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Personal Blog of Steve Baumber
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I wasn't able to make Ian M's stag this past weekend, but I hear that it was an extremely good time, and I'm sad I couldn't be there. However, I'm sure he and Tamara will appreciate my need to make up for it at their wedding. Ha ha. Relax Ian.
Anyway, had Ian (another Ian) and Ev at our place this weekend, and plied with beer they helped me finish my latest song! I'm not overly happy with the sound of the vocals, but I really like the energy of the tune and the drum track I built worked well.
posted by Steve @
1:27 PM
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8.22.2004  |
For the reader, I apologise for the lengthy tome before you. But hey, alot can happen in two weeks...
As one drives northward there is a steadily increasing shift in mass. The car slowly creeps up the side of our curved planet towards the eventual point where the Earth rushes to meet itself in all directions at the North pole. Sitting as we are during the summer, at an angle of 23.5 degrees towards the sun, it is inevitable that you are not only challenging the vertical rise of the planet, but the expansive pull of the universe below you. I surmise that the steepest part of the journey is at roughly the 55th meridian, somewhere just south of Meziadin on Highway 37. It was at this point that I felt as though the front of the car was going to lift up from the slightest puff of wind and send us toppling hood over bumper off the side of the globe, spinning into space like Darth Vadar in Episode IV. But I'm a bit ahead of myself...
Our northern Odyssey began July 31, when we loaded the Civic and made it to Prince George, with two pee breaks and a short interlude at a fruit stand outside of Cache Creek for lunch and purchases. We were warmly met with great food and good cheer by Sandra and Attila, who fed and entertained us for two nights and a day. We hiked, we slept, we watched movies. Too soon it was time to press on, the call of the North shrill in our ears.
Beneath grey skies and a spitting rain we met Arwyn and Rich at the airport in Smithers, crammed their gear atop ours in the trunk, slid them into the back seat amidst water bottles and rice snacks, and whipped our team back onto the trail. It was in this condition - a day and a third of driving behind us, 9 hours to go, and the rear two thirds of the car now much heavier than the four cylinders purring away over the front wheels causing the front of the car to be ever so slightly angled towards the sky - that I started to have delusions that we were going to flip in the headwind and depart from the road into the empty reaches of the galaxy below/behind us. This did not come to pass, which evidently indicates that gravity works. We did, however, lose Arwyn to the empty reaches of a Gravol induced snooze, making a brief stop at the gas station in Iskut a hallucinatory event for her. We arrived in Dease Lake and were met by Rosemary’s parents Rick and Barb, and Arwyn’s father David. We transferred vehicles and left the Civic to rest, while we bumped and swerved over the last 130 km in the minivan (vaguely reminiscent of a tourist van trip across Thailand), past Telegraph Creek, and on to the Up the Creek B&B, the homestead of Barb and Rick McCutcheon.
Arriving at night, it wasn’t until the next morning that we could see where we were. Okay, Rosemary, having grown up there, knew where she was all along. But I didn’t. At the end of the Iron Road is a place carved out of the wilderness by 30 years of determination and effort. A four room log home built in the kingpin style, a huge garden, two outhouses, water piped in from a local creek, a work shop, wood shed, skidoo shed, greenhouse, sauna, and the nicest little one room cabin you'll ever stay at in the North with an indoor hot water shower. Powered by at least five wood stoves, several hundred yards of hose, solar panels and roughly 10 heavy-duty batteries, there was indoor plumbing, a telephone (with a dial tone when you picked it up), high-speed internet, and CBC in the morning. Hemmed in on two sides by four mountains, Brewery Creek to the west, and the Stikine River to the south, it quickly became apparent that we were on a veritable island. In the morning mist, with rain pattering on the tin roof of the cabin, it was a place where the rest of the world didn’t supply anything more than a distraction from the daily tasks of satisfying the needs of today and tomorrow. How easy it would be to become immersed in the work of sustenance, and spend hours mesmerized by the hum of nature existing around you! What need hath I for civilization? Until of course the mosquitoes and wasps came out. Which they did as soon as the rain stopped.
One also soon realizes that the McCutcheon family home, 25 km from town and another 5 km down a rough road, has never-the-less become an extended part of the Telegraph Creek community. Neighbors and social life are not too distant, evidenced by the folk festival at 6-mile (just ending when we got there), a swimming hole picnic at 4-mile, two day hikes, three paying customers at the B&B, and no less than four dinner parties while we were there! Seven days sped by as we picked vegetables from the garden, split wood, hiked and sauna’d, tasted kolrabi and "anacoga" (dried salmon) and fresh blueberries from the upper slopes of Mount Glenora. I even managed to do a little Australian stock whip cracking and build a couple of things for Rosemary’s birthday (Aug 27). Okay, I still have to finish one of them, but anyway...
We left Telegraph at 7:00 am on a Tuesday, and found the Civic waiting for us in Dease Lake. If a car could wag, it would’ve. We drove southward back to the Meziadin junction, and then westward towards the coast, rolling into Prince Rupert at 7:30 pm. A brief note about Prince Rupert. If you’re strolling down 3rd Avenue and happen across the La Villa restaurant, and think, "This looks like a good place to eat" and you sit down and someone just leaving leans in to you and says, "They’re really slow", think about leaving. After an hour of waiting we finally had one entrée we ordered and one we didn’t. While we sat waiting, we saw roughly six tables of people leave the restaurant in a less than patient manner. It became quite humorous, and if it wasn’t for our grumbling stomachs I’m sure we would have enjoyed the scene. After a walk through Cow Bay and a quick check of the Sunken Garden, we retired to the Pacific Inn. It was another early morning the next day to be at the ferry dock at 6:30 am.
We caught the Queen of the North, a BC Ferry that plies the inside passage from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy on the northern end of Vancouver Island. As it pushes its way past Porcher Island, Pitt Island, Princess Royal Island and zig zags towards Calvert Island, the scenery is fantastic. We positioned ourselves on deck early enough to get seats (to the envy of all of whom came up after) which we placed by the raling. From our vantage point we watched whales spouting in the distance, dolphins playing in the surf, and salmon dancing on their tails. Although we strained our eyes, no Kermode bears appeared out of the thick forest, but the odd abandoned town came into view. The trip is run like a mini cruise, with constant announcements about where we were and what we were looking at, an information kiosk on board, and an evening buffet dinner complete with a lounge singer. At one point an announcement was made that whales were off our starboard side (our side), and as numerous folks of numerous nationalities crowded around our chairs at the railing, vying to catch sight of a distant spout, I questioned why I hated tours.
Aside from the fact that it often places you in close proximity with a bunch of annoying people you wouldn’t want to be on an elevator with, whom you now have to share your holiday with, what’s the big deal? It doesn’t spoil my chances of seeing something - it might even heighten them when they all point and go "oooo". Some of them were loudly voicing what they’d read in their guidebook about whales, so it was even educational. But as I pried Rosemary’s pillow from under the foot of a woman clambering onto her chair to get a better view of a distant spout of water, I figured it was the need to have a unique personal experience. I didn’t want other people to see the whale I saw. In fact, I wanted to see the whale that nobody saw because it surfaced right next to the ship while everyone else was looking the wrong way while I was looking the right way. (Note: that didn't happen.)
My brother used to crave that individuality in his experiences so much that he would take off for hours if we were traveling anywhere, and then be suitably cagey when he returned about what had transpired. I think that flowed from the need to rebuild his identity after his accident. Was he what everyone remembered him to be? The guy in the pictures he was shown, or the memories that he salvaged? It must have been disconcerting to have everyone so sure of who you should be, based on a life you could barely remember; a life that never included a damaged body and mind. Perhaps, then, he was something else, something unknown? I think in many ways he strove to build a new Michael, struggled to gain an identity that belonged to him, to build a private person that wasn’t reliant upon someone else’s version of who or what he was. It was this person that was beginning to emerge while he was in China, and it was that Michael that I had barely met who disappeared in Malaysia. The things you think about when watching whales.
As the ferry made its last brave dash across the open water from Calvert Island to Port Hardy, we regretfully climbed into the Civic once again to find the Airport Inn. The next morning we had a brief run, doing a loop through the restricted area of the airport twice – who says security isn’t tops in Canada? Like eggs in a carton, we slid our butts into the Civic and headed down Island to Shawnigan Lake, arriving at the doorstep of Tayt, Lila and Sierra. They had been joined by Tayt’s parents as well, to make a healthy house full of people. Why one may ask? Why, for Christie Shaw’s wedding of course!
Friday we went for a run at Thetis Lake and visited Rosemary’s Aunt, and then off to the wedding rehearsal for me. Christie had asked me to sing her down the aisle, with a song originally done by Patsy Cline called "You Belong to Me". It was recently redone by Jason Wade for the movie "Shrek", so I copied that version. Things went well, and Loch’s parents hosted a Scottish feast for the rehearsal dinner. The next day Tayt, Rosemary and Sierra took me for a run through Shawnigan Lake, followed by a lovely dip in said Lake at Old Mill Beach. We then tidied, dressed and headed to the wedding, being held in a large garden of Loch’s Great Aunt in Duncan.
The wedding was very touching, a mix of civil ceremony, Scottish traditions, and self-written vows. It truly was an expression of love, and I was honoured to be a small part of the event. I only almost forgot one line and flubbed the guitar a little. Nerves. We had a great party immediately afterwards with good food, free booze and good music. Anyone who can’t have a good time under those conditions is trying hard not to!
All too quickly, though, our Odyssey was ending. We packed the Civic up one last time, and with good-bye’s all around, we caught the ferry from Schwartz Bay to the Mainland. We shopped for vegetables, unpacked our gear and collapsed on the couch. Weary and quiet, the evening did not last long enough to prevent the inevitable last sleep before work. And the alarm clock went off far too soon.
posted by Steve @
9:32 PM
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8.16.2004 |
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