Go to the cliff?? Where's the frigging cliff??

Can we really only have foresight in hindsight? Or are we smarter than that?

It’s funny how things tie together. I wrote just last week about how, if we can see that something bad is going to happen, it is our duty to act to prevent it.

And now, this week, the seven Italian geoscientists, engineers and government officials who are charged with failing to give the public adequate warning of a probable earthquake are big international news. (I actually wrote about this case back in June, for the Guardian).

I can’t help but relate this example to the story here in Tofino. (Although I have moved to Port Alberni, I am actually in Tofino at the moment as I write this – my house sale closes today!)

So, over in Italy those officials are being charged with manslaughter – after the earthquake. (The earthquake that occurred there, just six days after the group had released a statement that there was no increased danger of a major quake, killed 309 people).

Over here, we know with 100% certainty that a major quake is coming. We cannot predict exactly when – it could come this afternoon, or not for another 200 years – but there is 100% certainty that it will come. And the destruction of buildings and infrastructure and the loss of human life will be on the scale of what we all witnessed in Japan this past March. It  is most likely that thousands, possibly even tens of thousands, will die.

We cannot prevent that quake. But we can prevent many of the deaths if we educate ourselves, and prepare for it now.

And this is one of the main reasons that I have moved away from Tofino. Port Alberni is not that far away – the earthquake and tsunami will be almost as bad there as they will be here. But how these two communities are preparing for these coming events is completely different.

Tofino came out with an emergency plan in 2007. It was failing in so many ways:

• It had evacuation routes that actually sent people into the tsunami inundation zone rather than out of it
• There was insufficient understanding of the nature of a magnitude 9 earthquake (which means that numerous trees will be down across the roads and driving will not be an option for evacuation). Safe zones must be close enough to reach on foot, within 15 minutes of the earthquake. The plan assumed people would be driving.
• There was insufficient understanding of the events to understand what kind of emergency kits people must have: Two types are required: the so-called “Grab’n’go” kit, which you run with to escape the coming tsunam; and then a long-term survival kit to withstand the weeks or months where access to food, water, and other basic supplies will be limited.
• Their official Grab’n’go kit list contained 126 items! (which included items such as a cribbage board, fire extinguisher, and shower cap) – virtually guaranteeing that anyone who obeyed the official planners’ recommendations would not be able to drag that kit up the hill before the first tsunami wave hit.

I could see that this plan would actually put more lives in danger than if people simply ignored the plan, so I wrote two articles for the community, and made sure that they were published in both of our local newspapers:
Info about the character and magnitude of our expected earthquake and tsunami events (PDF file of text originally published in The Westcoaster and the Westerly newspaper,  April 2007)
A critique of Tofino’s emergency plan (PDF file of text originally published in The Westcoaster and the Westerly newspaper,  April 2007):

I continued to research the subject, and to offer information to Tofino’s emergency planners and to Tofino Council. I published blog articles, I talked on CBC Radio, I was even interviewed on CBC TV’s The National. To this day, four years later, no Tofino official has ever responded specifically to my input (even just to tell me to shut up!).

I tried increasingly provocative blog post titles (from You’re all gonna die: Whatever in June 2010) to an angry but informative rant published last March. By the time of that last one, I had given up on Tofino… I was already half-moved to Port Alberni – but I left it as a bit of a legacy, with all of the links to every article and interview I had done on the subject, in case someone in Tofino ever decides they do want to use my research.

And where has Tofino got with this?

Well, in June of 2010 the mayor, John Fraser, finally mustered himself up to get on CBC Radio to address this subject. Apparently his understanding of the event is so minimal that he does not actually understand that the earthquake will affect the entire west coast region, not just Tofino – so Vancouver will not be dispatching a ship to Tofino within 24 hours, as he is counting on. Vancouver will be digging itself out.

And he believes that Tofitians will survive by eating farmed fish. (Umm, if anyone saw the Japan videos, you might remember that there is a bit of current associated with those tsunami waves. I don’t think those Atlantic salmon will be sticking around). You can listen to that CBC interview with the mayor here.

And then, this past March, the mayor stuck his foot in it again on GlobalTV – saying that locals “should” know where to go to under a tsunami warning (well, if they follow the official Tofino recommendations, sadly, that would be into the inundation zone) – but that visitors will be running around like crazy. (Umm, shouldn’t Tofino take some responsibility in making sure that visitors know what to do too? Not to mention that he is not making a tourism-dependent town look very inviting to tourists!) Unfortunately, GlobalTV seems to have taken down that video clip  but you can read some of the locals’ reaction to it here.

So, back to the Italian case. Scientists and government officials are being charged, the earthquake, for allegedly not providing adequate information and warning. 309 people died.

I want to know about here. I want to know about now, before the earthquake, before people have died. Here in Tofino, government officials are not providing adequate warning or information or planning for an event that we know is coming, and that we know will be deadly.

Must we wait until after the event happens, and hundreds or thousands of people die needlessly, due to inadequate or, in the case of Tofino, also dangerously inappropriate information? Or can we actually act with foresight, rather than hindsight?

Must we wait until people die? Or can we charge them now?

Reference: Map showing official Tofino tsunami evacuation routes.
Brown area is the tsunami inundation zone. White areas are safe areas. Look how much of the inundation zone people are expected to travel through, and how many safe areas they bypass, if they follow this plan. Remember, trees will be down and driving will be impossible. They have 15 minutes to get to safety.

And so many people seem impressed by how “brave” I am. And that is so not true! I fear for my life a lot of the time. Just not when I am out there, in the wilderness. Honestly, out there is where I feel safest.

But this common reaction makes me reflect on what fear is. Or, more accurately, what leads to a perception of danger. Many of my girlfriends here in Port Alberni won’t go running on trails alone because they are afraid of “something” happening: a fall, a bear encounter. Yet they will go on long road-bike rides, 40 or 80 or even 100 km (my sporty girlfriends here are pretty impressive, I must say!)

I do rides like that too. But it’s doing road rides like that, with cars hurtling past – sometimes only inches away from my body – that makes me experience legitimate fear. Not being alone in the wilderness.

It seems to me that many people’s fear is not proportional to the actual level of danger. It is more about a comfort zone, and what they are used to. Honestly – in my 30 or so years of adventuring, in very wild places around the world, sometimes travelling with others and sometimes alone, I have come across only one serious accident: a hiker in Patagonia who had a very bad fall, and ultimately ended up having his lower leg amputated.

Then I go to some place like Toronto, and drive on those highways, the 401 and 400 and 407 etc. – I see thousands of people enclosed in metal and glass boxes zipping past one another at combined speeds of 200 km/h or more, apparently experiencing no fear! In spite of the fact that the radio is broadcasting a constant stream of info of serious traffic accidents, and that Ontario drivers simply get used to detouring past smashed-up cars every so often, some of which contain dead or injured bodies.

Honestly, in all of my wilderness trips, I have never detoured past a dead body. City drivers just get used to this. And then think I should experience fear in the wilderness.

I recall, back in 2000, when a drunk camper was bitten by a wolf on an island off of Tofino. The incident was headline news around the country. It happened that I had been photographing the wolves involved a few weeks earlier. So, next thing I knew I was fielding all of these media calls.

I talked to one editor in her high-rise in Toronto. She was horrified by the idea of these wild animals appearing from the bush and attacking. I tried put to it into perspective for her. Something like 3000 people are killed in motor vehicle accidents in Canada each year. Hundreds of thousands of Canadians are bitten by dogs every year. On average, one person is killed by a wild animal across all of North America per year (a fraction of the number actually killed by domestic dogs).

But Canadians are used to dogs – just as they are used to cars (and car accidents). They have lost their fear of the situations that present true danger, and instead fear what they don’t know: wilderness or wolves or bears.

So what should we be afraid of? In my ideal world, we would all make the effort to become properly informed, and to define what truly are the dangers in our lives.

Ironically, the wolves that were involved in that attack provide an example. Those wolves had become habituated to humans. They had been around people so much that they had lost their natural fear of us. That is why I was able to photograph them, it is why they ended up close enough to a drunk camper to end up biting him, and it is why they were shot.

And that same habituation or desensitization is happening to us now. The things that are most dangerous to us are so intermingled with our daily lives that we do not fear them: fast food and lack of exercise; far too much sugar in the North American diet; cars and car accidents; our industrialized way of life and what that means for global warming and coming food shortages. These things are already killing thousands of people every year, and they will kill many, many thousands more.

These are all very scary to me. Much more so than cougars and wolves and bears.

There’s this land-sharing cooperative that I’m a member of, up the coast. A few times, an email has circulated around the group because a recent clearcut* is visible from our lots. That bothers some property owners.

Whereas for me, that one clearcut does not bother me any more than the many other recent clearcuts in Clayoquot Sound (UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve – and please note, there is no “P” on reserve). To me, cutting ancient forest down is not an issue of aesthetics; it is an issue about processes. Whether or not I ever lay eyes on any one specific clearcut, I understand what each clearcut means:

• in terms of lost habitat for wildlife,
• in terms of affects on the ocean via anadromous species (those that live in both fresh and salt water such as salmon) and debris runoff,
• in terms of effects upon our atmosphere and global ecosystem.

I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot this week, because of Canada’s decision to block the listing of chrysotile asbestos as a hazardous material on Annex III of the UN’s Rotterdam Convention. Since the listing of hazardous substances can only be changed by consensus, it only takes one country to stop it.

And why would Canada do that? Because our government has some new, cutting-edge unpublished study that demonstrates that chrysotile asbestos does not actually cause cancer? Or because our Conservative government has already approved expansion of an asbestos mine in southern Québec, in a riding that they hope to wrestle away from the Bloc Québecois?

Yup.

But it’s not only on the federal level that this kind of decision-making is taking place. It seems to be the only way of thinking in the resource extraction industry: people employed in [fishing/logging/mining] don’t want to see their industry shut down because of what it would mean for their own personal jobs. (Intersting that they somehow avoid considering what kind of world their own personal children will grow up into).

But I see it here among the supposed environmentalists too. There has been a strong local movement on the west coast of Vancouver Island to block the proposed Catface open pit copper mine which, if it goes ahead, would be developed in the heart of Clayoquot Sound. I find it hard to rationalize the actions of people who use metals in their every-day life to block the development of a mine. Are we against mining? Or are we just against a mine in our own back yard?

I think these are important things to think about: every time we make a decision; every time we choose to take action, or not to take action.

And it’s not just about big industrial projects like logging and mining. There are decisions and actions that we make every day.

For example, plastic grocery bags: How could anyone who considers the issue, and not just their personal challenge of remembering to bring a bag (we remember our wallet and keys, how hard can it be?), not support the banning of unnecessary single-use items that harm the environment? (And don’t give me the “but I recycle” argument: Recycling is evil).

Personally, I don’t hold much hope for the future of humanity on this planet. And sadly, we’re going to take down a lot of other species with us (we already are).

But if we are to have any hope at all, we need to look at the big picture. We need to examine our each and every action, and make our decisions based on examination of the whole and looking out for the long-term – not on just how something will affect us, personally, right here and right now.

Where do you stand? Do you have any stories to share about your “big picture”?

*I understand the word “clearcut” has been redefined because supposedly BC no longer undertakes clearcut logging. As I understand it, these patches where the forest has been cut and cleared are now supposed to be labelled “openings”, so in this post I use the word “clearcut” informally.

<–[my spinach]

The sun is beaming in my office window here and, when I finish writing this post, I am going to head outside and plunge my hands into the earth. I have eggplants that I want to plant today. And I expect that the beans that I sowed last week will just be curling up from under the earth. I need to go out to protect them from the blue jays, who love to pull them up just as they emerge.

[my first little broccoli of the year]–>

Gardening – producing my own food, is a way of connecting myself to this planet: by the direct connection of my hands in the soil, and also by the food that I eat. (It’s barely June – but in the last week I have harvested asparagus, spinach, arugula, lettuce, bok choy, and more… the earth in my yard literally becomes me!)

Gardening is also a connection to the seasons, this perpetual cycle of change that repeats as a result of our planet whirling about the sun. I’ve been growing veggies since I was a kid – I learned both from my mother and by trial and error. There is a time for each plant, and I need to be connected to it.

<–[promise of tomatoes to come]

When I moved into a ground-floor apartment in Perth, Australia, nearly twenty years ago now, I started a new veggie garden at my front doorway. It was March – autumn in Australia. Not ideal timing to seed veggies. But, I thought, Canadian summer is about the same temperature as Australian winter. I’ll plant them anyway. They’ll just think they are in Canada!

Ha, no fooling those plants. The seeds sprouted, but as soon as they emerged to see daylight, they noticed that the day-length was decreasing. They might not have known that they were in Australia – but they sure knew it wasn’t spring! They stayed on hold through the Australian winter, right through to the spring, when they finally started to grow.

Even when I was not connected to the seasons (or tried not to be), I was forced back. The plants knew.

[two generations of lettuce]–>

Gardening comes so easy to me – instinctive – but I think that is because I have been doing it so long that it becomes second nature. I know which month to seed my tomatoes or my kale; I know which plants to seed indoors (for the warmth) and which will become palid and lanky inside and need the cold (the cabbage family, such as kale and broccoli and bok choy).

<–[my kale is ready!]

It is funny, sometimes, seeing people who are new to gardening but who have no sense of this connection – no sense of the specific needs of each type of plant. They seem to think that the act of placing a seed in the soil is enough. They may sow everything at once, or when they have time rather when it is the right season, or everything indoors or everything outdoors. But it is sad to see that, too, because those people probably get disheartened about gardening, when their plants don’t produce for them. Gardening, and growing your own food, is such a joy.

Gardening is me – literally. I am made of the food that I grow.

Sure, I invest a fair bit of time into my vegetable garden. But I value that time, my hands plunged into the rich earth and the sunlight streaming on my shoulders in order to create my food – rather than hunched over my computer earning money that will pay for my food. I reinforce my connection to our planet, to my ancestors, and to how produce is meant to be: crisp lettuce, tender broccoli, sweet crunchy peas, and tomatoes with a flavour that, sadly, so many people no longer know.

I’m sad that my first post on “Connections,” after my long hiatus from blogging, is actually about breaking a connection: My connection with my community, Tofino.

Tofino is a funny town. There is a reason that it was, and still is, known as “Tough City.” It’s a paradise for tourists – but it is tough to live in. It has a core community of about 1650 “residents” – and you’d think that that would give it a really nice small-town feel and sense of community.

But Tough City is tough in a number of ways. We receive about one million tourists per year. That is great for bringing jobs into the town – but it means that most of those jobs are low-paying and seasonal (waiting on tables, cleaning hotel rooms, tour-guiding), and also that the town has become very expensive to live in. It is not the kind of town that most people can make their career in. Rather, it is a place where people come to work for a few years: earn some money; enjoy the natural beauty and outdoor activities that Tofino has to offer; and then move on.

This creates what I call a “flow-through” population. Few people who are classified as “residents” in the Canada census data are actually long-term residents: people who grew up here. And few who are here now plan to live here on the long term. Our number of people in the age range 25-34 is nearly twice the provincial average (23%, versus 12% province-wide). But the number of teens aged 15-19 is over one third less than the provincial average (4.2%, versus 6.7% nationwide). These numbers reflect that “flow-through” – lots of young people living here for a few years, but few families.

And that’s the problem of what was once a small town, then turned into a resort-town and now, rapidly, becoming simply a resort. Not much town left, and not much community.

What’s wrong with that? The problem, as I see it, is that many of the people who are classified as residents in the census data are not really residents in terms of their relationship to place. They do not have the connection to Tofino: that knowledge and that commitment that they are here for the long-term, that inspires them to become aware of the issues that affect the town, and perhaps to act and to speak out.

And this is not the fault of those “flow-through” residents at all. Rather, it is simply a problem of the way our society works today. Transportation is too easy, options are many. We are no longer tied to one place the way our ancestors were (whether by choice or not). We can grow up somewhere, go to school somewhere else, then go travelling or take a job overseas. And we can change our mind and move somewhere else at any moment. We gain insight to the global perspective and the bigger picture – but we lose our connection to place, to one place, and to community.

And what else is lost, once we live in a place that we are not connected to, is the impetus to care for it. To become aware of issues, and to be part of the decision-making that keeps our community a great place. It is too easy to give up and move on.

I am sad to say that that is what I am doing with Tofino. I am an activist and action-taker by nature. I’ve been very vocal in my community for years about caring for this place and its people: lobbying for regulation of vacation rental homes so that there is affordable housing for residents; fighting for fair water rates (Tofino’s water rates are highest in the country!); and advocating for adequate emergency planning for the coming earthquake/tsunami.

I am not sure why so few members of our community have come on board about these issues – which affect everyone here – but I suspect that our “flow-through” population has something to do with it (along with the many distractions that keep people from paying attention to important issues: Facebook, TV, hockey scores and more). I have become angry with this place, with the community, and it is time for me to go.

I am moving to Port Alberni. It’s not Tofino, at least not in terms of the wild and natural beauty that Tofino and Clayoquot Sound have to offer. But it is an established and stable community. Most of the new friends I have made there were born and raised there; others have come for stable career jobs and plan to stay. They pay attention to community issues – because Port Alberni is their future – and they care. So maybe it’s a better place for me.

Wish me luck!

Well, it was a technical success. My harvest (pictured) wouldn’t have quite sustained me through the winter. Yup, that’s the whole thing.

But at least I got a harvest! I wonder if this is perhaps the first rice ever grown on Vancouver Island (I actually haven’t even heard of it being grown in British Columbia – although someone must have tried). I am quite sure it’s the first rice ever grown and harvested in Tofino!

So, for those of you have been following along, you’ll remember that I had rice growing in shallower and deeper containers. (For those of you who weren’t, you can check out my previous reports May 25 2009, September 5 2009, and November 27 2009). For some reason, the plants in the shallower plastic container flowered more. However, many of the flowering stalks did not produce rice grains – the little things that look like rice are actually empty (e.g. the one at the left of the photo is empty, compared to the full ones at the right).

So I guess they did not pollinate – but I am not sure why. (I am actually surprised any of them pollinated at all – by the time they were flowering, it was mid-winter and I had them growing inside, on my bedroom windowsill. No insects around, no breeze). I had pretty much given up on them – tried to keep them as wet as I had been before, but I was no longer expecting much from them. (They are very pretty though!)

So the little rice that was there matured as I let the plants dry up, around March. So it took nearly a year to grow the plants from seed right through to “harvest” – longer than it’s supposed to take (around 200 days), but no surprise in Tofino’s cool damp climate.

I didn’t get around to seeding rice this year – it was a very busy spring for me – but I will try to do some next year. Hopefully I’ll be able to source some varieties better suited to our climate (these ones were just standard Product of California brown rice seeds from the supermarket).

Anyone else have any rice-growing stories to share?

I’ve firmly come to believe that some people are just genetically wired that way. That’s why we can’t help becoming activists – we are genetically programmed such that we just cannot stop and do nothing when we see something is wrong.

But it is hard to live with, when you feel compelled to act on everything you see that could be better. Partly because it distracts you from other things that also should matter in your life (like earning an income, or personal relationships). And partly because it is frustrating when you hit roadblocks, and can’t influence or exact the changes you see are needed…

I’ve had a really tough time lately. I’m in a bit of a love-hate relationship with my town, Tofino. You’d think a tiny little community on the idyllic surf washed west coast of Vancouver Island would be paradise to live in, wouldn’t you? To visit maybe. But not to live in.

I feel like I’ve been battling to “help” my community – to stand up for residents’ rights, like having affordable housing, or not having to pay more for water than our for-profit businesses pay. And, for the last three and a half years, I have been using my earth sciences background (PhD in Structural Geology) to try to help our community come up with an emergency plan for the coming earthquake/tsunami, that is better than the current one – which actually puts people’s lives in greater danger than if they just ignored instructions. (All of these battles are chronicled on the Tofino Residents blog, which I started but am pretty ready to give up on).

So I’ve been feeling really down: wondering why, when I take the time to volunteer my expertise for the community, it must be a battle. Why I feel compelled to fight the battle, in spite of the opposition. Why there even is opposition and antagonism to simply getting a plan that helps my friends, my community…

It’s not only Tofino. I feel really down about the world. About global warming, about right-wing journalists who are not even scientists but who do their best to bamboozle the public into believing there is even any legitimate debate about human-caused climate change, about the oil spill. I left my high-paying job in the mining industry (yup, that’s right! that’s were I used to earn big bucks!) ten years ago, to earn a pittance as a writer/photographer (and nothing as an activist) in order to try to right some of the wrongs on our planet.

But lately, I’ve been feeling really negative about it all. Sure, the difference I make – be that on Tofino’s tsunami plan or on global environmental issues – is ultimately positive. But it is so negligible on the scale of things. I don’t feel like I am making any real difference.

This week, though, when I was feeling my lowest, I stepped out my front door – and there on my doorstep was a big heart drawn in chalk on the pavement. I knew right away who had drawn it – a little 5 year old girl who lives two doors down. The week before, I had helped her learn to draw a heart with chalk by herself, as I watched her sister learn to ride her bike without training wheels all by herself.

I mostly ride my own bike, rather than drive, so I have got to know the six kids here on my little townhouse driveway . They’re all between 5 and 7 years old. (They talk to me, because they don’t have to flee off the driveway for me and my bike, like they do when a car comes in). I always make time for them, even when I am busy. The last few months, they have been knocking on my door, asking me to “come out and play” with them. I nearly always do, no matter how busy I am – even if only for a few moments.

In my utterly crappy mood, that chalk heart on my doorstep the other day just warmed my jaded and cynical heart.

Maybe I am setting my goals too high, trying to change things that are just too unchangeable. But that chalk heart made me realize that I am making a difference in this world – at least on the scale of those kids’ lives.

And so they make a difference in mine.

Yesterday, Merry Bewick down on Chestermans Beach called me up and asked if I would come over and sign a copy of one of my books, that she had purchased as a gift.

I’ve been carefully tending my tomato seedlings since March. I’ve done a great job, I must say – some are approaching a foot in height, and a few even have buds on them.

So imagine my surprise when I saw Merry with a window-full of full-size tomato plants, many of them laden with fruit!

The challenge growing tomatoes here in Tofino is that we are on a skinny peninsula, surrounded by the North Pacific. Although we get a good deal of sun most summers, we just don’t get the heat that you need to ripen tomatoes. The plants grow; they even look great. And you can usually manage to get some hard little green tomatoes by September. But to get them to ripen before the winter starts to set in again (usually the second week of October; we don’t have fall), you really have to grow the fastest-ripening varieties. I have had the best luck with cherries: Tumbler and Golden Nugget. In the full-size varieties, Early Girl, Early Cascade and Alicante work best.

So I asked Merry what variety they were. “Oh, you know, stolen seeds,” she said. “Tomatoes from the store, that I ate and took the seeds out of.”

June tomatoes, I thought… no bugs around in winter, when they’re blooming. “Did you pollinate them yourself?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” she said, holding up a little blue paint-brush (see photo, above). “This is the bee!”

Merry said that some of the tomatoes were plants that she seeded about a year ago, and others she had grown from cuttings. “I just lop the tops off and thrown them in there,” she said, pointing to a bucket on the floor.

Well, you just keep on learning, don’t you? I am surprised that the tomatoes continued to grow through the short days of winter. But then again, I kept a green pepper plant alive and growing at a south-facing window a few winters ago, using a Q-tip as my bee, and getting some early spring green peppers too. I think the secret is two-fold: lots of light, and also that the plants don’t chill down at night, as they would in a greenhouse.

Thanks for the tips, Merry! And especially thanks for the tomato, which I enjoyed with my fresh home-grown Port Alberni lettuce (transported that same day from Port by bike!) in an extremely tasty and environmentally-friendly salad last night.

Norm Hann was our instructor – giving us a chance to try out something new, as well as to find out about a new and different way of getting a core workout. (The core muscles are all of the big muscles in the centre of your body – stomach, back, glutes – that support and stabilize the rest of your body. A strong core helps prevent injury as well as makes you stronger all-round). This morning clinic was one part of the program of this weekend’s Tofino running camp, led by ultra-endurance athlete Jen Segger.

Norm has just come back from a major SUP trip through the Great Bear Rainforest – “standing up” (literally and figuratively) for the Great Bear Rainforest, in particular about the proposal to have oil tankers pass through this pristine region. The oil well spewing out tens of thousands of barrels of oil per day unfortunately illustrates Norm’s point perfectly – the devastating effects that accidents can happen. So, to raise awareness about the risks to the region, Norm travelled nearly 400 km on the SUP in 11 days.

The boards are broad and quite stable. I felt a little wobbly on it at first, but it is not what I would call “tippy”. Not one of us fell off – which says something about stability, considering we were a group of first-timers. I think for straight-out travelling, I’d prefer a sea kayak – both for the ability to hold more gear, and for the stability in rougher seas. But the view from up high was definitely quite nice. The view around is better, but what surprised me is how much you can look down into the water from the SUP, views that you mostly miss from a kayak. Who ever knew there are so many big crabs down there!

I think what the SUP is really great for, though, is for that core workout. You do really need to hold your body stable while paddling – can’t slack off and lean back and lily dip like you can in a kayak. But also, the stroke is very different, hoding both arms straight, and using mainly body rotation to pull the paddle through the water.

I’ve been wanting to try this out for a while, so I’m really greatful to both Norm and Jen for making this opportunity happen. Apparently, SUP is currently the fastest-growing watersport. And it’s not only for flat water. Norm had it out there on the waves every day, surfing some really good rides at Cox Bay, one of Tofino’s biggest and best surf spots.

What do you think about SUP? Have you tried it yet? (For any Vancouver Island visitors who want to try: they’re available to rent on Nitinat Lake, abotu a 45 minute drive from Port Alberni).

But last month, the West Vancouver Memorial Library contacted me and asked if I wanted to put together a show of my photos. What an opportunity – of course I said yes! So I’ve been frantically preparing images, getting them printed, and now I am framing. And what a good feeling it is, seeing these images printed large.

I remember when I first started to print and display my photos, a decade or so ago. I had been photographing “seriously” for twenty years by then – I’m not saying I was “good” that whole time, but I had been working hard at improving myself: learning the technical stuff, and being ultra-critical about my own work so I could continue improving. But all of that time, all of the photos that I had taken were slides stashed away in little boxes. Once I started doing slideshows, and printing and framing my works – once I started showing them to people – I realized that’s what it’s all about.

I don’t photograph for myself. I photograph because I want to share what I see and what I feel when I am out there; I want to put a frame around a little part of it, and take it back home to share with others. Not many people get to see wild animals in the wilderness these days, and that’s something that’s really important for me. To show wild animals living where they belong: in their natural setting – not captive, not on the “wild game farms”, where so many “wild” animals are photographed these days – but to show the extensive habitat they need to survive. (We need those wild areas to be intact, in order for us to survive, too).

So I’ve had some good fun these last few weeks, going through images and readying them for exhibition. I still haven’t made the final selection of what will and won’t be shown – there will be between 30 and 40 prints on display all together – but I’m offering you a sneak preview of some of them here.

And if you are in or around Vancouver, I invite you to come down and see them all! They will be on display for all of June and July, at the West Vancouver Memorial Library (1950 Marine Drive), open daily (and free entry, of course!). And please, leave a comment here and let me know what you think…