At Home in Nature Read online

  For Jennie, Sarah and Ashley

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  INTRODUCTION

  1LEAVING THE OLD COUNTRY

  2ALLEGIANCE TO NATURE

  3SETTLING DOWN

  4COSMIC SHACK

  5BACK TO THE LAND COMMUNITY

  6ISLAND SCHOOLING

  7DOMESTIC ANIMALS

  8WILD ANIMALS

  9FIORDLAND BOAT

  10MYSTERY MOUNTAIN

  11DEEP WILDERNESS

  12CANCER

  13AORTA ATTACK

  14OUTER ISLANDS COMMUNITY

  15OFF-GRID HOMESTEAD

  16ORGANIC HOUSE

  17HEAVY WEATHER

  18FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION

  19LEGEND OF KAYAK BILL

  20WHIRLPOOLS IN THE TIDE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FOR EDITING AND ENCOURAGEMENT:

  Judith Wright, Catherine Rubinger, Richard Wood

  FOR ESSENTIAL TIMELY SERVICES PROVIDED IN FARAWAY PLACES:

  Canadian Health Care

  Canadian Coast Guard

  FOR THEIR LOVING SUPPORT:

  Laurie and Kiersten

  INTRODUCTION

  THE SHORT WINTER DAY IS fading fast. A swirling blizzard chills our faces and buffets every step. Exhausted, we slog slowly up through steep virgin forest. Deep, heavy, fresh snow sticks and balls up the climbing skins on our skis and slows us down even more. Our goal is a tiny alpine cabin 4,000 ft. above the ocean in our local coastal mountains. With this unusually deep snow pack the cabin could be buried. With no marked trail, it would be hard to find in broad daylight, maybe impossible in darkness and this snowstorm.

  “Don’t fancy a night out without shelter in this.” The thought drives us on.

  “Not everybody’s idea of a perfect birthday party.”

  Just as darkness closes in, there are signs of the cabin’s position. The slope eases and the snow-loaded trees become smaller and more widely spaced. Headlamps, however, show nothing but undulating snow humps, any one of which may conceal the cabin. At first, as the six of us set to panicky searching, our probing reveals nothing.

  “Must be ’round here somewhere,” I mutter in frustration.

  “Remember that gnarly old yellow cedar snag that stands right in front of the cabin?” my wife, Laurie, thinks aloud.

  “Right now the trees all look the same,” I grumble.

  “Yeah, but the cabin tree is bigger with no foliage … like that one over there.”

  In the lee of the big dead cedar snag, the wind has scooped out a depression in the surface of the snow. A few stabs at the snow face with a shovel reveal the distinctive triangular gable atop the front wall of the cabin.

  “Eureka! We’ve got it!”

  In pools of headlamp light, digging starts right away. Without discussion, someone clears the chimney top. Someone else chops down into the hard compacted snow pack while others shovel out the loosened snow and cut back a ramp for steps. About four feet down, the roof of the porch appears. Another eight feet down, and finally, “Bingo!” – the cabin door. The whole group and their bulky packs squeeze into the 8 × 16 ft. cabin and ceremoniously shut the door, closing out the weather and the night.

  Bic lighters busily light the white gas lamp, the propane cooker and the wood stove. A big stainless steel kettle, stuffed full of snow, melts on the stove for a “brew” of tea. One end of the tiny cabin is a general work space and cooking area where each body must now slide tactfully around the others to find enough personal space to strip off wet clothing and hang it from nails in the rafters. At the other end is a sleeping loft and tucked below it a plywood table with benches on either side which will be the centre of the evening eating and lounging. Then later the table will drop down flush with the benches to form another sleeping platform. The whole arrangement is compact and functional. In next to no time it is also warm and cozy. All the wet clothes are hanging up in the rafters to dry.

  Very soon the master wilderness cook, Laurie, whips up what seems to us like a gourmet meal of curried chicken, complete with stewed fruit “cobbler” for dessert.

  After dinner the conversation turns to the question, “How did this all come about?”

  Laurie and I had decided to celebrate my 60th birthday by inviting a few younger outdoorsy friends to one of our favorite places on the coast, this funky old alpine cabin that had been built many years ago by some old-timers. It is in a remote area on the mainland, at the back of a small inlet not far from our home in the Discovery Islands.

  After a three-hour ride in our 33 foot catamaran, Quintano, there was normally a six-hour hike from the beach, on old logging roads, then up a rugged trail through virgin old-growth forest to alpine meadows and wonderful open skiing and hiking slopes. On this occasion, as expected, the trail was invisible, buried deep in the snow pack, so we had to feel our way up the mountain, trying to stay on the crest of a subtle ridge. Although there had been bad weather forecast, we had set out anyway because trips like this take a lot of planning, it’s hard to get everyone together at short notice and, if the opportunity is not taken, there is a danger of not being able to reschedule, or of never going at all. Also, it’s possible to have a good time even in bad weather. Besides, the forecasts are not always correct. Today had been a long, tough day typical of “bushwhacking” in the Coast Range wilderness and, as usual, remarkably rewarding, especially after finding the security of the cabin.

  Most of us are stripped down to our thermal underwear, hunkered onto a spot on a bench, with a mug of hot sweet tea and a big contented smile. What relief. Sheer luxury.

  “You notice we invited a few apprentices along to help carry our loads, as well as breaking trail, doing most of the digging and making the tea.”

  “You must have learned a few tricks over the years, eh?”

  “Well, you young guys do get a few benefits, like boat rides and being shown where the cabin is even in the dark, not to mention Laurie’s cooking.”

  “We’ll buy that. After all the proof is in the pudding … and the stew.”

  As we all subside into a long winter evening of relaxed and relieved euphoria, attention comes round to my birthday. After the usual congratulations, and sensing I am suitably primed for storytelling, some of the “youths” start asking questions, mainly about our alternative lifestyle….

  “What made you chose to leave the mainstream and come to live on a remote island on the BC coast?” “How and when did you find a place to settle down?” “When and where did you two meet? … Was it love at first sight?” “How did you get started living on raw land?” “What’s your homestead and community like now?”

  “That’s a lot of questions and a long story,” I reply.

  “Let’s have it. We’ve got all night.”

  “And all next day tomorrow, unless the weather improves.”

  “All right, you asked for it,” I grin and settle back on the bench, back against the cabin wall.

  “How about another brew to wet my whistle?”

  “More cobbler, anyone?”

  -1-

  LEAVING THE OLD COUNTRY

  “What made you choose to leave the old country and come to Canada?”

  MY PASSION FOR FREEDOM GOES back to my memories of earliest childhood, when I felt happiest outdoors, growing up in a picturesque English village that nestled into the edge of the Yorkshire moors. Roaming freely for days at a time in the nearby woods, fields and open moors gave me a deep and lasting sense of nature’s timeless flow, in which everything made sense and fitted together. The village felt as if it belonged in the landscape, and I felt as if I belonged to them both. The lifestyle of the villagers probably hadn’t changed much in hundreds of years. The milk was still bei
ng delivered by horse and cart every day, though the first black and white TV and the odd motor car had already shown up.

  When, at the tender age of eleven, I had to leave the beautiful village on the edge of the wild moors and move to the suburbs of a big city, I wept for days. It seemed that an essential part of myself was being left behind. Had I but known how true this would turn out to be, the crying would have been even longer and harder. My previous freedom to explore the wonders of the natural world was curtailed sharply amid the new constraints at home, and especially at the city high school (though, according to my two big brothers and two bigger sisters, I was spoiled and allowed to be rebellious).

  I performed just well enough at school to get by, living for the only enjoyable part, which was playing rugby. Even better were the exciting weekends away on the fells and crags deep in the remote countryside, sharing rambling adventures and camaraderie with my working-class pals. My parents had introduced us to family camping and walking holidays in the mountains, and Dad even had a couple of us doing a bit of easy rock climbing. He had an old climbing rope hanging up in the garage. In my class at school there were a couple of pals, Wilber and Polly, Boy Scouts who liked messing about with ropes and knots and had done some camping. So one sunny spring day, bored and frustrated to death in French class, gazing longingly out of the window and thinking about the local cliffs where I had seen people rock climbing with ropes, I had a flash of inspiration that would change my life. A quickly scribbled note passed across the classroom to the Boy Scouts said, “Do you want to go rock climbing with me this weekend? I have a rope and we could ride our bikes to the crag.”

  Fortunately for us, that very first day at the crag, there was an older climber making fast and graceful ascents of fierce-looking overhanging cracks – without ropes. Obviously he was an expert, and seeing us “young ’uns” trying to figure out how to get started, he took us under his wing and showed us how to use the rope properly. His name was Tom, and his shocking white hair and beard made him look a lot older than his athletic ability suggested.

  His old-fashioned teaching method was direct and to the point. “You tie yourself on to the rope like this,” and with a few deft twists and turns of the rope he had it secured round his waist. Then, after deliberately pausing to make sure his audience was paying attention, he took an end of the rope and demonstrated again in slow motion: “The rabbit comes up through the rabbit hole, round the back of the tree for a pee and then back down the hole again.”

  With a grin and a mirthless chuckle he continued. “That’s a bowline, and it’s the best knot in the world, but don’t forget, it needs an extra half hitch for good measure.” He paused again for maximum theatrical effect before switching his facial expression, rolling his eyes in exaggerated sternness and delivering his final apocalyptic message in broad Yorkshire dialect to his now fully attentive young audience:

  “’Cos yer life might depend on it!”

  We all gasped in astonishment – before rolling on the ground laughing with relief.

  Besides learning to use the rope to protect ourselves, we were deeply impressed by Tom’s artistic, graceful movement on the rock, which made difficulty and danger look like an easy dance. Right from the start the old sorcerer had taught his apprentices that climbing was about a lot more than Boy Scouts playing with ropes. With a bit of practice, this informative and inspiring introduction enabled us right away to do a few easy but, to us, hugely impressive real climbs. Seeing us arrive home so dirty, tired out but animated and ebullient, our parents must have wondered what on earth had got into us. Little did they know what this was to be the start of.

  Climbing was so much fun it quickly became an addiction, taking us out to crags on the nearby grit stone edges in all kinds of weather every weekend. A unique characteristic of the local “grit stone” rock was wind-eroded vertical and horizontal cracks which were smooth and lacking in distinctive micro-features to pull up on. Sensing our enthusiasm, the older guys showed us a specialized technique of “jamming” fists and toes into the cracks. It was painful and took lots of nerve and balance, as well as upper body strength. It meant learning to stay cool and trust our own grip, especially when hanging out on these “jams” 30 or 40 feet above the ground.

  The only price for these initiation rites was being what the older guys called the “brew boys.” In other words, the apprentices had to make the tea and carry all the gear. Needless to say, there was a Catch-22 involved. The ropes had to be coiled just right, and of course the tea had to be perfect. As with climbing itself, failure had serious consequences. An imperfect “brew” accrued so many penalty points, which meant having to make so many more brews.

  There was one young apprentice climber called Ginger Dick who was taking his turn to make the brew for some very famous master climbers in a tent after dark. The responsibility was making Dick flustered and he spilled the candle into the billy of boiling brew.

  “Never mind,” he thought. “They won’t notice.”

  When the most famous rock climber in the country sipped his tea, his teeth immediately stuck together and he almost choked before spurting scalding tea all over his sleeping bag. Ginger Dick had to make the next 25 brews for that mistake.

  Hitchhiking took us rebellious young teenagers farther afield with overnight camping to even more remote and beautiful fells and crags. These adventures reinforced my childhood sense of being at home in the wilds and led to highly valued lifelong friendships, especially with my buddies Wilber and Polly and the master climber, Tom, whom we had met that first day at the local crag. The more I experienced this mysterious hidden connectivity, the more convinced I became of the presence in wild places of a vital component of life that urban existence was missing and possibly even precluding. This mystery induced in me a lifelong quest for explanation and meaning.

  HAVING MADE IT THROUGH HIGH school, I was accepted by a prestigious school of architecture in London for an arduous five-year training program. What was particularly unusual about this course was that students were expected to follow their own path. The difficulty for me at the time, however, was finding a path that was comfortable enough to stay on. There was no problem learning about the history of art and architecture, but the more I studied urban society the more it seemed to me that the contemporary man-made environment was increasingly separating people from nature and from each other. Even though I wanted to believe in science and reason, their application to planning and urban management policies invariably seemed to lead to an oppressive, superficial and ultimately soulless monoculture that stifled free creativity and standardized or omitted vital components of life.

  “Little boxes made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same,” sang Pete Seeger.

  Five years’ training as an architect did nothing to allay my early doubts about the veracity of the prevalent “cosmology” of modern society. It promoted the notion that because we are separate and superior, humans have the right and the ability to dominate and abuse the rest of the world without any risk to ourselves. While accounting for untold damage to the environment and other cultures, this dangerously deluded myth thrived on the fact that most of our thinking and behaviour was not actually conscious but rather automatic replaying of subconscious cultural conditioning (propaganda). Both as individuals and collectively, we all suffered from delusions of our own self-importance, which we then self-righteously imposed, often violently, on others. Most of us were busy pulling the wool over our own eyes and those of our children, perpetuating tunnel vision. Ironically, conscious brain power, the very attribute that was supposed to make us separate and superior in the first place, was exactly what we rarely practised.

  Eventually, in my final design thesis I proposed an alternative global settlement pattern of largely self-sufficient villages, pockets of low rise, high density housing with enough population to support the facilities of daily life within walking distance. Density would be alleviated by generous access to public green space and surroun
ding local food-producing gardens and farms. Intermediate technologies would be powered by renewable energy. Electric cars would connect villages on small roads feeding into regional motorways with electromagnetic belts so that all the cars travelled at the same speed, like trains. Each village would have unique specialty products expressed in organic architecture evolving from its local ecosystem.

  Meanwhile, at least once a month, I would escape the intense intellectual pressure, the hectic pace and the squalor of low income life in London by hitchhiking up to the mountains. The relative sanity, sincerity and humour of my working-class mates, along with the peace and beauty of the remote countryside, were the perfect antidote. I made friends with Stevey Smith, who had a house in Windermere at the heart of the Lake District National Park, which had become a favourite meeting place for climbers. As well as becoming another lifelong friend and fellow adventurer, he shared with me his passion for folk music. So, after many happy days spent tramping around the hills and scaring ourselves to death on the crags, we would invariably end up singing our hearts out in a local pub. We shared the thrill of another form of hidden connectivity which we lovingly referred to as “magic,” the authentic traditional folk music of people whose remote rural lifestyle and culture were still grounded in the vernacular of their local environment. Even the old pubs invariably looked and felt as if they belonged in their landscape, especially after a few pints of local ale.

  It was becoming more and more difficult for me to keep a comfortable balance between social experience and natural experience, and probably impossible for me ever to be remotely happy in London or in any other big city. Furthermore, the encroachment of the soulless monoculture into the beloved countryside of my native land was alarming and in sharp contrast to the authentic sincerity of what was being sacrificed.

  The only hope was in knowing that lots of other folks shared my disenchantment with the “system.” At that time, in the mid-1960s, a tremendous surge of “alternative consciousness” was inspiring young people around the world with love and peace. Protest demonstrations in the streets of London against the Vietnam War were all the rage. So too were listening all night long to Bob Dylan and Joan Baez singing “The Times They Are a-Changin’.” Pubs, coffee shops, books and magazines and especially street theatre were loudly and colourfully promoting the “counterculture,” and the emancipation of women, blacks, students and colonies. The word “environment” was the latest buzz.