I'm Going to Camp Out on the Land; I'm Gonna Try an' Get My Soul Free

So, was it fun? No, the Vancouver Island MusicFest wasn't fun. It was, in parts:

Inspirational. Entertaining. Breathtaking. Hilarious. Spiritual. Happy. Difficult. Relaxing. Exhausting. Incredible.

Bashu serenades the river

We wouldn't know where to begin to explain the scenario. On a superficial level, we camped at the volunteer campsite, thrice worked in the kitchen, and saw a lot of music. But that description completely overlooks countless crucial and experience-defining details.

Photo by Ron Pogue

Hippie festival-goers in the midst of a mudfight.  Photo by Ron Pogue.

For example: That after six days in a campsite with six or seven other people, after comparing our cases of river itch, after watching a complex interplay develop between various camp-members, after celebrating a birthday and creating music together every single night!...we had taken on an almost familial relationship to each other. This is our camp-family:

Uncle Cathy fashions herself a bra.

Melanie's "55 and Fabulous" celebration

Melanie constructs a fortress of scarves.

Steff's salmon-barbecuing lesson

Or how about the magical way that, once one of us began to play a guitar, other volunteers from other camps would descend like drunken, delighted insects upon a throbbing melodic flame?

A veritable jamfest

How could we begin to describe the way that on the last night, a complete stranger with an accordion borrowed a guitar of ours, and we began a parade at 2 a.m. that other musical volunteers joined with their various and sundry instruments? The way we found ourselves in a procession of at least fifty people, with guitars, lutes, fiddles, drums, a concertina, and a trombone, singing "Hava Nagila"? That our parade collided with an impromptu wedding procession, led by a security guard? That the we and the newlyweds waltzed whimsically to "Auld Lang Syne"? Did this even really happen, we asked ourselves the next day.

The happy couple- photo by Ron Pogue

What about our three kitchen shifts, how were they? Enjoyable! Did we really sing for the duration of the final shift, as we prepared and served lunch for 1,300 volunteers and performers?

Kitchen staff

After our first shift

And the music! The constant stream of musician after musician! The bottomless pool of talent! The skill, the way the musicians were so wholly attuned (no pun intended), the complexity of style, the simplicity of style, and the magic that overtook everyone once the music began to play!

Did we really see Alison Krauss, Randy Newman, and David Crosby in one weekend? Did it really happen at all?

Alison Krauss and Union Station

The MarchFourth Marching Band

Let's take back that original statement. VI MusicFest was tremendous fun.

Next up! The fine city of Vancouver, then Steff and Nancy return to the land!

Note: special thanks to Mandy, Marni, and Karen for the use of their wonderful photos! Also, readers: feel free to leave a comment behind. Tell us about your wondrous, trippy, or dionysian festival experiences!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

Down By The Seaside

5/7/11

Twelve days and a fuel pump have passed since the last entry!

We write now from Sylvia's house in Port Alberni, where she very kindly invited us to stay. Sylvia's has been our home base, before we left for Tofino, then again when we got back. Tofino's a fun story...

A small traffic jam we encountered. There was no honking; everyone got out of their cars, walked around, and met their neighbours. Canadians are almost as good at queuing as New Zealanders!

...We thought we smelled gas the whole way there. We assumed that it was our little gas tank, which we bought to help us get up and over the Rockies in a few weeks. We strapped it to the roof and proceeded on our merry way, but the smell wouldn't go away. Once we arrived in Tofino, we stopped for lemon slices (as you do), and were horrified to find, on returning to the van, that we had a significant leak. It turns out that all those gravel roads aren't so great for your fuel pump...

Note the sign in the window...

So on our first day in Tofino, we sight-saw at the mechanic's. In fact, we also slept at the mechanic's (free camping, bonus!). One day and $300 later, we were back up and running. We splurged on a whale-watching tour with four Germans, one of whom lost his breakfast over the side, another of whom missed all the whales while trying to capture them on film. But we saw gray whales (young and old), a humpback repeatedly breaching, porpoises, Harbour seals (like the one we helped rescue), California sea lions, and Steller sea lions. Oh, and the bears. Three of them, black bears. And the bald eagles, building a nest atop a 700-year-old cedar. Definitely worth the splurge.

Steff and a California sea lion

That evening we watched the "Tuff City" skateboarding finals, and the fireworks for Canada Day, and Steff bought an awesome hat. In that order:

The kid in front of us break-danced through the entire competition! Dance, little boy, dance!

From the stoned teenagers in front of us: "Wow, this is unreal!! Can any of you guys believe this is actually happening?!"

Then Nancy got an awesome hat to match Steff's awesome hat:

Willie Westy's photobomb!

Oh, right, and the beach. The beach made us realise how we tend to take certain things for granted. We had had scores of people tell us about the wonders of Tofino beaches. Yet, after having seen the beaches, we maintained that it was the lakes that took our breath away. That's not to say that the beaches weren't incredible, but rather, that they're not as sacred for us, because they're not as rare. In North Auckland, we were minutes away from eleven or twelve beaches; in Canada, beaches are few and far between. Or apart, as it were. But lakes are in abundance, and many we spoke to were not nearly as impressed by them as we were. Decide for yourself. Behold, Long and Wick Beaches, BC:

Nancy learns about "Dangerous Currents at Wickaninnish!"

Nancy climbs the driftwood.

  

Miles upon miles of driftwood!

Steff is high on life!

Camera nose-dives into sand. Nancy inspects anxiously.

A bit of housekeeping:

1. This is a guinea fowl. It's a pretty fowl-looking bird! (Get it, get it? No? Never mind.)

2. For those of you who have been following Nancy's quest for the perfect pooch, he has been found! He's an Airedale-Irish Terrier cross, and here he is, in all his glory:

Next up! The Vancouver Island Musicfest! Your intrepid journeywomen stretch their volunteering muscles again, this time in the kitchens, feeding the masses. Stay tuned!



The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

I Hear Lake Water Lapping With Low Sounds By the Shore...

23/6/11

Now we're somewhere (we're not entirely sure where) on the shores of Great Central Lake. How we got here is also something of a mystery, because we didn't know where we were for a lot of the bushwacking  that we had to undertake to get here. We had to take it in two turns, and were very surprised when we actually popped out where we'd intended.

But let's start at the beginning, shall we?

We left our overpriced campsite at the popular Rathtrevor Provincial Park on the morning of the 21st after a bittersweet goodbye to Gabriola. We had gotten directions to a free campsite in a "backroads map" book, and, having been burned by Rathtrevor's exorbitant fees, we were willing to go the distance for free accomodation. 

It would appear that Google/Google Maps/the Internet in general have never heard of Scout Beach Recreation Site. This is no surprise, because not many of the locals in surrounding towns have, either. This should have given us some idea of the extreme journeying we were about to embark on. It didn't. On we went.

We drove through Port Alberni, then peeled off the highway onto a beautiful country road. Then we peeled off the beautiful country road onto a beautiful gravel road. Then we peeled off the gravel road onto Ash River Main Logging Route, Branch 83 (unmarked. Also, the map book had dyslexically directed us to Branch 38). Convinced we were going the wrong way (although, incredibly, we were not), and concerned about the lack of gas in our tank, we doubled back to the highway and the petrol station, then turned around and did it all again. This time we persisted down Branch 83; it forked in two, and we took the high road. Confused, discouraged, and ready to kill each other, we took a left at the next fork and came out of the forest into a clearing on the shores of Great Central Lake: Scout Beach Recreation Site. From where we sit now in our campsite, we overlook a breathtakingly clear blue body of water, surrounded by snow-capped peaks with a fine dusting of pines along the water's edge. 

Grand Central Lake is incredibly vast. Standing on the shore, whether it is sunny or shrouded in fog, the view is staggeringly mystical.

Looking back at the road when we arrived, we made an executive ruling to stay here a while.

In spite of the water's stunning clarity, we haven't had the intestinal fortitude to get in yet. In our defense, although it's almost July, today's peak temperature couldn't have exceeded 14 degrees Celsius (57 F). 

But we haven't been bored, oh no. For a start, we've challenged ourselves to see how many ways one can make a meal out of a salmon on a two-burner number in a van. Without a pantry.

Along Highway 4, we made an abrupt decision to stop for fresh salmon, being tempted by signs for it everywhere. Our salesman was a young guy, maybe 18. We asked him about prices.

"Oh, let's say $12," he told us.

"For a fillet?" we asked.

He laughed and beckoned us to his cooler. "For this."

And he held up a whole, fresh salmon of, oh, five kilos. We Kiwis are accustomed to paying $30-40 per kilo in New Zealand for salmon! 

"Done! And throw in some of the home-smoked stuff as well!"

And so, on our third day at the campsite, we woke up, looked at each other, and said, in unison, "I can't eat one more salmon fillet."

Which is how we met Sylvia, our neighbour. On the day we arrived (and blinking, stepped into the sun), Steff filleted the salmon--and felt pretty gung-ho about it (Thanks, Nancy's dad, for the filleting lessons!). We looked at our three full Gladware containers and estimated, rightly, that we couldn't eat that much. We took one container as an offering to the woman in the RV labeled "Betty Beastie" in the site next to ours. She accepted, and we fell into conversation, learning that had been a mechanic in the army in her youth (which came in handy when the hose for our sink disconnected and began to leech oily, fragrant water into the floor and carpet of the van). We also learned that she now plays the fiddle for fun. Hearing this, we went back to the van, grabbed the guitars, and had a fiddle-jam. Sylvia, a fiery redhead, played with great gusto, and we followed along as best we could. Then we did a few Cat Stevens and Neil Young numbers. We didn't believe we'd find any other people down here, let alone a friend. We learned that it's amazing what you can make out of a $12 salmon.

So yes, we're keeping busy at this humble campsite of ours. In terms of facilities, it has a long drop*. And really, what more does one need?

*North Americans find this name hilariously literal. They call them "outhouses" and laugh long and hard when they find out what we've christened them "down under".

29/6/11

We spent another half-week or so at the campsite, and had a wonderful time:

-We finally built up the courage to swim in the lake. We didn't actually get so far as swimming, but we walked in up to our calves. By this point, our bodies had exhausted most of their energy in keeping warm, and we only had enough energy left to dunk our heads in the water and give them a wash. Steff got severe brainfreeze, but there comes a point when one's interest in stinking a bit less supersedes one's interest in survival and self-preservation. Nancy had to spend an hour in bed before the feeling returned to her toes. 

Pre-hypothermia. Note the snow on the mountains behind Steff.

-Steff found herself a boyfriend. He describes her as a "beautiful, tall, blonde woman". "Tall?!" you may be asking yourself, incredulously. To be fair, he is seven. And he's in love! He visited us on his mini-BMX as often as his relentlessly teasing brother would allow. He brought Steff tokens of his affection, like a Budweiser taken from his camp's cooler, or a trout he caught on the lake (meant to be dinner for his family that night). Be still, Steff's heart!

-We made a nightly ritual of hanging out with Steff's new in-laws and their family friends. They'd build a campfire, we'd play guitar and sing, and they would reward us with fire-roasted steak and wieners (tee-hee!). Then we'd solve the world's problems until late in the night. By the end of the week, we had added to our ever-growing extended family. Many thanks to our camp-neighbours for their generosity (we may have cleaned out their supply of marshmallows and hot dogs) and kindness (Wayne walked us back to the van in the dark every night to make sure we got back safe and sound).

And although the site was crashed by a group of teenagers who built up a huge bonfire, got completely inebriated, then drove drunkenly off into the night, we tried not to let their thunderous music disrupt our little sanctuary.

What happened next, you ask? Naturally, we drove to Tofino. We couldn't not, after having twenty or thirty Vancouver Islanders and Gabriolans urge us to go!

The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.

Island in the Stream

Life, we realised, seems to be a series of well-disguised lessons. This, in itself, was one of many lessons we learned during our month on Gabriola Island. We realised this from an odd vantage point, mud-splattered, knee-deep in soil, and filled with a joie de vivre we hadn't felt since late childhood.

Prior to our time on Gabriola, we had never planted a Douglas fir, battled honeysuckle vines, or felled a Balsam. We couldn't mulch a trail to save our lives, and any fire we may have built before smouldered by comparison against the monstrous infernal blaze we created at Claire and Jan's.

This is a salmonberry. We foraged for them, like real hunter-gatherers! In Ken and Shirley's backyard...

But our experiences on the island can hardly be defined in terms of the practical skills we gained: our learning was multifaceted. The "life lessons" are far more difficult to enumerate, hidden as they were in the forms of the people we met on the way.

As WWOOFers, we were welcomed into the homes of complete strangers, pronounced family, and treated as nothing less. We were the beneficiaries of guided tours of Gabriola Island; we participated in community events as locals. And from our privileged local perspective, we were more than favourably impressed by the town. Gabriola is a place in which nobody is a stranger, where not only does everybody know their neighbours, but they take as great a responsibility for them as they would their own family.

The people of Gabriola built a number of extremely successful, community-run operations, such as GIRO.

The GIRO clothing store

The Gabriola Island Recycling Organization is a place where residents of Gabriola can be found in hordes on Wednesdays and Saturdays, sifting through a treasure trove of pre-loved neighbourhood belongings. GIRO had anything you might want, from knitting needles to porta-potties. We can admit to having found some treasure there ourselves!

Nancy outside GIRO

Gabriola is also home to the Commons, another organisation put together and managed by the community. From the website:

"The Gabriola Commons is a grassroots community organization, managed by volunteers, that exists to nourish the social fabric of the community; to ensure the ecological sustainability of the land and assets; to remain in perpetuity as a public trust for future generations; to provide ongoing community service; and to demonstrate democratic and equitable stewardship."

Claire very kindly drove us to the Commons to show us around the youth and senior community gardens, the shared industrial tool shed, and the communal kitchens. When we arrived at the kitchen, the weekly shared soup lunch was in progress, and we were welcomed inside for a bowl of hot soup by those in attendance. It was good, too.

And who could have guessed that an island so small featured so many fascinating walking trails, through forest, down beaches, past lakes and estuaries? Or that this teensy hunk of land provided a home for a wealth of animal life?

From our trip to the alpaca farm

"How you doin'?"

One of Gabriola's 20,984,358,763,487 deer

Our last day on Gabriola was three days long. On the first, we went to say goodbye to Ken and Shirley, and were invited to stay the night. We did. On the second, we went to the Farmer's Market and hit all the garage sales that Claire and Jan had told us about. We found dozens of Berenstain Bears books, and we couldn't resist: we bought the lot for $0.50 and dropped them off at McDonald Farm for our toddler buddy. When we returned to Ken and Shirley's to grab our stuff, we found the couple in the middle of saving a baby seal. They invited us to come and help. We did (to the best of our limited ability).

By this point, it was getting late, so we called on a woman we had met briefly at a dance two weeks earlier. She invited us to stay at her house: although she wasn't going to be home, she would leave the door open for us. She told us to let ourselves in, have a shower, and make ourselves at home. We did, very gratefully! On the third day, as we prepared to leave, this woman, who we now know as Uncle Cathy, told us that she was volunteering at the tango festival, and invited us to join her. We looked at each other and realised there was no way we were leaving on this day, either.

After a tango-Feldenkreis workshop, a milonga with live music, and a post-festival potluck at the neighbours', we returned to Cathy's where we had a small party of our own, not getting to bed until 3am. Special thanks to Cathy for her relentless hospitality.The following day, we farewelled Gabriola for good. We will miss it terribly.

An aside/series of anecdotes: This is Cathy's geriatric dog Clancy. Clancy is a peculiar pup, for a number of reasons. For one thing, she thinks she's a cat. She washes her faces with her paws like a cat, and she sits on a couch as a cat might, as shown below.

For another, she obsessively rearranges rocks. She digs furtively in gardens, in pools, at the beach, anywhere there might be rocks, in order to find the one rock that's in the wrong place. She will scrutinise an area until she's found the right rock. She will then go to any length to collect that rock in her mouth (we saw her thrust her entire head underwater for almost a minute once), and replace it elsewhere. Elsewhere could be two inches to the left, or a five minute jaunt away, but that placement was just as important as rock selection: it had to be perfect, and she wouldn't rest until it was.

Lastly, Clancy had an interesting affinity for a certain teddy bear. She wouldn't play with, chew, or partake in any other well-adjusted dog-behaviour with the teddy: she humps it. She humps with such fervour that her little head begins to thump against the ground, and...well, see for yourself:

Ah, yes. It was certainly a shame to say goodbye to Gabriola.


The Quest Quotient by Nancy Howie and Steff Werman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at thequestquotient2011.blogspot.com.