked things out.

Simon lived in a bush cabin, a mile or so from the small town parked on a river delta in the deep lake valley. An old log place on ten acres offered everything Simon needed, with a falling down barn, a chicken shed and an acre of garden. He wasn’t into the ‘back to the land’ thing either exactly. Just liked living outside of town, the wilderness feel of it, hanging out, sitting on his warped porch ‘surveying the scene.’

After each trip, Martin got the latest stories, how Charlotte would take the all-night bus to land up in Nelson at 6:30 in the morning. “I always sit next to someone who likes to talk, until they fall asleep. Then it’s pretty quiet, but I usually sleep a few hours too.”

Martin could imagine the bus ride… from Charlotte’s seat companion’s perspective at least.

The adventure really began when Charlotte pulled herself into Simon’s big red panel van to head up the lake. Charlotte loved the drive, winding along the lake, into the town, and the scale of it all. “Only nine hundred people! Can you imagine that? Well, maybe more if you take in the communities further up the lake. There’s lots of draft dodgers and ‘landers’, and ordinary folks too. But lots of wildness and mountains, and big gardens and really cool orchards.”

Charlotte had even discovered a little natural food store. “It’s in an old house with bulk bins of wheat flour, sesame seeds, curry powder and pasta! It’s exactly right!”

Martin could always anticipate how this enthusiastic story would end…. “And I love it all!” delivered with her arms flung out and eye’s wide.

When Charlotte finally decided to make the move, Simon had been recruited to find her a place. “Nothing fancy. It doesn’t have to be too big. Just enough for me and the baby. With a yard. Yeah, I’d like a yard.”

Simon had called back only a week later. He’d found a small house that rented for seventy-five a month, in town only a few blocks from the lake. “It’s got wood heat. You’ll have to get firewood,” Simon warned. But Charlotte didn’t mind. She had a place in the country.

As usual Martin was one of the first to get the details… the size of the house, the rent, the need to get firewood. Charlotte whirled about in her excitement, twirling across her small apartment, sometimes with a hand on the slight bulge at her waist and the other hand swaying above her head.

But she attended to the moving chores in an organized way. Mind you, Martin had to help. Driving her up there was only part of the job. Charlotte seemed to need a lot of help just getting things into boxes. Martin began to spend a lot of evenings helping Charlotte sort and pack. It helped that Charlotte had laid in a case or two of beer and, not to be overlooked, provided a bonus when some of her girlfriends dropped by.

Charlotte’s stuff had to go in various directions. “I’d rather give this stuff away than lug it all the way to up there. Especially if I don’t need it.” Charlotte found she didn’t need her university textbooks, several framed prints from IKEA she’d picked up in the local thrift shop, most of her plants, a dozen worn placemats and a collection of novelty salt shakers a neighbour had given her. But everything else was going, including two twenty-pound boxes of pottery clay and four dozen wide mouth preserving jars.

In anticipation of more limited shopping, Charlotte stocked up on natural vitamins, organic shampoo, vegetable oil soaps, incense and candles. Her new home might not be in the center of the Allegheny Canal, but it wasn’t on 4th avenue either.

The trip it itself remained quiet except for Charlotte’s excited jabbering. The van hummed along the freeway but it nearly stalled out on the hills the other side of Hope. Coming through Manning Park was slow going. “Maybe we should get out and push,” Charlotte suggested each time the van got down to a crawl. The long hill east of Osoyoos really put the pressure on the van’s aging engine.

Then they’d stopped at a campsite just beyond to let things cool down. Charlotte flung herself out of the van, raised her face to the sun and inhaled the dry BC interior smell of pine and fir. ‘Wow, this is IT!’ Charlotte exclaimed, embracing the trees and blue-green hills with open arms.

Late in the day, they’d coasted down into Charlotte’s new town. A couple of church steeples peeked above the green foliage… into a scene fraught with scenic icons… the deep blue lake backed with a cascade of sharp peaks, bathed in alpen glow. Charlotte shrieked with delight.

Many of Charlotte’s soon-to-be neighbours observed their arrival. Heads turned and followed the battered van as it made it’s way towards Charlotte’s home at the end of D Avenue where it sat just across the gravel road from the ball diamond, within view of the lake and the huge lakeshore cottonwoods.

Martin felt the eyes follow them, but remained unsurprised, and the watchers didn’t seem unfriendly. Simon had said a large group of new people had settled in the area, but they weren’t in sight at this moment. These people looked mostly like what Martin would call ‘old codgers,’ or as Charlotte would say, ‘old farts”. Out for an evening stroll.

Folks didn’t pop into a community of this size everyday, so newcomers got some attention.

When Martin pulled up in front of the new place, Charlotte’s long Indian cotton dress and large floppy hat did seem to set her apart. And the excitement that pushed her voice into the shrill octaves didn’t exactly make her invisible either. But after a friendly wave, their observers seemed to fade away and Charlotte and Martin turned to the final task for the day.

By ten o’clock everything had been moved into the house. Martin ate the remains of a sandwich, popped a beer on the porch, let the cool beer relax him as Charlotte rummaged around inside. Within minutes of putting the sandwich wrapper and beer bottle aside, Martin had laid out his sleeping bag on the porch and flaked out.

The smell of juniper and fir blew gently across his face and into his nostrils. Martin tipped his head back and sucked the air in. The sounds of Charlotte moving about in the house fell on his ears in soft wood dampened whispers, and the milky-way sparkled in a band of light across a dark velvety sky.

“God, she might be right. This is okay.” Though he tried to keep listening to the lively night air, with one arm flung out free of the sleeping bag, his knuckles resting on the bare wood of the porch floor, sleep rolled over him.

“Hey, rise and shine amigo. We got lots to do today. Simon’s coming round to give us a tour and help get some firewood. Come on, get moving!” Charlotte kicked at the sleeping bag.

Grinning up at her, Martin stretched and took a deep breath. The air still smelled good. Fresh. New. Mountainy. He propped himself up on one arm and looked out from the porch. Little old houses, not much different than Charlotte’s, sat every which way in their small yards across the street. And further down he could see the huge cottonwoods that marked the edge of the lake. Mountains across the other side had halos of morning light.

Hell, this looked even better than Charlotte’s dramatic reports.

Simon’s arrival required a bit of males sizing each other up, but within minutes Simon and Martin had bonded. A “Hey man…” and a handshake.

Simon’s Grand Tour included Front Street, a jumble of lightly-maintained remnants from the silver boom years pre 1900’s, a swing past a beached stern wheeler that had plied the lake until relatively recently… followed by a cut around the bay past the marina, then a few miles up the lake towards Fen Creek and return with, according to Simon, a final mandatory stop at the community Post Office. “Action central”, as Simon called it.

Next stop, a snack at the Postal Code Café, a quirkily restored muffins and coffee kind of place where the new people hung out. “I already feel totally at home,” said Charlotte as she fluffed herself into a sunny window seat.

When they finally got out into the bush on the west side of town, the sun had already moved high into the sky with shafts of lights striking deep into the forest.

Fortunately it remained mostly cool under the trees. Simon did the chain sawing and Martin man-handled the wood out of the bush. Martin’s muscles burned and his hands blistered after rolling only a few dozen timber-rounds down to the truck and heaving them into the back.

When they’d been at it for an hour or so, Charlotte came bouncing out of the bush with a basket of berries, thrilled with her haul. “I got some blackberries I think, and some, well I’m not sure….” Charlotte looked anxiously into her basket. She looked up at the sawdust covered, sweaty, grinning loggers. “So guys, how’s it going?” The two responded easily. “We - need - a - beer!” “Or two!!”

A few days later, Charlotte and Martin contemplated life from the end of the porch, slouched down in an old sofa they’d found at the United Church rummage.

“You know Martin, you ought stick around. You could get a job at the mill or something. And I’m getting used to you. I’m not suggesting anything as far as we’re concerned, but you could stay here. There’s the room at the back and I’m going to need a hand with things when the baby comes.”

Straight out. Just like that. And why not? Martin wasn’t into a career position with the Canadian Postal Service. Mail sorters were a dime a dozen. And his social life was, well, to be honest, it wasn’t very social of late. He could hang around. He could do that. Babies made him nervous, but maybe he’d be back in Vancouver before the baby came. That Charlotte was pregnant kinda made him feel hands off with her anyway, more like a brother. And he’d been giving Simon a hand on a few carpentry projects. Rolling some firewood out of the bush. It could work. Tomorrow he’d look at what might be happening job-wise at the mill, or the marina.

“So what do you think? You gonna stick for awhile?” Charlotte nudged his arm. She stood up and pulled him to his feet. With another tug, Martin ended up on edge of the porch.

“Look at that Martin. Just look at that. Why not stick around eh?”

Martin leaned on a porch post and swung his gaze over the neighbourhood. And the lake. And the mountains turning red as the sun moved out of the valley. He drew the evening air deep into his lungs, and exhaled slowly.

“I might just do that,” Martin said… to himself, maybe to Charlotte, but for sure to the evening air sliding down off the alpine.

COPYRIGHT DIANNE BERSEA CSPWC AFCA

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The Dilemma of the Butter Tarts

9/11/2015

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Agnes viewed Christmas through two lenses. One, a prism that created a dazzling array of opportunities and options, potential visitations and teas… the other, a smoked glass that beheld the world in the grey shadows of loneliness and fear.

Although now in her eighty-eighth year, Agnes continued to harbour Christmas fantasies… visions of sugar plums, families at the piano, trees hung with lights and tinsel, cedar bough wreaths and greeting cards hung from a string, the air filled with the smell of cloves and cardamom.

From a strictly practical viewpoint Agatha had very little immediate family or friends to fulfill these imaginings.   Health and distance had exacted their toll. One husband, one child, and two brothers had predeceased her.   Another son lived on the other side of the continent and a daughter nearer but equally distant in a way. Neither had been home for years and only offered hurried phone calls now and then.

Friends had also dropped away due to health and the inevitability of death. Mind, Agnes’ simmering resentment rebuffed most friendly encounters, and even her building neighbours did not know her well.

Nephew James, on the other hand, occasionally dropped by her apartment, usually with a gift of some kind, a plant or bouquet, an invitation to lunch… lunch at one of those modern restaurants, all noise and bustle where Agnes couldn’t hear a word. Sometimes that seemed worse than eating alone.

As expected, two weeks before Christmas James arrived with one of those large wicker gift baskets. James stayed but a moment to deposit the basket on her kitchen counter, give Agnes a hug that smelled of fresh air and aftershave, and rushed outward to some other engagement. At the end of the hall he called back that he would pick Agnes up for Christmas dinner at five and then disappeared.

Agnes stood in the hallway for a few minutes looking after him until she turned inside and closed her apartment door. She contemplated the looming presence of the ‘gift basket’.

With some difficulty, Agnes shifted the cumbersome basket about so she could examine the contents. Without disturbing the plastic wrap, Agnes saw more than she wanted to see, a cornucopia of Christmas cheer… a jellied salad, a box of chocolates, a tin of goose pate, a bottle of wine, a tidy little jar of strawberry jam topped with a tartan lid, a round package of European cheese, a small square of Xmas cake and… a bottle of wine. There appeared to be more surprises buried even deeper.

Agnes blew through her lips. “Phhfff! All this and a bottle of wine. Now what am I to do with this stuff?”

She contemplated the basket for a few minutes further, and found herself loosening the big red bow. Once released, the gathered cellophane and ribbon fell away. Additional excavation seemed imperative.

As she lifted the various contents out into the light and onto the counter, she studied each item accompanied by agitated breathing. Agnes couldn’t abide wastefulness. Each item must be accounted for and divested in some way. James would expect some kind of comment on his gift.

Agnes continued unloading the basket. The strawberry jam Agnes could use. She liked a bit of jam on toast in the morning, as long as it didn’t have too many pips in it. She held the jar up to the light and turned it slowly. Some lighter bits, or pips, nestled against the inside of the jar. Agnes felt tempted to unscrew the lid for a better look, but she didn’t want to break the seal. She put the jam down on the counter.

A box of chocolates next received her scrutiny. Two layers of chocolate at least, some of them filled with chewy, gooey creams. Agnes liked chocolate but more than one gave her cankers. “I suppose I can take them to bridge on Thursday,” Agnes considered.

The shiny tin of butter tarts resting on the bottom of the basket caused the most consternation. “Butter tarts! Butter tarts? Twelve of them! More sweets I don’t need!” Agnes complained. “Twelve tarts!” Actually Agnes loved butter tarts. She still remembered her mother’s butter tarts, so flaky, buttery and sweet with raisons. But butter tarts also reminded her of social times at home, with Doulton China teacups and dainty doilies. All long gone.

Agnes considered the magnitude of the dilemma. Four tarts she could probably manage. She could freeze them and bring them out if someone came to tea.

But social invitations now stymied her. That any number of people might actually enjoy a butter tart thereby easily reducing their numbers, presented an idea beyond the scope of Agnes’ imagining.

“Maybe Meg will go for a walk with me, then she can come in for tea. I could put the tarts out.” This thought settled Agnes for a few moments. Though, the real dilemma would be in asking Meg to go for a walk, let alone asking her in for tea.

She stood at the kitchen counter, counting and recounting the tarts. Twelve. Not ten or a baker’s dozen, but twelve, at least ten more than Agnes could possibly eat with lunch, or dinner… or a number of meals in fact.

The whole basket involved so much more than she could eat on her own, or share, or dispose of in any reasonable way. Agnes left the contents strewn across the counter and turned away.

She slumped into a large high backed nubby brown easy chair. Her deep meditations on the dilemma of the butter tarts and other items, had exhausted her.

She relaxed. Her hands and mind were finally still. She exhaled softly and let her head drop back against the hard chair pillow.   As she sat in the late afternoon stillness in her small apartment, the rest of the afternoon passed quietly beyond her sliding glass patio doors. With little effort Agnes could watch smartly dressed heads and shoulders bob and gently sway, floating by above the dark, algae encrusted cinder block wall that defined her damp patio from the rest of the world.

Drifting in a reverie of old memories, new frustrations and the residual emotional pain of almost ninety years, Agnes watched the dark November evening fall. The heads and shoulders slowly became smoky, diaphanous apparitions, now backlit by streetlights and windows across the street.

Unmoved by hours, Agnes slipped into sleep. She only came alert again when street sounds and loud voices broke into her strange evening.

“My goodness,” Agnes said to no one at all, “What time is it?”

She tucked her feet down, and pushed herself to standing. She stood for a moment recollecting a sense of her room, then edged her way toward her small kitchen clutching first at the chair back, then the wall, and finally the kitchen alcove door frame.

Agnes tapped the switch plate. Her neat, tidy alleyway of a kitchen flashed before her. Precisely folded, flower bedecked tea towels hung straight and true from the stove handles. The toaster oven sparkled from the twenty-four inch square white Formica counter top. On the opposite counter the brittle plastic cover of James’ gift basket cast sharp lights and rippled with the playful colors of an oil spill. The large red bow and its curly satin ribbons hung off the edge of the counter and displayed in colourful jumble, all the treasures the basket had revealed.

Agnes frowned. It was one thing to speculate on what to do with all that “stuff and nonsense,” and something else to dispose of it all.

“It would have made more sense for James to bring me a couple of frozen chops. I could fry one up for tonight’s dinner and save one for next week.”

Agnes didn’t feel she was hard to please. It didn’t take much, from her perspective, to do the most sensible thing. “Really, young people just don’t think.”

Agnes returned to her big chair, even dinner forgotten as she pondered the “dilemma of the butter tarts.” The silly phrase almost made her giggle.

Unexpectedly, Agnes rose. She moved quickly into the kitchen and grabbed up the bottle of wine. She pulled her apartment door open, looked surreptitiously up and down the hallway. Four doors down she stopped, glanced around again and placed the bottle of wine against the bottom of the door.

Amused at herself, she returned to her apartment, and swept up the next item, the European cheese and a nice small wooden box with a colourful label. This time she went the other way, and only two doors down she left the cheese.

Now, actually grinning, Agnes returned and fetched the chocolates. Again, a momentary pause to ‘scope out’ the hallway, and off she scurried to make another delivery.

By the time she had delivered the last of the basket gifts, she’d had to take the elevator to the second floor.

The next day, the building was abuzz with amused and excited tenants, each comparing notes about the mysterious gifts. Agnes scuttled out and in as need required, avoiding extended conversations. But when Bob of four doors down asked her what she had found at her door, Agnes replied, “I discovered a lovely little tin of butter tarts. Would you like to come round and share a couple with me?”

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Can Politics Accommodate Compassion??

9/3/2015

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It’s been very interesting reading the responses to my enthusiastic Facebook post (Sept 1st) about Tom Mulcair’s recent Penticton campaign rally with local NDP candidate Richard Cannings. I found the comments thoughtful and positive for the most part.

A few people brought some discrepancies to my attention though. For one, I thought Mulcair said that he supported a $15 minimum wage. He does, but it would only apply to Federal employees and those who work trans-provincially in Federally regulated industries such as trucking, the Postal Service and banks. I was surprised that bank employees would fall in that group, but pleased that a large group of Canadians might be uplifted by a respectful income.

And, as often happens with a Facebook thread, occasional responses wandered off into discussing Mulcair’s decision to not appear at some electoral debates. I’m disappointed that he doesn’t feel a need to be visible in that way and share his thoughts on Women’s Issues for example.

Someone else suggested I read Tom Mulcair’s book if I wanted to know Mulcair’s political agenda, and I might do that, though I like to react instinctively to the living, breathing person. Another response reacted to the appalling story about the family that had been refused immigration to Canada, and the deeply disturbing picture of their son drowned on a beach.

You’re probably asking what this all has to do with Tom Mulcair’s rally in Penticton. It all ties together for me because I feel very strongly that what we’re missing in our race to replace Harper, is compassion. Compassion isn’t a word that’s often applied in political campaigns. I suspect it’s thought of as a ‘soft’ word, not a meat and potatoes word like the ‘economy’, or re-building the ‘middle-class’. Even ‘education’ has a nice solid ring to it. Or how about ‘foreign policy’? But how do we decide what we need, want for our country? We need a departure point for decisions that affect all these ‘issues.’

I feel we need compassion. I sense folks recoiling at that word. Maybe some feel angry. There’s resentment at the implication that they, or we, are not compassionate. Maybe we’re not. Recent research has discovered that compassion is more than a feeling of pity, empathy or altruism. It might be a survival emotion that helps us bond in important ways.

Here’s a quote from an article* about recent compassion research. “While cynics may dismiss compassion as touchy-feely or irrational, scientists have started to map the biological basis of compassion, suggesting its deep evolutionary purpose. This research has shown that when we feel compassion, our heart rate slows down, we secrete the ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin, and regions of the brain linked to empathy, care-giving and feeling of pleasure, light up, which often results in our wanting to approach and care for other people.” Bonus --- compassion even helps us feel less vindictive toward others. Think about where that might lead in the policy arena!!

I’d love to see our political decisions made with compassion, made from a desire to care for others…, and I’d add to that… to care for ourselves. Why is this important? Because I’m looking for politicians who are capable of compassion. I’m looking for people who will lead from a position of compassion, rather than from the cold, dark areas of economics that put profits ahead of human well-being. I’m looking for people who will lead with their heart…, tempered by the realities of their human / earth centered intelligence. I’m looking for decision makers who recognize that we can’t burn our own, or neighbours house down, in order to keep warm.

I can’t tell you that I find compassion everywhere. But I did come away from Mulcair’s Monday evening rally with a feeling that compassion is hovering out there, not too far away.

Article: What Is Compassion? http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/topic/compassion/definition

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An Early Adventure in Outdoor Exploration and Journalism... on the West Coast Trail

9/1/2015

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Hikers approach the Ordway House at Clo-oose on the Ship Wreck Trail, now known as West Coast Trail. Photo and darkroom processing by Dianne Bersea.

I’ve been riffling through boxes of photos and files. I’m talking about one of those ancient manila folder files with a tab for content descriptions. There’s a lot of strange things in there…, carbon copies (yes “carbon” copies) of old letters I sent, scraps of newspaper articles, and some of my early literary / journalism projects. Among these mysterious papers I found notes for an article about the West Coast trail. A version of this article was published as a three page spread, complete with photos, in the Victoria Colonist weekend magazine when newspapers routinely had a weekend magazine section. Entitled “Even the Rain is Beautiful at Clo-oose,” the events described and the publication of the article happened a lot of years ago, in 1969.

I’ve made some revisions for clarity, hopefully with improved grammar and the occasional aside. I’ve also been inclined to re-interpret the experience and my original journalistic analysis of it. I invite you to join me on this adventure….

**********************************************

On the long May weekend in 1969 an assorted group of like-minded folks from various Vancouver Island outdoor groups, joined together to trek a section of the Shipwreck Trail near Clo-oose. Some drove the rattle producing logging roads from the South end of the Island, and others, like myself, flew from Nanaimo to Brown’s Bay at the western end of Nitinat Lake about mid-point on the now named West Coast Trail.

In a battered Otter float plane we traversed the inland valleys of Vancouver Island on a westerly trajectory, skirting the high mountains that pierce the central island skies. At a near landscape scraping four hundred feet altitude we had good views of the landscape below. The wagon wheel-like scars where logs had been dragged into a central spar pole for transport and the large swaths of clear-cut overwhelmed me. Although I’d heard about the extensive logging in the interior of Vancouver Island I had no idea what that looked like. A rather startling sight.

Overall, the pilot considered the flight routine, despite the ‘low fuel level’ indicator light that glowed brightly throughout the flight.

We splashed down at Brown’s Bay and unloaded onto a partially submerged dock. Finally on the trail, the sight of a dug-out canoe under construction brought us all to a stop. We gathered around the work-in progress for a tutorial in traditional canoe building.

Although justifiably taciturn, the builder shared that his well-weathered Western Red Cedar log on which he worked would be a canoe for his own use and powered by an outboard motor. “Weathered cedar is less likely to crack or split while being worked.” he informed us. The last canoe took the builder only twenty-one days to complete, “but that was without people comin’ round to talk” he pointed out. Hint acknowledged though it appears none of us stepped back to let him work, and he continued to provide a running commentary on his project.

He works without a plan but shapes the canoe simply by eye. The canoe shell itself is only one and a half inches thick when finished. It is then braced with struts and painted. The preliminary shaping was done with a chain saw rather than a carefully directed fire as formerly practiced. Final shaping would be done with an adze in either situation.

As he gave use this information he kept leaping about to conform to the wishes of various enthusiastic photographers. “Little more the left please.” “Could you stand with your hand on the bow, or is that the stern?”

Pressed by one our contingent to confess to his lineage he hesitantly said, “Nitinat Indian.” Further pressed to admit that this was part of the famous Nootka tribe he said, “Well, so the history books tell us.”

Eventually we tired of our crafts and lore exhibition and we pushed off toward Clo-oose. Hot sun poured down as we packed through open logged slash bleached white by coastal sun and storms, through dense brush and sheltered forest. The trail was a mish-mash of rough planks and crude rotting boardwalk, an unsteady trail that frequently caught a hiker unaware by tipping awkwardly or giving way altogether.

As we reached Clo-oose we flung down our packs and breathed deeply of the fresh sea air. Everyone paused to enjoy the beautiful view out over the last remaining buildings of Clo-oose onto the blue green breakers and foaming surf of the Pacific Ocean.

Some of us then ventured north toward Whyac to see a natural blowhole, and Indian Petroglyphs carved on the rocks. These seaside marvels provided an interesting comparative between natural and native creations. Eventually we returned to Clo-oose and headed for camp.

A couple of old houses, all that remained from an earlier and brief white settlement, provided accommodation for some of our group. The rest of us unrolled our tents and sleeping arrangements on the only reasonably stable level ground, an Indian graveyard. This seemed strange but ghosts and Indian reprisals were the least of our worries if indeed we had any at all. In fact several people remarked on the peacefulness of the setting. Rotting, bleached crosses stood above graves carefully wrapped in trailing coverlets of shiny-leafed Kinnikinnik, the so-called Indian tobacco. At one time, most graves had been protected by wooden fences, now fallen and snuggling among the creeping vegetation.

(An aside here. I’m shocked now that we would think so little of desecrating a Native / First Nation graveyard in this way. I recently heard a tribal chief talk about how they wanted to be treated, even unto not using the term First Nation, but only referring to people by their official tribal nation. Times have truly changed and I’m thankful for that.)

Arising into a morning mist and the distant booming of the swell breaking on the rocks, we soon set off for Carmanah Light, a fourteen mile (approximately 18 km) round trip. We followed the beach all the way down, not once returning to the trail.

And what a fantastic day it was!

Strange wave cut rocks loomed up like wrecked ships, castle turrets or oddly shaped faces. One rock looked so much like a wicked face in profile that it is actually known as the “Witch of Endore”. Tide pools teemed with life, nature’s aquarium. Our group contained several shore life experts who brought additional ‘colour’ to the world beneath our feet. On the rugged headlands tenacious clumps of little yellow flowers clung to the rocks, and on the steep beach cliffs yellow monkey flower and Indian paintbrush painted bright spots among the green.

To our right, the crashing Pacific surf plunged in over the rocks and curled up the beaches. On our left we had a succession of dramatic cliffs, some of which reared up one hundred and fifty feet above the beach, their dramatic history evident in the warped and broken strata exposed on their faces. To the North behind us, the white tower of Pachena’s lighthouse marked the horizon some twenty-five miles away. Overhead, magnificent silhouettes of great Bald Eagles soared across the high blue sky.

Arriving at Carmanah Point, the light-keepers, Mr. & Mrs. Pearce, welcomed us with tea and ice-cream. That’s right, ice cream, an unexpected treat! A tour of their home and the Light-Station followed with lots of interesting tales, including the news that Carmanah Light-Station is actually in the wrong location.

Originally planned for Walbran Point approximately seven miles south, coastal weather interfered. In the 1890’s, navigation methods were still quite unreliable. A crew and all their equipment landed in a fog. When the fog lifted, the error became apparent. (Hence the need for light-stations and life-saving coastal trails!)

Fortunately, as the Pearce’s assured us, the error turned out to be advantageous. Carmanah Point is a better location for the radio direction finding equipment now in use. (Carmanah Point is no longer a lighthouse in the conventional sense, a victim of the so-called ‘de-staffing’ of coastal lighthouses over recent years.)

I especially enjoyed climbing up into the lighthouse to learn how such a small bulb can cast a light miles to sea with the amazing Fresnel lens, a complex of carefully calculated glass bevels.

Mrs. Pearce would not let us leave without some souvenirs. We each received several polished stones from the local beaches, and some of us went away with the glass ball floats that had escaped from Japanese fishing nets. My glass float had been made from a wooden mold with wood grain marks in the glass, a real treasure.

To return to camp, we abandoned the beach route in favour of the ridge top trail. The tide had now turned and would make beach travel hazardous. The trail itself was not without its own hazards as the boardwalks are rotted and frequently give way. Parts of the trail traced the very edge of the cliffs and the interwoven salal growth and roots made it difficult to judge solid ground. At times the springy surface suggested we were treading on air.

Between the edge of the cliff tops and only a few feet further inland, the vegetation varied amazingly, from the ever-present salal to horsetail, lily-of-the-valley, wild pea and massive arum lily (skunk cabbage) leaves. Only a foot further inland and huge tree trunks rose to not more than ten to twenty feet, where they branched out umbrella-like, curving landward, unable to push higher against the sea wind onslaught.

After a camp dinner of macaroni and cheese, we all gathered at the Ordway home, residence of West Coaster Jim Hamilton. Dorothy (?) Ordway, Jim’s mother, Clo-oose settler and still occasional visitor, astonished us with tales of coastal life and her once-upon-a-time career as a dancer with Hollywood’s Ziegfeld Follies!

Jim also shared unusual tales of his experience in this rugged location. Can you imagine that storm winds and waves have been known to cast a telephone pole sized beach log hundreds of feet inland?

Of this I have no doubt as Jim has lived a good portion of his life near the Cheewat River just south of Clo-oose. His stories and recollections of life on the coastal edge enthralled us.

I became so mesmerized by everything I'd heard, following the trip I found myself scouring the British Columbia Provincial Archives to fill in the historical details.

Here is what I discovered. In 1912, a team of land developers began a campaign to “promote a Pleasure Resort in the Renfrew District on the West Coast of BC,” in the dense rain forest where we camped. The company produced a very attractive, though likely fanciful, brochure with attractive renderings of a three hundred bed hotel with sunken baths and sulphur pools(!), golf links and tennis courts, all to be financed by the sale of undeveloped lots.

Among other unrealistic claims, a future resident would find no mosquitoes or flies on this part of the coast! The artistic rendering of a landing dock that was to be built directly into the surf at an open ocean beach seemed equally imaginary.

Besides the intrinsic challenges of development on that rugged coast, the intervention of World War I and the failure of a proposed spur railway line from Cowichan Lake and even a road, led to the collapse of the project, not surprising overall. That did not preclude the taking up of the property offer by some individuals who brought with them player and grand pianos, a grandfather clock, a waistcoat belonging to England’s George III, and even a door from Ann Hathaway’s cottage. At one time a grand piano stood in the incongruous setting of an Indian Potlatch House.

All that remains of this community and resort are the two houses referred to above, one the Ordway home, and several settler graves.

Though the project could hardly be called a success, life was seldom dull for those who made the investment and lived on that part of the coast. Known with good reason as the Graveyard of the Pacific, more than twenty ships went aground between Carmanah and Pachena Points during those years, 1904 to 1938. The settlers were often involved in rescue and salvage operations.

The last wreck near Clo-oose was right at the mouth of the cove on Mission Rocks in 1925. The Tahitian schooner Rita Papipe was ground to pieces and along with her crew and French skipper, a portion of her cargo of lumber and young trees were saved. One of these young trees, a Cryptomeria japonica, a Japanese member of the pine family was encouraged to root in the garden at Mrs. Ordway’s house.

During the early prohibition years, the 1920’s, things were very lively. A booming business was carried on with rum-runners from Neah Bay and Clallam in the United States. Things eventually became so unruly that the B.C. Police were stationed in Clo-oose.

Jim Hamilton has written vividly of the interesting social life of the community in an article for the Victoria Colonist.

“Great times were had at community dances; beer came by the barrel; fiddles and accordions were the usual accompanionment but sometimes Victrolas blared Prince’s Band, Old Suzanna and the like. At one point a soprano conducted a rectal at the Bungalow Inn to the untoward accompanionment of howling dogs which could not be flushed from beneath the building.

"The Indans meanwhile had social affairs of a contrasting kind, usually masked dances, initiatory festivals and rites de passage and, in the summertime, on the beach before their settlement and around a druidic bonfire. Curious whites would stand stealthily behind the curtains of the village store to watch the last throes of a dying culture. The faces of the Nitinahts were usually painted with stripes, often black and red ones, and a sheep or two and numerous salmon baked over adjacent fires…,

"People of that era very often had strong and colorful characters, inner-directedness rather than other directedness being esteemed by the denizens of the empire-building age.

"…Such environments develop characteristics in the personality which, in the urban environment would be stifled by the monotonous pattern of good behavior.”

Life was exciting, intimate and meaningful for people whose every day accumulated a series of struggles and innovative solutions. For those with a more sensitive nature, the constant contact with the natural world provided for a personal assessment of the individual’s role in the physical and spiritual drama of life.

Here are some additional words from Jim Hamilton.

“Hearing of our hardships and dangers, strangers were very often bewildered that we should actually have chosen to live here. But there are strong reasons….

"Often on a frosty January night when the moon was full and the sea had ebbed to its farthest point we would take a brisk walk along the beach. Few aesthetic experiences can be matched to this one.

"Getting onto the solid level sand we would walk for an hour or so by the breakers gleaming whitely in the moonlight…. The moon sped through the jagged conifers behind the beach and the sky was a deep velvety blue with a spangle of stars to westward. Across the Strait the red beacon at Tatoosh glimmered fitfully…. One became involved in a rapport with the sea, land and firmament.

"On summer evenings around a beach fire we watched the trawlers come in from the Swiftsure bank to anchor and to toss gently on the Pacific swells while they cleaned their catch or slept. Occasionally we lifted our eyes from the crackling fire and the running lights of the vessels to the amazing profusion of stars in the Milky Way.

"It made a superb arc from the pole down into the sea over the South Pacific. Contemplating the massed glimmer of stars for awhile we were re-awakened to the knowledge that our world was merely a tiny star swimming along with millions of others on the other side of that bank of twinkling multitudes.”

I too felt overwhelmed by the powerful forces everywhere evident in this rich land and seascape. From the moist heat to the booming background of breaking surf, from spangled night skies to rich intertidal pools, the trip had offered marvelous explorations, and intriguing close-ups of a rare world. An additional bonus, we were treated to the leadership and knowledge shared by trip member, Ruth Masters, a vigorous observer / defender of these natural treasures.

On my return home I immediately considered how I might find a way to return to the Ship Wreck Trail, this extraordinary world on the edge of the sea.

(And I did indeed return, once again to the Clo-oose area of the trail, and later I explored south from Bamfield to the Pachena Point Light Station where I had lived briefly as a small child.) Below, Mrs. Ordway shares her story in the original family home at Clooose, West Coast Trail. Photo taken and dark room processing by Dianne Bersea.

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Free Store Boogie at the Cortes Island Recycling Centre

3/13/2015

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It’s a damp, foggy January morning as I drive toward the Recycling Centre on Cortes Island. Swirls of mist dance through the treetops. Roadside vegetation drips with moisture. At the recycling centre turn off the gravel roadbed is pockmarked with puddles. The weather isn’t stopping the work on the centre’s new Free Store though, at least not today.

Howling windstorms did shut things down recently. Near hurricane force winds downed trees and power lines putting the volunteer carpentry crew out of a job. But now, the project is back on track. Before I come around the final corner, through the trees I can see new wood and the bright red metal roof.

After depositing my recycling in the appropriate receiving shed for glass, metal, plastic and paper, I decide to check on Free Store progress. I’m not the only one. Charlotte stops me with a cheerful smile to tell me how pleased she is to see the building coming along.

Charlotte has a proprietary interest. Until the old Free Store was closed due to thoughtless kids who vandalized the place, Charlotte had a firm hand and eye on store management. In her early eighties, Charlotte found new meaning in life when she became the chief volunteer at the store. Four times a week, Charlotte appeared to sort incoming drop-offs, put usable items on display, stack ‘library’ shelves, supervise volunteer helpers, and generally maintain a semblance of order. Now she’s at loose ends until the doors reopen.

Though the old free-store felt cramped, dark and… smelly under its tin-roofed extension of the recycling shed, it usually hummed with the coming and going of price-wise islanders. In fact, the temporary absence of the Free Store has left a gaping hole in the social and economic fabric of the island. And not just for Charlotte. Many of us have been suffering Free Store withdrawal. For one thing, what to do with all those shirts and dishes and chairs and books and computer keyboards that don’t meet current needs? Even more importantly, where does one find a free shirt, skirt, sweater, blouse, smock, clock, pot, pan, skeins of wool, embroidery thread, plastic duck, lucky puck or set of Funk and Wagnall encyclopedias when you need them?? And where else can a person spend half an hour among friends and neighbours, engage in community gossip, try on clothes, compare notes about Free Store ‘finds’, and tap dance on a rainy day?

Tap dance? Why, of course! On occasion, twenty people have been known to crowd into the Free Store on a stormy day. On one such moisture-laden morning, a pair of red tap shoes caught someone’s eye. Before long a tap routine was rocking the place. If my memory serves me right, several of us embraced our tap fantasies while hail drummed accompaniment on the roof.

It may have been that very day I found a fabulous, almost new fleece jacket and a box of picture frames. It could also have been the day that I dropped off an overstuffed wingback chair and a designer jacket from my business-woman-in-the-city days. It might even have been the day I returned several skirts I’d taken the week before, which, after a good wash, a shake and a try-on, didn’t say ‘fashionista’ as I had hoped.

Fortunately, the Free Store has an excellent return policy. If a selection doesn’t fit, blend with the household colour scheme, doesn’t stand, tilt, bend or spindle the way you had in mind, it’s returnable, no questions asked. The Free Store is also renowned for their “Shop-Lifting” policy, with a sign to make sure you appreciate the opportunity, “Shop Lifting Encouraged”.

Charlotte and I reminisce for a few more minutes before I make my way through the rutted mud to the new Free Store. Today there’s a crew of six on the job, tacking tarpaper over the plywood sheathing and securing the last few pieces of metal roof cladding. Ken and Derek are up on ladders with tarpaper draped over their heads. I call out but it’s obvious no one needs a distraction. I take particular note of how things are shaping up. I have a proprietary interest too. I sketched an artist’s concept of the store from the architect’s plans. My drawing is being used on posters and progress reports.

We’re all volunteers including the architect. Crew bosses and their crews of foundation formers, wall framers, tarpaper tackers, roofers, painters and artistic decorators -- volunteers every one. From the ground up this is a community endeavor. Where possible even the materials have been acquired locally. Local sawyers milled trees from the site and a big flatbed truck wheeled in one day laden with hefty fir beams and posts.

The new store will be larger and brighter. A number of skylights and small windows provide a shower of light. On this day the openings are framed in, some windows and all of the doors have been installed. It’s interesting to see my sketch becoming a three-dimensional object. But there’s still work to be done and probably a month before its ‘business as usual’ in Charlotte’s department.

I’m looking forward to it. For one thing I need some new serving plates, and I need a couple of simple, loose dresses for summer. And there’s that bag of clothes and household odds and ends I’ve been putting aside to drop-off. I’ve been missing the islander folk and gossip too.

Sometimes I feel that everyone visits the Free Store. Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve seen people recoil at the very thought. My mother’s not too keen. “Some of those clothes are unwashed,” she says in an appalled whisper. But on the whole, it’s a broad cross-section of the island population who embrace the something-for-nothing concept, from the wealthy to the truly needy. Returning summer visitors often hoard items over the winter, just so they can make a Free Store trip when they’re back on the island. It’s one of the island’s tourist attractions!

There’s the serendipity of it too. A city retail shop often has only one kind of item in an array of sizes and colours. At the Free Store, the stock is singular and unique. The daily turnover is such that the store never has the same selection from minute to minute. Habitués know that Free Store success is a matter of simply being in the right place at the right time. The difference between “Guess what I found,” and, “You should have seen the ceramic bowl, Dire Straits LP, little black dress.... I was this close to picking up!”

Some folks wait like vultures as new treasures come through the door. The occasional free-for-all has resulted, though a general policy of ‘first sighted and landed’ determines ownership.

For newcomers, the concept that everything in the Free Store is free is hard to grasp. Me, I took to the idea like a clotheshorse to a clothes rack. Why not exchange things I no longer need for things I do need? Why not take all my older books for someone else to read? Why not dispense with a closet full of clothes that no longer fit?

The Free Store reduces the clutter in my life. Whenever I feel overwhelmed by ‘stuff’, I can do a quick sort and send the least used, the tired, the in-the-way, the too small, the too big, the too bright, the just too-too... to the Free Store. While I’m there I can look for a spindle, a trindle, a tisket, a tasket, and, maybe a basket too.

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Drawing... A Meditative Practice

3/1/2015

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Suddenly, I caught a swirl of movement. I swear I saw the trees gather up their skirts… In the deep green behind me, the trees have been dancing. With an abashed giggle, they straighten up again.

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My breathing deepens. I am quieted. I sink into the setting. All sounds become both clearer and part of a larger sound-scape that includes my breathing, my heartbeat, the soft ssshh of my hand moving on textured paper, the swish of a brush in water and the warm click of pencils as I rustle in my art box. I become conscious of a hum that slowly differentiates into bird calls, a distant dog bark, a whir of insect wings. As I continue to sit, even the heat, or cool moistness, seems to have a physical weight that snuggles me.

I am drawing.

This is a summer morning of watercolour sketching & drawing. My meditation begins as I gather my sketching tools, and continues as my focus becomes fully attuned to the process.

From my Cortes Island studio, I have walked through the damp coolness of an alder, hemlock, cedar and fir forest into the bright openness of a clear-cut that slopes south and east. Logged only a few years ago, I still remember the lofty trees and sheltered trails. Orange peel fungus provided bright and unexpected ground colour. How different the clear-cut with bent, misshapen and broken forest remnants poking up. I embrace these survivors of the logger’s ruthless choice. I appreciate drawing them.

At the same time, I welcome the open landscape that is now beginning to fill in with new growth. Salal, Oregon grape, trailing blackberry, huckleberry, bracken fern and fireweed are energetically making their presence known with fresh leaves and flowers. Small hemlocks push up, offering their droopy dew laden topknots to the morning sun.

I usually stop for a few moments and take in the full expanse of the clear cut…looking down to the small stones and humus rich earth at my feet, along the small trail that winds away through the vegetation, slowly taking in the multiple layers of landscape and distance all the way to the misty blue of the mainland mountains, filling my eyes and heart with light and colour.

One of the most powerful results of a regular drawing practice is a vividly enhanced visual awareness. I see so much more, reveling in the shapes, forms and colours, all so varied and dazzling. Enhanced awareness firmly translates to ‘being’ in the landscape. Being leads to being ‘seen’. Quiet contemplation, focused by my drawing practice, plants me in the landscape. I begin to feel a deep intimacy, kinship and sensitive awareness. In my stillness, the land and its inhabitants accept me. Small animals almost run over my toes and insects investigate the colours on my palette. Birds alight nearby.

I recall how sinuous little reddish mink have danced along beach logs, unaware of my presence, only to react with a start when only a few feet away. I’ve enjoyed their lengthy scrutiny from their round dark eyes… until, with a leap they pivot off in the opposite direction.

I have often felt carefully observed. Of course deer and other animals observe me, but I have also felt a mutual awareness even from the trees. I believe they sense my observation and appreciate the attention. There is a mutual vibration of simple acknowledgement. “We are here and so are you.”

One spring, drawing kit in hand, I sat myself among the moist mosses and decomposing wood fibers of a rain forest hideaway. Nestled in my ‘studio’, I began drawing the dripping scene; all tree trunks and rain-wet growth against a mossy granite bluff. Quiet, so quiet. Slowly I became conscious of a disturbance in my ‘morphic field’. I began to glance around. Nothing appeared to be moving but the odd feeling continued. I began to turn around quickly to surprise my observer. Suddenly, I caught a swirl of movement. I swear I saw the trees gather up their skirts… In the deep green behind me, the trees have been dancing. With an abashed giggle, they straighten up again.

To me, it seems an obvious corollary -- close observation encourages a deep appreciation. Individual rocks, trees and wild violets, become so intimately observed that I am moved by their subtle changes. I’m thrilled when these tiny ground hovering violets flower, and enjoy their delicately ribbed heart-shaped leaves. And I empathize when caterpillars devour the fresh alder leaves. If a tree I’ve drawn loses a limb or is toppled by the wind I feel a surprising sense of loss.

In this world I am also enveloped in a rainbow of colour. This morning the colours initially seem subtle and undifferentiated, but within moments, the scene drapes itself in colour.

Even in the winter, or any time of year, the range and strength of colour fills my soul. Today the colours run from pale mauve to rich Indian reds, cool green-blues to soft yellows. Whether I am focused on a small object or allowing my vision to gather the widest expanse, the range of colour is always extraordinary.

I realize I used the word ‘extra-ordinary’ when what I’m describing is ‘ordinary’ - in every sense. What is extra-ordinary is that we rarely see what is ordinary and visible. What is even more extra-ordinary is ‘seeing’ beyond the visible and being fully present to all our senses. What a joy to allow myself the time to simply sit in contemplation of all these marvels – to scratch away with brush or pen, to smell the spring morning filled with propolis from the budding maples, hear the catch of wind in grass, a rattle so different from the sigh of wind in fir tops..., recognizing the cacophony of spring compared to the silent heat of August.

Drawing is a mindfulness meditation, a full engagement with the present moment. It has nothing to do with how well you or I draw. It is the practice of “bringing our attention to”, allowing all other concerns, thoughts, feelings to fall away, to focus fully, joyfully on the process of observing, feeling, being. This is my practice.

And sometimes the trees will dance.

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Drawing... A Meditative Practice

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