When the Moon Turns Orange

Posted on August 7, 2017 by JeanEB

British Columbia is on fire. 5000 square kilometres of forest, brush and grassland have been burning for weeks. So far, here on the island we had been spared. That is, until our own beloved forest at the end of the road was set on fire. Twice.

On the mainland around 130 fires are burning, including 16 new ones that started on Friday. 45,000 people were evacuated in July and they say this is the 2nd worst year recorded for fires in terms of size and that was before forest fire season even ‘officially’ began. August is usually the worst month for fires and this year it will be even worse than worst.

So far, Vancouver Island has been spared any large out of control fires. At times we could see across the tops of the mainland coast mountains a thick band of dark air spread as far as you could see in either direction. After many weeks of fires, this week the smokey air finally spread across the Strait to us as well and we’ve been viewing the sun, which also brought a so-called heat wave, through an enveloping haze. We inhale the smokey air from thousands of miles away. The almost-full moon shines orange.

Qualicum Beach – The mainland has vanished!

One evening around 9:00 a couple of weeks ago we heard the fire truck sirens, wave after wave of them. The sound of bad news. Close. The fire was in our forest. It was burning right along one of the walking paths, along the top of a steep bank along the creek, around the brush of a large tree that fell last winter. Before it was extinguished it had spread through the pile of brush and branches, through a large old stump and up a couple of huge Douglas firs burning the bark on one side to a height of about 20 feet.

Here’s the thing. I can tell you for sure there was no lightning strike that night. We never (never say never) get lightning around here, there were no clouds and we have had 3 days of rain since the beginning of June. No machinery was operating. There was no illegal campfire in that location by the path on a steep bank. A casual flick of a cigarette butt by an ignoramus out for an evening stroll? Meh. I don’t buy it.

Then, last week, 6:30 in the morning, the sirens started up again. This time I went down the road where a few of us watched…well, not much to watch really, from where we were, other than fire water trucks filling up from the hydrant and going in and out of the road through the forest. Fire department vehicles from 3 neighbouring towns had been called in plus the RCMP.

Later that morning I went in to take a look. This time, the bad guys had set a fire way beyond the beaten track, where no righteous citizens walk, at the back of the meadow, through some thick brush. I don’t know how it was discovered or who discovered it and called it in, but once again a larger tragedy was averted.

The heavy smokey air from the mainland descended upon us the next day, which was very unsettling, not really knowing where the smell was coming from – from a thousand miles away or from another fire start in the forest at the end of the road. But our little drama that ended well pales before what those people in affected areas on the mainland are going through this summer.

I follow the blog of a woman named Chris Czajkowski (Wilderness Dweller: One Woman’s Life in the Wilderness), who for over 30 years has lived in the BC interior, off-grid, building her cabins by herself, hiking miles to the nearest road and all that, and writing 12 books about her life. I’ve devoured them all. Her last half dozen posts have been about being smack in the middle of the fire action. From her house she can see several of the fires burning, watch helicopters flying by with their big buckets to go replenish in the lakes, and has had to evacuate once already and may need to leave again imminently. A great read about what it’s been like and she takes lots of pictures.

And So It Begins – Again

Posted on June 18, 2017 by JeanEB

The noise begins, my heart lurches and my summer harmony turns on its ear. It will take who knows how many solitary forest walks to sort this one out and hold on to my peace of mind. The humans are out in force to destroy my landscape.

We’ve lived in this house for 6 years now. and we have been lucky to have a large vacant property behind us. Large trees and brush have provided coverage and habitat for wildlife and from my backyard I watch the birds doing their thing, attracted by the berries of the mountain ash and the early flowering salmonberries. One day I walked over there to trim back a bramble bush that was overtaking our fence and inadvertently disturbed a family of deer taking a nap in the brush cover.

I always knew I was living on borrowed time. And borrowed landscape.

The Japanese have an expression for it. Shakkei, borrowed scenery. The art of incorporating what lies beyond, into the garden. In our case, our borrowed scenery was the trees and that is part of the source of the upset. Those trees seemed part of the garden view, even though a fence separates the properties.

Now the property has changed hands and the new owners are getting ready to start construction on what is no doubt their dream home. The bulldozers, backhoes and other heavy machinery have been on the lot cutting down the huge cedars that used to be part of what remains of the forest at the end of the road to make way for the new house. The mountain ash that backs the corner of our property and provides a stopping off point and food for hundreds of songbirds that I enjoy watching daily was yanked out of the ground by the machine in a matter of seconds and dumped on the heap. I cry.

Unlike many in this neighbourhood that completely clearcut the lots for new builds, due to a lack of imagination and a desire no doubt to build cheaper and easier, these people have left a few trees behind and for those crumbs I have to be grateful. A bit of my borrowed landscape remains. But the droning and clashing I listen to now from the machines foretells the noise and upset ahead for the summer to come. I fear for my garden refuge where I live outdoors all day and evening too in summertime. I’m not counting on that for this year.

It’s all far too much deja vu. Six years ago, the day we moved into this house after returning to Canada for good after our time in Asia, our new next door neighbour on the other side, a builder and developer, came over to meet us over the fence and informed us that that wonderful lush, park-like acre and a half property next door was about to be razed and scraped and clear cut to create a bare, level stretch of dirt to build 3 houses on. It was a hard time living through all that and it took a very long time to get over it, if indeed I ever have.

I think about what’s going on in this one little neighbourhood as a micro version of what’s happening everywhere, as humans continue to decimate the natural spaces to fuel the beast of supporting too many people on this planet. Some say that we (humans) are “destroying the planet” but that’s not really accurate. Planet Earth will eventually transform into something unrecognizable, as it has many times before. It’s the humans and other life species that will be long gone. We’re not destroying the planet, we’re destroying ourselves.

Meanwhile I daydream about living in a garden where I can neither see nor hear any neighbours. In these suburban gardens we delude ourselves into thinking we have privacy because of all the fences and hedges we put up between us. But we’re still plenty close enough to hear and see what’s on the other side of the fence. Much too close.

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The Most Isolated Country in the World – NZ Part 4

Posted on June 11, 2017 by JeanEB

“Bullshit!” I said aloud, almost spluttering my Diet Root Beer onto the pages of the guide book.

Here’s the very first line of this glossy, picture filled book on New Zealand. I’m naming names – looking at you Eyewitness Travel New Zealand.

“New Zealand is one of the most isolated countries in the world” it states with confidence.

WTF?

Isolated? Let’s talk about Fiordland, in the far south of the country, with its challenging geography of mountains and valleys and fiords and coastline, lightly populated. Here’s how to get there. Go to the airport, in my case Vancouver, get on a plane to Auckland, 12 hours later get off the plane, transfer to another plane for an hour-ish flight to Queenstown, rent a car and go. The roads are paved, there’s internet, the locals even speak English and most of the time you can understand what they are saying.

Far from isolated, it is very accessible. And there lies the other side of the coin.

I went to New Zealand last fall to be far away – eager to be away from the raucous political noise of the northern hemisphere. I wanted to explore more of a country I had so thoroughly enjoyed on my first visit. I looked forward to a change of scenery, and I wanted it to be breathtaking.

I found all that and more. But guess what? I’m not the only one, and I had the definite feeling that far from being in exploring mode, and not in the slightest bit feeling “isolated” instead I was following a very well-beaten tourist track.

New Zealand is one of the easiest countries I’ve traveled to. Once in Fiordland, you can drive around, take a boat ride on the fiords, hike for days through the well maintained system of tramping tracks, rent a helicopter or plane for a tour above all this gorgeousness or even, if all of that is too much, visit the movie theater in Te Anau where during the day, every hour on the hour they screen a beautiful movie made of the awesome Fiordland scenery, filmed mostly from helicopter.

Check out this 4 minute trailer for a taste of what this beautiful landscape looks like…

A Real Most Isolated Place on Earth

I’m reading a book right now about a place called Pemako, in eastern Tibet and a man’s quest over a number of years and 8 separate expeditions to reach its most innermost gorges and legendary waterfalls that no Western explorer had yet to find – a place of tales and rumours that inspired the story of Shanghri La.

Previous explorers – English military officers on geographical surveys to map the far reaches of the British empire, plant hunters and curious adventure seekers as well as Tibetan lamas on pilgrimage had been turned back in their quests to reach this innermost gorge. The seekers climbed up and down mountain cliffs, hacked through thick, tangled vegetation, faced torrential rains, hail, lightning, river rapids, landslides, poisonous snakes, gnats, and coped with masses of leeches. One of the travelers woke up one night to find a leech in his mouth, firmly attached and sucking blood.

In addition to these considerable obstacles, there are human problems as well. 19th/early 20th century explorers had to contend with tribes who took great exception to their desire to cross this land, sometimes attacking and murdering those who passed through. Porters sometimes abandoned them mid-journey and nowadays there was the Chinese military presence to deal with, or avoid. Not only is this Tibet, occupied by China, it is also in the place of the disputed border lands between India and China.

Through his expeditions to this area Ian Baker, studies the accounts of the earlier attempts as well as the Tibetan Buddhist mythology surrounding this landscape that is considered a sacred place. No one was able to tell him precisely how to get where he wanted to be and those Tibetan early accounts of pilgrimage to this region were often deliberately vague in directions while at the same time framing the geographical landmarks in mystical meaning. The author, who lives in Kathmandu, is a scholar of Buddhism and speaks Tibetan, was ultimately able to connect the dots between the geographic and spiritual accounts of earlier voyages to guide him to find what he seeks. Each trip to the region lasted many weeks and in addition to all the geographical challenges making their way through the terrain they also faced illness on the trail, dwindling food supplies and accidental falls. What settlements they came upon were very small, just a few dwellings and many days’ hike away from any kind of larger center. They were on their own.

This sounds more like “isolated” to me.

“They are nice falls aren’t they. I’ve always hoped someone would discover them.”

On the last trip the team was successful and were able to find the hidden falls in this deepest gorge on the planet, confirming that the tales of this sacred place so central to Tibetan Buddhism were true and it really did exist. The discovery was announced by National Geographic and heralded as a great achievement of geographical exploration. But in the end, our hero is ambivalent about it and questions the wisdom of the outside world knowing about this. At the time of that last excursion, they crossed paths with a very large Chinese expedition looking for the same thing. This Chinese group was unsuccessful but part of what they were there for was to scope out the feasibility of creating a huge hydroelectric dam that would be larger than Three Gorges, that would mean flooding and destroying this entire area so sacred to the Tibetan people to divert water and power elsewhere in China. Gotta fuel the machine. For now the goddesses and spirits that rule this place have kept them away. For now.

Postscript New Zealand

Would I go back to New Zealand? Absolutely I would. Will I? Stay tuned. I have a couple of other things on my very short list of foreign destinations.

But one thing I came back with, after overdosing on all that gorgeous scenery of Fiordland, was a very strong desire to further explore my own beautiful adopted province of British Columbia. So off to do just that this summer.

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