Dancing, Waiting for the Dam to Break

I was reading something humorous recently that said choosing where to live in our country should be based on which natural disasters one is most comfortable dealing with. Are you relatively okay with tornadoes and hail storms? Move to the prairies. Content with cleaning up after the tail end of a hurricane? Live on the East Coast. Good with forest fires and flooding? Alberta and the Interior of British Columbia are your best bet (although, the East Coast has had some share in the forest fire phenomenon in recent years). Feeling calm about the ever present threat of a major earthquake? Hightail it to the West Coast. I live between the Interior of BC and the West Coast. The potential for disaster is as varied as my province is geographically dynamic. Before you roll your eyes at me for calling my province 'geographically dynamic' I got this off the trusty internet just now: 

"Geography is a study of the earth and phenomena related to it. The earth is dynamic with variations in its physical and cultural environments. These geographical phenomena, whether physical or human, are not static but highly dynamic. They change over time."

If you need proof, Google what just happened on the Chilcotin River about 450 kms north of where I sit. A massive slide (or more accurately, a slump) dammed the river, creating a lake 11 kilometers long. Experts predicted the water to start moving across the top of the landslide, and while hoping for the best outcome downstream, communities along the Chilcotin and the Fraser Rivers braced for the worst. The damage downstream was held off by the debris emptying into the much wider Fraser River and then being purposefully trapped close to the town of Hope. The look of the area in the Chilcotin will be changed forever. Until the next event comes along, that is.

The earth has always been dynamic, from plate tectonics and volcanoes, to river levels constantly changing, etc., etc., but lately, it seems the planet has been a little too dynamic. Temperatures are more extreme as the planet warms, causing a veritable 'Clash of the Climate Titans'. The Jasper fire was paired with fierce and forceful winds that pushed the fire rapidly towards the town, doing major damage to human property and animal habitat.  From where I sit today, there is a forest fire 20 kms to the east, and one 150 kms to the north. We have had a lot of lightning in the past seventy-two hours and the potential for further fires well into the autumn is ever-present despite the intermittent rain showers.  Summers are getting hotter and longer. Thousands of trees where I live in the mountains are infected with spruce bud worm and for weeks I looked out the window at hundreds of the spruce bud moths flying around. We'll need a couple of weeks of well below freezing temperatures to eliminate these infestations, but last winter was barely cold enough for snow. I have to believe that Mother Nature knows what she's doing, and I really hope we humans are prepared to work with her. So far, we've not been terribly good at that. Our efforts have been more on the 'taking from her' side of things.

Before colonization, Indigenous peoples moved around. They had their territories, but plenty of space within them. If an area flooded, they would move to higher ground. They had their summer and their winter hunting grounds, fishing grounds, and areas to gather berries and plants. We settlers like our little, permanent plots of land. We buy insurance against anything changing about that plot of land. The insurance rates have been skyrocketing in the last few years as a reaction to climate-related disasters (Our condo complex's rates tripled since 2017), and I am left wondering how sustainable the whole industry is. What if we could just pick up our houses and move them? For obvious reasons, I see all kinds of problems with that idea. I suppose the alternative is to move to another little plot of land in a different community, country, or even a different planet as some are proposing. Can we really escape, though? Or are we just buying time? The answer lies within ourselves. We need to get used to change, and we need to get used to downsizing our consumptive natures and sometimes dangerous habits. We mostly need to accept how in denial most of us are. Can we stem the tide of disasters? Experts say yes, but without us each also saying yes with our actions, the situation doesn't look promising.

Not every disaster is related to climate. Some are decades, centuries, or even millennia in the making. A crack widens and the proverbial dam breaks. Many are made worse by climate, though. The slump in the Chilcotin may have been lessened if the trees on the slope were not killed by fire, contributing to destabilization of the slope. The good news is, scientists and engineers are working constantly to find new ways for us to deal with and even lessen the effects of disaster. First Nations and Government are teaming up to tackle forest fire mitigation using traditional techniques. Climate anxiety is a genuine issue these days, especially among young people. The remedy partially lies in doing what we can, when and how we can, and leaving the rest to Nature herself. She's actually a pretty smart cookie. I personally believe we can still live with joy and humour in a constantly changing world. We cannot control the dynamic nature of our planet, but we can control our contribution to it. We have choices we get to make every day to make our world and our climate healthier and happier for all of us. So, as my sister-in-law says, let's "make good choices!" 

Every Day can be Earth Day with Children

I read in a local newspaper article this week that in order to care about the environment we at first have to learn to love it. The article also claimed that we are raising children with 'Nature Deficit Disorder'. Far too many children are not spending enough time climbing trees, smelling flowers, hiking up hills, picking berries and identifying plants and birds, and when they are brought up only to connect with things that entertain them like television and video games, they are disconnected with the 'hand that feeds them', meaning the earth.

Here in Canada we have a great tradition of camping out of doors as families, and of sending our children to summer camps. I spent two wonderful childhood summers attending a week-long Anglican summer camp with a friend. We learned to steer a canoe, make sand candles with recycled crayons, pound the picnic tables for food while singing Johnny Appleseed, use a map and compass, make a campfire and sing funny songs around it, and pray to God the creator on the top of a high bluff overlooking beautiful Garland Bay on the east shore of Kootenay Lake. My parents also took me on many an outdoor adventure in the mountainous, lake and river- filled place in which I grew up. By climbing mountains to pick wild huckleberries,  swimming in the lakes and streams, and even walking the back alleys with my mother to peer at our neighbours' gardens and listen to her identify flowers and vegetable varieties, I learned to love the environment like I loved anything else good in the world. If I read in my OWL Magazine, a Canadian magazine for young naturalists, that discarded chewing gum might kill a bird which tried to eat it, I would be extra careful to wrap mine in its wrapper and put it in my pocket until I could find a trash can. 'All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wide and wonderful, the Lord God made them all,' was how I was raised to think about the environment, and I think, perhaps, we need to remember to give our children this same idea, if not in the same words, at least with the same approach. We need to develop a conscience and care in our children to consider each of their actions and how they affect the environment, and through the environment, their fellow, and future, citizens of planet earth.

Some dreamers talk of humans being able to live on Mars eventually. I have absolutely no interest in living on another planet. I really, really like this one. Words can not possibly do its beauty justice, especially at this time of year, with its blossoms and newly green trees, billowing clouds in the bright blue sky (when it has stopped raining, that is), and I cannot understand why anyone would want to desecrate it with garbage, toxins and other destructive ugliness. But, as I run the roads around my town, especially up the highway to the bridge which passes over the train tracks, I see a lot of garbage in the ditches. A lot of garbage. Everything from diapers to pillows, jackets, odd shoes, rubber car mats, coffee cups, liquor bottles, beer cans, fast food packaging, and sometimes even children's toys end up in the ditch. I imagine all the drivers who have thrown these things out of their windows so they wouldn't have to carry them to the nearest garbage can or dump, and I feel sorry for their lack of conscience and care. Granted, some of the stuff could have simply flown out of the back of some unsuspecting driver's truck, but surely not all of it?

This dumping of garbage in the ditches and rivers might seem minor compared to oil spills in the Gulf of Mexico or carcinogenic toxins spewed into the air by chemical plants, but it does point to a lack of consideration for this planet and its people, and if we care to change the mindset of those who believe the earth is their garbage can, we need to start with the little things, not to mention the little people in order to make a difference. Everyone focuses on the need to look after the world for the sake of the children we will leave it to. Few mention the fact that our saving the planet will matter little if our children are not taught to keep on saving it. A previous neighbour of mine refused to recycle her cardboard, cans and bottles. "I can't be bothered," she would say. With all the information out there about landfills and toxins and the island of plastic in the ocean, and she could not be 'bothered'? She was a very nice woman, but I just could not understand her reluctance to take responsibility for her family's garbage. She was young, healthy, able-bodied, and owned a van. She even had a garage to store the recycling in until she had time and the inclination to take the stuff down the road to the recycling depot. She could have made recycling a family affair and have the kids help sort, and they would have learned something valuable in the process.

We are going to leave this world to our children, so we had better start giving them the idea that respect for the earth and its inhabitants starts with us, and it starts with them. We don't need to cajole or lecture or fill their heads with a lot of gloomy statistics, we simply need to take them outside and share the joy of nature with them. Outdoor experiences are free of charge for the most part. Especially in this part of the world, all we have to do is unplug and then open the door to the wonder of the world outside. And outdoor experiences can make a huge difference to children's lives. Once a child has been camping or has learned a skill such as building a campfire or reading a map and compass they become aware of their own abilities and gain confidence in themselves. And if camping is not an option, then a trip to the lake shore or a walk to a park that has unpaved trails and plenty of interesting plants and trees can also awaken the senses to the calming effect of nature and a desire to experience it more often and in a respectful manner. Children are natural sponges of information and sensory experiences; let's make sure that what they are absorbing is worthy of them and their future.

The photo above is a personal favourite. It was taken at Botanical Beach on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, and is of my husband and daughter examining a tidal pool. My husband, a city boy who grew up in Calgary, started his lifelong love of the outdoors during his family's annual two-week camping trips to Wasa Lake when all meals were cooked over the fire and entire days lived in the freedom of the outdoors. He spent a good part of his adult career working with kids and using an excellent book called Sharing Nature With Children by Joseph Cornell.

I am working at the annual Tulip Festival these days, and it is heartening to see so many families coming out, even in the rain, to enjoy the flowers and play in the mud. One little girl came up to me, her boots caked in mud, and very proudly showed me her feet. Her face shone with delight as she said, 'You have some great mud here!'

Water Water Everywhere

Only weeks ago, we in the Fraser Valley were keeping a close watch on the rising level of the river. Experts said those living inside the diking system were not in any real danger of flooding, but with the water table risen to only six feet below the surface, many with full basements had pumps going full time to keep the water out. When we first moved to this community we noticed in June that many homes seemed to be draining water by hosepipe onto the road. Not being familiar with life on a floodplain, we thought it strange that so many people seemed to be draining their hot tubs or backyard pools at the same time. When a neighbour and friend who happens to have an underground basement began talking about needing two pumps and a backup generator during a year of high runoff, we began to understand the reason for all the hoses to the road. We also began to understand why, after 1975 no houses were allowed to be built with any more than four feet below ground in our town, and were grateful for our house built on a concrete slab with a lawn sloping away from the house.

 A few years ago, our area was in very real danger of flooding, according to all the media reports and the provincial authorities. There were even town meetings in the high school gym to discuss strategies for emergency response should the dikes break. I gathered 72 hours worth of food supplies, including several packages of Cadbury mini eggs. No emergency kit, in my opinion, should be without chocolate. We made sure we had plenty of batteries for our short wave radio and flashlights, and kept the car full of gas at all times in case we needed to leave town in a hurry in search of higher ground. My husband always has our camping gear well organized, so I felt confident that we could get it together quickly if needed. I was so stressed about the possibility of flooding, it was difficult to concentrate on my job coordinating the local festival's children's day, and I made changes to our insurance policy to accommodate flooding in our house. A lot of people did. I even called my mother to ask if we could come to them 500 kms away, should disaster strike. I think she thought I was hysterical.To calm my children and myself we walked down to the river and looked at how far the water would have to rise to breach the dikes. It would have to rise an awful lot by the looks of it, and I felt better.In hindsight, I should have listened to the experienced local farm families from the get-go, who calmly smiled and said they'd believe a flood when they saw it. We never did flood that year, but it was a good test for everyone involved. This year, the water was just as high with flooding in some low-lying places outside the dikes, but the level of hysteria in the media and in the community in general was much more subdued. Our dikes had been tested and had proved worthy.

We did not flood this year and in fact, are enjoying a beautiful July so far. The water is still high as it is everywhere in our province, but without the incessant rain of June, it is gradually going down and people with basements have been able to relax a little. However, it seems that if one part of the world is enjoying good weather and calm waters, another part is experiencing the opposite. The Kootenay region near the Alberta border of British Columbia, and the stomping grounds of my youth, continue to have the wettest summer in recent memory. 'Monsoon rains' are a common term to describe their weather in the emails I have received from my parents' home, and again today I hear of recent and fierce storms in the region. Last Thursday afternoon, the rain fell so hard and so fast that the my hillside hometown of Nelson had temporary flooding in the downtown area - the storm drains just could not keep up with the amount of water rushing down the hills and into the level areas of the town. Several photos were posted on Facebook, and someone added the fact that Nelson had seen this kind of water before, back in 1973.

Robert Neufeld of Nelson took these photos
 on the day of the flash flood

Pulling together to push

The water did drain into the lake before long and the town was apparently dry and open for business by the next day. Flooding, yes, but somewhat manageable. West of Nelson, however, and on the same day, a mud slide had flowed onto the road near Castlegar and there was concern about the stability of one of the slopes above the college I attended for two years. The concern was well-founded as just the week before, a large mud slide had occurred in Johnson's Landing, a small, isolated community northeast of Nelson, crushing three houses with a wall of concrete-like compressed mud carrying trees and rocks as it careened down the slope. Four people were confirmed missing and the rescue efforts were hampered by a second slide and thus a frighteningly unstable area in which to search for the missing people - a father with two daughters and a German tourist. Sadly, after a weekend of extensive searching and the best efforts of personnel, the rescue efforts were changed to recovery efforts, and although I did not expect the news to be good by Monday, it still hit me hard when I heard the cold fact that the body of the girls' father had been found. Two days later, another body had been found, and so on.

 Any time something like this mudslide and flooding happens it is cause for concern, but it becomes personal when it occurs in a place you know well and where events such as this are rare. We are used to seeing footage of flash flooding and mudslides in places like Asia, but in the southeast corner of British Columbia? We are more likely to hear of people perishing in avalanches when skiing out of bounds, or from drowning in a boating accident on the many lakes in the region. The news becomes even more personal when the people involved are known and loved by people you know. That is what happened in Johnson's Landing. The slide occurred twenty-five meters from the home of  a young woman I knew when she was a baby, and her parents. I found this out on the radio one morning when the young woman was interviewed - she was friends with the two missing young women who had been her neighbours and was distraught but impressively composed in the interview. I contacted members of her family and shared the story, as did others, on Facebook. Many of my friends shared my concern and we all prayed and hoped for the best outcome before we knew the worst. Then we prayed and hoped the area would be saved from more disaster from excess rain.

I hope the Kootenays have seen the last of this 'biblical weather,' as a friend called it. Next week we are all going to Nelson to attend the wedding of our niece. The guest list is quite a long one, so I hope the weather will be accommodating to all these visitors from near and far as we gather for this most happy occasion. One thing is clear however. From recent events Mother Nature has let us mere mortals know in no uncertain terms that she is in charge, and we will just have to take whatever comes and make the best of it.

Joyriding with Iris

Once upon a time I had some extra money, so I bought a brand new bicycle. I had been wanting a new bike ever since I moved to this valley full of people of Dutch descent. I had watched them for years riding past on their bicycles, looking so upright and happy and comfortable pedalling around town. For years I had a mountain bike, which did not fit me properly, or vice versa, and I no longer could bear to ride it. The reach to the handlebars was too long and my back and neck ached after every ride. Besides, it was rusting out and the gears were grinding and the brakes hissing and squealing, and it was obviously time for a new one.

We went shopping to my husband's favourite bike store in the nearby city. The owner's assistant showed me several choices. Before long my choice was down to two: A Giant Sedona man's small frame in grey or a Giant Sedona woman's frame in white. A Sedona is meant as an inexpensive  crossover between a mountain bike and a cruiser. It features a wide seat and a frame built for comfort, but twenty-four gears for resistance and hill climbing, and tough enough tires for riding on gravel and over railroad tracks. My poor family waited and waited while I took one, then the other bike out for test rides down the side street by the bike shop. Finally, I had made my choice. I would buy the women's bike with the smaller frame to accomodate my short torso and the adjustable seat to accommodate my long legs. I have never regretted my decision.

That was two years ago, and I still get many compliments on my bike. On our first ride together, my youngest daughter and I came up with a name. I had never named any of my other bikes, but since this new one was special, and my daughter insisted, I thought I might name her. Since my daughter's bike was named Stanley, I thought I could name mine Iris (from the film Stanley and Iris). My daughter approved and the name suits my bike's upright elegance very well. All she is missing is a basket, which will have to wait until the next time I have some extra money or a birthday. Recently, I was at the bike shop getting a free annual tune-up for Iris. As I stood in the shop waiting with my bike, a couple came in the door. The young assistant approached them and asked if he could help them. The gentleman said, "My wife here would like a new bike." "What sort would you like?" asked the assistant. The wife looked at Iris. "That sort."

Now that it is spring, I find myself hopping on my bike several times a day, to zip down to the produce store for groceries or to the pepper farm to buy a two pound bag of 'seconds' for $2.50, to the bank or the library. Bicycling is quicker than walking, and more energizing and fun than driving. It is the perfect balance between the two, and it means one less car on the road. I am happy to see so many others biking around town, old and young, families and solo riders, but of course, there is lots of room on the roads for more cyclists.

The perfect opportunity came up a few years ago to widen the road to accommodate a bike lane between our town and the nearby lakeside resort community some ten kilometers north. Despite appeals to the municipalities and 'letters to the editor' the bike lane was never built, and the repaved shoulder remained narrow. My husband rides the road regularly in summer, as did my son last year, to his job in the resort community, but they have to be extremely wary of vehicles speeding past. I can't help but think how wonderful it would be for people, especially families to ride the relatively easy distance of flat ground for a day at the beach. Fortunately, until the powers that be come to their senses we have plenty of farm roads to cycle in our district. I look forward to many smooth and pleasant rides with Iris this summer.

Perhaps you may see me one sunny afternoon pedalling along, the wind in my hair, smiling all the way.

Post Earth Day Ponderings

Our women's quartet was invited to perform at a mini film festival on Earth Day. The two films were being shown at the local United Church, which has wonderful acoustics. We performed four songs first, then the thought provoking film Spoil was shown. We performed one more and then we all watched a lovely little short called Gratitude which left us in a hopeful mood. After the short, we had some time for discussion and then we proceeded into the hall for home-made cookies and tea. I had seen an Earth Day display on a large free-standing bulletin board in the foyer and ventured out with my cookie to read the various postings Several of the postings were quotes I had read before, but a few were poems by Scottish poet Robert Montgomery. I read one, and then I read them all.

Before the short film, we sang a song called 'The Simple Life'. But before we had begun, I had to pull myself together. The film Spoil, which is about a group of world-class photographers who gather at Hartley Bay in the Great Bear Rainforest on the West Coast of British Columbia to document, and thus show the world, what will be at stake environmentally should the Enbridge Gateway Pipeline project be allowed to go ahead and oil tankers negotiate the hazardous waterways in the area. The film had been very moving and disturbing and thus, emotional. Marilee introduced the song with a few quiet words: "It's time to apply the K.I.S.S. principle in our world: Keep it Simple, Stupid." I was at a loss for words, or more accurately, lyrics to begin the song, but somehow we rose to the occasion.

A cottage small is all I'm after

Not one that's spacious and wide

A house that rings with joy and laughter

And the ones you love inside

'The Simple Life' is a cute song from a film of the 1940's. And while it rang true for the occasion, I ventured out into the hallway looking for something more, something deeper. I found it in this short poem by Robert Montgomery, who routinely hijacks advertising billboards for his installations:



The desire for simplicity is strong in me. I wish more people felt that way because I believe if we all just stopped the somewhat blinding drive to aquire more of everything, and simply appreciated the good of what we have, if we purchased for quality and lastingness rather than trends and financial convenience, if we took more time to smell the proverbial roses and ponder the wonder of the created world of which we as people are a beautiful and ancient part, we would all be happier and our land use decisions would be wiser and from a place of stewardship rather than theft for short term gain. 

More of Robert Montgomery's work can be found here.

The photo above is of the extremely rare 'spirit bear', and is by Canadian photographer Ian McAllister, one of the photographers featured in the film, Spoil.

I will now step down from my soap box to wish you a Happy weekend.

Driving Miss Crazy

While I was watching a movie set in Manhattan recently, I came to a realization.  The characters never drove themselves anywhere, never fought traffic, never had to gingerly back out of a supermarket parking spot suitable, not for a minivan, but more for a mini-scooter, never had to strain their eyes to see the lines on the road on a dark and stormy night, never had to keep alert to 'new drivers' acting like Mario Andretti, or young cyclists jumping out into traffic without so much as a warning.  They hailed taxis and rode trains and subways, or they walked, and I suddenly envied those people and had a sudden urge to live in a big city with a well developed system of public transit. Instead, I live in a small town twenty minutes from a mid-sized city where most of the shopping is and where my son goes for violin lessons and Saturday orchestra rehearsals. Minor bus service is available between our town and the nearby city, but is not usually practical for our schedule - and taxi fare is out of the question. Driving for me, and most rural or suburbian North Americans, is a necessary evil. 

After my last accident over ten years ago, I confided to a friend that I was scared to drive and his response was this:  "Well, you'd better get back up on that horse, and soon!"  He was right because at the time I was living miles from the nearest town.  Back up on that horse I did get and with practise and time I even became a better driver than before my accident.  The last few years, however, I have noticed an increase in my anxiety level when it comes to driving, and on a bad day, I find it hard to trust in my experience as a driver.  Recently, while reading an article about road sense in the newspaper I learned that drivers who have been involved in accidents, even accidents which were not their fault, have higher anxiety towards driving and tend to make more mistakes.  When my husband and I embark on a road trip now, short or small, he never has to fight me for the car keys.  I hand them over most willingly.  I suppose I could take a defensive driving course or sign up for therapy like the article suggests.  I mean, I'm hardly a candidate for the reality tv show, Canada's Worst Driver, it's more that I've developed a sort of...distaste for being behind the wheel.

When we moved to the Fraser Valley, a sprawling, continuous suburb of Vancouver, I thought, "Here's my chance to become a real city driver."  I imagined myself working up the experience to take trips into the big city, using MapQuest and high doses of caffeine as 'courage water'.  Seven and a half years later I am no closer to being a Vancouver driver than I was before.  In fact, I may even be farther away.  I simply just do not fit in with the aggressive, tail-gaiting style of the other drivers and I sincerely doubt I ever will.  I like a reasonable amount of space between the next car and me when on the freeway and I don't feel safe driving over 120 kms per hour.  I never was very good at intensely crowded situations, let alone on the road at autobahn-like speeds or at a bumper-to-bumper crawl.  Sometimes when I'm out on the freeway I begin to think like a Woody Allen character - one of those sort of neurotic philosophers obesessed with death:

What does it all mean anyway?  Look at all these cars, these killing machines travelling at crazy speeds.  Don't these people know they are risking their lives, not to mention the environment?  We're hemmed in like sheep, except we're like sheep with high powered engines and wheels careening down a six lane freeway.  Why do we do it?  Look at that girl in the next car talking on her cell phone, laughing away.  She's got one pinky, the only finger not holding her Starbucks, on the wheel.  Look at her change lanes without signalling.   Doesn't she know she's going to kill someone with her bad habits?  Maybe I should envy her lighthearted view of existence.  

Okay, so maybe now I'm starting to sound crazy, but I think I'm old enough not to care about that sort of thing.  And besides, my husband says he knew that I was crazy when he married me and he still loves me, so I have decided to be content with my lot, and leave the big city driving to the experts:  the experienced commuters who listen to books-on-CD while weaving their way through rain-soaked traffic; to my husband who in his younger days, on his trips abroad to New York, Paris, Stockholm and Philadelphia with a certain Swedish modular furniture company, was always asked to be the rental car driver among his workmates; and to the bus and taxi drivers.  I salute them all.  You go! - I'll hold the map.

What're a Few Trees?

I was in a photographic mood yesterday.  I decided that I was not using my camera enough lately and because I wanted to take a couple of photos for this post I ventured out in the drizzle to do so.  The light was not very good due to the greyness of the day, but I did what I could before it really started coming down. 

Our town is filled with trees of all varieties.  We have been home to a Federal agricultural research station for more than a hundred years and everywhere you look, there are ginkos, magnolias, white and pink dogwoods, copper beeches, every kind of maple, tulip trees, and a lot of other varieties I cannot name.  Across the street from us is one of the most stunningly beautiful copper beeches in the neighbourhood.  I cannot begin to express how much joy it is to watch that tree change with the seasons.  Last year the neighbour built a very tall garage for his boat.  An arborist was called in and began cutting off all the lower branches.  I immediately rushed outside and found the neighbour.  He assured me they were only trimming the lower half to make room for the garage (which I secretly call 'the fire hall'). 

Not so long ago a simple, white 1950's house sat elegantly in the middle of one of the prettiest yards in the town.  What made the yard so pretty were several mature trees, including a locally famous huge pink magnolia, and a well-kept lawn.  The residents of the house were quite elderly and employed a local landscaping business to mow, trim, and maintain their shrubs and lawn.  Just recently the house went up for sale, was sold in a week, and within days I saw a crew beginning what looked like a thinning of the trees on both sides of the house.  I wondered if the new owners had decided the yard needed more light, and I could understand that.  A few days later I walked by again and saw a certain local figure standing on the property overseeing the proceedings.  Several trees were now completely cut down and it appeared the lots on either side of the house, which was now rented out, were about to be nearly emptied of trees.  The shrubs and the beautiful magnolia which fill the lot of the rented house were left basically intact, though the magnolia had been given a major pruning.

The 'certain local figure' is a property developer who plans to build three new houses on the bare lots. Our town has a land use plan which preserves much of the agricultural land and encourages high-density new- builds, which is good, but there is absolutely no law protecting trees.  I remembered a Japanese student from my days as an ESL assistant, asking me why Canadians were so concerned about protecting forests when there were trees everywhere he looked.  As I stood in the rain looking at the stumps and rounds of wood across the street I wondered if I was being too sensitive. True, the city had just planted a neat and tidy row of baby trees all along the boulevard, the entire length of the street - although I couldn't help cynically imagining it was some sort of ploy to soften public opinion as a rather angry letter-to-the-editor had already appeared in the paper. 

I think I, and many other local citizens are upset for a few different reasons:  there was absolutely no public consultation before the cutting started and I have yet to see any statement of plans by the developer; we have lost about half an acre of beautiful, mature trees that were enjoyed by everyone in the neighbourhood, not just the owners of the white house; It seems that in this town, if it isn't in the museum, it's not worth a thought.  It's out with the old and in with the new.  I know the new houses will contain families and they will most likely plant shrubs, but their yards will be very small.  We are quickly losing many of the older houses and their trees as high density development charges ahead.  The road into town, which used to be lined with large properties and older homes of character, is fast being filled with cookie cutter townhouses.  I suppose this kind of progress is inevitable as more and more people move out to the Valley from the cities of Vancouver and Surrey, and they need homes, too, but it is still hard to witness the transformation. When I moved here, I never thought of this town as suburbia, the definition of which, according to Alfred E. Neuman is 'a place where they cut down all the trees and then name the streets after them,' but it certainly is starting to look like it in places.  I'm truly grateful that we can still take walks and runs and bike rides on the farm roads, where the fields and trees provide a much needed sense of space and beauty.

The other day I noticed yet another change on the street in question.  The house directly across the street from the white house is now for sale - further proof I'm not the only one a bit disheartened by this recent turn of events.

           ***

On a lighter note, Halloween is approaching and we gathering pumpkins, assembling costumes and making decorations.  My eldest daughter made a great skeleton out of plastic milk jugs on Sunday afternoon. She found the instructions on the web.  Note his friend the hatted spider to his left.



And while she made 'Bones Malone' and I prepared for a meeting, her dad watched the football game on his one day off of the week.  Yup, it's fall!

Going Against the Current

While I spent much of Sunday in happy solitude baking pumpkin pies and apple blackberry crisp for Monday's Thanksgiving dinner, my family took a drive out to the salmon spawning channels at Weaver Creek, which is a truly lovely spot near the Chehalis First Nation Reserve on the Harrison River.  We try to get there every year, but this year my husband, always the naturalist, was extra motivated since the Sockeye salmon have returned in record numbers after the experts' initial gloomy prediction.  No one seems to know exactly why the Sockeye run is so great this year, but one thing was clear when my family returned home to report on their outing:  the amount of tourists at the spawning channels almost equalled the number of fish. 

The spawning channels are man-made shallow switchbacks with gravel bottoms and rows and rows of trees for shelter and shade.  A visit to Weaver Creek is always a pleasant way to spend an hour or two, even though the scene is a bittersweet one with the red and green fish struggling against the current to return to their birth place, many of them dying along the way.  The walk from the parking lot takes visitors alongside the channels and ends up at the creek where the salmon must leap several feet over a manufactured waterfall called a fish ladder to make it into the channels.  The reason for the tough entrance exam is to maintain as strong a species as possible; strong fish create more strong fish.  It is quite the scene to watch the salmon leap and violently shake their muscular tails in order to gain the height required to make it into the first tank. 

While I enjoy watching the concentration of fish in the channels, eventually I must always go over the bank, away from the tourists and down to the actual creek.  Sometimes, depending on the time of year, there can be dead, mouldering fish all over the creek bank, but if we are early enough in the season we can enjoy the quiet fall scene without the carnage:  the meandering creek with water rippling over boulders strewn here and there, the natural riparian plant life dressed in its fall finery, and the occasional languishing salmon that has managed to make it past the weir, which is designed to keep them out of this particular part of the creek.

The huge sockeye run this year had almost everyone I know here out fishing for their allowable daily catch of two salmon during the short open season, and freezers all over the Fraser Valley are brimming with frozen fillets.  A group of boys would cycle past my house every day after school with fishing rods in hand, and joy on their faces.  The mighty Fraser river was packed with boats, nets, and people in hipwaders, and the rural roadsides were lined with vehicles.

The local Stolo First Nation people value the salmon above all other creatures.  From infancy they are taught to revere the cycle of the red fish.  Their artwork is full of depictions of this cycle and its importance spiritually and literally to their culture.  A native artist once brought a cooked salmon to his art opening and urged me to try the salmon roe.  I tasted the small red caviar and an incredibly oily, fishy sensation went down my throat.  I can't say I enjoyed it, but I could see how it would be the food to eat when fattening up for a cold winter.

When we lived on Vancouver Island I learned to bake a stuffed salmon and did so fairly regularly.  Pink salmon, a variety light in colour and less rich than other varieties, was sold in season for nineteen cents per 100 grams (about a dollar a pound) and was incredibly available, so it seemed the thing to cook.  I have never loved salmon, though.  Not like so many other people.  When I was a student, one of my roomates was a fish biologist with constant access to free salmon.  He barbecued it with a teriyaki marinade, and it was good, but I think too much of a good thing is well, too much.  I have been to several outdoor picnics that involve cooking large fillets of salmon skewered on a long stick and placed right next to a fire.  While the guests raved about the fish, I ate it, thinking, "Yeah, it's salmon."

My friend Bridged belongs to a prestigious fishing club in Campbell River called The Tyee Club.  Members must use only a row boat to fish from, and every year the largest salmon caught (they are called Tyee due to their enormous size) is dipped in ink and pressed onto paper for an imprint.  Bridged won the trophy a few years ago and now, an enormous framed print of a thirty-odd pound fish decorates her house's entrance.  She also ended up with a truck load of smoked salmon as she was allowed to keep the fish for eating.  She could not have been more thrilled, but then, Bridged grew up fishing for and eating salmon.  Maybe that is my problem:  I didn't grow up on the Coast, relying on and thus revering The Sacred Red Fish.

I confess I haven't got a single salmon in my freezer.  We are not a fishing family, and when my eldest daughter eats fresh salmon, particularly Sockeye, she usually becomes ill; it is quite rich.  I spent some time in the grocery store the other day wondering if I should buy a three pound Sockeye for fifteen dollars.  I was feeling badly about not taking advantage of the big salmon run and no one had offered me a salmon from their own catch (not that I asked), so I hemmed and I hawed, I considered my husband's opinion (which was that we didn't love salmon enough to pay fifteen dollars for one), and then I walked away from the fish section.  My freezer is already full of beef and chicken from a local farm and I try to make half of our meals vegetarian, so we can only eat so much meat, fowl and fish.  This makes us somewhat of an anomaly around here; to live on the Coast is to eat freshly caught salmon, and lots of it.  My family's 'wild pacific salmon' comes out of a store-bought tin, already caught, gutted, cooked and with no bones to choke on.  I generally mix it with bread crumbs, egg and spices to make salmon croquettes or a type of salmon wellington with mashed potatoes as a cover instead of pastry.  It doesn't taste quite so 'fishy' that way.

Personally, I am happy for all the local people who rely on their yearly catch of salmon.  There is a bounty this year for eating fresh, for freezing, canning in jars, drying, smoking and making into a rich delicacy called candied salmon.  While I am full of gratitude for a good salmon run for their sakes, I am resigned to cheering from the sidelines...and hope the good harvest makes for good prices on tinned salmon this winter.

The photo is by Peter Essick for National Geographic.

Monica and the Flower Thief

I was reading the front page of one of our local rags, when I was reminded of a time a few years ago when my eldest sister Monica impressed me once again.

The newspaper article was illustrated with a photo of a pregnant woman smiling in front of a few of the potted plants she has placed around her community of Yarrow's downtown.  "After two summers, the mother of two (soon to be three) estimates she has spent almost $2000 on plants, soil, pots, rocks and other materials to get some much-needed greenery into the town's three block downtown core," stated the article.  "(Her) efforts began as her own pet project, but community members have jumped on board, watering and caring for the plants placed in pots outside their businesses."  A week ago, four containers disappeared, and on the weekend, sixteen more were stolen. 

I'm not surprised.  Apparently some green thumbs are accompanied by a set of light fingers.  Yes, I know  gardening is big business and that plants and their containers can be quite expensive, especially if one wants to achieve that instant full garden look, but stealing other people's plants already carefully and lovingly potted, or plants from public spaces meant to be enjoyed by the community overall?  Very low indeed. 

A couple of years ago in April, my sister, Monica came down to stay with me and we attended an arts council conference in a nearby city.  The conference was held at a brand new fine arts high school with lush landscaping.  The weather was lovely so we ate our lunch outside in the courtyard and my sister and I took every chance to get off our chair-worn bottoms and go for walks around the grounds.  After the final day's last session, Monica and I were preparing to leave when we noticed a woman with a black SUV, with the back open, digging up very newly planted bedding plants and placing them in boxes in the back of her vehicle.  Now, I am a bit slow on the uptake and don't generally assume people are doing something they aren't supposed to be doing.  Something about the woman's hurried manner, however, made me pause and say a decided, "hmmmm".  Monica, experienced newspaper reporter and savvy sleuth merely exclaimed, "I think she's stealing those plants!"

After consulting a nearby couple who agreed that, yes, the woman certainly appeared to be helping herself to the plants, my sister began to approach the woman, while calling out "Are you stealing those plants?"  The woman said nothing, but closed her tailgate and drove off in a hurry.  I think it safe to say from her response, that yes, she was in fact a flower thief.

So what kind of person steals bedding plants or potted plants?  What kind of mindset thinks it okay to take beauty and colour from a public place and transplant it for their own enjoyment only?  Did the woman in the SUV think that because a microscopic portion of her tax dollars went to funding the high school's bedding plants, that they were somehow hers to take?  I mean, I know a few people who will take a small snip off a shrub in the park and then propogate it at home to plant in their gardens, but they would draw the line at helping themselves to the entire rosebush, roots and all.  I suppose it is the same mindset as the person who steals the bathrobe or towels from the hotel, or the person who helps herself to office supplies and toilet paper from the supply closet at work, and takes them home.  When many of us were children caught with an unpaid for pack of gum from the corner store, we were marched back to shopkeeper, made to apologize, and pay for the stolen goods (in more ways than one), but we are meant to learn from that experience and grow up to respect the property of others.  That must be it, then.  Perhaps the woman in the SUV stealing bedding plants, and the people who stole the 20 potted plants from downtown Yarrow never were marched down to the corner store to face the music, or maybe they have forgotten what it's like to be caught, accused, tried, and punished for their crimes.  Hopefully, my sister's bravery awakened the woman in the SUV just a little to the fact that, even if she is okay with taking what is not rightfully hers, that others certainly are not.

The photo above is from an article from www.vosizneias.com entitled, "Flower Thieves Terrorize NYC Neighborhood."  The article suggests weighing down potted plants to make them heavier to lift and anchoring baby trees and shrubs to make them harder to steal.  As one of the commenters on this website said in response to these suggestions, "Oy!  What is the world coming to?"

The Good Grains of Farmer Jim

When our very good friends, Jim and Diane (they have allowed me to use their first names) arrived at our home for Easter dinner, they presented us with a four litre ice cream bucket of flour freshly ground from their own wheat. I, like the kid I sometimes am, clapped my hands and received the bucket with glee. If that seems strange, then perhaps I am alone in my excitement over locally grown food, but really, it is the best. So fresh, so delicious and I know exactly where and how it was grown, which makes me happy to the core.

I realize that the prairie provinces - 'The Bread Basket' - Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, not British Columbia, are the traditional farming territory for wheat and other grains in Canada, but our friend Jim is one of a handful of farmers proving that grains can be successfully grown in the mountainous regions of our fair country, or rather, in the valleys of the mountainous regions, and he is doing it organically as well. He grows winter wheat, spring wheat, oats and, I believe, triticale, which is a hybrid of wheat and rye. Jim also raises Angus beef cattle and chickens and Diane is a superior veggie gardener (as well as my daughter's grade three teacher). They live on a beautiful farm, which was bought by Jim's parents in the early 1970's and we love to go and visit as often as we can.

Last year, the Food Network put out a six episode television series called 'The Hundred Mile Diet'. The series was based on a book by the same title that has been making waves all over the world with its somewhat radical concept of challenging people to rethink the sources of their food, and the global impact therein. In the series a variety of families took on a hundred day challenge to eat only what they could access within a hundred miles of their homes in Mission, BC. Each episode featured various local farmers such as beekeepers, hazelnut growers, a vineyard, a garden on Vancouver Island where the gardener has managed to grow citrus fruits, a field-to-table cheesemaker, etc. Jim and Diane and their two children were featured in one of the later episodes as a source of locally grown wheat, which the 'contestants' on the show were finding it very hard to live without. Jim and Diane don't have cable television so asked us to tape the episodes for them to watch, and we were glad to oblige. It certainly was interesting to follow the families as they learned to live without coffee, cane sugar, baking powder, salt (which one family actually took a day to aquire after cooking off the salt sea water), oils, and refined wheat flour, not to mention the beer and hard liquor. Some of the participants did well, especially the creative gourmet cook, and some, like the well-fed, well-sauced politician and his wife barely made it, even with some cheating along the way. Boooo!

Watching the show with my husband and kids was a fun exercise. Each week's episode led to lively discussions among us and they all thought, if challenged, we might possibly survive on The Hundred Mile Diet. After all, with access to Jim and Diane's grains, beef, and eggs, local berries, apples, pears, and veggies, dairy products, honey, as well as our own herbs and tomatoes, we do quite well already - this is farm country after all. There is a part of me, however, that feels a connection to other parts of the globe through my Sri Lankan tea (Fair Trade), my South American coffee (organic and Fair Trade), my Carribean sugar (organic but I'm not sure how it's traded), and my Irish Guinness, and I'm not sure I'd like to give that up completely, but it's a relatively small part. Of course, I also use salt, cane sugar, baking powder, canned pineapple, tuna, etc; I don't think the concept of the Hundred Mile Diet is to go without the foods that make us happy and fill in the gaps in our diets, but more to enlighten and encourage us to consider the social ethics and environmental impact of the global food economy, and to support our home-grown food sources.

Jim called me and left a message the other day: he was out on the fields, on his tractor planting, and had taken a break to eat his picnic lunch, which included the last slices from a loaf of bread I had made in my bread machine and given him and Diane (I had been raving about the wonderful bread I had been making in my bread machine with their wheat flour, and had given them a loaf to try). He said he thought it was great that here he was, planting his hard red spring wheat and enjoying my bread made from last year's good crop with some cheese and an apple, and he said "You should put that recipe on your blog". So I will.

Bread Machine 'Fraser Valley Hundred-ish Mile Diet' Whole Grain Wheat Bread. Makes 1 loaf

Put into your bread machine in the following order:

11 ounces of water

2 Tablespoons milk powder

2 teaspoons salt (from your nearest salt mine or sea water)

1 Tablespoon honey

1 Tablespoon molasses (or another of honey, if I prefer to be a 100 mile purist)

2 Tablespoons butter

3 1/4 cups of whole grain wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons granular yeast

Set to 'grain' setting on your machine, and 1.5 lb loaf size (if you have that setting) and wait...then enjoy!

The photo is of Jim, on his tractor, pulling the elementary school children's float in our annual fall fair parade.

My Own Private Copenhagen

After World War II Dutch people began immigrating to Canada in droves. Like so many European nations ravaged by war, Holland's economy could not support its population and young people sought new lives abroad. Many Dutch immigrants came from farming families and so moved here to this area of British Columbia where the weather is mild and the soil very rich.

Dutch people are still immigrating here. I have a winter job working for a Dutch couple who came in the 1990's and set up an ornamental plant business. Three mornings a week, after I get my kids off to school I head over to the barn, about two kilometers from my house, where I pack rare and unusual roots and tubers with names like Giganteus (a type of bamboo) and Miscanthus (a beautiful ornamental grass), in peatmoss. The crates of roots are overwintered in a climate controlled room until February when they are shipped to or picked up by nursuries which plant them in containers and let them sprout into pretty little plants in greenhouses. They are then sold to garden centers or landscape designers in spring, ready for transplanting. Some of the roots and tubers are so unusual looking I once made a comment that I half expected them to start screaming like Professor Sprout's potted mandrakes in Harry Potter.

Early last week we had a couple of mild days so I rode my bike over to the barn. Halfway through the morning I looked out the window to check the weather, and to my dismay, the wind had picked up and the rain was falling in a slant. I hoped it would die down in time for me to cycle home at noon. Unfortunately, by twelve p.m. the rain and wind was still very much an issue so after my boss, Jake returned from feeding his daughters' horses, and at the insistence of his wife and business partner, Carola, I asked if I could get a ride home with my bike in their truck. They are extremely kind people and Jake almost immediately said, "Yaw, shoor". I say almost immediately because just for a moment I detected something of disapproval in his eyes. Sure enough, when we got in the truck and pulled onto the highway he said, "Obviously, you didn't grow up in Holland. This is nice weather for cycling in Holland!" He then went on to tell me about the high school kids in Holland who regularly cycle 25-30 kms. to school and back, and how when he and Carola first moved to Canada they thought all the high schools were hospitals because of the parking lots full of cars. Apparently, there are no parking lots at the schools in Holland, not even for the teachers. Feeling rather small I listened, awed at the environmental superiority of the Dutch, and thought of my German friend Ralf, who calls Canada 'The Drive-Thru Country".

I have noticed that many of the older Dutch residents of our area ride their bikes around town. It is easy here on the flats of the valley, at least when it isn't too windy. Last Friday, the morning was clear and blue-skied with no wind, so I donned my gore-tex pants and jacket, scarf, gloves, skullcap and then bike helmet and rode over to the barn. When Jake came in he said, "So, I see you brought your bike today. That's good!" I laughed and joked that I wouldn't have dared showing up in a car on such a fine day. I was also able to tell him that I'd grown up in the mountains with parents who refused to own a car until they inherited my grandmother's Chevy Belair after she died, and that I'd daily made my way to school and back in every kind of weather, as do my children. At noon, I bravely rode home in the warm sunshine without even the gore-tex pants, and felt content with myself.

This morning it was -5 degrees Celcius with an icy wind funnelling down the valley. I had the van, so I left the bike at home and drove to work. There are limits, even when one's Canadian pride is at stake. Jake refrained from comment. Besides, it rarely freezes in Holland.