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Vancouver Island

Not all Zoom & gloom

… though I was not happy to learn the airline on which I was booked to fly next Friday had gone the way of the fairies. Still, I’m rebooked now and looking forward to kissing the English ground once more in a week or so.

It’s been busy busy here – blackberries to jam, tomatoes racing against time to ripen for me before I leave, potatoes growing… berries! I know I am berry-obsessed but even I was a little startled to see these peeking out of the tater patch

but a little swift research told me potato berries are nothing to be alarmed about and are part of the natural cycle of spuds, but the plants are usually dug up before they fruit. The fruits can be saved for seed much like a tomato plant, apparently.

Other entertainments include a town hall meeting last week in Victoria, at the invitation of Victoria’s one and only NDP member of parliament, Denise Savoie

with NDP agriculture critic Alex Atamanenko, where a room packed to the ceiling with farmers and foodies

rocked and rolled and got excited about food security issues that affect an island like ours. There was a lot of talk about the potential effects of a food crisis on an island that imports 95% of its food, and about the very interesting observation that here, where 90% of the population say they garden, only 10% of those gardeners grow any food. I had also heard earlier that there are only 5 or 6 full time farmers on the Saanich Peninsula’s dozens of farms. One organic farmer, David Chambers

spoke forcefully on the desperate need to inspire and reward young aspiring farmers so that there is someone to carry the growing and farming knowledge into the next generation.

Writer/editor/farmer Tom Henry

was representing small farmers and talked about the difficulties small producers have in meeting the stringent requirements of national grocery chains: they are not growing in sufficient volume to be able to produce only those perfect fruits and vegetables picky shoppers have been encouraged to demand. Which is only one reason you don’t find more local food in your local supermarket.

Other speakers talked about community gardens and the need to introduce bylaws to allow the growing of food on every available piece of common land. As Carolyn Herriot said, if there’s a food crisis on the mainland, do you really think anyone’s going to stop and put food on a boat for us? A model of self-sufficiency (she achieved it in five years), her proposals include planting edible ornamentals, saving seeds, and acquiring the skills to grow food all year round.

Doing my small part this special year, here are my first ever spuds, and I think they’re beautiful:

Sunday saw a lot of rain, and a lunchtime visit to Merridale Cidery

where the wood fired oven was making its presence a little too obvious

right into the dining room. We didn’t pause for a tasting

as we’d done that a couple of years ago, but we did settle down for a lovely lamb burger

before the drive back over a more than misty Malahat.

Yesterday was dry and fine and perfect for driving to Duncan to visit the dentist. After which, a little lunch with Shirley in Maple Bay where her potentially prize-winning succulents were blooming

safely out of reach of the chief garden pest, looking a little thin we thought, as it trimmed the clover.

Clam spotting

A pleasant afternoon in Maple Bay today.

Had an enlightening walk on the beach at low tide revisiting some of the bivalves of my youth, and a newcomer.

When I were a lass, the Manila clam (Venerupis philippinarum) was everywhere we poked our shovels; I remember chasing their spouts to gather a bucketful. They are colourful, with gradations of colour on the outside of their shells, and a line of purple on the inside. Gloriously tender when fresh, but not really that native: accidental immigrants from Japan in the 1930s who hitched a ride into our waters on oyster seed.

The unimaginatively named and rather pale cousin to the Manila, the good and hefty Native clam (aka Littleneck or Steamer or Protothaca staminea) has a healthy presence in ‘my’ bay.

Another you don’t see much is the Cockle, Clinocardium nuttallii.

Butter clams – surprisingly large, their size reflected in their Latin name: Saxidomus giganteus – tend to live deeper than Native and Manilas.

A newcomer from Japan, another freeloader (arriving in BC in the 1980s, in the ballast water of ships), the Mahogany (aka Purple Varnish or Nuttallia obscurata) is more fragile and therefore takes a beating in winter storms. The purple of the inner shell is more prominent the more freshly departed the clam. Lots of shells on the beach.

And then there were the starfish,

the sunfish,

and the flowers.

Words on the Water and after

So: the Words on the Water writers festival (check out the virtual tour of Campbell River!) was a good old time. We arrived, on a day of brilliant sunshine, at 8:30 sharp and purchased $40 worth of tickets for all the day’s readings, of which there were eight, in four sessions. We heard that the Friday night gala had been a success, and were offered a few newly added (thank you fire department) seats for the Saturday night literary cabaret. But in the end we decided against staying for the evening as well, since all the readers were the same as for the daytime sessions, and we felt in our bones – and a few other places – that sitting through the first 8 hours of readings was probably enough.

Evelyn Lau kicked things off with some poems from her new collection, Treble. She talked about the autobiography of writing: even when she’s writing fiction, she said, she’s in the story. She came across well and was warmly received by the audience; though she had some serious zing in some of her poem endings I opted to spend my cash instead on another gorgeous Gaspereau poetry collection by Jan Zwicky, Thirty-seven Small Songs & Thirteen Silences. As she’d been asked, she talked a bit about philosophy, music and poetry and how these come together for her; and she quoted Don Paterson, in an introduction to his translations of Spanish poet Antonio Machado, who’d observed that Spanish is a guitar, while English is a piano.

We had a break then, with treats supplied by Save-on-Foods, the official festival sponsor. Although I’d raised an eyebrow when I saw the supermarket was also selling the books, after a day feeding on their goodies (including a very nice lunch buffet) I came round. But it would have been nice to see a local independent bookseller, if there is such a thing in Campbell River, reap a little of the benefit of the event, which saw about 150 people attend the day’s readings.

We heard some prose then, from Claudia Casper, and some poems – read in his characteristic moaning growl- by poet, typographer and bringer of tales from the Haida, Robert Bringhurst. One of his suggestions was that all Canadian children should be required to learn at least one indigenous language so that they may read, in their original words, stories in which humans are not the most important elements.

And stood in a long long queue for lunch, after which we had more prose, from Annabel Lyon who talked about music, prose and law school, and read a bleak little tale she’d gleaned from a murder trial she’d once watched; and some new and hilarious writing from our favourite storyteller David Carpenter.

Another break and we sped toward the finish with poetry: first, Gregory Scofield demonstrated that had he chosen another path he could easily charm the words from the trees as a singer. Then Patrick Lane wrapped things up with a reading from his memoir and a few newer poems. He remarked on once being stunned to discover that a metaphor he was teaching about a wren was lost on a group of first year university students, only a couple of whom were aware that a wren was a bird.

We enjoyed a sunny afternoon drive back to Courtenay, where we stopped in to enjoy a bit of gin and some patatas bravas and some spicy squid in garlic yogurt at the Union Street Grill and Grotto before pressing on to Fanny Bay to put our feet up and rest our weary heads. In the morning we scooted back down the island, pausing to make a side trip to Thetis Island for lunch, and then on to Victoria in the sprinkling rain.

Words and water

Just looking ahead to a weekend’s literary merrymaking in Campbell River. The Words on the Water writers festival, being held in the Maritime Heritage Centre, starts on Friday. Even with a disabled website (some tragically ill-timed mishap involving corporate changes in their service provider ownership, coupled with who knows what associated administrative problems) they’ve managed to sell out their weekend passes and their Friday and Saturday night events.

We’re hoping to get to the Saturday daytime sessions at least, which will feature Evelyn Lau, Jan Zwicky, Claudia Casper, Robert Bringhurst, David Carpenter, Annabel Lyon, Gregory Scofield and Patrick Lane.

Because we can’t get into evening readings, I reckon we’ll be forced out onto the cold wet streets in search of alimentary culture instead. One pilgrimage I am never too sorry to make when I’m in Courtenay is to Tita’s, which I bet is the best Mexican food on Vancouver Island, or I’ll eat my sombrero.