Heather Conn Blogs

Sometimes you just have to take the law into your own hands, with tongue firmly planted in cheek. Here in Roberts Creek, BC, aka Gumboot Nation, we’re known as cheeky eco-activists who care about clean air and our community. Therefore, if someone leaves a car idling, we figure they’re disturbing the peace, so to speak. If they park in a bike lane, they’re risking the safety of a cyclist who has to swerve onto the road into traffic to get by the offending vehicle.

 

That’s when a fun but fervent citizen’s action comes into play. The offender will receive one of two tickets indicating a violation notice against the Nation of Roberts Creek, issued by the Department of Good Vehicle Operation. Each comes complete with a gumboot image and notification of the infraction: “You have left your car idling” or “You have parked in the bike lane.”

 

The ticket for idling reminds the motorist that this action

• “increases greenhouse gases
• shortens the life of your vehicle
• irritates people
• costs you money.”

The ticket for the parking infraction provides a cautionary note: “Failure to change our habits may subject us all to a grim future” and offers this call-to-action: “Do your part! Help make Roberts Creek pedestrian and cyclist friendly. Walk, ride a bike, take public transit.”

“I have found that people who are ‘bad’ do not have a sense of humour about it,” says Donna Shugar, chair of the Sunshine Coast Regional District and a Roberts Creek resident. “They are quite affronted. Perhaps that is brought on by guilt!”

 

I love that residents have chosen education and soft censure in response to these violators rather than resort to angry words or revenge. As a form of direct action, these tickets harm nobody and can actually make people healthier through smiles and laughter. Who says you need to get tough on crime? The soft touch works.

                                                                                                                      — Heather Conn photos

Four kayaking companions and I, camped on Jedediah Island on British Columbia’s Sunshine Coast,  joined the June 26 global event Hands Across the Sand  to protest offshore oil drilling. From our low-tide beach at Home Bay, we gathered around noon and stretched our hands across a shoreline to support clean energy choices. Like thousands of others around the world, we took this symbolic gesture to draw a line in the sand against the threat that oil drilling poses to coastal economies and the marine environment.

 

The Hands Across the Sand movement, founded by U.S. resident Dave Rauschkolb, began in Florida on Feb. 13 this year. Thousands of residents across the state, representing 60 towns and cities and more than 90 beaches, joined hands to protest attempts by the Florida and the U.S. governments to lift the ban on oil drilling near and off the state’s shores. The movement created partnerships with major environmental organizations such as the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and Audubon.

 

The impetus for the June Hands Across the Sand event, which involved 860 locations, came from the environmental devastation of the ongoing British Petroleum oil spill. The mission of Hands Across the Sand is to draw attention to our global dependence on fossil fuels and adopt policies that encourage renewable energy sources.

 At our  idyllic location on Jedediah, a marine provincial park, tiny crabs scrabbled in the shallows while dozens of live sand dollars wafted in low waters. By the thousands, oysters and periwinkles covered the sea bed, surrounded by thick clusters of mussels and barnacles on nearby rocks. At low tide, three raccoons hunted for food in the mud while red-footed oyster catchers flew past,  screeching like banshees. Ever-present seagulls dropped shellfish onto the beach to break open their food.

 

With such natural richness hinged to the sea, it was disturbing to imagine how an oil spill in these waters could easily destroy this abundance. While hundreds of thousands of barrels of BP oil continue to pour into the Gulf of Mexico,  Chevron is drilling underwater off Newfoundland at almost twice the depth as BP’s rig that blew out.

 Meanwhile, B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell wants to drill oil off the northwest coast of the province, by the Queen Charlotte Islands. Along with the federal government and Enbridge, he’s poised to create an oil pipeline from Alberta’s Tar Sands to Kitimat, B.C. This would result in oil tankers traversing the province every day through fragile ecosystems and challenging waters in central and northern B.C. (For more details, see my archived feature ”No oil tankers on the B.C. coast” posted Dec. 1, 2009 under “Environment.”)

On a more upbeat note, the abandoned wooden building in the background of this photo is the old homestead on Jedediah that once belonged to the Palmers. Mary and Al Palmer bought the island as a summer holiday destination in 1949, then became full-time residents in 1972. They both farmed the land and cherished the island’s 600 acres, which includes cedar, old-growth fir and arbutus, peaceful bays, and stunning views. Mary was determined to prevent any  development. (Palmer describes life on the island, complete with historic family photos, in her book Jedediah Days, a B.C. bestseller published by Harbour Publishing.)

The Palmers worked hard to preserve the island, helped by a province-wide fundraising campaign, started by the late Dan Culver’s Follow Your Dream Foundation. Many groups rallied to raise money to create a park, including Friends of Jedediah, the Marine Parks Forever Society, and the Nature Trust of B.C. Countless individuals and organizations provided financial support, which included $1.1 million from Culver’s estate. The B.C. government donated millions more and the Palmers agreed to sell the island for $4.2 million, far less than its market value. Thanks to their generosity and the dedication of so many donors and volunteer fundraisers, Jedediah Island became a provincial park in 1995.

Now thousands of people can enjoy this unsullied spot every year. A flock of wild sheep still roams the island and several dozen mountain goats, said to be descendants of those left by Spanish explorers, can peer down at you from rocky bluffs. The island has four registered archaeological sites, including a First Nations fish weir.

 I took the photo above from Gibraltar, a rocky viewpoint towards the north-central part of the island. A cairn of stones marks the spot with a heavy plastic tube that contains scribbled notes from hikers over the years. Of course, I added a message from our group. Towards the centre of the island, we wandered through forests pastoral and open, without tangles of thick underbrush. We saw the grave of the Palmers’ beloved horse Will, which bears visitors’ strange offerings and detritus from the sea, from a toy car and flattened soccer ball to a plastic marine float. Elsewhere, the island’s open meadows, pungent with mint-like scent, are still home to neglected fruit trees.

 Jedediah has frequent patches of startling green moss and clusters of yellow wild flowers. It was wonderful to explore this island and see only a handful of people over several days. Thanks to the Palmers’ vision and commitment to conservation, this quiet wilderness sanctuary will never see development . . .and hopefully, oil will never tarnish its shores.

A ggggrrrrrr in the glove compartment. A bear in bucket seats.  What would you do if momma bear hunkered down in your car’s front seat and decided: Hmmm, this one feels just right?

 

In my nearby town of Gibsons, BC, Canada, a mother bear recently found herself locked inside a resident’s car. Somehow, she figured out how to open the unlocked vehicle with her teeth and decided to get in for a sniff. Trapped with the door shut, she couldn’t get out but faced another, more serious problem: her cub was left alone outside, terrified.

 

The mother bear proceeded to tear up the interior of the car, probably frantic in her attempts to get to her cub. The publisher of one of our weeklies, The Local, wrote about the incident: “The bear was gingerly released from the car and joined her cub up the nearest tree.” I am not sure how to interpret that statement, although I can easily picture some cowering driver slowly opening the car door and hiding behind its glass and metal for protection.

 

I guess squatter’s rights don’t apply here. No one was hurt and the displaced momma was reunited with her treed offspring. However, the same bear apparently entered two other vehicles after this event. That’ll teach the owners to keep their car doors unlocked.

 

I’ve always been a huge bear fan and have photographed the rare kermode bear and grizzly bears in the wild in British Columbia. A bear has crashed through our wooden fence, knocked out the vertical slats in our gate, taken down our bird feeders, gotten into our garbage, and torn a slit in our soft-top Mazda convertible, but I still love the big critters. They’re so wrongly maligned and misrepresented, especially the grizzly.

 

Humans need to stay bear aware and follow simple rules:

• Keep your garbage in bear-safe containers. If your trash contains meat, don’t put it out until the last minute.
• Pick fruit readily from your trees so that it doesn’t entice bears.
• Keep your bird feeders high and out of reach of bears. Use feeders only in the winter, when bears are hibernating.
• Respect bears as smart creatures. Once they’ve discovered a food source, they will return to the same spot for years.

 

To read and see photos about a truly remarkable bond between a human and bear, click here.

                                                                                                                       — Heather Conn photos

Why do these two subversives look so happy? They just heard wonderful news at Roberts Creek’s Earth Day event: farm-gate sales of produce and livestock are no longer illegal in British Columbia. Hurray! That means that B.C. farmers, livestock owners and gardeners can sell meat, produce or eggs from their land directly to customers. Previously, these were illegal acts in this province. Isn’t that outrageous? These women are two of our local Farm Food Freedom Fighters. Yes, they are wearing “Be subversive, Buy local” buttons, complete with logos of a masked chicken and cow.

 

Now, we can tear off those nasty masks. No more outlaw status for people selling organic wares on their farms. Nicholas Simons, our local MLA, and Donna Shugar, chair of the Sunshine Coast Regional District, made the announcement April 25 at the start of Earth Day festivities in Roberts Creek. Nicholas worked particularly hard to enact this status change in farm-gate sales. Thank you to both Nicholas and Donna for striving to reverse this ridiculous law. Nicholas is still working out the details, but the change wil be official soon.

In keeping with this upbeat news, the sun shone for the Creek’s annual funky event, which provided hours of local entertainment, eco-displays, and information tables on sustainable organizations and earth-minded products. Great Sunshine Coast food, as always, was available, from Rashmi’s popular Curry in the Creek to the fish taco stand. This year, the kids were treated to a mini petting zoo with dwarf rabbits, an adorable baby goat, pony rides, and a shaggy llama.

Dave Ryan, fondly known as “Farmer Dave” in the Creek, offered a free tour through the gardens and greenhouse he operates to supply the Gumboot Restaurant next-door with fresh organic produce year-round. Wearing a green hat with a four-leaf-clover insignia, he spent more than an hour answering questions from about 50 local home gardeners.

Dave offered many helpful tips from using shade cover over plants in hot sun to using seaweed in compost (not directly on plants). He praised mushroom compost and recommended “Dr. John” (John Paul, president of Transform Compost Systems Ltd. in Abbotsford, BC) as the top resource in the province for compost information.

Roberts Creek Earth Day offered its usual mix of practical tips and whimsy, from stilt-walkers and The Green Man storyteller to demonstrations of making cob as a sustainable method of house construction.

 

The Sunshine Coast Regional District created a giant tree of large green garbage bags to make local residents aware of waste management practices and how our trash impacts the earth.  Their display included a large sheet of paper on an easel where people could write down the ways in which they reduce their garbage. (Each household on the Sunshine Coast is allowed to dispose of one regular-sized can’s worth of garbage each week.)

Thank  you to everyone who helped make this year’s Earth Day a fun, viable, and educational event.

As I have said numerous times on this blog, I love where I live. This is the uphill view of Roberts Creek from the bridge on Lower Road. Not far from there, northeast down the road, two bald eagles live in a tall Douglas fir with a nest at about 120 feet (36.6 metres) up. Every day, as I sit at my computer, I hear them screeching and calling and can see them gliding effortlessly in the sky.

 

My husband Frank, who had never seen a bald eagle before moving to Canada’s west coast, likes to watch this talkative pair from our front deck, using a telescope. In a recent severe wind storm, the eagles’ nest of large sticks and pine branches appeared to dislodge and break apart. In the past few days, we have seen the eagle pair build a new nest, flying in with long sticks hanging from their beaks. I love having them as neighbours.

 

Our area also has black bears and cougars. Although a few people in the Creek have seen a cougar on the beach and in their yard, Frank and I have only seen their footprints. Several years ago, a neighbour of ours up the hill had a cougar on the roof of their woodshed. I thought that we might have had one on our roof one dark night. I heard something heavy pounce and land on our roof, causing it to shake significantly. Nothing I have heard before or since equalled that shake and sense of weight.

 

Here’s the mouth of Roberts Creek, where it opens into the Pacific Ocean. Vancouver Island is the silhouette on the horizon. We get salmon spawning here every year.

Occasionally, a bear will stroll through our yard, almost always at night. One bear bashed its way through our side gate, knocking out the vertical slats, and got into our garbage. We’re really careful now about not putting out our garbage until the morning of pick-up. The same bear broke through our neighbour Cathy’s front gate three different times, leaving a large hole in the middle of it. The bear awareness official ended up putting a huge bear trap in the parking lot behind our house; it’s a large, mesh tunnel-shaped cage. They didn’t catch anything.

 

Recently, a bear knocked down our bird feeders and our hummingbird feeder, emptying them all. Frank and I feel no ill will towards the creature and are sad that humans have encroached so much on their habitat through housing developments and deforestation. We wish that everyone would be careful about their garbage and fruit trees to prevent attracting bears.

 

This week, Frank  found a small bear claw inside our Mazda Miata on the passenger side. It was below a small slash in the soft-top roof of the car. He had always thought that some vandal had knifed the roof, but that explanation never felt right to me. What a surprise to discover that a bear had caused this damage! We’re keeping the claw as a memento.

                                                                                                                     — Heather Conn photos

Last week, on Feb. 4, I temporarily set aside my criticisms of the Olympics and celebrated Roberts Creek spirit and community with several hundred others. As local children waved Canadian flags or tissue-paper torches they had made in school, we greeted torch relay runner Caroline Depatie and her youthful co-torch runner, whose name I don’t know. (I had no idea that Caroline was going to be the torch runner; she just lives a few doors down from us in Roberts Creek and is my work contact at Capilano University in Sechelt.)

                  Roberts Creek resident Caroline Depatie

I saw how touched the young torch runner was, almost in tears, and saw her mother hug her and say: “I’m so proud of you.” How could anyone fault that heartfelt interaction? Seeing the excitement and glee of the children made me realize the positive impact that such a  global event can have on kids when the torch comes  to people’s communities. But they sure don’t need the message of competition, competition, competition and that winning is everything. Besides, where’s the funding for school sports groups that the B.C. government took away?

 

A poignant encounter wasn’t enough to make me forget about our – taxpayers’ —  impending debt from the Olympics, its exclusive corporate marketing deals and use of sports as a merchandising commodity, surveillance cameras, massive cost overruns, and, in the words of British historian George Monbiot, its “legacy of a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich . . .they have become a licence for land grabs.”

 

I wanted to wretch at the abrasive canned music of the Coca-Cola “float” that followed the torch runners, especially with its bouncy young dancers and corporate slogan “Open happiness.” I was pleased to see that few people lined on either side of Roberts Creek Road took any of the small freebie bottles of Coke handed out by young, smile-stuck shills. (Coca-Cola, by the way, hopes to sell nine million units of bottled water during the Olympics in Vancouver. Meanwhile, we’re supposed to believe that a Big Mac and Coke are the hearty, healthy breakfast of an Olympic champion — “do you believe?”)

Thankfully, we had some Roberts Creek, gumboot-clad musical talent to offset the corporate melodies of Royal Bank and Coke. Lead singer Mark Lebbell, who chairs the Creek’s Official Community Plan Committee, sang these lyrics, which he wrote himself:

Nero was getting nervous, as he sat there on the throne
People needing bread, filled the streets of Rome
He knew the crash was coming, he knew he had to act
He said: “We need a Circus, 5 Rings that will distract”

 

Let’s straighten out the highways, build some Coliseums
Folks will fly from miles around just to come and see ‘em
Pave the Callahan Valley, clear the rabble from the streets
Invite the Northern Hemisphere, and party for two weeks

Chorus

He knew from 1936 it was good for the nation
And any other country, that could afford refrigeration
As people lined up for a piece of the apple pie
He stood on stolen land, explained how televisions had rights

He said you’re gonna love it, but we’ll need 12,000 cops
Only going to cost us 4, 5, 6 billion, tops
3 Pokemon for mascots, the eagle’s the one in the middle
And climbed upon an innukshuk, and took out his fiddle

Chorus

(Solo)

But the people realized, there isn’t any correlation
Between a giant corporate orgy, and participation or paction
We’re all for healthy living, we’re all for chasing dreams
but debt and spandex superheroes aren’t what our kids need

There was a yellow ring for Royal Bank,
One red ring for Coke
One ring for the green wash
That’s all a bit of a joke
Two for wasted time and money,
Black and blue for all
But there’s no . . .gold . . .rings for the kid with a ball

 

I liked the yellow gumboots that Caroline Depatie was wearing — a nice touch. Donna Shugar, chair of the Sunshine Coast Regional District (who was left off the invitation list for the Olympic festivities in Sechelt) encouraged Roberts Creek torch relay attendees to wear our community’s trademark gumboots. She, of course, wore hers.

I had expected to see some protest signs at the Creek event and had thought of making one of my own, but my husband Frank encouraged me to keep the community focus on the pleasure of the kids. I took his advice. Donna Shugar had shared the message “Loving kindness to all, loving kindness to all.”

That same afternoon, when my husband and I went to the Langdale ferry terminal to drop off my friend Annie, we had no idea that we could encounter another torch relay. (I confess: we didn’t read the recent media.) When we tried to pull out of the parking lot, a BC Ferries employee stopped us and told us a torch procession would be coming down soon. I was delighted to see the torch relay participant roll past us in a wheelchair.

 

Gee, even some of the most hardened cynics can stay patriotic to Canada. And people think that we Canadians aren’t nationalists . . .

Here in Roberts Creek, known as Gumboot Nation, we’re fond of our gumboots. How can you tell?

                                                                                                                       — Heather Conn photos

Normally, I shun commercial endorsements but I love Roberts Creek’s Gumboot Restaurant and Gumboot Cafe and they’re a favourite with we locals. They don’t even have a website; they’re popular enough without one.

 

Sadly, we don’t have a monopoly on the gumboot theme. A fellow Creeker just informed me that a small town called Taihape bills itself as “New Zealand’s Gumboot Capital” and celebrates an annual Gumboot Day, complete with gumboot throwing, gumboot police, and sheep shearing. Maybe we need to reach across the ocean, share our rubber souls and make ourselves twin towns. Or perhaps challenge them in their “Gumboot Capital of the World” claim. Click here to find out more about Taihape and their Gumboot Day.

“Improvement makes straight roads, but the crooked roads without improvement are the roads of genius.”                                                                                             — William Blake

I have always found the crooked roads more fun and intriguing, although they are often the scariest ones. Even for someone like me who finds safety in order, goals, and a known destination, abandoning myself to an open road feels exhilarating. Work wise, I have gone down many paths off a straight, predictable direction. Each one has taken me closer to a passion, talent or interest that I wanted to explore. It’s been quite a ride, as they say.

Each year, they come bearing tiny, simple boats, mostly wooden ones. A discarded scrap of fir with a candle,  a Kleenex box bearing a tiny flame, a crude miniature catamaran.

 

On New Year’s day at dusk, dozens of Roberts Creek residents gather at the mouth of the creek to launch their handmade craft from the shoreline. This community event for all ages has no official rules or competitive framework. Boat-makers coddle their creations, trying to light each one’s candle in the wind. Some launch theirs close to the bridge by the creek mouth, others walk farther along the shore towards the pier, shortening the distance to open ocean. Once afloat, if forceful waves push a vessel too close to shore, an owner might poke it back out with a stick or even stride into the numbing current to shove it away. 

 

As these fragile, lighted craft bob out into the Pacific Ocean, clusters of bystanders gawk and point and exclaim or swear over the progress or watery demise of their boat.  Most of the boats rarely make it more than about 20 metres before the candle flame disappears or a wave smashes their structure into oblivion. One year, in a stormy downpour, my humble boat barely hit the water before too-high waves hurled it to pieces against the rocks and logs along the shore. On board, my feeble little candle didn’t stand a chance.

 

Usually, each year, one or two hardy boats manage to conquer the waves and float out about 100  metres, their candles burning boldly in the darkness. The owners of such boats cluck and gloat good-naturedly, sharing the strategies and design tips of their success.

 

It’s general knowledge that no one spends more than a half-hour building their boat: less is more. The informal, verbal plan is not to use nails or toxic construction materials.

 

I’m not clear when this annual tradition began or why, but people participate even during horrendous weather conditions.  Guess you can’t expect less from a community that makes a gumboot its sentimental symbol.

*                               *                               *                                   *                             *                             *

            From Greece’s brine-soaked Santa Claus to Thailand’s “fire boats”, illuminated ships are a round-the-world holiday ritual.

 

            In Greece, residents decorate small Christmas boats, instead of trees, with lights and ornaments. Children sing Christmas carols holding lighted model boats. (The word “carol” comes from a Greek dance choraulein.)

 

            Greeks even herald Saint Nicholas as their patron saint of sailors; with a seawater-drenched beard and clothes, he toils against waves to rescue sinking ships.

 

            At Christmas, you can find a procession of lit-up leisure craft in Cornwall, England. In Zurich, Switzerland, locals float tiny, candle-bearing boats down the Limmat River.

 

            Buddhists in northeastern Thailand have a “fire boat” celebration on the Mekong River. People adorn large, elaborate wooden boats with candles, lanterns, incense sticks, and religious offerings.

 

            Throughout North America, many coastal and lakefront cities host illuminated boat events at Christmas. Locations in the U.S. range from Tampa Bay, Florida to Washington, DC to Newport Beach and San Diego, Calif. Even in the desert, light-decorated boats in Ocotillo, Arizona cruise through lakes on Christmas night.

            In Canada, cities from Halifax to Vancouver host a Christmas boat parade, including Hamilton, Ont. and Ottawa.

(The last part of this post was originally published in the winter 2007/08 issue of Sunshine Coast Life magazine. It appeared as a sidebar (“Carol ships around the world”) to a feature I wrote on local carol ships.)

                                                     – Rae Ellingham photo