Category: Life Lessons

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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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Bearing the Elements: Navigating the Wilds of an Art Career

Here’s a time lapse drawing video of my little friend Berkley when she was a cub. You may listen to the voice-over or read it below.

Most artists will experience an inspirational drought where the creative well appears to have dried up, often several times in a career. Get to the bottom and start digging, you may only find more dry dirt.

That’s some scary shit, especially when hauling that water is how you make your living.

The pandemic was a wake-up call for many. Some changed careers because they had to. Others considered returning to their pre-lockdown jobs and realized they’d rather be unemployed.

We were all confronted with hard questions.

One I keep returning to is, “What do I want?”

The easy answer is often ‘more money’ as many imagine that would solve our problems. I don’t want a sports car, a big truck, or a huge house. I’m not a ‘buy more stuff’ guy. More money means safety and security, not having to fret about the finances, now or in my senior years.

Retirement doesn’t appeal to me. To keep my existential angst at bay, I need to have something to do. Idle time is not my friend. Barring any injury, illness or a cognitive decline, a prospect that honestly scares the hell out of me, I plan to work for the next twenty-five-plus years.

But what work do I want to do?

Parents used to tell their children to get an education and have something to fall back on, but those safety jobs have become rare. The days of thirty or forty years with a company followed by a healthy pension are long gone. We read daily about massive layoffs from corporations with names that used to be synonymous with stability.

That’s one reason I opted to sail my own ship rather than shovel coal on a larger vessel where the captain can throw you overboard on a whim, most likely into shark-infested waters during a hurricane.

But even working for yourself, you must still answer to customers. The art you want to create and the art your clients want you to create are often two different things.

At my market or gift show booth, people often ask for their favourite animal. Do you have an iguana, a hedgehog, or a kangaroo? If I don’t, I’ll add it to the list and might eventually paint it. If they follow my work, they might even still be around when I complete it. It could become a bestseller but likely won’t because most people want popular animals like lions, tigers, bears, and wolves.

At one event earlier this year, somebody asked if I had a sloth. I had just painted one, so I plucked it from the bin, put it in her hands and proudly said, “Why yes, I do.”

The woman looked at it briefly, put it back in the bin and started flipping through the others, asking, “Do you have a platypus?”

I wished I had so that I could find out what she’d ask for next. When I said I didn’t, she said, “Oh, too bad, I would have bought one,” and she walked away.

This is often what it’s like working for clients.
Several licensing companies rent the rights to put my work on their products. Occasionally, one will ask for a painting of a specific animal. If I can, I’ll try to accommodate the request. But without fail, as soon as I do, the client has a list of other images they want me to create.

Suddenly, licensing my catalogue has turned into their ordering custom pieces, but without commission rates or guarantees that the time spent will generate revenue. It’s somebody else gambling with my money or, more importantly, my limited time.

I recently negotiated with a puzzle company to create a few designs for them. The first was a detailed painting of three giraffes. It was my idea, but one they approved. Shortly after I finished it, the owner told me they couldn’t add any new artists this year due to unforeseen circumstances. No big surprise in this economy.

I’m disappointed but have no hard feelings because I got some valuable experienced advice about what makes a good puzzle, and I stretched my skills to create something new. And I’m also happy with the finished piece. Once I complete a couple more puzzle-minded pieces, I’ll be shopping that first painting and new designs to other puzzle companies. Failing that, I’ll produce my own.
When companies are your clients, your needs are not their needs. If your art resonates with their customers, then it’s mutually beneficial. But the moment it doesn’t, you’re yesterday’s news. They’ll work with the artist who makes them the most money. They’re in business to promote their company, not your work.

On the reverse of all my prints, there is an artist bio. The last line invites people to subscribe to A Wilder View on my website, a regular email where I share news, paintings, and the stories behind them. One retailer will only sell my prints if I remove that line from the bio, as they don’t want their customers going to my website.

I’ve had a website for over two decades, and I’m easy to find, so I’m not concerned. But I am reminded of my value every time I prepare to deliver new prints because I must slice off that last line from each bio before sticking it to the backer board.

I recently severed ties with an art licensing agency that kept asking me to create new work to follow whatever trend was popular this quarter, whether it was the type of work I did or not. It wasn’t personal; they wanted all their artists to do the same thing.

If you’re a graphic designer or illustrator, following trends is often part of the job and what you signed up for. But if you’ve found that rare jewel of an established niche as I have, changing what you do every few months because somebody read a post on Facebook that robot plumbers wearing figure skates are in this year, you might as well be panhandling. The artist takes all the risk, creating new work in the faint hope the licensing agency might find a buyer for it. If they don’t, too bad.

If you won’t do it, they can find thousands of young desperate artists who will.

That’s no way to sustain a career. Nobody wins a race to the bottom.
Customer service, professional behaviour and sound business practices are essential, as is compromise and accommodating your clients’ needs and wishes. People pay you to supply what they need, and delivering that often builds lasting relationships beneficial to both parties. All boats rise with the tide. Fail to realize these things, and you’ll soon be out of business.

But if you don’t write your own story, you’re just a bit player in somebody else’s. When you spend all your creative energy trying to please your clients and customers at the expense of the things that made you want to be an artist in the first place, you become bitter and resentful.

At least I have. But I’m working through it by redefining my boundaries in work and life.

An old maxim cautions, “Don’t kill yourself working for an employer that would advertise your job before anybody sees your obituary.”

If I suddenly dropped dead, my licensing clients would (hopefully) send my royalties as usual and negotiate any future licensing with my wife. Everybody else would move on.

Newspapers continue to struggle, and the question of how long I’ll be an editorial cartoonist has been front and center for over a decade.

These are things I can’t control.

So I ask again, “What do I want?”
I enjoy creating my animal art, but lately, whenever I go to paint something, I think, “Will this animal be popular? Have I painted too many of these? Not enough? Will this make me any money?”

Every art decision has become about revenue. And when money is the prime motivator, the creative light dims. That leads to burnout and no joy left in the work. When the economy is down, costs are up, interest rates rising, and companies are laying people off, it’s hard to invest time in projects that might bear fruit later when other short-term work is more likely to generate income now.

Payments from clients and licensing companies are taking increasingly longer to reach my mailbox, despite their tight deadlines and demands for quick delivery.

Below the surface of every current piece of art is an undercurrent of desperation. Doom and gloom valley is not the preferred habitat for happy-looking animals.

Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.”

But then he also said, “The people who make art their business are mostly imposters.”

I’m gonna focus on the first quote and conveniently ignore the second one.
So while I’m trying to answer the question of what I want to do, I’m working on my art book about bears. Not promising to work on it like I’ve been doing for more than six years, but working on it, as I’m well and truly sick and tired of my own procrastination and bullshit excuses.

A very patient publisher recently told me to write the kind of art book I like to buy and read. The art books I like have smaller drawings, sketches, and unfinished pieces among the fully rendered paintings.

So, I’ve been alternating between writing the bear stories and drawing accent pieces like the ones you see here. I enjoy drawing them and expect one or two will inspire future paintings, as sketches often do.

While working on these images, I realized that whenever I’m lost and trying to navigate this ridiculous profession of art for a living, I always seem to come back to bears.

____

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Spending Some Time With Skoki

On Wednesday, I delivered a large print order to the Calgary Zoo. A zookeeper friend had ordered a couple of canvases, so I was also happy to deliver those to her.

It poured rain all day, and I was not complaining. After our unusually dry spring, all the wildfires, smoke, and extreme fire hazard risk, the water and cool temperatures were welcome.

But I figured it would be a quiet day, allowing me to take some reference photos. I prefer a cool, overcast day for pictures rather than a hot sunny one. Not only is the light better, but the animals are more active. How much would you want to move around in 30C wearing a fur coat?

 I failed to realize that many school groups visited the zoo in June, and the place was infested with loud, screaming, unruly children. They had filled the interior spaces on this rainy day, so I couldn’t take any pictures inside the Asia or Africa pavilions.

I know many kids and their parents like my artwork, so I don’t want to bite the hand that feeds me. Zoos are great places for kids to learn to appreciate animals and foster empathy for them. Kids that love and learn about animals might become adults who want to protect them in the wild.

I also know that I was a hyperactive, rambunctious, loud kid, and I undoubtedly annoyed plenty of adults around me. So, payback’s a bitch, I guess. People talk about getting in touch with their inner child. Given the opportunity, I would tell mine to please, calm down and be quiet. Go draw something.

I realize that my lack of patience for children is entirely my own character flaw. Working alone at home all day, I thrive in a solitary quiet environment.

And you wonder why I don’t write or illustrate children’s books.

Since I couldn’t tolerate the little people inside the buildings, and finding unobstructed space to take photos was impossible, I decided to cut the day short.

But on my way back to the car, I figured it would be foolish not to visit the bears in the Canadian Wilds, at least.

I was pleasantly surprised to find them all active, moving about and playing. Skoki, a famous grizzly bear around here, seemed to be having a good day. At 34 years old, he’s a special ambassador bear whose story has been quoted countless times to educate tourists on why feeding and harassing bears for photos in Banff National Park doesn’t end well for the bear.

Rather than rewrite it, I’ll encourage you to read Colleen Campbell’s recent retelling of Skoki’s story.

Nobody wants to see animals in captivity, but as I’ve written countless times before, we are unwilling to sacrifice to keep that from happening. Everybody wants that sharable photo of a grizzly and her cubs on the side of the highway, and if one person stops, a dozen others stop. Soon, the bears are harassed and stressed, and if the mother defends herself or her cubs, she gets relocated or put down.
People leave food out while camping which attracts wildlife. When a bear associates people with food, it’s game over for the bear. I’ve lived in this valley for almost thirty years, and I don’t want to count how many times I’ve read about bears who’ve been euthanized because of selfish and careless people.

The more people repeat Skoki’s story, the more they educate young people to want to protect them in the wild and prevent them from being put in a zoo or destroyed.

One pet peeve I have at the zoo is the many times I’ve heard parents saying to their kids, “Watch out for the scary bear. He’s gonna get you. Rawrrrrrrr!”

I know they’re just fooling around and playing with their kids, but the message is clear — bears are frightening monsters, and you should be afraid of them. When you’re scared of something, it’s easy to justify killing it. There’s a big difference between respect and fear, and they have a lot more reason to fear people.
I must have taken about 700+ shots of Skoki on Wednesday. He gave me so many beautiful poses. At one point, he walked across a log, sat up and straddled it, then hung out there. The wind came up, and he was sniffing the air, clearly enjoying the rain, and I ended up with many great references. Look at those little feet.
He gave me a great idea for a painting. I imagine several bears lined up at a log, like a bunch of friends hanging out at a bar. With his multiple poses and expressions in the same spot, I can paint five or six different bears using him as the reference. I’ll paint the faces and bodies differently for variety, making one thinner, another heavier, taller, and shorter; there are plenty of options. By varying the colours, the finished bears will look like their own characters, but the primary reference will still be one bear.

One of the best things about taking photos for painting is that even though almost all my photos are poor shots, they’re still excellent reference. I was shooting behind very wet plexiglass windows from inside two different shelters. He was a good twenty or thirty feet away, so I could focus past all the water drops and spots, but it was still like shooting through a dirty lens. None of my images are sharp focus.

But I’ve painted so many bears and have taken thousands of photos of them that I only need the pose and the idea to craft a painting from these shots. I have enough experience with bear anatomy and painting hair that bad photos are still a good reference.

Plus, I know enough Photoshop tricks to sharpen them to give me more detail. They’re still bad photos but good enough for my purposes.
Resuming my walk back to my car about an hour and a half later, it struck me funny that I began the day hoping to get photos of animals I hadn’t yet painted or only painted once but left the zoo with a camera card full of grizzly bear photos. I have more pictures of bears than any other animal.

But I was happy once I saw them, armed with an idea for another painting.

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Cabin Call

My buddy Jim had booked the cabin several months ago for this past weekend. He was going with another friend who had to bow out at the last minute. Too late to cancel, and less than thrilled about going alone, he asked if I wanted to go.

It was short notice, and I had a lot of work to do, so my first impulse was to decline. I’m not spontaneous. I over-plan things, even though we don’t have nearly as much control over our lives as we like to believe.

All it takes is somebody running a red light and wrecking your car or having to evacuate your home for a forest fire to prove it.

I already have the cabin booked not long from now with another friend, but I decided to accept the invite, even though I felt like I didn’t really deserve two cabin trips so close together.

With some recent welcome rain and smoky skies temporarily cleared, we had perfect sunny weather.

As I get up at 5 am every day at home, sleeping in for me is usually limited to about 7:30, even though we were up until midnight each night. As the bedrooms in the cabin are beside each other and divided only by a curtain, I quietly made coffee each morning, grabbed the camera and went for a walk.
It’s a half section of land with lush green forest, pastures, a creek and lots of room to wander. There are plenty of birds, deer and coyotes. Every once in a while, you might spot a moose, beaver or a bear, and on one trip last fall, my buddy Darrel woke to a cougar walking right beside the deck.

However, my favourite wildlife experience on this property was one fall morning in 2020 when we watched a great grey owl hunt for breakfast. Unconcerned by our presence, Darrel and I followed it for a long time, snapping photos and taking video.

But there have been plenty of visits where I haven’t seen anything, at least not close enough to call it an encounter. Sometimes, it’s just deer off in the tree line or coyotes howling at night. But I love that sound, so I always count that as a win.
This past Saturday, however, I was delighted to see another great grey owl. This one wasn’t as enthused by my intrusion, but I still got some shots before it flew off into the trees. It wasn’t until I returned to the cabin and loaded the card onto my iPad that I realized the shots were much better than I had thought. Since they were all handheld at 300mm, I was surprised I got any that were even in focus, or close to focus, anyway.
The great thing about taking photos for painting reference is that if they’re a little out of focus or the lighting isn’t ideal, I’ll still keep plenty of shots a professional photographer would throw away. What’s not worth printing to them, could be a perfect reference shot for me.
The couple we rent from have become friends over the last five years, so they’ll often join us for a couple of drinks in the evenings. I mentioned that it bothers me that I’m nervous around horses. I want to be more comfortable with them, as I know they’re able to sense it when a person is uneasy.

Karen invited me to the corral that evening, brought one of the geldings out and gave me the lead. I had read some wrong information about interacting with horses and was happy to get better advice. She gave me some pointers on how to approach them and read their body language.

On the last morning, I woke early and went for another wander. I followed a path on the property through the trees to one of the pasture gates where the horses were grazing. Two of them came over to see me, and I greeted them how I’d been shown, feeling much more comfortable than I had on previous encounters.

Though I’m now a little behind on my work, with a busy week ahead of cartoons, paintings, and writing, plus some marketing tasks, I’m still glad I made the time for the last-minute getaway.

There will always be more work.

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Whose Art Is It Anyway?

In 2008, I hosted the Canadian Editorial Cartoonists Conference in Banff. Several industry veterans who attended came up in a culture where busy unionized daily newspapers hired editorial cartoonists for impressive salaries, benefits, and pensions. I began my career at the end of all that.

I put a lot of work into the conference and preparing a Photoshop drawing class, trying to impress and curry favour with the more established cartoonists in this exclusive club. But, unfortunately, I realized too late that nobody cared. They were simply looking for an excuse to visit Banff, hang out and talk shop. It was about nostalgia, politics, and competitors fishing for information.

I wanted to improve my skills and artwork and learn how to adapt to a struggling industry, but many of them were focused on avoiding having to change. In fact, in the wrap-up, one of the more senior cartoonists loudly promised there wouldn’t be any Photoshop drawing classes at the next conference.

Clearly, I didn’t belong in this group.

In 2009, I attended another conference, the National Association of Photoshop Professionals in Las Vegas. I had been a member of this supportive online community for several years. Critiques were constructive, questions were answered with enthusiasm, and I learned more from that association than any before or since.

Fresh off that first Photoshop World conference,  inspired to try something new, I painted a funny looking grizzly bear, my first whimsical wildlife portrait.

I went to that conference five times between 2009 and 2014. In 2010 and 2014, I won multiple Guru Awards for my animal paintings, including two Best in Show awards. The classes and instructors, the community of friends and colleagues, it was time and money well spent.

At Photoshop World, I made valuable business connections. For a long time after, I had a welcome working relationship with Wacom, the company that makes the drawing tablets and displays I’ve used for the past 25 years. I recorded two training DVDs for PhotoshopCAFE, and NAPP helped me form a strong foundation for my creative skills.

Eventually, social media killed the forum, and the organization rebranded. As a result, NAPP no longer exists, and the Photoshop World conference is a ghost of its former self.

Time spent pining for the way things used to be is a waste. Adaptation is the most useful skill a self-employed artist can have.

While licensing and retailers are essential for my business, those customers each have their own ideas of what they want from my work. One retailer wants more bears; another wants more wolves. One agency wants me to follow seasonal trends; another client wants more realistic animals. Some products sell better with brighter, more colourful elements, and some without a background. Some items work better with a vertical layout, others horizontal.

Most artists have heard they should find their niche, the work that makes them unique and different from everybody else. It’s the key to survival in a crowd where a lot of art looks the same. But if you work hard and are lucky enough to discover the work that defines you, the next piece of advice you hear is that you need to make it appeal to everyone all the time.

Well, which is it?

How do you create work you enjoy enough to keep doing it year after year and continue to make it pay? How do you serve your customers and clients and allow their input and direction without changing your work so much that it’s no longer yours? Is it artwork or factory work?

When it becomes a grind or just about pumping out more images, it can take all the joy out of it. Lately, finishing some paintings has brought the same sense of accomplishment I get from cleaning the house. That’s a telltale sign of burnout. I’ve been here before, more than once. It’s a common experience with anyone who creates anything, especially if it’s their job, a warning that something’s got to give.

I know how to paint a single animal. I’ve put almost fifteen years into it. Each takes hours to paint, and the work I’m doing now is better than I’ve ever done, but it’s still the same style and (shudder) formula. It’s not as challenging or fulfilling as it used to be.

I’ve taken a new approach with the trio of giraffes, already titled “Long Neck Buds.” I don’t know if it will work the way I imagine it, but if it does, it will be the first of several I plan to paint this way.

This latest individual giraffe isn’t quite a finished piece, but it’s close. It will also be the middle giraffe in the painting based on the group sketch above. With the simple background, it’s a solid painting on its own. I’ll paint the other two individually, like this first one, with my usual high detail, then I’ll place them all together. Finally, I’ll paint the sky, clouds and leaves around them.

I’m a commercial artist, it’s how I make my living. I don’t pretend otherwise. But this is also supposed to be fun. I want to paint more detailed and elaborate images I’ll enjoy while also leaving options open for clients and licenses with different needs.

I want to create more paintings this way—a troop of meerkats, several burrowing owls, and a waddle of penguins. I could paint different species in an image. However, with each critter as detailed as my usual work, these will take longer than a single painting, requiring a more substantial investment in each piece.

I get nervous when spending too much time on one painting, likely due to many years of drawing editorial cartoons. Twenty years ago, when almost nobody was publishing my work, I would spend many hours nitpicking a cartoon, trying to get a caricature right or fussing with perspective. Shonna and I referred to these as Sistine Chapel cartoons. I had to train myself to say, “good enough.”

Most political cartoons have a short shelf life, so speed is essential. Get it done, get it out, and get started on the next one. My cartoon work pays monthly bills.

With a painting, however, the income can come anywhere from next week to next year. Pieces I painted ten years ago are still paying today. Paintings are an investment in future prints, products and licensing, income that often comes later.

This year, I’m making time to play and experiment.

I’ll share works in progress, sketches, and thoughts along the way, but fewer finished pieces. The ones I do complete will be bigger and hopefully worth waiting for. Of course, I expect I’ll still paint a single animal here and there if the mood strikes me.

11” X14” poster prints will come out only a couple of times a year rather than as I complete them. With higher shipping costs, I imagine that it won’t be a problem for collectors of my work to be able to order two or three new pieces at a time with one shipping cost.But I’ll still welcome custom metal and canvas special order prints. You can order those by email anytime. The above 18”x24” sloth on canvas and 20″x20” Blue Beak Raven on metal below are two custom orders that arrived this week.The puzzles I launched this year felt like a considerable risk, but I sold a lot of them and have received requests for more. I’m suddenly motivated to plan paintings that will work as prints, puzzles, stickers and more. I’m also exploring puzzle licensing opportunities.

In the meantime, my collection of more than 100 paintings will continue to pay the bills with prints and licensing, as will drawing daily editorial cartoons, for as long as newspapers hang on.

I’m not having any fun. That needs to change.

Cheers,
Patrick

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License and Destination

When I started drawing editorial cartoons in the late 90s, I drew one a week for the Banff Crag & Canyon. A little later, I tried to expand my horizons with illustrations, caricatures and other creative work. The publisher, however, figured that $30/week bought the newspaper an editorial cartoon and the right to control work I did for anyone else.

In 2001, I removed those shackles and joined a new publication launching in Canmore, and I’ve been drawing cartoons for the Rocky Mountain Outlook ever since.

In stark contrast, my new editor encouraged me to draw more cartoons and self-syndicate. At the time, many Canadian dailies had a staff cartoonist, and I wondered if one of those gigs might be in my future.

Those daily papers often had open freelance spots a couple of days a week, and I was happy to get those whenever I could, hoping a foot in the door might help me later should an in-house cartoonist retire.

A very nice former editor of the Calgary Herald, who helped me whenever he could, told me their staff cartoonist thought I was trying to steal his job because somebody had tried it before. I’m not that ruthless, but I soon learned the newspaper business and editorial cartooning profession was adversarial, paranoid, and often nasty.

As Canada’s daily newspapers were bought and sold repeatedly by larger companies, the old-guard cartoonists were laid off or forced to retire, and their positions eliminated. Today, only a handful of cartoonists are attached to daily newspapers, and their days are numbered.

I have always been a self-syndicated freelancer, keeping me working and paying the bills while many salaried cartoonists were shown the door. And since most of them never had to learn to be self-employed, that job loss ended their careers. So I am grateful I never got a staff job.

Years later, it’s no secret the newspaper industry has not recovered. While several community weeklies are still doing well, including the Rocky Mountain Outlook and many other clients, daily newspapers are struggling. I’d need a second job if I had to rely solely on my editorial cartoon revenue today.

But editorial cartooning allowed me to quit my office job in 2005 and become a full-time artist. I explored opportunities, tried new things, and improved my art and business skills while the freelance cartoons paid the bills. I increased my cartoon revenue year after year, and it didn’t seem like it would ever decline, though all industry signs pointed that way.

Though editorial cartooning was going well, I prepared for when it disappears. I tried Flash animation, but I didn’t like the work and couldn’t make it pay. I painted caricatures of people for hire. People liked the art but wanted it cheap, and I couldn’t justify the hours. I took online art courses to become a better painter and learned valuable techniques I still use today.

In 2009, I painted a grizzly bear which led me to the work I enjoy most and launched the next phase of my career.

Becoming a good artist is the easy part. Learn from other artists, create art daily, and repeat for many years.

The hard part is learning the business. There are as many roadmaps to success as there are artists trying to do it. What worked for one won’t work for another because everybody wants something different from the deal. It’s not just about making money but finding the work you love and people to pay you for it. You must love it enough to give up mornings, evenings and weekends to devote to the work and the business. When stuff inevitably gets hard, the only thing that will keep you going is loving the work.

I’ve made plenty of mistakes in this business of art. Customers, editors and licensees have screwed me over. I’ve lost time and money from bad decisions made from poor preparation. I’ve followed bad advice and put trust in the wrong people.

I’ve also made decisions that were right at the time but still went south through no fault of my own. Supportive editors retired, and their replacements chose another cartoonist or eliminated the cartoon altogether. Newspapers, art galleries, retail stores and licensing clients have closed or lost their businesses.

No matter what you do for a living, shit will happen.

As a self-employed artist, however, it’s almost routine. When one revenue source disappears, you scramble to find another. Losing one customer isn’t usually the end; it just means things get a little uncomfortable while you adjust course. Adaptation is as much a required business skill as bookkeeping.

For quite some time, my business was half editorial cartooning and half wildlife art, but in recent years, the latter has kept increasing while the former continues to decline.

I learn more about licensing my work and finding new clients each year. A company makes and markets the product and pays the artist a royalty of 4% to 15%, usually in the middle of that range, for using the images. That small percentage can become a healthy income depending on the product, the company, and reach.

I’ve acquired most of my licenses on my own. I’ve learned about contracts, red-flag clauses, and how to translate legalese. I retain copyright of all my work and never sign it away.

In 2017, I signed up with Art Licensing International in New England. A reputable agency with global reach, they represent hundreds of artists, many of them well-known. An agency typically takes 50% of royalties. However, their connection with big companies makes that sacrifice worth it, as they can often get artists’ licenses they wouldn’t usually find on their own.

I had final approval on every license they acquired for me, and their quarterly cheques arrived four times a year without fail. Amounts were never significant, but I was willing to be patient as a license can take a few years before it pays off. But last year, I considered ending the relationship. I’ve had much more success finding my own licenses, but I also wanted to explore opportunities with other agencies.

Art licensing is a tricky business. While there is plenty of advice on best practices and what to avoid, each company has their methods and focus, and you never know which business relationships will work until you’re well into them.

If I’m tied up with too many smaller licenses that don’t bear fruit, those can prevent me from signing with companies that better fit my artwork. If one company licenses my work for a product, a competing company might not want to, and that second company might have been the better choice.

In the past couple of years, it has become clear that ALI is not the right agency for me. Some artists tailor their art to follow trends each year, and the agency’s messaging supports that tack. It’s a solid business practice for many artists and companies, especially graphic designers, so I can’t fault them for it. But I am not an artist who chases trends.

Years ago, I remember a gallery owner telling me that he was glad I wasn’t painting realistic-looking wildlife because had I done so, no matter how good it was, he wouldn’t have been interested.

“Everybody’s trying to be Robert Bateman.”

I have a unique signature style, look and an established niche, so my work will never be for everybody. When I hear suggestions that I should change my work to fit somebody else’s agenda, I think of all the licenses, customers and subscribers who connect with and enjoy my art and support it year after year. So many artists struggle to find their niche, a pinnacle achievement in any art career. There is no question I have found mine.

As Seth Godin often says, “if you don’t like it, it’s not for you.”

That’s not argumentative or defensive; it’s a simple truth. I’m not fond of Celine Dion’s music. But I’m confident she doesn’t care. Trying to please everyone is a recipe for misery in life and art because you will never succeed.

I decided to end my relationship with Art Licensing International this week with no hard feelings. The owners and staff have always been professional and friendly. But after six years with little to modest income to show for it, I’ve realized that the wrong business relationship is just as bad as none at all.

There are several licenses I’ve signed with them, however, that will continue until the end of their term, a few that won’t expire until the end of next year. But I’m free to look elsewhere for better representation for my artwork. My art has been removed from their site.

When so many artists struggle to find agency representation, leaving such an arrangement voluntarily is uncomfortable. And even though it’s a little scary and always uncertain, making these choices is one of the best parts of self-employment.

One course correction, coming right up.

 

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Poke the Bear

When you find work that resonates with people, any deviation is a risk. People like the happy animals, so why upset the apple cart? Shouldn’t I create another image with a better chance of print sales and licensed images?

In 2009, my work was editorial cartoons, painting caricatures, and the occasional illustration gig. I was getting bored and painted a funny-looking grizzly bear to try something new. That small experiment changed my life and career for the better.

I painted this angry bear for the same reason, to do something different.

For the last while, I’ve been angry, frustrated, and afraid. We’re human, we have emotions, though we often deny or quash them for fear of others’ reactions. If you’re not dying in a ditch from cholera or a bullet wound in a third-world country, you’re not allowed to feel bad about anything. Don’t be so negative. Cheer up.

It’s called toxic positivity, and many use it as a passive-aggressive weapon to make themselves feel comfortable or righteous. How dare you be grumpy, sad, or depressed when things could always be worse?

Several years ago, I had debilitating lower back pain. It hurt to sit, drive, walk and lay down. It would wake me almost every night and begin as soon as I got out of bed each morning. It wasn’t long before Advil couldn’t touch it.

Shonna suggested I go to yoga with her, and that helped. We’ve been doing that together one night a week ever since, a healthy practice for flexibility, balance, and strength. But it wasn’t enough to eliminate the pain.

While googling incessantly for options, reading about compressed and bulging discs, spinal defects, and worse, I came across a book called Healing Back Pain: The Mind-Body Connection by Dr. John E. Sarno.

Sarno’s theory of Tension myositis syndrome (TMS) explains that for those with perfectionist and people-pleasing tendencies, the subconscious mind can create chronic pain to distract a person from dealing with repressed anger, fear, and stress.

Here’s where I lose most of you, and I knew that going in.

Before you post angry comments and send me emails telling me about your genuine bone, nerve, or systemic issues, I wouldn’t dispute anybody else’s pain. I’m not a doctor. Plenty of people require back surgery, have hip and knee problems, arthritis, and other physiological issues related to identifiable causes, especially with age. Stuff breaks down. Parts fail.

But this began in my late thirties. I tried the doctor, physiotherapy, and massage, and there was no reason for this dramatic physical failure. Anything that worked was a temporary fix with no lasting effect.

This was my experience; if it sounds familiar, it might be yours.

In a 1999 segment of 20/20, John Stossel profiled it well and said Sarno cured his back pain. Howard Stern credits Sarno with saving his life and talks about it often.

There were no courses or programs, no supplements to buy, and no up-selling. It was just a book; one I’ve since read and listened to several times.

If you want to call it one, the cure is realizing you’re doing it, acknowledging the anger, and bringing it into the light. It sounds simple, and it is. And it isn’t. Because after a lifetime of bad habits, the pain comes back, especially in times of stress, and not just in the lower back. It often moves around the body and manifests in other places. So when one distraction is realized, the subconscious finds another, somehow convinced that physical pain is preferable to emotional pain. That’s TMS.
Roll your eyes, shake your head, wave it off, and call me crazy. I don’t need to convince you. All I know is I went from near-crippling back pain for several months to having almost none over a decade later. You’d think a genuine bulging disc, spinal defect, or structural deformity would worsen with age, not disappear.

After the back pain left, however, other physical ailments would pop up over the years. I had sciatic pain in both legs that would come and go. I developed migraine headaches in times of stress. I had severe neck and shoulder pain. I once had jaw and tooth pain so bad I thought I needed root canals. At its worst, I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough to eat a hamburger. That went on for months.

These aren’t hallucinations. This was all real excruciating pain, and Sarno explains the physiology of it in the book. But it would fade once I recognized that it was simply another manifestation of the back pain in a different location. Then another pain would show up, and I’d have to realize it again.

In 2016, when the physical distractions no longer worked, I fell into a deep depression, as dark as you can go, and that means what you think it means. Thankfully, Shonna was supportive and urged me to get help. I didn’t want to take drugs, but I went into therapy, and over a few years, I retreated from looking too long into that abyss.

While the darkness is always there in the background, I’ve thankfully never fallen that far back again, though it permanently changed me. You can glue a broken vase, but the cracks remain.

I’ve sought the approval of others for most of my life. When I should have stood up for myself, I held my tongue to keep the peace, and all it got me was pain. The recovery taught me to no longer accept bullying, gaslighting, and criticism from those who would never take it from me.

The most important lessons are always hard.

But every so often, it’s easy to fall back into a bad habit, especially with the stress of the pandemic. Things have built up again over the last year, and I developed stomach issues. I eliminated one food from my diet, then another, then another. Tough for Shonna as she’s such an excellent cook.

At the end of last year and the beginning of this one, I’d finally had enough of this not making any sense. Realizing I was more affected than I thought by the stress of our car accident last year, higher interest rates, inflation, mounting business expenses, financial fear and uncertainty, I went back to the book and a TMS forum site. After some healthy reminders of what I already knew, it made sense that this was just another way my mind was distracting me from acknowledging my fears and anger—sneaky bugger.

I began a new habit of rapid-fire writing on the advice of one post I read.

I open a blank Word file and type a stream-of-consciousness rant about anything scaring me or making me angry. It’s the things we don’t like to admit, the selfish thoughts, the petty, bitter stuff we don’t say to other people for fear of their judgment. It’s Freud’s Id, that fussing toddler in all of us that wants what it wants.

It’s the part of you that wants to scream and rant in a grocery store lineup or start smashing back and forth in your car to get out of a traffic jam or punch your boss in the face when he makes you feel small and unappreciated. It’s acknowledging what we feel but aren’t allowed to express.

So, when I’ve been feeling ticked off or afraid, I’ve taken five minutes to write this stuff down, with lots of swearing, spelling mistakes, poor grammar, and no editing.

“I’m angry I have to draw another sleazy politician. I’m afraid I will never make enough money to feel secure. I’m angry that the demanding client won’t shut up and go away. I’m angry that my neighbour’s dogs are barking again. I’m afraid of getting old. I’m afraid of getting dementia. I’m afraid that none of this effort matters. I’m afraid people will think I’m whining with this self-indulgent post.”

And when I’ve had that childish temper tantrum on the page, I close the file without saving it. I’ve been doing this once daily for the past month whenever the mood strikes me.

My stomach issues are almost gone.

When we deny our emotions, we deny ourselves. When we allow others to assert their wants and needs over us at the expense of our mental health and we bury the resentment, there are consequences. When we let other people mistreat us and we stuff that down inside, it doesn’t just go away. It will show up somewhere else.

Eight billion people on the planet, and everybody has a different view of the world and their place in it. To live in a community means hiding your darker, baser instincts for everyone’s mutual survival. But it’s much healthier to still admit and acknowledge them privately and give that primitive self a voice. That part of you needs to speak, even if it’s to an empty room or on a blank page.

So this angry black bear was a little art therapy, another way to put some rage on the page, pour it into a painting of the animal I have feared and loved most.

I enjoyed it and I’ll do it again.
____
©Patrick LaMontagne 2023

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‘Tis the Season

Near as I can tell, it was the seven years working in the tourism industry in Banff that exorcised the spirit of Christmas from this here cartoonist and painter of whimsical wildlife.

When you work in a hotel, restaurant, bar, retail store or other service industry in one of the busiest tourist towns in the world, you don’t get time off during the holidays. Tourism is a lifestyle agreement many around here have signed at some point.

But too often, tourists who don’t get their picture-perfect Canadian Rockies Christmas tend to get cranky and take it out on the staff. Year after year that takes a toll.

After playing Christmas all day for the tourists, it always felt like more work to come home to your overpriced apartment and play Christmas there as well. So, we gave it up a long time ago with no regrets.
Shonna and I have not had a tree or decorations in more than twenty years. Aside from a few extra blankets on the couch, our home looks the same on December 25th as on July 25th. We don’t exchange gifts, and we don’t make a big meal.

We still attend Shonna’s office Christmas party, and that’s usually fun, as she works with nice people.

Some years, we are obligated to travel to see family because Christmas and guilt go hand in hand. Every year while living in Banff, we would have to explain to a couple of family members that we had to work on Christmas (just like the year before), so we wouldn’t be coming home.
I welcomed the excuse not to travel. In the darkest month, with the best chance for the worst weather and most treacherous driving, while we’re all under peak stress, everybody hits the road at the same time. And if the highways close for a winter whiteout, and the RCMP tell you to stay home, well, that’s just too bad. Find a way; otherwise, you’ve ruined Christmas for everybody.
Even before the pandemic, ‘tis the season when we’re all contagious. So, we get together with as many people as possible, cram ourselves into crowded spaces, shake hands, hug and kiss and then eat a bunch of finger food.

Why can’t we do this in July when we can camp or hang out on a beach? Those lucky Australians.

Despite my irredeemable inner Scrooge, I have no desire to ruin anybody else’s Christmas. If somebody says Merry Christmas to me, I’ll return the greeting. If they choose another festive Hello-Ho-Ho, I’ll return that too, unlike some who lose their minds and shriek, “IT’S MERRY CHRISTMAS, DAMMIT, NOT HAPPY HOLIDAYS!”

I have a return greeting for those people, too. Two words, no hints; you’ll only need one guess.
But here’s where it gets weird.

I like drawing holiday season and Christmas cartoons.

I enjoy drawing Santa Claus, reindeer, ornaments, ribbons, and bows on presents. I don’t know if it’s the bright colour schemes, warm subjects on cool backgrounds, snow on trees, or mythical critters. It’s just strange.

True, there’s always a cynical tone to these cartoons, making fun of the season and my issues with it, but that’s a pillar of the editorial cartoonist profession all year long. I usually come up with far too many ideas this time of year, more than I can draw in December.

But the themes are evergreen. An idea that didn’t get used last year might still work next year. The politicians and issues change, but I can put a seasonal twist on most things, and many cartoons are variations of ones I’ve drawn before, without apology.

Traditional imagery is just that. People don’t want a new twist on Santa Claus. Nobody is deciding stockings on the mantle are passé this year, so let’s hang Levi’s from the dishwasher.

However, what will change is that, hopefully, I’ll be a better artist than I was the year before, as I’m always trying to improve my skills. If I can manage that, that’s all the gift I need.

Whether you celebrate the holidays or not, it’s a tough time of year for many people. Try to be a bit nicer to anyone who must work through the season. It’s not the grocery clerk’s fault that you had to circle three times for parking or that the eggnog is sold out. Nor are they to blame that everything is expensive this year. They’re paying more, too, just like you.

Give some money or groceries to the food bank, drop some cash in the Salvation Army kettle, or donate some clothes or blankets to a shelter. Giving to those less fortunate feels good.

If you’re travelling, please don’t drink and drive. Go a little slower and allow more time to get there. As someone who had a vehicle destroyed this year by somebody else’s carelessness, even if you don’t get hurt, insurance will not make you whole, and the experience seriously inconveniences your life. We’re still looking for a replacement vehicle. It can happen to you, and it will ruin your Christmas, and anyone else’s who gets caught in the chaos.

Advice I can give, but I’m bad at following; try to go a little easier on yourself. You don’t need to be perfect, and neither does anybody else. The golden rule is timeless.

I hope you enjoyed this small selection of cartoons from Christmas past and present, and with tongue firmly in cheek…Bah Humbug!

I mean, Merry Christmas.

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Grump

We’ve had fantastic fall weather this year in the mountains. The leaves took a long time to change, and there are still plenty on the trees. It’s been almost like summer, right up until last week, with our first snowfall. A warming climate is a growing concern, but it has been hard to see that big picture lately while still biking in shorts in the middle of October.

And yet, despite the excellent weather, I’ve been depressed and angry. I’m not the type to put my fist through a wall or throw things; instead, I hold it all in and ruminate. One could argue the latter does more damage in the long run.

This melancholy happens to me this time of year, but usually a little later. I suspect it’s a combination of several things.

I’m weary from the last three years. But, unfortunately, rather than getting easier, this difficult period in our collective history seems to keep compounding. As if we all haven’t had enough, inflation is up, spending is down, and even more financial stress is on the horizon.

Then there is the constant deluge of negative news. Editorial cartooning, the other half of my business, requires I turn my daily focus to bad actors with nefarious agendas, lying and cheating their way into powerful positions. Around the world, people dissatisfied with their current leaders seem content to vote for any alternative, even when a second’s reflection quickly reveals that the new boss is far worse than the old one. Most of these button-pushing zealots’ plans stop at ‘get the power.’

I’m not sleeping well, I have no appetite, and under all of it is a growing sense of futility, especially as a self-employed artist. More than once in recent days, I’ve considered chucking it all and going back to a real job. Last month, a complete medical checkup revealed I’ve no physical health issues. All numbers are in the green, with no red flags.

Mentally, however, I’m struggling.

This is not a ploy for sympathy because, seriously, who among us hasn’t got reasons to feel blue and lost lately? Another local business closed last week. A friend had two close family members die this year, one after another. So everybody is struggling in one way or another.

What weighs most heavily on me is how so many are taking it out on each other. Thankfully, I don’t have to see it on social media anymore. Killing those platforms was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. But people are becoming bolder and more abrasive in real-world interactions, and I find it profoundly disturbing.

Anyone who takes out their frustration over a long lineup, on the grocery store clerk who actually showed up for work, should have to return to the back of the line.

Ironic that so many of us hated the lockdowns, being told we couldn’t go anywhere or socialize. Now that everything has opened again, I’ve found I prefer to stay home and avoid people by choice.

No, I’m not special. Neither are you. We’re all going through some tough shit.

I’m just explaining the source of this latest painting.
I have been working on another cute, happy painting of a grizzly bear for the past couple of months. I’m recording the process and writing a narrative to go with it. These videos take a lot more time than a regular piece. Recording the painting, writing the text, recording the voice-over, selecting the music, and editing it all add hours to the work.

I don’t want to rush it, but I didn’t want to go too long without a new painting to share and add to my licensing. While perusing my extensive library of reference images, looking for a subject to paint, the happy, genial photos weren’t resonating with me.

Then I came across a series of photos I’d taken of Griffin, a lion at Discovery Wildlife Park. In a couple of shots, he looked a little annoyed. Considering my present dark cloud perspective and frustration, it felt right.

Naturally, I exaggerated the expression to make him look downright grumpy, hence the title. The more I painted, the more it felt like a self-portrait.

I know that people who buy and license my work are looking for happy, whimsical wildlife paintings to make them feel good. I also know my role in this relationship, and I’m delighted to play it most of the time. I get a lot of satisfaction and joy from my work, and I’m glad many of you enjoy it, too.

But art is often cathartic and a means of expressing our emotions, whether for the person creating it or those it touches.

Though this lion’s expression isn’t happy, I can still see some comedy in it. But make no doubt about it. He’s pissed off, unimpressed, and wants to be left alone.

As with every painting, once released into the wild, I have no control over how people feel about it or whether this grump will connect. But I have a couple of other paintings that aren’t so happy and cheery, and they’ve found their audience, so who knows?

When I’m at the Calgary Expo or a Mountain Made Market, people often repeat the same lines I’ve heard dozens of times. So I’ll confess to having a few stock responses at the ready. It’s impossible to avoid once you have phrases you know connect with people.

While standing at the booth or table, gazing at the wall of paintings before them, some will say, “they’re all so happy!”

I’ll agree with them but offer, “Well, maybe not the Ostrich. He’s got a bit of an attitude problem.”

Or I might advise caution around the Ring-tailed Lemur. “He’s not quite all there.”

Sometime down the road, I’ll undoubtedly have some more advice if I stock prints of this latest painting. “Careful around that grumpy lion. He’s having a bad day.”

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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

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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.