Dusk

A view of the dusk lights of Gold Bridge from a hill across the river from town.

I am stumbling over how to start this post. It probably has to do with the work I have done today, a professional day, pouring over vast quantities of information on Restorative Justice on the internet. Searching that was interspersed with clicking on links leading to the occasional interesting Youtube clip or blog roll. Information in. Tangled strings of thought, not pausing long enough to digest what is coming before there is again more, something related but different, more words, more of someone else’s thoughts jumbling up with my own. When I spend too long on the net it makes me feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of information that’s out there. I need to remind myself that it’s okay to get lost, to surf, and that eventually I just might wade out onto the exact shore I was searching for in frenzied map-less abandon.

There are lots of things to say. I killed the mouse last week. Put a smudge of crunchy peanut butter in the tiny mouse-sized bowl to lure the animal to its death and placed the set trap gingerly under the kitchen sink. I went upstairs to bed and lay awake thinking that each pop of the fire sounded different than the one preceding it; each new bang sent me straining to hear an imagined whisper of violent scratching as the little animal twitched itself stiff, the thought finally drifting away into a smog of sleep. When I awoke I immediately looked under the sink. The mouse was there, as cute as anything, bristled full whiskers, glass-black eyes still open, staring with life as peanut butter was just about to BANG! I flung its tiny body out onto the snow in the hopes it would serve as a meal for a passing crow, reset the trap, and it has been empty ever since. I thought about the little mouse all day. Thankfully she didn’t seem to have started a family yet.

Skiing yesterday was AMAZING!!!!! That’s all I am going to say.

Returned home to bare streets, the snow having washed away with the warm rain that must have soaked the town while I was walking up a mountain in heavy snowfall. Everything is muddy and the streets are strewn with ridges of gravel that was spread to keep the trucks from slipping.

On the drive home last night I saw a cougar. It lit across the road like a shooting star, and disappeared up the steep embankment beside the road so quickly it was gone before my thoughts could process what I had just seen. I immediately pulled over, stared up into the darkness, narrowing my eyes, hoping to see something moving between the black silhouettes of the sentry trees. Squinting in vain, of course, the animal probably watching me safely beyond the range of my daylight eyes. It was HUGE and healthy-looking, its white belly glowing in the bright of my high beams, streaking across the road like a rumor of an animal. A trace of body, of tail, of whiskers. I had to turn off the audio book (Three Cups of Tea—super interesting, highly recommended) to drive on in silence for a while once I had re-caught my breath. What a magnificent animal.

On my walk through the woods tonight as the light bled from the sky I was thankful to have my two hundred pound walking companion. A powerful wind sent the trees into conversation like a flock of rusty barn doors left to shriek and whine the rest of their days away, no longer of use in a horseless field. The half moon lit my steps as I paced the road up to Gun Lake, the wind trickling through the thread-holes in my down jacket, Sanford panting at my heels. I thought about the cougar I could barely see, wondering what, on this windy night, could see me.

I’m finished with the blah blah for tonight, so here are some pictures. I have decided I am in love with the trees around here. Enjoy. Remember to click on the pictures to view them in large.

Lillooet, Round 2

I start this post sitting on a friend’s couch in Lillooet. A second weekend in a row out of Gold Bridge. It's the first time this has happened since I moved there last August. I think I needed the double-dose of “civilization” to get me through this lonely January stretch, if you can call a town of 4,000 that. Even though there is not a single stoplight in the whole town there are enough people living here to keep Main Street flowing with a steady trickle of cars during the daylight hours. The best part is that the drivers of the vehicles are, for the most part, strangers. There is something transpersonal about being anonymous. Something relaxing. I don’t have to wave. I don’t have to stop and chat. Although I don’t mind doing this in Gold Bridge, I do appreciate the contrast.

This week my upbeat persona was burning at full heat. I’m back to optimal health, and the skiing last weekend was phenomenal, as were my walks this week with Sanford and my time in the school with the kids. Life feels sunny and bright, like a spacious white room with blank walls, rather than a dingy darkened hallway; instead I am faces once again with an open canvas that I am inspired and have the energy to paint. We have been getting more snow in Gold Bridge, which is SUPER exciting for this backcountry girl. I also had a wonderful chat with my uncle who works in an alternate education program for teens in Ontario, and he gave me some great ideas that I am keen to use in my classroom. He also sent me some interesting titles on using Restorative Justice practices in the classroom, which I am keen to tuck in to. A little breath of fresh inspiration; just the type of thing that I need every so often as a new teacher working on my own in a one-room school.

Today I spent the day hanging out with a very spiritually-minded, earth-loving friend. We hung out by the river for hours upon hours, leaning into the wind, resting our backs against trees, staring down at the murky Frazer, its edges frozen in opaque white, its cloudy brown liquid pulsating up from the depths in waves slapping the rocks at the edge of the ice. We watched silent ice chunks riding the surges downriver, we threw rocks. We philosophized about purpose and energy and spirit. It was fascinating, although after such in-depth thinking I feel exhausted, and I must get some rest because I’m going touring again tomorrow.

Here is a parting image for you visual types: my favourite picture of the week, although there were a lot of interesting ones. It is an image of my snowy Tuesday walk with Sanford. It was snowing LIKE CRAZY while we walked. Trucks and cars were sliding and stuck on the roads in town. A logging truck had to be pulled from the ditch by another as we made our way down the hill, past the “Welcome to Gold Bridge: Population 43” sign. Tree braches and the bowing power lines were covered in thick ropes of snow. Streetlamps glowed in a fog of diffuse orange light. It was fantastic, and I ran back home to get my camera when I saw how this tree looked silhouetted in front of the soft orange lamplight illuminating the bridge out of town. I’m glad I made the second trip with a camera in hand, because by the morning the wind had swept all the snow from the trees, and the sky was once again a vacant blue.

And here's one of Sanford, since he featured so prominently in my after school activities this week. Such a great dog to have around. This picture is taken outside of one of the abandoned shacks in a deserted jade mining site in town, just a 10 minute walk from my house. There's a bunch of history to this particular place, but that is for another post.

I’ll post some more pictures in the coming days, once my social calendar opens up in the solitude of my wintery home.

Cold Weather Kids

Here's a picture of us braving the cold during our recess and lunch breaks this week. The "face scarf" became the new must-have clothing item. It got to -31 in Bralorne, but only dipped to -25 in Gold Bridge because our close proximity to the river keeps us "warm".

Recovery

Thick snowflakes fall lazily from white sky, letting me know that this morning is a windless one, and before making my way downstairs my gaze traces the low ridge crested with trees just beyond the edge of town. The formation looks inconspicuously regular, nothing out of place to draw the eye’s attention, but I know that on the other side of this small mountain’s edge stands a barren, hollow, empty space, a scar that today is being blanketed in snow. To an eagle in flight looking down at the ridge it would look as if some giant with a hunger for rocks and an ice cream scoop the size of a moving truck scraped away a year’s worth of rocky dessert from the land, although the culprit was we hungry humans, and we used the tons and tons of mountain to build ourselves some dams. This is where our power, and possibly yours, if you live in the lower mainland, comes from. It comes from the dams that make lakes out of the rivers here, in the basin of the Bridge River Valley.

I’ve been thinking about power lately, among other things, as I’m reading a new book: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick. You may be wondering how thoughts of power, and by power I mean the energy supply to heat our homes and light our evening activities, translates into a book on whaling, but the connection is this: whale oil was used to light the lamps of folks in the 19^th century, which in my mind is similar to the damming of rivers that likely powers most of our homes in BC. Kind of a stretch, perhaps, but that’s what isolation does to a mind; the octopus arms of thought can reach a very long way when you have night after night to entertain yourself.

So this is how I start today, in thoughts about dams and rivers, and that initial spark spirals into thinking about how the fish that used to travel all the way here and further to spawn are now halted at the foot of a dam that’s an hour’s drive away and was built with the backside of this mountain that stands in view of my new bedroom window. Funny how things connect when we have the time to let them.

I moved my bedroom upstairs last night. Moved the whole thing, the mattress and box spring, the drawers and tables. Moved all my art supplies and the desk downstairs to the room that was previously my bedroom. Heat rises, and at the suggestion of a wise friend who has been here for a visit I decided it was a swell idea and why not? What better way to spend a Thursday evening?

I’m quite an intense woman—I think you’d have to be to voluntarily choose to move to a place like this knowing you will live alone, sometimes utterly so, in the mountains—and sometimes that intensity flares up inside and fuels on itself, consuming my thoughts and my days. The dark horse of winter was here to visit me this month, and with another bad cold keeping me inside and some intense days at the school the isolation of the January days hit hard this year. Too much time sitting alone with my thoughts, especially living in such contrast to my sunny Christmas vacation. Too many days stuck inside questioning my purpose, life’s purpose, questions to which there is no answer. I get like this sometimes, and when I have sufficiently spent long hours examining multiple angles of non-answer in the solitude of my house staring out the windows, at the pond, at the Chickadees flitting along the sterile branches, eventually it moves on like a wharf fog that comes and goes. The thickest fog comes in with the seasons, when the strong winter air makes the ocean, warm in comparison, mist up into the sky.

I’m usually full of positivity and energy, and to balance that out I suppose it’s necessary that the pendulum swings the other way once-in-a-while. It’s good being here though, because I am learning of the impermanence of life, of those moments when you feel down, and subsequently of the moments when you feel up. Constant change, always, and I think this is a valuable lesson to carry with me throughout my days, to carry as close as I can hold it. This life here is teaching me of this, and how to ride it out, looking forward at where I am going, although sometimes it’s hard not to look back to try and size up the next wave. Sometimes it looks like there is no next wave, and perhaps there isn’t, and you must bob there in the frigid west coast water, the wind pelting your face, the salt stinging your eyes, and then maybe you pee in your wetsuit and it’s warm again for a moment before that too makes its way beyond your body and is gone. And you must wait, and try to practice patience, because the next wave will make its way to you on its own time, and there is not a single thing you can do to make it hurry up and get there.

But it’s hard to wait, and in the anticipation we can sometimes feel stuck, so stuck, until eventually we start to notice the small things, like the taste of ocean on our lips, the barely perceptible rise and fall of the ocean’s heartbeat beneath us, the fact that we are floating exactly here, in this moment, alive, with this particular, often underappreciated view spread out before us like a suppertime tablecloth. A view that is ours to see or to bypass, and sometimes I, like everyone else in this world, need a reminder to look towards the horizon instead of scanning my eyes back and forth along the dark water in search of something more amidst the sea.

I am an intense woman, yes, but on top of that it seems that the experience of life here, living alone in this wilderness environment, is also more intense. The recovery from a low, from this low, feels more immediate, more concentrated, very clear and pure. Or perhaps I am just getting better at letting it wash over me, letting the next wave come and being ready to paddle my way into its belly. That said, out here the human din that’s usually tied up with living in civilization is non-existent. No traffic, no noise pollution (unless water is being let out from behind the nearby Lajoie dam) obscuring the birdsong and distant river, no light pollution competing with the first evening starlight. The sun is still a trace in the sky when the stars first appear here, bright pinpricks of light twitching to life above the ragged mountain horizon.

For now I am on the other side of my dark days. It’s as if a full moon has finally risen in a cloudless sky, and the path I am on is lit once again.

I’ve got a new room to see me through the next year up here, and if I need to I can change it again; after all, I’ve got four more to choose from.

The mouse is back, and to be honest I find the tiny ovals of mouse feces strewn across the counter surprisingly endearing. If anything, this tells me that I need out for a couple of days, and as cute as it may be to be visited in the night by a little critter, “mousetrap” becomes the next item on my shopping list. I’m heading into Lillooet today for the weekend once I finally get my act together and pack. I'm staying with friends--real adults to converse with and share meals with, and we’re planning on heading out on a day of ski touring in the backcountry off the Duffey Lake Road.

For now the snow has ceased, but it will be back. It cycles just like everything else, and as the fan on my wood stove rumbles to life I watch the band of chickadees leave my yard for another and prepare myself for the slow snowy drive into town. 

Fire Watch

I see the flashlight bobbing across the snow before he rounds the corner.

“Are you crazy?”

“Yes,” I say. No hesitation. I think the blunt reply throws him off a little. I stand straight as we speak, the conversation interrupting my rhythm. In the darkness I’m working at shaving off a couple of layers of the split wood from the back of my wood pile, lobbing the pieces over the forward layers into a great pile in the snow before I start stacking it for easy access in the red barn shed. I’ve already burnt up all the wood I piled in there in November, at least a cord, and tonight, with all the wood gone this afternoon, it's time to resupply.

“It’s minus 20 out here. What the hell are you doing splitting wood in this weather?”

“I’m on a roll, and I’m warm enough,” I say, smiling.

“And crazy,” he mutters into the breath cloud mushrooming out in front of him.

Pioneer Paul lives across the road on a bit of a diagonal from me, and he has been my chimney-watcher as I burn up copious amounts of wood and make the usual rookie mistakes. He was the one to alert me when the creosote from the burning was building up in my chimney, and he helped me knock a pile of it out of the pipe leading from my stove; the slow burn all day while I’m at school is apparently not good for soot buildup. Makes sense now that I know about it. Since then I make sure to burn the fire on high at least once a day to clear the pipes out of the little bits of buildup that get caught when it burns slow and smokey all day.

Tonight he came over to shine his flashlight at the pitch-laden icicles dripping from the top of my chimney.

“Know what that is?”

“No,” I say, knowing I’m about to find out. "Icicles?"

“It’s pitch. Yesterday you must have burned green wood, and that there is all the sap from it. You gotta make sure you’re burning the dry stuff, cuz those drops’ll drip right off, get red hot and drip off right onto your roof.”

“Geez. Not good,” I say, pausing and looking at the beam of light hovering over the drips of wax-like gunk hanging from the rim of my round aluminum chimney. The strange smell in the air yesterday and today is no longer a mystery. 

"Not good at all. You don't want that kind of burning sensation," he says.

"No kidding. Personally I don't think I want to experience any kind of burning sensation," I reply dryly. "Thank goodness I have you here keeping an eye on things or I’d burn the house down!” I add, meaning every word about both the burning sensations and the neighbourly help.

“Well, I heard you out here splitting wood and I thought I better come on over and say something, but don’t you worry, it’ll be okay with that stuff I hear you splitting. I can tell just by the sound of the wood, and I can hear that all the stuff you’ve got here is good and dry. You just burn that and you’ll be okay,” he looks over the hay-stacked pile of logs at his feet.

“Yup. This is all good stuff. You got some pine, got some fir. The fir’s real good, so burn that if you got it. Burns twice as long as the other stuff. And don’t you worry, I’ll keep an eye out for ya.”

“Thanks so much Paul. I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t you worry, I was once just learning too, we’re all just learning up here.

I better get going though. It’s frigging FREEZING out here, and you’re crazy and I got no gloves on.”

And with that the beam of light that saw him in leads him back out, and I hear him slip a little and mutter something about how frigging cold it is as he heads up the driveway towards his own waiting fire.

An hour later and my wood is re-stocked, nice dry rounds that’ll burn for a good long while through the cold nights. It was -27 this morning, although that’s nothing compared to the -57 experienced by our school’s northern pen pals in Lower Post, BC. It’s BC’s most northern school, and my students have been participating in an email correspondence with the students of the one-room school since the start of the year. I was hoping to take a school field trip up there to meet them all, but the logistics of getting approval to fly are crazy, and the drive itself is an unimaginable thirty hours. I do love these kids, but thirty hours ONE WAY in a car with them is just undoable. It would make me crazier than I already am, possibly irreparably so. Instead I’m hoping to take them down to Vancouver at some point, if they’re good, of course (haha), but that’s an easier trip to plan so I can let the idea percolate for a couple more months.

The fire is on full blast now that I am back up to a fully stocked supply in the easy-access shed. Full blast means that the back flap is open all the way to let in maximum air. It’s warm in here now that I am not conserving my supply of readily-available burnables, so warm that I had a shower instead of my usual evening bath. I am now settling down to a nice tea with a dollop of local honey sourced by Lillooet’s own Bob the honey guy. I’ve always bought it from the Lillooet Buy Low grocery store, but got a tip that I can just knock on Bob’s door next time thanks to Bob the Conservation Officer who I ran into in the grocery store line-up. I am totally in love with small towns!!! Maybe I’ll pay a visit to Bob to see if we can do a field trip for the kids in the spring to see how he collects all the honey!

Oh, and by the way, the grizz has apparently made his way off into the wilderness well beyond the edges of town. I came back from my Christmas trip to find that he had been back on the prowl for a couple of weeks over the holidays, and he continued to make heavy use of my yard. He stuck around town for another week at the start of January before following the tracks of an injured wolf out of town. I guess it looks like someone shot the wolf in the leg, and the wound must be festering and smelly, the perfect come hither meal scent to drag a hungry bear out of here. It's been almost two weeks since anyone last saw him, so I doubt he'll be back before spring.

The mouse seems to have moved out on its own accord as well. I put out the live trap which remained un-tripped for a couple of days, and I have not seen any mouse signs around since I set it up. Fingers crossed the little bugger moved elsewhere.

So now it's just me, the fire, my tea, and the clack of typing across a glowing keyboard. Have a sweet night! ;)

Skating

On Thursday afternoon I took the kids skating on Tyaughton Lake, about a 20 minute drive away. Last week it rained and rained, and this week it was back to freezing with no new snow, making the skating conditions absolutely spectacular. Tyax Lodge was kind enough to say yes to my request to use their parking lot and washroom facilities, and they even invited us in for a hot chocolate afterwards.

It was my first time on skates in YEARS, and the kids found this quite entertaining, as did I. When I finally finished doing up my own laces and stood for the first time I heard them yell "Miss Lanthier is standing up! She's skating! Let's go help her!" Soon I had a kid on each arm guiding me past the bumpier ice out onto the middle of the lake. They showed me how to stop, turn, skate backwards and penguin dive, and my grade two even said "I don't think you were going fast enough" when I tried my first stop.

"You need to go faster," she said, "like this." Before taking a running start at a hockey stop. Right. Like that.

I have also acquired a pair of old hockey skates to use for the season from a local couple who live on Tyaughton. I am constantly amazed at the generosity of people around here and with their willingness to help a newcomer like myself out.

Here are some pictures of us skating on Tyaughton:

I had so much fun skating that I went out again yesterday to Pierson Pond, which is right across the road from Ken and Shirley's place. Shirley and I were out on the ice ALL DAY! It was absolutely amazing. Completely smooth throughout the whole pond, 360 degree views of mountains and trees. I don't think I will get many opportunities to skate like that in my life, so it was good to spend hours out there to soak it up while it lasted.

After skating Ken and Shirley invited me over for dinner, which is not something to pass up when such invites are few and far in between. It was great to hear some of the stories about their life. Before I left Ken showed me his shop. Inside is a red car he built completely on his own using spare and new parts from other cars. Nothing else like it exists in the world. He also has a 1923 pick-up, in mint condition, which still runs with all its original parts! He's going to come to the school in the spring to give the kids a ride. The truck even has a rumble seat!

It's amazing to learn about the hobbies and projects people around here have. I guess it's necessary to have things to keep us all busy when we are not playing outside. Speaking of which, I feel the need to head out for some more skating before this dusting of snow has a chance to stick to the ice!

Here little mousey mouse...

I've got a treat for you...

What a View

The view of the tip of Sloan from the school this morning.

The picture still looks okay, but I think the focusing mechanism on my zoom lens is broken :( It's been acting up since the humidity of Sri Lanka and was making some horrible grinding sounds as I tried to focus on the sunrise before the clouds folded it back under their covers once again. Serendipitous moments like this are quick here, although thankfully frequent; within a minute this view was gone.

Back to Winter

The rest of the Sri Lanka trip was wonderful, of course. I went out for another morning of surfing before we left. This time I was dropped off at the house of a local who was from the same village of some of the lads working at our hotel. He had a surfboard for me and sent me on my way into the ocean right from his back yard, but could not join me because he had to man his tuk tuk in case a fare arrived. Again I had to glide over the sharp reef to make it out into the deep, and again the waves were relentlessly large and unforgiving. This particular wave broke into an A-frame, so after each thrashing I was able to rest up on the edges before paddling back into the frothy mix of churning salt water.

After a few hours of surfing I went back to their house to drop off the board and head out on a walk down the beach. This guy lived with his sister and mother, and I had a great time asking them questions about their life which he dutifully translated back and forth. In Sri Lanka apparently it’s the eldest daughter’s responsibility to live at home for her whole life and to remain unmarried so that she can care for her parents. If the eldest is a son, he is expected to become a Buddhist monk. Aren’t I thankful I was born in Canada!

The family and I, in spite of our limited ability to converse in words, had a great time together. They asked if I was thirsty and wanted a coconut, which of course I eagerly accepted. The man grabbed a homemade hook that was taped to the end of a long stick, perfect for plucking coconuts off the tree without having to climb. He told me that the yellow coconuts, King coconuts, are good for eating, while the green ones are good for use in cooking.

The whole family watched as I sucked back the sweet coconut water with a straw and ate the inside with a spoon made from a piece that was lobbed expertly off of the top. I liked the coconut so much that the family sent me home with three more when I got a ride back in the family tuk tuk. Before I left the women showed me their lace stand. Beautiful tablecloths, placemats and dresses, all made by hand. When I asked about how they learned it, it seems that the skill is passed from mother to daughter, and that their family has been making lace for a few generations. Nothing like a language barrier to step up one’s body language conversation skills. I’m always amazed by how much understanding is contained in gesture.

I went for a few more walks on the local beach in the days before we left, admiring the glistening bodies of lungfish hopping on the rocks along the waterline and the crabs that were always so quick to dart into a dark crevice when I approached to get a closer look. As I stood out on an outcropping of rocks a fisherman came up to look for schools of fish among the reefs below. He said that he has been fishing this stretch of beach for his whole life, and lives right across the road. I tried to imagine what that must be like, to live in the same place for your entire life, the oceanfront becoming an extension of your front porch. I was again reminded of the tsunami, and the monks chanting each night. Apparently the monks of each temple will visit each house in their vicinity that lost a family member.

It will be interesting to see how tourism and foreign investment change this place in the coming years. There is a second airport currently under construction, as well as a major shipping port. I wonder how people who have relied on self-sustenance agriculture and fishing will be affected once large-scale operations start up with the goal of exporting to foreign markets like China and North America. It’s a little unnerving to think about, but then who am I to judge whether it is a positive or a negative thing. Only the people of Sri Lanka have that right; I am just an outsider looking in.

Before leaving we also went for a bike ride along the rice patties around the hotel. It was incredibly peaceful, and it was great to see all the little laneways unfurling from the more major arteries of roadway that line the coast and the people at work outside their homes and in the nearby fields.

When I arrived back in Vancouver my friend Darin from Oregon met me at the airport, and we drove up to Gold Bridge for my week of work and then down to Whistler to finish off the week with a couple days of snowboarding. It was his first time there, and with the substantial crowds and unfortunate January thaw, it wasn’t the best introduction to the place. It reminds me of why I moved up to Gold Bridge in the first place; to get some great skiing in without negotiating slopes covered with people!

It has been a rainy January here as well, and while this means there is not much skiing as the backcountry snow is heavy and avalanche-prone, it does mean that the skating is FANTASTIC! I was given the name and number of some people that live near Tyaughton Lake and have a cache of old skates, so I called this afternoon to see if I could borrow a pair for the winter. They said the lake is in absolutely amazing condition, smooth as glass because of all the rain and then the drop in the freezing level. So, if I can’t ski, I’ll skate all weekend. Apparently you can skate for two kilometers, the whole length of the lake! How cool!

I do apologize to you devout followers for my scant posts lately, but I needed a bit of a break from blogging. Now that I am on my own again I find that the writing helps me feel a little more connected to myself, and to you out there in the world outside this town.

Here are a couple pictures of what the kids and I got up to this afternoon. A lovely walk down to the local river with our cameras to observe ice formations: P.E., art and science combined!

We love plants!!!

Testing the strength of the ice.

Eventually I’ll get some pictures up of my trip, but for now I feel like I’m fighting yet ANOTHER COLD, so I must make it an early night with a cup of tea and a bedside book to see me off into a peaceful slumber. Happy 2012 everyone!!!!!!!