Heather Conn Blogs

                                                                                                                       — 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

 

From feral to favorite . . . She’s gone from sleeping on a shelf in our garage to lounging on the couch at the Royal Canadian Legion in Roberts Creek.  Nina, the Legion’s adopted cat, now looks on with calm contentedness as members play pool or cribbage, watch hockey games, sing community Christmas carols, slurp beer, eat one of Tony’s delicious salmon burgers, and gossip with the locals from a bar stool.  Maybe she’ll forget how to chase rats.

 

My guess is she’ll never forget her wild roots.  My husband and I first encountered her as a feral cat in full stalking mode in our yard. She would not let us come near her. After she had a litter of kittens, the Happy Cat Haven in Gibsons somehow managed to round her up and have her spayed, bless ’em. Nevertheless, she continued to hang out in our garage and yard and still does. Sleeping under our wooden deck is one of her favorite spots.

 

We’re delighted that Nina now has an adoptive parent: Gail, the barkeep at the Creek Legion. She managed to woo Nina indoors with coos and a bowl of milk. Kudos to her.

Bus stop comfort?

Why stand at a bus stop when you can wait beside it in comfort, lounging on a couch or even sipping wine from a table with your sweetie? That seems to be the theory behind a year of practical pranks in Roberts Creek, BC, Canada and elsewhere on the Lower Sunshine Coast.

 

At many bus stops on the Sunshine Coast Highway between Gibsons and Sechelt  (a retirement haven for thousands of seniors), thoughtful residents have added a chair or two of their own for waiting passengers. These seats are no Antiques Roadshow specimens; they’re a delightfully eclectic collection, from your basic, boring white-plastic ones with hard backs to classy-looking, canvas chaise-lounges and even a few with padded fabric seats that almost look too good to give away.

 

Some people consider them eyesores, like the ugly couch above that appeared one morning by a Lower Road bus stop in the Creek . I heard about a table and two chairs with a bottle of wine added to one bus stop, but never saw them.

 

I like this whimsical addition to otherwise impersonal bus stops. It shows initiative and a flair for fun and gives character and comfort to the experience of waiting for a bus. Some local artists and photographers have even generated mugs and merchandising depicting some of these quirky seats. Hurray for these funky community chairs — maybe they’re a more inert form of public performance art.

 

I heard months ago that the Sunshine Coast Regional District wanted to remove them all. An official wooden bus stop seat with a protective overhang in our area supposedly costs $500. Keep the money. Let local residents provide seat support in their own ingenious way.

Where does “Chica in the Creek” come from? My friend George Smith called me that when a group of us travelled together in Cuba years ago to celebrate our friend Evi’s 50th birthday. (“Chica” is an informal Spanish way to address a friend like saying: “Hi buddy.” “The Creek” refers to Roberts Creek, where I live.) I liked the rhythm of the term, so I use it here where I post fun stuff on events and thoughts related to life in the Creek.

 Welcome to “Gumboot Nation”

I love where I live, in Roberts Creek, BC, on the west coast of Canada. We’re an unincorporated town of about 3,000 on the mainland northwest of Vancouver, yet most people think that we live on an island. You can only get here by plane or boat — there is no road access to or from the city. We’re part of what’s called the Sunshine Coast, roughly 75 miles of towns, coves, and communities. We’re a great mix of folks from retirees and summer cottagers to artists, teachers, and people who love the outdoors, from kayakers to back-country skiers.

 

Sometimes living here feels like a magic bubble of friendly warmth and natural beauty. Many residents fear overpopulation and pollution and don’t want others to know how great it is here. Yet it’s not all idyllic: we’ve had logging in our watershed and of old-growth forest plus air-quality concerns from so much wood-stove smoke and from backyard burnings.

 

Thankfully, in Roberts Creek, development is limited. But elsewhere on the Sunshine Coast, especially northwards in the Sechelt and Pender Harbour regions, more and more new developments, including time-shares, are catering to wealthy outsiders.  Some follks, who have lived here since the 1970s, think that the area has already changed too much.

 

I’ve been “in the Creek” for almost a decade and still cherish the community. It retains values planted here from the sixties and early seventies, including a strong conservation drive, seed-sharing, sustainable living, and maintaining a small ecological footprint. Roberts Creek is home to Canada’s first rural co-housing community.  Informally, Roberts Creek is dubbed “Gumboot Nation” and gumboots remain a popular sentimental symbol for we “Creekers.”

 

Each year, our annual Higgledy Piggledy Parade features someone striding at the front in gumboots, holding high the Roberts Creek flag that bears a gumboot image. We have the Gumboot Cafe and Restaurant, gumboot earrings . . .you get the drift. This makes me think of the symbolic union “The Conch Republic” that people in Key West, Florida created to define themselves. Or the term “Cascadia” used to represent the Pacific Northwest region in Canada and the U.S. I like it when residents in a single region create their own group meanings and associations for where they live beyond political and geographical boundaries.  People, of course, can take this to the extreme, resulting in elitist isolationism, border spats, and ultimately, war.