It’s Wednesday night – and the power is out in Tofino
Every time this happens, my reaction is the same. Intense frustration – for about two minutes. Then a sigh of relief, as I adapt to life without electricity: maybe for a few minutes, or maybe for a few days. I always have at least one flashlight stowed where I can find it by feel – with that in hand, I can then dig around in my drawers and up top of the cabinets, pulling out my tall candles and my tealights, and placing them around the room, the tall ones against the walls and windows so their light is reflected back into the room. If it is dinner time, I pull out the camp stove – mine is a Trangia, which burns alcohol, so it’s as safe (and silent) in the home as a fondue pot.
The power goes out a lot in Tofino in winter. Our single power supply line follows alongside our single road connection to the outside world, winding away along steep forested slopes above Read more…
Update on the Canadian rice-growing attempt
Well, I guess you’d call it a “technical success”. The rice I seeded grew (see my May 21 entry for background) – the plant, I mean. But it did not actually produce any rice grains. In fact, the plants didn’t even flower. [but see my November 27 update!]
Still, it’s been a pretty interesting exercise. I learned a lot from it, and I want to try it again next year. As you can see from the photos, the plants actually grew really well. They are healthy, very sturdy, and each plant has between 4 and 7 tillers (the individual branching stems that come out of the plant’s base). According to the rice-growing manual, plants can have anywhere from 3 to 33, depending upon how Read more…
Hiking Mt. Arrowsmith
For more info about hikes and other things to do around Port Alberni, please look out for my new updated guidebook: The Wildside Guide to Vancouver Island’s Pacific Rim (Harbour, 2010).
Arrowsmith is like the guardian of Port Alberni, its multiple craggy peaks visible from almost anywhere in town. And it is one of those hikes that I have been meaning to do for years… but one of those things that somehow you never get around to doing, because you always know it’s there.
Well, my friend (and training partner) Jeannie had a friend coming from Ontario to visit, so she had picked August 29th as the date to hike the mountain with him weeks ago. And were we ever lucky! Read more…
Back in training!
I did it! Two weeks ago, I signed up for the MOMAR, which stands for Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race: a 50 km off-road race which includes sea-kayaking, mountain biking, and navigational trail running. So, I’m back in training.
I wrote in a recent post how I am actually in really good shape right now, in spite of not having done any deliberate “exercise” or “training” for about three months (and very little in the last year, even), all because of my active lifestyle: growing and gathering my own food, and getting around by bike. Well, now that I have plunged back into “training”, I am truly amazed at how keeping active really has kept my fitness up.
I’ve done a few swims, both in the pool in Port Alberni, and in Sproat Lake (outside of Port Alberni) and Kennedy Lake (outside Read more…
Stocking up on salmon!
What a great time of year for eating fresh food, as well as for preserving it for winter.
Last month, I purchased five fresh sockeye salmon in Port Alberni, and brought them home and canned them up. This weekend, coming back from Port Alberni, I saw a sign on the side of the road for fresh fish for sale – so scored another three sockeye as well as a huge spring salmon.
I was planning to can these ones too, but in the morning I ran into my dear friend Carl Martin, who said he’d show me how to smoke them. Carl is Nuu-chah-nulth, and he knows more about gathering and preserving wild food than anyone I know – especially seafood. So we borrowed my friend’s van and bought a Read more…
My arms! (Or why I am actually normal)
Recently, with this warm weather, a few people have commented about my strong arms. The best line was from a Toronto gal who, in perfect Toronto-speak, practically interrogated me: “Tell me exactly what your work-out regimen is!”
It’s set me thinking… because I don’t have a workout regimen. OK, last year I was training quite hard for a triathlon – swimming and kayaking, and doing a bit of weights too, as well as my running and biking. But that 
triathlon was last August – a full year ago – and I have barely done any training at all since then. And especially not arm training. I’ve been in my kayak only two or three times this year, and I’ve hardly been in a pool since January either.
So I’ve been reflecting upon this. I haven’t been “working out”, yet my body is stiff and sore from exercise. And I realize that it is my chosen lifestyle. I try to live as low-impact on the world as I can, at least Read more…
Berry abundant!
Sorry for the long blog silence – I was in a writing workshop at UBC (where I am starting my MFA in Creative Writing), and got kind of burnt out on writing for a while, there.
In Vancouver, I stayed with friends in Kitsilano and biked up that big hill to the university every morning. I could not help but noticing the salmonberries just dripping off the vines, glistening like red and yellow jewels, on the side of the bike path/sidewalk. You know, you would never see that in Tofino – any berry within arm’s reach of a path is plucked away as soon as it even starts to turn colour. But here were all these ripe berries! Read more…
Wow, not your usual book tour!
Wow – the book tour for First Nations of the Pacific Northwest: Change and Tradition is all over. June is not the ideal month to head out on book tour – those long warm summer evenings are pretty hard to resist – but if I didn’t go for June, I’d have had to wait til summer is over and people are settled inside again, i.e. October.
Signing books at the Port Alberni launch (photo D. Durocher)
And, all in all, it went really well – the crowds were not huge, but people were just so interested in this. I had hoped that Joe Martin and other members of his family would be able to travel around with me but, because of work commitments and an illness in the family, they were only able to make the Tofino and Ucluelet launches. So, instead, Joe and I made a little video of him speaking, so he was able to attend and speak at the launches virtually. Listen to Joe Martin on my June video blog.
Some background about this new book I’m launching
This month, I am really pleased to launch a book that I contributed to. First Nations of the Pacific Northwest: Change and Tradition was published in Germany in 2005 (the entire text is in both German and English) but, until now, it has never been available in Canada.
This book was published by the Westfalian Museum of Natural History in Muenster, Germany, to accompany their exhibition on native cultures of the Pacific Northwest.
Tla-o-qui-aht carver Joe Martin, well known by most here in Tofino, is also very well known internationally! The museum’s director, Dr. Alfred Hendricks, had Read more…
Growing rice on Canada’s west coast
I worry about our food supply – and I have for quite some time.
I moved from a beautiful house in the rainforest, with a small sunny yard mostly taken up by a big and productive veggie garden, to a townhouse last autumn. I can’t say I was 100% self-sufficient in my veggies – but, over summer, I sure did not buy much at all. Even in the winter, by having root crops such as carrots and potatoes in the ground or stored, and growing some of the greens such kale, chard, and sprouting broccoli, that grow year-round in our mild coastal climate (yes, here in Canada!), I was able to provide a fair bit of my winter food too Read more…
Jacqueline Windh 