Category: Leisure

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A Little Calm Before the Storm

With a lot to do and feeling like I was way behind, a cabin trip seemed like a low priority. But it’s an inexpensive getaway, a relatively short drive, and I needed a break.

Though we don’t live that far away from each other, and we text or email most days, Darrel and I only see each other a few times a year, usually at the cabin we rent. But it’s one of those rare lifelong friendships where we just pick up where we left off. The only person who knows me better than Darrel is Shonna.

When I’ve mentioned this regular guys weekend escape in passing, people often say, “What do you do there?”

It’s pretty boring, really. That’s the point.

We talk and catch up. Darrel’s one of the smartest people I know, so we have interesting conversations. We play guitar, some trips more than others. We go for long walks through the woods and pastures, hoping to see wildlife. We walked a little slower this trip, as Darrel is still recovering from knee surgery. The wildlife was limited to squirrels, whiskey jacks, woodpeckers, and skittish deer way off in the distance.
Not the most exciting critter encounters, but I got some good squirrel pics. This amusing little chatterbox might very well inspire a painting.
I took photos of wind-broken tree stumps where I might place an owl or eagle. A natural doorway created by curved and fallen branches has potential. You never know what might spark a new piece.Though we had visited with them earlier, the owners texted us Sunday evening that the Atlas comet was barely visible over the pasture. It had been brighter and more evident days earlier, but this was the last chance to see it. We walked out in the dark, not wanting to use flashlights that might ruin our night vision and found the faint anomaly among the sea of stars. Darrel took this shot on his newer phone. I couldn’t get a good capture with mine. You can just see the comet tail on the left.
We had nice fall weather for most of our time there, but it got cold and windy Sunday night and Monday. A snowstorm hit Calgary and Canmore, and given the road reports and Shonna’s texts, I was thrilled I didn’t have to drive back until Tuesday.

We spent most evenings sitting in the kitchen or by the wood stove, chatting or playing Scrabble or card games. I even brought a chess board, the first time I’d played in years. I lost but held my own and look forward to playing again.

I could have easily stayed another week, hiding from work. But it was a nice break before everything kicks into holiday season high gear, so I certainly won’t complain.
My order from Pacific Music & Art was waiting for me when I got home, and it contained calendars, ceramic coasters, and magnets for the Banff Christmas Market. Added to the large order of prints that arrived a couple of weeks ago, I’ve never had this much product at one time. It’s both exciting and frightening.
On the one hand, it shows that this side of my business continues to grow. As it’s the work I enjoy most and has the best chance of ensuring my financial future, I’m grateful. But it’s a significant investment of time and money that comes with no small amount of anxiety.

So, I keep reminding myself of all those sayings and platitudes. No reward without risk. Change never happens when you’re comfortable. Fortune favours the bold.

Fear is temporary. Regret is forever.

Be the ball.

Back to the drawing board.

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A Solitude on This Side of Fifty

Most years, I’d rather let my birthday go unnoticed, and thankfully, I married someone who feels the same way about hers. If someone mentioned having a birthday ‘party’ for me, my first thought would be, “What the hell did I ever do to you?”

Given my nature, it’s no mystery why birthdays make me melancholy. Another year older with not enough accomplished. Dwelling on past mistakes or missed opportunities is an unhealthy perspective and does nothing good for the mind or soul, but we’re all human. We feel what we feel.

This side of 50, I no longer tolerate cheap-seat criticism for who I am, especially from those who wouldn’t take it from me. I’ve heard this sentiment called the Fuck-It Fifties, and I have embraced that. A wise philosopher once said, “I yam what I yam and dats all that I yam.”

As my 53rd birthday approached, I still felt low after a long, dark winter. Rather than stay home, brood and make Shonna’s weekend miserable, I decided to get away by myself. She had no objection.

While friends and I have rented a cabin a few times a year in the Central Alberta foothills, I associate that place with social gatherings, games, music, late nights, and sharing spirits of the bottled variety.
But on the northern border of that same property, nestled beside secluded wetlands, there is another cabin. It’s one room, one bed, solar power for lights, an outhouse, no water and no noise. It’s at the end of a road, behind a gate on private property.

Cooking is outside on a propane stove and tabletop BBQ. The only heat is from a wood stove and you bring your own bedding. Were it not for the comfort and unique personality of the place, it’s a stone’s throw from camping.

I brought my camera, guitar, books, writing and drawing tools and told myself I’d be open to what happens, intending to let go and relax. It took very little time, however, to realize that I had also brought myself on this getaway, and that’s not how I roll.

The usual 2.5-hour drive from Canmore took longer because of a spring snow event. Had I seen a video of the white-knuckle experience I was in for, I would have stayed home. But once I arrived and pried my fingers from the steering wheel, I was glad to be there.
While shovelling snow, I scared a snowshoe hare out from under the deck, and I took that as a good sign. I wanted to see wildlife, even though this critter did not want to see me.

After I unloaded my stuff, I sat on the couch, took a deep breath and thought, “Now what?”

At home, I prefer long days working alone, but I never have a shortage of things to do to occupy my time and mind. We all have nasty demons that remind us of our failures, regrets, and shortcomings. When you find yourself alone with nothing to distract you, their voices become louder. As the man said, “Wherever you go, there you are.”
The property owners have become friends over the years, and I like to visit them. While on my daily wanders, I walked up to their place a couple of times, a 5-6 km round trip from where I was staying, as I had no interest in taking the shortest route.

I confessed Friday afternoon that I felt a little low, a confusing realization since I know and enjoy this place. Sitting in the cabin alone, looking at the beautiful view, I wondered if I had made a mistake. Karen said it often takes people at least 24 hours to get used to the solitude. She shared that one woman, another artist, booked a cabin for three nights and left after one day because she couldn’t handle being alone in the quiet.

I felt sorry for that stranger but didn’t judge her because I understood. On the walk back to the cabin, I wished she’d given herself a little more time.

By Friday evening, after dinner, I was past my own discomfort and genuinely began to relax. I sat at the small table, looking out at the falling snow, well into a book I’d wanted to read for a while. I made a big mug of tea, put more wood on the fire and that’s how I spent the rest of my evening.

For the remainder of the weekend, I played guitar, read my book, and sat quietly on the deck in the sunshine. I went to bed when I felt like it, got up early before the sun, and wandered the property with my camera.
Free to roam more than 300 acres of pasture, wetlands, and forest, I walked close to 20km over 72 hours in snow and sunshine. It was peaceful and very pretty.

People see moose here, walking right by the cabin. I saw one in the distance years ago. On previous visits, I’ve seen owls, deer, and coyotes several times. Even though I know that wildlife doesn’t punch a clock, I hoped for an encounter or two.
In the new fallen snow, fresh moose, coyote, deer and rabbit tracks were all over the place, many of them just hours old. I heard the coyotes at night and in the morning, and that was nice. It’s one of my favourite sounds. I listened to an owl calling two nights in a row. But all I saw were little birds flying here and there, a few ravens, a couple of geese, and that scared little bunny when I first arrived.

I didn’t even see a squirrel.
I know professional photographers who spend great amounts of time, energy and money to get to remote places, park themselves in a blind, right next to a game trail for hours and days on end, and often come home with little or nothing to show for it.

But I’ll confess to feeling a little insulted. When you paint personality in whimsical wildlife, you end up with a warped sense of expectation regarding actual wildlife. Come on, I thought we were friends, here.

Upon reflection, had I seen and photographed cooperative critters, I would have undoubtedly spent hours going through them on my iPad. I would have made some edits, considered possible paintings, and wrote something about the experience, and I would have edited that, too. Suddenly, I’d be working.

So, perhaps I got what I needed, instead of what I wanted.

On the perfect sunny drive home on dry roads with light traffic, I had time to reflect and was content with the experience. I spent my birthday by myself, without anyone telling me how I should be celebrating it. I got up early, as I prefer, without walking on eggshells for fear of waking anybody up, which is often the case on cabin visits with friends. I played guitar and sang, fumbled with chord changes, learning songs I didn’t know, without intruding on anyone else’s peace and quiet.

I asked no permission, made no apologies, and had no schedule or agenda. And though it took me a day to settle into it, I now wish I could have stayed longer.

Maybe next time.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Slowing Down for a Sunrise

Shonna and I planned to celebrate our 25th anniversary in the latter half of 2020, right after she turned 50. Our birthdays are six months apart to the day, and my 50th was the following spring.

We don’t usually buy gifts or make a big deal out of our birthdays and generally let them pass without fanfare.

However, we’d planned a Vancouver Island kayak trip to mark those three milestones. Cancelled by the pandemic, we finally took that trip in August of last year, and it was one of the best vacations we’ve ever had. You can read about it here and see pics.

But around my actual 50th birthday in the spring of 2021, I spent an evening with my buddies Jim and Al in Exshaw. It was somewhat subdued, a casualty of lockdown life.

Two other friends wanted to be there, but they’re both seniors, and it wasn’t worth the risk to their health during the pandemic. But they got on the phone, and the four gave me a birthday gift of a hot air balloon ride in Calgary.

I appreciated the thought but soon discovered this experience came with logistical challenges because there was an issue every time I tried to use it. First, the pandemic wore on (and on and on and on), and when that settled down, it was the weather.

From the Sundance Balloons website, “We require light winds, good visibility, no rain and no storms in the area.”

If it wasn’t the wind this area is famous for, it was thunderstorms, hail, or wildfire smoke that gets worse each year.

And, as always, it’s tough to get away from work. A self-employed person is somebody who would rather work 80 hours for themselves than 40 for somebody else. Time off has been a low priority, especially this year.

It has been over two years since receiving this gift, and I wondered if I would ever use it. It began to feel like another item on the to-do list for which I didn’t have time. Rather than look forward to it, I grew to resent the obligation and felt guilty for wasting my friends’ money. I even considered refunding each of them for the gift, which would no doubt offend, so I was stuck.

Fortunately, Sundance Balloons continued to extend the deadline without complaint, and I kept looking for an opportunity.

Earlier this week, the forecast looked good, and they had availability, so I booked for Wednesday morning. You must call the flight line number the night before departure to confirm the meetup location and that the flight will proceed. Again, all good.

Unless I’m out of town, I’m up at 5 a.m. seven days a week, so early mornings don’t bother me. But the pickup time in Calgary was 610 a.m., and it was over an hour’s drive to get there, so I set the alarm for 3. Unfortunately, I didn’t need it, as I’ve had insomnia all week. I was up at 2.

Hopped up on coffee, cranking the tunes and singing along, I drove through the dark and made it with fifteen minutes to spare. However, it rained on and off between Canmore and Calgary, and when I got there, the operators were considering if they had to cancel.

One couple who waited with me said their trip had been cancelled four times due to weather. Luck was finally on their side. Mine, too.

We left our cars at the Blackfoot Hotel in Southeast Calgary and drove to South Glenmore Park in a van and trailer. The crew explained the procedures, we had a safety briefing, and they began inflating the balloon, complete with a big Mr. Rooter Plumbing logo. A smaller Re/Max balloon joined us, but that didn’t take passengers.
Our balloon could hold thirteen people, but we had plenty of room with only five guests, our pilot and two crew. The basket was spacious, with different compartments, plenty of padding and handholds.

I left my professional camera home and brought my trusty little Canon PowerShot. It has served me well as a carry-everywhere for more than ten years, and still, I took most of my pictures with my phone, attached by a tether to my wrist.
Shonna and I have gone skydiving and flown in an open-cockpit biplane. I’ve taken an air acrobat stunt flight, so I’m fine with heights. One woman’s husband surprised her that morning on her sixtieth birthday, and she openly admitted to fearing heights before the trip. But once in the air, she didn’t seem nervous and enjoyed herself, as it’s such a smooth, relaxing way to sight-see.
With almost an hour of flight time, we went from flying high in the air, enjoying panoramic views on all sides with a fantastic sunrise to hovering motionless ten feet off the ground in Fish Creek Park.
While the higher altitude flying was a thrill, I most enjoyed lazily floating over suburban neighbourhoods at treetop height as people went to school and work. Several times, folks stood in their driveways and backyards, waving and calling out ‘Good Morning,’ so close we barely had to raise our voices. While stopped at intersections on their morning commutes, people honked and waved out the open windows of their cars. A couple of times, kids hurried out of the way, thinking we were about to land on them.
You never know your exact landing spot, and the pilot has dozens of options on the route and plenty of experience. Apparently, parks and school activity fields are ideal, and our pilot explained that the City of Calgary is supportive, flexible and accommodating.
Our route is indicated by the blue line from top left to middle right. Each of the purple pins along this pilot’s navigation display are potential landing zones. Mitch explained that he could select more detail for each to see the associated features, obstacles and hazards. There truly is an app for everything.
As a sudden bit of wind showed up at the last minute, we overshot the first landing site and ended up in a large green space surrounded by houses, condos and an elementary school where the students were just about to go inside to start their day. Excited by this spectacle, many of them came over to watch. The red arrow indicates where we landed.
The basket bumped up and down three times before tipping over onto its side as it stopped. We’d been well briefed on landing positions, so it wasn’t even a little uncomfortable, especially with the partitioned compartments. As instructed, we waited until they secured the rig before climbing out.

As we quickly helped the crew gather up the deflated balloon and ready it for transport, the chase van and trailer arrived, and we packed it. Soon, it was like we hadn’t even been there, though I expect those school kids probably talked about it all day.

When we returned to our vehicles, there was a champagne toast to wrap things up, though I opted for orange juice. I was already running on fumes from insufficient sleep, and my mind was on another large coffee for the drive back to Canmore. Within ten minutes of arriving home, I passed out on the couch for a couple of hours.

The weather cancellation issue might be challenging for some when booking a trip like this, never knowing if the date you choose will come with favourable conditions. It’s also a very early morning, especially if you must travel to get there, but the experience was worth the wait. I enjoyed myself and was pleased and relieved to send my generous friends my thanks and some photos later in the day.

It would have been better if Shonna could have shared it with me, but her workload is ridiculous right now, and it just wasn’t in the cards.

I’d recommend Sundance Balloons without hesitation, as their crew and our pilot, Mitch, were friendly and professional the whole time.

And thankfully, I finally got a full eight hours of sleep last night.

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Broughton Beach Memoirs

For our 25th anniversary two years ago, Shonna and I had planned a week of glamping and kayaking on Vancouver Island.

But not long ago, a friend aptly referred to 2020 as the ‘year of cancelled plans.’

Spirit of the West Adventures has an incredible reputation, and we had no doubt they’d sell out once people began travelling again. So, In July of 2021, we booked for 2022. With the worldwide shortage of vehicles, we even booked our rental car and flights nine months in advance.

We’re not road trip people. Spending four days driving to and from Vancouver Island in the middle of summer is not our idea of a vacation. That’s why we’ve taken several trips to the Island together without ever having to endure the ferry.

Right up until the day we left, I worried about the well-publicized flight delays, cancellations, airport issues, and rental car problems. I didn’t truly relax until I sat in the Comox airport parking lot.

After quick stops for lunch, groceries, and the liquor store, we hit the highway for an easy three-hour drive to the north Island.

While eating dinner on the deck of a bar and grill in Port McNeill, near our comfortable room at the Dalewood Inn, I texted my buddy, Darrel. His aunt used to teach here, and I knew he’d visited as a kid. He joked, “Don’t forget to check out the Burl!”

Say, what now?

Darrel is fascinated with oversized roadside attractions and shared that the world’s largest burl was somewhere in Port McNeill.

Shonna said we had to find it to send him a photo. It was only a block from where we sat. Gotta love Google Maps.
I captioned this with “BEST VACATION EVER!”

The following morning, we drove the ten minutes to Alder Bay Marina, met the group, and loaded our luggage on the water taxi for our ride to the Spirit of the West base camp.

We arrived on Swanson Island to a well-oiled machine. Returning guests waited on the beach to unload our gear and supplies, after which we loaded theirs. As our boat became their boat, their camp became ours. Following a guest and guide introduction, we checked into our luxurious tents and met in the dining area for a freshly prepared lunch. That afternoon, we were on the water.

For the next five days and four nights, we were now a community of ten guests, two kayaking guides, a camp staff member, and our chef.

On a trip like this, everyone must haul kayaks, load and unload supplies and gear, and follow instructions. The other guests were younger and older than we were, with more and less kayak experience. All were genuinely nice people and a pleasure to hang out with for a week. We couldn’t have asked for a better group.

We were required to wear masks on the water taxi and the crew wore them while preparing and serving food, but the rest of the time, in this outdoor environment, we were able to forget about COVID for awhile.
THE CREW

P.J. is an easy-going pro with eight seasons under his belt. A natural leader, this guy loves his job and sharing his knowledge. Even when our easily distracted (WHALE!) wide-eyed group was only half-listening to what he was trying to tell us; he patiently got us back on track with his great sense of humour.

In addition to her skills as a kayaking guide and guest wrangler, Rebecca is an unapologetic whale nerd. She gave a talk about whales one evening, and her enthusiasm was infectious

Kenna was a jill-of-all-trades on this trip. Usually she’s in the Spirit of the West office, but she was helpful in the kitchen, general duties around camp, upbeat and friendly.

Josh is a wonder in a camp kitchen. He’s a genial, funny guy and incredibly modest about his exceptional culinary skills. Though after our tsunami of compliments every time he put food in front of us, his ego might need some deflating.

THE FOOD

We started each day with delicious coffee and a big breakfast. Lunch went with us in the kayaks, served on whatever scenic rocky beach we landed on. Appetizers waited for us on our return to camp before delicious meals each evening, served with red and white wine.

We’d been encouraged to bring additional refreshments, and most did. Before our trip, I had rigged a collapsible cooler bag with an aluminum bubble wrap insulation lining. It worked so well that I still had ice for rum and coke on the third night and our beer stayed cold the whole trip.

The meals were better than a lot of restaurant fare I’ve had; fresh, tasty and abundant. For dessert one night, Josh warned us that he had never made lemon meringue pie before. It was one of the best I’ve ever tasted.
THE CAMP

Surrounded by water on three sides, this place is stunning. A wooden staircase leads from the kayak beach up to a network of boardwalks and paths to accommodation tents and support structures.

Each trapper-style tent sits on a wooden platform beneath a corrugated roof. Furnished with comfortable beds, duvets, towels, luggage racks, solar-charged electric lamps, and personal headlamps, all had a view of the ocean.

Every tent has a washing area, compost toilet, and a metal bear-bin style cabinet to ensure that toiletries don’t attract wildlife. While we didn’t see any this trip, there are plenty of black bears in this part of the world, but with plenty of food from the sea and careful camp cleanliness, they’re not a problem.

A natural stream feeds two propane showers. We never had to wait to use them, and there was always hot water.

Communal areas include a large kitchen with a covered dining area, a lounge with comfortable couches, a gas fireplace, and a woodfired hot tub.

We were not roughing it.
KAYAKING

Shonna and I have a bit of kayaking experience. We had one day in Tofino years ago, plus four days with Spirit of the West in 2019. We enjoyed our time on the water, but neither of us has ‘the bug.’ So, we won’t be buying sea kayaks or taking a trip like this every year. But what drew us to this experience was the location and a leisurely means of touring the islands, allowing us to be out in the fresh air and physically active.
Our exceptional guides taught us about the landscape, currents, tides, wildlife, and the indigenous people who first inhabited the area. Each day, a different route would introduce us to new experiences.
Vancouver Island is a coastal temperate rainforest. While we prepared for rain and even expected it, we didn’t have any on our whole trip. Every morning we were socked in with fog until after noon, and I loved it. Kayaking in calm foggy waters is a spiritual experience, the forest and rocks drifting in and out beside us as we crept into little coves and inlets.
It was quiet, often punctuated only by the sound of humpback whales surfacing nearby.

On our final afternoon, a weather system arrived earlier than forecast (surprise, surprise), and we had to cross Parson bay with 8-knot winds. It was a workout, each of us paddling hard to stay with the group to get from one sheltered beach to another. We endured wind and choppy waters all the way back but arrived on our home beach with enthusiasm. It felt like a team effort.
WILDLIFE

From the dining area one late afternoon, we saw a large orca in Blackfish Sound headed our way. Initially thought to be alone, it soon became apparent there was a pod of them close behind. They never got near the camp, but it was a thrill, especially since they stayed awhile.
Other critters included bald eagles, dolphins, seals, sea lions and plenty of seagulls.
On our last morning, the tide was out as far as we’d yet seen. Pretty soon, the whole group wandered around the shore, checking out crabs, urchins, and other tidal life, calling out the best finds so everyone could share in the wonder.

But the highlight of the whole trip was the humpback whales. I could never have predicted so many in one spot. Easily identified by their signature blow of vapour when they exhale, you couldn’t look anywhere for long without seeing one.

When closer, you could hear them, like a rapidly deflating tire, but with more depth. While lying in bed at night, it was a frequent sound in the darkness. Then, in the morning, we’d wake to that sound in the fog, right outside our tent.

Everywhere we went in camp, walking on the shore, eating a meal, sitting in the lounge or while out in the kayaks, humpbacks were the soundtrack of our experience.

But hearing them is not nearly as thrilling as seeing so many of them, sometimes incredibly close.

From our camp and in the kayaks, we saw them surge feeding, breaching, surfacing fast and slow, way out in the channel, and right inside our bay. I took this shot standing beside the hot tub one evening.
Late Wednesday evening, half the group paddled around the bay with P.J. so he could show them bio-luminescence in the water. Dry and comfortable, I’d opted out, but Shonna enjoyed the experience. Those of us who stayed on land watched them from the shore. Then, suddenly, a humpback surfaced right off camp and looked like it was going into the narrow channel between our camp and Flower Island, where our kayakers were paddling in the failing light.

When it exhaled, P.J. told everyone to back-paddle fast. The timing and distance of the blows indicated the whale was heading into their path. Fortunately, it changed course, but it was a tense moment.

Here’s Flower Island and the narrow channel from the dining area.
On our final morning on the water, we paddled across a channel in the fog, grouped for safety. Whales were blowing all around us, and while they sounded close, fog plays tricks with noises. It was creepy but exciting, paddling in a cloud with limited visibility.

I was in a kayak close behind Shonna’s when suddenly a humpback surfaced immediately to her left, parallel but heading the opposite way. P.J. told us to group closer together and paddle for the shore ahead. The whale circled and surfaced again to our right, a little further away this time.

Humpbacks don’t have the echolocation of orcas, so their spatial awareness isn’t the greatest. P.J. later told Shonna the whale had been about forty feet away, far too close. The problem with whales is they don’t always let you know where they are until the last moment.

It startled all of us but was a wonderful experience, one that several said was the trip’s highlight. I know it certainly was for Shonna and me.
LOOKING UP FROM THE CAMERA

Our next-door neighbour Chris was a kayak guide years ago in this area. He once told me that guests were often so focused on getting photos they missed out on the experience.

I left my pro camera in camp each day rather than stuff it into a dry bag in the kayak, where I’d be too afraid to take it out while on the water, anyway. I brought an older point-and-shoot in the kayak and got some good shots. While still careful, I had accepted that it was an older camera, and if something happened to it, I’d be OK.
But for most of the shots, I had a waterproof case for my iPhone and a GoPro-style suction mount to secure it to the kayak in front of me, backed up with a tether for when I handheld it. I took plenty of videos and selected screenshots from those when I got home.

Around camp, I used my Canon DSLR to take photos of any wildlife. But too often, I focused on getting a shot of a humpback or orca swimming by rather than simply watching and enjoying the moment.

Even forewarned, I fell into the same trap.

Thankfully, I downloaded a bunch of photos to my iPad the first couple of days, and when I saw that very few of those long-distance whale shots were remarkable, I spent the rest of the trip watching more with my eyes and less time looking through a lens.

While I am pleased with many photos I took, none of them come close to the experience of being there—the smell of the air, ethereal light, moisture in the fog and the quiet peace. No camera or video will capture that, certainly not with my limited skills.

It’s a lesson I’ll likely keep learning, but I intend to be more selective on when to take photos and when to simply enjoy a time and place.

COMING HOME

After the kayak portion of our trip, we spent a couple of days in Courtenay, staying with my friend Darrel’s folks, who might as well be family. Saturday evening, we enjoyed a visit with old Bow Valley friends who moved to the Island years ago, before we flew home Sunday.

While no vacation is perfect, this one was pretty darn close. After more than two years of planning and waiting, it was a relief that it went so well and that we enjoyed ourselves this much. We probably had unreasonably high expectations, and it still exceeded them.

Cheers,
Patrick

_____

Please visit their website for more information about Spirit of the West Adventures and the different tours they offer. These aren’t bargain tours; as in all things, you get what you pay for, and this company over-delivers. Our tour was the 5-day Whales and Wilderness Glamping.

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All Work and No Play

If you had asked me as a teenager what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have answered that I wanted to be a writer. Most artists have several creative interests. But like with my artwork, I accepted too many offerings from unkind critics and shelved any ambition to do anything with those talents for many years.

I remember a teacher handing back an essay, telling me I would be a writer one day. But I also recall a different teacher who said a paper I turned in was too advanced for my age; therefore, I must have plagiarized it, and she called my parents—nothing like being branded a thief to douse a creative spark.

I didn’t gain enough confidence in my artwork to consider taking it professionally until my early thirties. I had never entertained the idea of art school because I didn’t think I was good enough. And despite having written two amateur novels in my twenties, my writing today is mostly confined to blog posts and promoting my art.

I’ve procrastinated on writing an art book for several years under the crippling weight of imposter syndrome. I have visions of spending several months working on it, shelling out the money to publish it, and having most of the books sit in the corner of the basement collecting dust. Many would-be authors have shared that fate after foolishly flying too close to the sun.

But I still want to write the book. There are stories behind the paintings I want to tell because that’s as much a part of the work as the brushstrokes. And there are plenty of prints I have retired that could shine again in a book.

What scares me more than writing it is still talking about writing it 20 years from now. Apologies to those who are tired of me promising that which it seems I’ll never deliver.

I don’t have writer’s block. If anything, my problem is writing too much and having to edit it down to a reasonable length. Most of my first draft blog posts are twice as long before I take a machete to them. My problem is the simple fear of creating a book that ends up being little more than a steaming pile of crap, unworthy of the common housefly.

It’s a convenient excuse. If I don’t write it, it can’t suck. But what if it ends up being as good or better than I want it to be? I’ll never know if I don’t write it. So this failure to launch is an unending source of shame and self-loathing, with nobody to blame but myself.

In his book, The Practice, Seth Godin wrote, “If you need a guarantee of critical and market success every time you seek to create, you’ve found a great place to hide. If the need for critical and market success has trapped you into not being bold again, you’ve found another place to hide.”

At this point in my career, I cannot separate my art and writing from my profession. They are both synonymous with work and my identity. That’s what happens when you turn what you love into your job. There is no part of my art now that isn’t, in some way, a component of my business.

But I have a third creative outlet.

My parents once bought me one of those little Casio keyboards for Christmas, and on the first day, I learned a song from the radio. Just the melody, one key at a time with my index finger, but I had discovered that I had an amateur ear for music. Nothing that foretold a scholarship at Julliard or anything extraordinary, just some average latent musical talent.

I graduated to a larger full-size keyboard, then another, and even hauled the damn thing around with me far too often. In hindsight, it was no doubt a surrogate security blanket, but music was a big part of my teenage and young adult years.

Music formed the foundation of my oldest and closest friendship with my buddy Darrel. We occasionally performed a couple of songs at The Crown and Anchor pub in Red Deer around 1990 for a couple of years. Darrel played guitar, and I sang.

While he went to college for music and still works in the industry today, I let my musical interests stagnate when I moved on to cartooning.

But I’ve always missed it. Several years ago, I bought a secondhand guitar and took months of lessons. I practiced, improved, and learned a lot. I can fingerpick and play chords, but I kept putting it aside for work, so I never got good at it.

Sometimes I would take it camping, but people want to listen to songs around a campfire, not somebody practicing. I’d bring it to the cabin with grand designs of jamming with Darrel, but our guitars spent most of those weekends sitting in their cases. I just hadn’t practiced enough on my own, so I couldn’t play much of anything useful, and eventually, I just started leaving it at home.

Most days, it sits in the corner of my office in its case for months on end while I responsibly spend my time working on the creative stuff that pays the bills.

I get emails from aspiring artists asking me how to turn their creative hobbies into a profession. I try to be kind, but I answer honestly. I encourage them but also caution them to be careful what they wish for. When your hobby becomes your work, you need to find another hobby.

It is advice that I give but don’t follow.

We own a townhouse condo. While we have an end unit and only share one wall, I am always mindful of how much noise I make, out of consideration for our neighbours.

Three apartments in Banff and 21 years in this place, we’ve had good and bad neighbours. Sharing a wall with somebody else is about compromise; if you cannot do that, you will invite conflict. It is remarkable how so many don’t understand that a sub-woofer on your TV or stereo in a shared wall environment ruins other people’s lives.

Our current neighbours are the best we’ve ever had; yes, we’ve told them more than once. They warn us when they’re working on stuff in the garage and having guests over, and they are simply two of the nicest, most considerate people we’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. So naturally, we try our best to respond in kind.

Granted, you can’t be quiet all the time. They have a wonderful large dog that Shonna and I adore and have affectionately nicknamed Thunderpaws(!) for those rare times she runs around the house. We’ll occasionally hear each other’s TVs, or we all talk louder on phone calls. Shonna and I both have loud laughs, and like most married couples, we’ve had the odd heated discussion that no doubt the neighbours have been too polite to mention.

They even graciously put up with our kitchen renos a few years ago without a single complaint, even though three out of four of us work at home.

So despite that I have played my guitar, I never enjoyed it as much as I’d like, because I’m conscious of the noise. I’m pretty good at finger-picking now but was poor at strumming because it’s louder, so l avoided it. I’ve been assured it’s not a problem, but I can’t relax and play how I want without wondering if they’re bothered by it. It’s just my nature.

We had a neighbour in Banff who liked to play his guitar late at night, ruining our sleep more than once.

On a recent visit with family, my wife’s stepmother wondered if I still played. When I told her I didn’t, she asked if it was easy to let go or if it had been a passion. I thought about it on the drive home and in the days that followed and realized I still miss it.

I looked up quiet acoustic guitars on a whim and came across the Yamaha SLG200S. They’ve been around a while, but I had never heard of them. So I researched, asked Darrel’s professional opinion, and realized that this was precisely what I needed.

It’s called a silent guitar, but that’s only a marketing term. Basically, it sounds like an unplugged electric guitar, which isn’t loud at all. When you play it with headphones or through an amp, however, it sounds like a high-end acoustic. But it’s incredibly quiet to anyone else and certainly inaudible to someone on the other side of a wall.

The next hurdle was allowing this extravagance, a gift to myself that is in no way an investment in my business. But, Shonna encouraged me to do it. My recent prize money from the second-place win in that cartoon contest covered most of it.

And still, my inner critic spent the next few days trying to talk me out of buying it. You don’t have the time. Better to use the money for the business. What if you play it for a few days, and then it sits in the corner like the other one? Maybe you just like the idea of playing guitar. What’s the point, it’ll take you years to get any good, and you’ll never be really good.

He’s a dick.

Despite my demons, I picked one up a month  ago. I had planned on going to Calgary for it, but while running errands here in Canmore, I took a chance and checked out Roosters Acoustics, the only guitar shop in town. They had three, including the crimson red burst colour I wanted. While it cost a little more here, I was happier to support a local business instead of one in the city. Plus, I would have spent the difference on gas anyway, not to mention my time to go get it.

When I got home, I felt unworthy of it. Like Red in Shawshank Redemption, when given a harmonica by his friend and he says softly, “It’s very pretty, Andy.”

Darrel and I have had a four-night cabin rental booked for the Canada Day long weekend for several months. So with that on the horizon, I told myself I would practice every day so that we could play some real guitar that weekend.

One of the great features of this guitar is that it has an Aux input with its own volume dial, which allows me to plug my phone into it. This lets me play along to songs from Spotify (or any other service on my phone) and it all comes through the same headphones I’m wearing.

Suddenly, I was playing for an hour almost every day, playing it how I wanted, with no concern about noise, genuinely enjoying myself. By the time the trip rolled around, I had not only regained all of the skills I had learned in my lessons and previous practice; I had surpassed them. As a result, I can now play better than I ever have.

Darrel brought a little amp for me, and a couple of those days at the cabin, we played for two hours or more, flipping through songs in a book of music I’d printed. Darrel taught me a few new techniques, and with no agenda, it was just fun! I set up my camera one day and recorded video of our playing a few songs just so I could grab some stills without our having to pose.
This was a favourite, laughing and clowning around while screwing up the chords and lyrics of American Pie, an old standard from those Crown and Anchor days. We had a great weekend at the cabin and I’m looking forward to the next time when I’ll have a few more months of practice under my belt.

I have no desire to play music professionally or join a group or band. There’s no finished product to market, promote, or invite criticism. I don’t need to produce any content to share online, and there’s no pressure. It’s a purely creative outlet, something for me.

I’m glad to have a hobby again. It’s a fun escape from work and a wonderful stress reliever, especially at the end of the day.

Without even a twinge of buyer’s remorse, I consider this some of the best money and time I’ve ever spent.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Walking with Wolf Pups

If you’d asked me how I was doing during the past couple of months, I might have answered that I’ve had OK days and not-so-OK days, for reasons I need not explain.

This past Sunday, however, was the first good day in a long while. And it was a really good day.

Discovery Wildlife Park is open as a drive-thru right now, an Alberta Health Services approved method for people to still come and see the animals, but they must stay in their vehicles. It’s proving very popular and they’ve been busy, with a steady stream of cars winding through the park on their well-manicured gravel pathways. The staff helps the animals be seen, they answer questions and do their best to make it an enjoyable experience for their guests, despite the distancing measures.

While I think it’s great they have this option, it’s not one I’d planned on experiencing. I’ll admit to being spoiled by my connection to the park, and the access they’ve given me. I just don’t want to see Berkley from my car, especially given the drive time to get there.

Shonna and I have been very good at following the isolation rules in all of this. She still goes to work at the law office each day, but it’s closed to the public and they have the appropriate safety measures in place. I’ve stayed home, only going out once a week for groceries, completing all of my errands in as few days a week as possible.

Alberta relaxed a number of restrictions on Friday, allowing people to get together in small groups. Some more businesses have been allowed to open and people are venturing out of their homes, though still being advised to wash their hands, keep their distance, and exercise caution.

Serena and I were texting Saturday night as we sometimes do, as I’m always curious to see how the animals are doing. She often sends behind-the-scenes pictures and videos for us. I made the off comment that it’s too bad I wouldn’t be able to see the wolves while they were pups, to which Serena replied, “Why not?”
As she did with their Brown bear Berkley when she was a cub, Serena takes 8-week-old Sassenach and Highlander for a walk each evening in the large fenced wooded area at the park. She lets them explore, play, and get into trouble, without having to worry that they’ll go anywhere.

We’ve had the privilege of many walks in the woods with Berkley. So it was exciting when Serena invited us to come up Sunday evening and meet the wolf pups in the same way.

Shonna later said she was impressed at how I jumped at the chance without overthinking it. Spontaneous is not my default setting.

We couldn’t have asked for a better day. With warm temperatures, sunny and cloudy skies, very little traffic on the highways, we headed up that afternoon, a little over two hours’ drive one way.

I talk with my parents often enough on the phone and via FaceTime, but we hadn’t had an in-person visit since they left for Arizona in the fall. As they live ten minutes from the park, we made time for a short visit on their deck beforehand, keeping our distance, of course.

We met Serena at the park at 6, drove over to the wooded area and before long; the wolves were doing their thing while we took pictures.
Part of the reason we have such a good relationship with the park is that we’ve always given the animals their space. There’s no chasing, lunging, grabbing, yelling, basically any behaviour that’s going to freak them out. We were content to watch, let them get comfortable with our presence and it was up to them to come to us.



Thankfully, once they did, both pups did check us out, but their primary focus was on each other, exploring, playing and attacking.
As Serena said, “It’s Fight Club, every night.”

We spent about two hours with them, visiting and catching up with Serena and taking a lot of pictures. I had my camera, but also my phone. Shonna and Serena took pictures with their phones and I got copies of all of them. So most of these pictures are mine, but some are theirs, too. And we don’t really know which are which.
The funny thing is that like most young animals, they were just bundles of energy, until they weren’t. Once they crashed, they crashed hard. Serena then told us we could pick them up, because at that point, they didn’t care. Holding a snoozing wolf pup is a real treat.
As always, we are forever grateful for our connection with Discovery Wildlife Park. Their orphaned and rescued wildlife critters receive the best care, and you need only look to how the keepers and animals behave around each other to realize how much love there is between them.
We were happy to make another donation to the park while we were there, as they really need it right now. In a regular year, they’re only open from May to October, but they still need to feed and care for the animals the other six months of the year. Maintenance of the facilities, upkeep of the grounds and enclosures, veterinary bills and a long list of accessory expenses, not to mention the salaries of the dedicated staff, makes for an expensive undertaking.

I came home with about two thousand photos. After hours of weeding out the ones I can’t use, I still ended up with dozens of reference shots. I’m so glad to have taken photos while they were little, because they certainly won’t remain that way for long. Their eyes are already changing from blue to yellow. There’s no doubt I’ll eventually create paintings of both of them.

After more than two months of being locked down, that was the perfect break from isolation. And to top it all off, Shonna and I drove back into the mountains that night under a brilliant red sky, one of the prettiest sunsets we’ve seen this year.

Cheers,
Patrick
___

© Patrick LaMontagne
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Bearing It All

“Don’t run.”

That’s what I told myself after coming across a black bear and her cub, the first time it has ever happened to me, in a place where I’ve worried about it for the past twenty years.

Each year, the first weekend of May, a group of friends has camped at a lake in B.C. for three nights, though the roll call changes from time to time. In earlier years, we used to go more often during the summer as well, but this formerly well-kept secret spot just isn’t anymore.

My first trip was in ’95, with gaps when I was first self-employed and time off was rare, and when I owned a little car that couldn’t make it up the road without multiple rock hits on the bottom.

Still, I have many trips under my belt.

Paddling around the lake in the canoe, lots of laughs, some bad weather, some good, plenty of stories about past excursions, and treasured shared memories with friends I’ve known for decades.

One thing I could never quite kick, however, was my fear of bears.

I’m an anxious person, high strung, easily startled, on edge most of the time. At some point in your life, usually after a mid-life crisis, you just have to own it and say, “fuck it, this is who I am.”

I won’t apologize for it anymore. Nobody else does, and I know plenty of people just as screwed up as I am, whether they’ll admit it or not.

I’ve had my share of irrational fears, but have done my best to face them, most with great results.

Claustrophobia. I went caving. Twice. It included plenty of tight squeezes, only one of which I couldn’t bring myself to do, but the experience was incredible. Not just facing the fear, but seeing that ancient underground world.

Fear of Heights. Shonna and I went skydiving in Vegas. An unparalleled rush, I would do it again without hesitation.

Fear of Public Speaking. I’ve taught at conferences, given talks to groups, spoken to schools. It no longer bugs me.

My fear of bears, however, is a strange one.

I probably know more about bears than most people. Living in bear country, I’ve educated myself to try and come to terms with this irrational fear. And yes, it is irrational because bears are not looking to have a confrontation. Despite what you might have seen in movies and on TV, bears would rather not encounter people. When bears meet people, it often ends up very bad for the bears.

And yet, people still have encounters for a variety of reasons.

They go camping and leave food out. Bears are opportunists with an incredible sense of smell and will come into a campsite simply to get a free easy meal. Most of the time, it’s preventable, but people are slow learners.

Folks will stop on the road and actually get out of their cars to approach a bear for a photo. This is a large animal that will defend itself. It did not instigate this situation simply by being there but it will react if it’s threatened.

People will come across a bear in the woods because they weren’t making noise and surprised it. Same situation, the bear will startle and defend itself, especially if it has cubs.

I could write thousands of words about bear safety, but the information is easy to find. Bears will leave you alone if you leave them alone, almost all of the time.

It’s incredibly annoying when somebody finds out I’m afraid of bears and then tells me all of the anecdotal information of which I am well aware. I’ve lived in bear country for 25 years. I know this shit.

Where I live in the Canadian Rockies, there are people who run into bears all the time, whether in their yards, while hiking, camping in the back-country and it doesn’t bother them in the slightest. My phobia makes no sense to these people, just as it doesn’t to me. I’ve even tried hypnosis, which helped me be more comfortable hiking, but did nothing for sleeping in a tent.

It’s embarrassing, it feels juvenile, and there is no small sense of shame surrounding the whole thing.

Despite my own internal logical arguments against it, the fear persists.

In 2016, I began a relationship with Discovery Wildlife Park in Innisfail. They had a behind the scenes bear encounter with their orphaned black bears to learn more about them. I signed up, to work on my fear.
It was an experience I won’t forget. When the head keeper Serena (now a friend) found out I had a phobia, she took it up a notch and I got up close and personal with a black bear, even feeding a gentle giant named Reno. This was huge for me, and since then I’ve had even more encounters with their bears, especially with their latest orphan, a grizzly named Berkley.
Anybody who has seen my photos, videos and my experiences with Berkley probably doesn’t get that I’m afraid of bears. Over the past couple of years, we have walked together, played together, she has crawled all over me, given me kisses. While I don’t have close contact like this with her anymore as she’s much bigger, my time with Berkley has been one of the best experiences of my life.

Bears are my favorite animals to photograph, paint, read about, and champion. I feel strongly about bear conservation, rescue, and preserving their habitat. All of the time I’ve spent at Discovery Wildlife Park, I’ve asked many questions of Serena and she’s taught me plenty about bears.

So it makes no sense to me that they are what I fear most when I go out into the woods.

Just like challenging my other fears, I have been determined to continue to expose myself to the threat to try to get over it. I still go camping out there, and every night when I lie down on my cot in my tent, I spend the next couple of hours trying to get to sleep. It eventually comes, but the fear remains undiminished, year after year.

Friday night, we arrived at the lake, set up our accommodation and got to work gathering firewood for the weekend. My friend Jim in his little Boler trailer, Babe in his Boler trailer, and two friends Babe brought with him had a forty foot custom renovated blue school bus that navigated the difficult road with ease, an impressive feat.

As usual, I was in my small tent.

Despite the sketchy weather, colder, windier and wetter than forecast, it was rather normal. But over the past couple of years, I’ve started to feel the trip is a bit of an obligation. Sleeping in a tent loses its appeal as one gets older and early May in the mountains, the weather is unpredictable and usually quite cold at night. Falling within days of the Calgary Expo, it’s a challenge to get everything home from that event, unpacked, put away, get cartoons done for the week, then shop, pack and take off again a few days later for this trip. It shouldn’t feel like another chore.

Even though it’s a beautiful spot, the novelty of the same place, on the same weekend, each year, has lost a great deal of its appeal for me. But I’ve kept going, because I didn’t want to be the one to call it quits.

That’s the frame of mind with which I started this weekend, though I kept it to myself.

As usual, I lay awake in my tent for a couple of hours, trying to talk myself out of my usual bearanoia and eventually fell asleep.
The following morning, I woke early, made some coffee, grabbed my camera gear and headed out in the canoe for a paddle around the lake. It was enjoyable, although windy and cold, but comfortably familiar. I patrolled the shoreline, taking pictures of ducks.
The weather grew progressively sketchy. But we read, talked, got to know our new camping companions, and puttered as usual.

In the early evening, I decided to take a quick walk up the road to send Shonna a text. Unreliable cell service out there means pockets where No Service becomes one small bar for short windows.

About 150 yards away from the camp beside the road, I approached a familiar flat green space. Through the trees, I saw a large moving black shape, then another smaller one behind it in the grass. A black bear and cub.

I stopped, looked back and forth to make sure I wasn’t looking at a stump or pile of dirt and it moved again. I shouted, “HEY, GET OUT OF HERE!”

She raised her head, looked in my direction, then ignored me and went back to eating.

I turned back the way I came and started walking, too fast.

“Don’t run.”

Forcing myself to slow, I kept one eye on where I was going and one behind me. Since I was close to the camp, Jim was coming up to the road as I got back. They’d all heard me yell.

I told them what I saw. Naturally, I was the only one freaked out by it.

We ate dinner, but stress completely ruins my appetite, so I ended up discarding half of mine, the meal I’d been looking forward to most.

Years ago, Shonna and I were camping with Jim out there and while he was out in the canoe, we had seen a large black shape up on the road that spooked us. It turned out to be a cow, as ranchers down the mountain will often let their herds wander.

Did I really see a bear through the trees, or was it a cow? I doubted my own eyes, thinking my overactive imagination had conjured up my worst fear.

After dinner, Jim said he’d go back up the road with me to check for evidence that I saw what I’d thought I saw.

I was now wearing my bear spray on my hip, and Jim had a large stick he was loudly tapping on the ground as he walked behind me, an effort to alert a bear to our presence. The silly thing is that I was almost trying to be quiet so that I could get some validation that I wasn’t making this up. I know better than that.

Sure enough, as we approached the green space, Jim’s tapping did the trick. With plenty of room to spare, a black bear ran up onto the road from the flat area, heading away from us, followed by one…two…three cubs.

From my car, a cabin, on a boat out in Ucluelet, that kind of sighting would have been wonderful. In that environment, however, it ruined my weekend.

There was no way I was sleeping in a tent.

Thankfully, I had options other than my car. Jim’s Boler has a single bed in it he calls the spice rack because it’s so narrow, but I’m not a wide guy, so it would work. Better still, our new friends had a garage built into the rear of their converted bus for their two Harleys they’d left at home. My cot fit with plenty of room to spare, their hospitality greatly appreciated. I even had my own entrance so I didn’t have to invade their privacy.

We keep a clean camp, but we’d eaten plenty of food. Bears had investigated the picnic table before, just not on trips I’d been on. The next morning, no tracks, no scat, no sign they’d been there.

I had contemplated going home, but I had slept well in my secure accommodation so I decided to continue on with the weekend. I still canoed, even hoped I might see the bears around the lake so I could take pictures from the water, but saw no more sign of them. The weather went from rain, to sunny breaks, to windy, to cloudy, back to rain, with no end in sight.

We alternated between sitting by the fire, huddling under the tarp, sitting by the fire, then moving under the tarp again. All of us wearing multiple layers, toques, gloves and trying to stay positive.

More than once I thought, “Why do I do this to myself?”

On the last evening, Jim came back from his paddle around the lake and said the bear family was in the vacant site at the other end of the lake. They’d stayed in the area the whole weekend.

You might wonder, knowing what I know of bear behaviour, that they aren’t predatory, or naturally aggressive, or looking for confrontation, what did I think was going to happen? I mean, she ran the other way long before we even got close. That’s typical and appropriate bear behaviour.

Here’s an example of where my mind takes me…In the middle of the night, while we’re all asleep, they wander into the camp looking for food. One of the cubs comes over to my tent, starts pawing at it, perhaps attracting Mom’s attention. I wake up at the noise, try to yell out or set off my car alarm, it startles Mom or the cub, but instead of running away, she gets defensive and I’m toast.

In my underwear.

The what-ifs of my paranoid mind spiral downward from there, taking turns with the self-loathing voice telling me I’m being stupid.

As my wife said when I got home, “Why do you keep going? What are you trying to prove?”

The only answer I can come up with is that I don’t want to be a coward.

I force myself to go on this trip every year, intent on beating this phobia, even though after twenty years, it’s still undiminished, just so that I can say I didn’t give up.

That’s a great frame of mind when something matters, like my marriage, career or a difficult painting or project.

But this is supposed to be a relaxing getaway after the most demanding part of my year. One day back and I can tell you, the most relaxing part of it was the hot shower and good night’s sleep when I got home.

This is likely my last trip to the lake for the foreseeable future. Investing in a hard shell trailer or larger vehicle for the three or four times I might use it each year is a bad investment. Add to that having to pay to store it somewhere. Doing the math, I realized I could rent a cabin for four three night stays every year for the next ten to fifteen years for the same price it would cost me to buy a trailer or camper, not to mention the vehicle to haul it.

And it’s a much more comfortable stay when the weather turns foul, where seeing wildlife is a treat, not an imagined threat, where I sleep well, truly relax and recharge.

While I’ll take some grief from my friends for this decision, they’ll eventually realize it’s a much more enjoyable trip without the guy who jumps at every rustle in the bushes.

It’s ironic that I’m soon heading up to Discovery Wildlife Park for the first time this year. I miss Berkley and the other bears.

Cheers,
Patrick

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Lake Laziness

I almost didn’t go on this recent camping trip, but I fought my nature, listened to the appeals of my better angels and made the getaway a priority over the work. Winter is not far off and I need to put as much positive fuel in the tank while I can, before the dark and dreary cold season starts burning it away.

So, I let my newspapers know I’d be gone, gave them almost double the usual cartoons last week to keep them covered, and headed off Sunday morning to go camping with old friends. Three of us drove together in a little convoy to a regular meeting spot on Highway 95 between Radium and Golden. There we met up with another old friend who traveled from the other direction and we headed up into the hills. Three trucks, two trailers and my car.

It’s a dirt and gravel road for most of the way, some years better or worse than others, with the last 2km stretch resembling a goat track. That last bit requires driving in 1st gear, maneuvering back and forth from one side of the road to the other to avoid large potholes and big rocks. My buddy Al described it best when he said the road was particularly ‘bony’ this year, making it especially tricky for the two trucks pulling small Boler trailers.

There are three BC Forestry campsites on the entire lake, all spaced evenly apart, so even when it’s full, the neighbours are quite far away. We have our favorite spot and while we might not always get it, we lucked out once again this time. It’s a big site, with plenty of room to spread out our two trailers and two tents.

British Columbia is incredibly dry right now, experiencing one of the worst wildfire seasons ever recorded. There has been a fire ban on for nearly two months. With an abundance of dead-fall in the area, firewood is usually never an issue, but with no chance of the ban being lifted, we brought a propane fire bowl instead.  It provides some warmth when evening falls and is quite safe when handled properly. Most importantly, it’s legal during a fire ban.

With temperatures above 30C every day, we took extra measures like lining the inside of our coolers with Reflectix, laying soaking wet towels over the coolers during the day and keeping them in the shade.  My measure of success was going to be if I still had ice for a rum and coke on the third night and cold milk for coffee on the last morning.

I still had ice in the cooler when I got home.

I’ve been friends with two of these guys for more than twenty years, and the third for not much less. I’ve been coming to this lake since the mid-nineties the year I got married, but my buddy Jim started going there the year I graduated high school. Most of my friends are older than I am. Our buddy Babe (his real name) is in his early seventies, but he’s still hauling his little trailer up the road with the rest of us.

As we didn’t have to cut, haul and chop wood this time, it was pretty much four days of laziness. We all woke at different times, only stayed up past midnight once, ate and cooked our own food, read books, listened to music, insulted each other non-stop, napped in our chairs, went swimming in the lake quite often, ate food, drank beer and other spirits, with no agenda.
I also tried my hand at wood carving for the first time. While the result was a pitiful embarrassment and reminds me of a grade school art project, I did enjoy the process and will try again soon. I must remind myself that I used to be quite bad at drawing and painting, too. You’ve got to start somewhere.

Many assume that when four guys head to a lake in the mountains, they must be fishing, but none of us do. It just sounds like work to us. There aren’t many fish in this lake anyway.
When it comes to his canoe, Jim has one rule. Anybody can use it whenever they like, with the exception of dusk. That’s when he heads out on the lake each night and paddles around by himself for an hour or so as it gets dark. This works well for me since I was the only other person who used the canoe and my favorite time to be out on the lake is first thing in the morning as the sun’s coming up, camera and coffee in hand.

The forest ranger came by every couple of days doing his rounds, making sure nobody was violating the fire ban and we enjoyed chatting with him. He said there weren’t many campers in the area, but all he encountered were being responsible, which was nice to hear.

There were some other campers on the lake the first night and some day-fishermen one day, but for the most part, we had the whole place to ourselves. It was so quiet. It was clear most of the time, but on the last evening, the smoke from one of the many BC forest fires rolled in and by morning, the trees across the lake were blurred of their definition, lost in the haze.
There were plenty of dragonflies on the lake, normal for this time of year. We’d sit on the dock while swimming and they’d occasionally land on our shoulders or legs, an enjoyable experience. While canoeing around in the morning, I’d come across one struggling in the water and dip the paddle in to rescue it, something I learned from Jim years ago. After a few minutes drying off, it would eventually fly away. I think I rescued three or four of them. Might seem like a small thing, but I imagine it mattered to the dragonfly.

I’m used to seeing a lot of ducks on this lake in the spring. Though I heard a couple one evening this trip, I only saw one solitary loon one morning, letting out his lonely call. It’s one of my favorite sounds in the world, especially when I’m out in a canoe.
The best surprise of the whole weekend was watching an Osprey one morning and I managed to get close enough to take some photos. On the last morning, after I’d already packed up my tent and most of the car, Babe was looking out at the lake and said, “There’s your Osprey over there.”

I grabbed the camera, paddled across the lake and got a few more shots before we left, a nice way to end the trip.

This might be the last camping trip of the year, but given that it has been exceptionally warm this summer, there still might be another before the snow flies. If the opportunity comes up, I will probably grab it.
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A long time ago…

falconDespite a recent declaration that between now and January, I don’t set foot in a shopping mall, I realized I was a hypocrite on Saturday when I found myself standing in Chinook Centre in Calgary.

Shonna and I wanted to see the new movie Arrival (highly recommend it) on the big screen, she needed to buy a few things and I realized I could use something new to wear for her upcoming office Christmas party. After we bought a few shirts for me, Shonna went off to shop and I wandered the mall, dealing with my agoraphobia, which in my case is not so much a phobia as it is an aversion to other humans.

While leaving The Bay, however, I came across a small display of Star Wars toys, specifically the new Air Hogs remote control Millennium Falcon, X-Wing and Tie-Fighters. I paused and looked at the boxes while my inner child tugged hard at my jacket asking, “Can we get one, can we get one, can we get one?”

Walking out of the store, I remembered one of my best Christmases, back when I still liked the holiday. We were living in West Germany at the time, it would have been ’81 or ’82, I think. I had the Star Wars figures, the X-Wing Fighter, the land-speeder and some weird pod-like craft that I have never seen in the movies, but the marketing team at Kenner somehow convinced my parents to buy for me.

I played with them all. The lightsabres that slid out from the arms were missing, as were the capes and the little guns, the paint was scarred and scratched from all of the battles I put these poor action figures through. They would fight on the blanket planet, the dresser plant, the under the bed cave, the forest planet out back (a coniferous bush of some sort), the sandbox planet. Those toys really got around and rarely had any time for a drink in the cantina.

The X-Wing Fighter wouldn’t X anymore, because I broke the wings and my Dad had to glue them back together in the closed position. The cockpit lid would come off on a regular basis as would the guns. A battery had broken open inside the compartment, rendering that useless, so it wouldn’t make any noise anymore. And I didn’t care. I still had fun with it.

But the best toy I ever got for Christmas was The Millennium Falcon. It was the original, the one that came in that first printed cardboard box. I never got the tie fighter or the Death Star playset or the carrying case for the figures, but the Millennium Falcon was the prize, that was the best toy in the whole collection.

This was back before everybody had a credit card, so I remember going to the Canex department store with my Mom. She would often head to the back of the store to the little office kiosk, tell me to wait over by a corner so I was out of earshot and couldn’t see anything. All I knew was that she was making a layaway payment, whatever that meant.

Yes Virginia, there once was a time where you had to budget for Christmas, make deposits ahead of time with real money and you didn’t get your stuff until it was paid for.

I loved that toy, and I beat the hell out of it.

By the time I had outgrown those Star Wars toys, the Falcon’s lid had been cracked and glued more than once, the hidden floor compartment cover was missing, as was the little light-sabre training ball, the cockpit hatch regularly came off, none of the electronics worked and it didn’t even stand up straight as one of the legs wouldn’t fully extend.

A number of years ago, my parents opened a box in the basement, found a bunch of that stuff and asked me if they could get rid of it in a garage sale. I told them sure as I had no use for it. I’m not a collector of anything and while I’ll still watch the Star Wars movies, you’ll never find me lining up to see one or dressing up as a character at Comic-Con, but I also don’t judge anyone who does. If you’re having fun and not hurting anybody, do your thing.

Over the years, whenever I see articles or hear people talking about how much those old Star Wars toys are worth, especially if they’ve never been opened, I just shake my head.

When I was looking at the new versions of those toys on Saturday, the ones that actually FLY now, I wasn’t thinking of the investment potential, what they’d be worth in thirty-five years or where I could store them.

I just wanted to play with them.

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Kayaking in Tofino

sm_GroupShonna and I like to vacation in the shoulder seasons, often in Spring and Fall. Having lived in Banff and Canmore for the past twenty plus years, we know how busy tourist areas get in the summer and we try to avoid those months as much as we can.

Early June is a bit of a gamble, because if you run into bad luck, you could have a vacation plagued by rain, especially where we were on the west coast of Vancouver Island. They don’t call it a rainforest for nothing. Fortunately, we only had significant rain on our last evening and the day we were driving back to the airport in Comox, so we lucked out in the weather department.

In addition to a couple of wildlife tours on this trip, we decided to try sea kayaking for the first time. We booked last minute with Black Bear Kayak in Tofino, found them through positive reviews on Trip Advisor. There was only one other couple on our four hour tour, which is one of the main reasons we don’t travel in high season. Smaller tours just make for a more enjoyable time. We also had two guides, so quite relaxing and informative as both knew a lot about the area.
sm_PatrickShonnaConsidering that you can tip if you aren’t careful, I didn’t bring my best camera on this tour. I do have a waterproof pelican case for my little SX-50, however, but only brought that out when we got out for a short hike. The guides take pictures of you throughout the tour on the water and they’re free to download from their site after a couple of weeks, which is why I’m writing this post a little later than the others from the trip.
sm_Shonna01Glad I brought my GoPro camera as the majority of these shots are screen captures from video. With a suction mount, I secured it to the kayak and pretty much left it alone. Thankfully, our guide Colin advised me to tether it with a bungie and carabiner, because the suction didn’t hold the first couple of tries (tip: get it wet first) and it ended up falling into the drink. GoPro cameras are waterproof, but they don’t float. Had it not been tethered, I would have lost it. While having the GoPro running the whole time meant I got plenty of shots I wouldn’t have, it also meant that most included Shonna’s back and noggin’ and only one of me, a consequence of my checking the settings while looking at the front of the camera.
sm_PatrickThe tour takes you through the islands and coastline around Tofino with a stop on Meares Island, which is native land. You pay a small separate fee ahead of time, money that goes to the local natives who maintain the boardwalk and preserve the area. The old growth forest is spectacular and our guides were knowledgeable about the flora and fauna we encountered. Shonna and I are history and information junkies, so this was our kind of trip.
sm_ColinWe saw eagles and porpoises at a distance, but not a lot of wildlife on the day we went. Considering the abundance on our other tours, it wasn’t a disappointment. Simply paddling around on the ocean, riding the currents and trying something new made this another highlight of the trip. We would take this tour again. For our first outing, the two person kayak worked well. Next time, we’ll each have our own as they weren’t difficult to pilot.
sm_ClaireOur other guide, Claire, was from Vulcan, Alberta. There are a lot of Albertans who have moved to Vancouver Island. It’s almost a cliché. While we’re not a big rush to do it, Shonna and I do discuss it often. I wouldn’t be surprised if we end up there some day, probably sooner than we think.

sm_Scenery01