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Banff Finale

Two weeks have slithered by in a sly and uncatchable manner. Seldom have I written so hard, eaten so much and slept so badly. The weather blessed us with sunshine for our last week, and I got a couple of gentle hikes in between meals and hours spent slumped over laptop.

The Hoodoos still stand, shrinking daily I guess. They started life with limestone hats but have apparently lost those along the way. And Tunnel Mountain (which has no tunnel) was busy with walkers, including a lot of young women with babies strapped to their backs; it must be one of the places that local new mothers go to retrieve their waistlines and catch some stunning views of Banff and the Bow Valley. Fortunately the path (and the trail we take to Banff townsite) has been free of cougars, although we have heard there are three of them in the area who are duking it out for supremacy. A grizzly was also seen not far away a few weeks ago.

 

 

 

 

 

The meals at the Banff Centre are something to experience, an endless buffet which tries to serve most diets, with dairy and oil-free vegetables and starch, both meat and vegetable-based soups and a pretty good salad bar. At the lunch and supper buffets, the vegetarian offering is often vegan, and for some reason usually does not appeal to me either visually or in taste. Possibly I’m just not a buffet person. Vegetable biryani, vegan lasagne and vegetarian chile have been among recent items. Here, like most places in the western world, it’s possible to eat plenty of meat three times away if that’s where your interests lie.  The buffet also includes about half a dozen desserts for lunch and dinner. Fortunately for my waistline, after much careful sampling, I find I don’t care for most of the sweets though they look quite lovely.

WordFest is on in Banff this weekend and we were privileged to see Douglas Gibson this afternoon, speaking delightfully on his long experience as an editor and publisher. His new memoir, Stories About Storytellers, includes back room tales about 21 of the hundreds of writers he nudged and coaxed into print as an editor and then publisher for Macmillan and McClelland & Stewart. He is finding life interesting “on the other side of the mirror” and finding comfort in his own words of warning to authors. He loves to tell amusing stories but between laughs dropped some grains of hard truth into his tales and generous responses to the Q&A: publishers are shrinking in number (mainly because of being swallowed by larger fish); Mavis Gallant (whose description of Gibson: “I’ll kill him” adorns his book cover) is a brilliant writer and owned the concept of Own the Podium before that was thought of;  e-books are a force to reckon with – they are becoming a big part of every publisher’s repertoire, but if someone tells you how it’s going to be in ten years’ time, seek your advice elsewhere.

After which was a tribute to Robert Kroetsch who was killed in a car accident earlier this year. As he’d been booked to appear at WordFest it seemed only appropriate to honour him  with a display of his books and a few words on his life by Fred Stenson, and a reading of one of his poems by Steven Ross Smith.

A taste for audiobooks and quesadillas

I’ve been focusing on food so much lately in this blog, and in my life and writing in general, it’s a pleasant change to be around writers here at Wired, and to have a chance to talk about writing as well as food. Because I meet most of my fellow scribes at mealtimes, as usual I’m mixing my interests. And as usual there is a lot on offer at the Vistas buffet, much of it delicious, greasing the wheels of conversation  around the dinner table.

Something I haven’t yet raised  at one of those meals is my passion for audiobooks. I’ve always loved being read to, and this summer I’ve taken a lot of audiobooks out of the library to accompany my jam-making, apple-peeling, blackberry-juicing, kale-chipping and general cooking and cleaning. Now I read it’s a trend in the wider world as well!

When I decided to drive to Banff, I was really looking forward to the many hours of being read to that would allow. But pleasant as it’s been, it’s not been perfect. In preparation for seeing the new film, whenever I’m able, I’m deep into the unabridged (11-cd)  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, read by Frederick Davidson, whose voice seems to fall more than it rises as he nimbly switches characters and mood, so it’s been a challenge to hear, let alone follow, the convolutions of plot in this intricate novel. I wonder if this is a characteristic of British readers in general or if it’s particular to this one’s style.

I didn’t have so much trouble hearing Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel but interrupted it halfway through when I found my attention wandering, and thought that a thriller would be better suited to driving, hence the le Carré. Haven’t yet started on Alain de Botton‘s Consolations of Philosophy but am even more keen to do so after watching his TED Talk (A kinder, gentler philosophy of success).

CBC has produced some fine listening for travellers,whether of the mind or road: I’ll probably start my return journey with a repeat listen to Anna Maria Tremonti‘s excellent 2008 series Diet for a Hungry Planet (with volumes 1 and 2 of Afghanada for backup).

As my Thanksgiving treat today, I went into Canmore to meet Susan and Jennifer for lunch and lots of tea at Communitea. Here’s what the moderately wholesome black bean-avocado quesadilla, plus cup of broccoli soup, looked like on the one hand, and a couple of those OMG-we’re-in-the-mountains kinds of views on the other.

 

 

 

 

 

In poetry news, for those who haven’t heard, the deadline approaches for the £2,500 Fifth Annual Troubadour International Poetry Prize, judged by Susan Wicks & David Harsent (with both judges reading all poems). Prizes: 1st £2,500, 2nd £500, 3rd £250 & 20 prizes of £20 each plus a Spring 2012 Coffee-House-Poetry season-ticket and a prizewinners’ Coffee-House Poetry reading with Susan Wicks & David Harsent on Mon 28th Nov 2011 for all prize-winning poets. Deadline for entries: Mon 17th Oct 2011. More information and PayPal link at Coffee-House Poetry Prizes page.

Sick as a dog for Animal Health Week

I’m in Banff again and at last, having left Victoria on Saturday morning for the long drive (some 932 km according to Google Map). I’d intended to stop over in Kamloops, but the wandering Irishman who vocalizes my GPS system got us lost and led me to a field the far side of town instead of the motel I’d aimed for, so I pressed on instead to Salmon Arm. Which made it a relatively short hop to Golden, where I’d last been in 2009: it was our breakfast stop in the neverending overnight Greyhound bus ride from Vancouver. It’s a stunningly beautiful location, perched on a river in the Rockies, just shy of the Alberta border, and I’d meant once day to return when I had a bit more freedom to roam. On that trip two years ago we had been set loose on the dubious culinary pleasures to be found in the Husky convenience store. If plastic-wrapped processed cheese and luncheon meat sandwiches are your dream breakfast, it was ideal, but I was hoping there was better fare to be found this time, so I stopped at The Island which had intrigued from its website.

Though they offered me the option of a late breakfast, I opted for a lunch food. In a restaurant that aims for more challenging approaches (=quinoa bread french toast would not be found on many menus) I reasoned a seeming standard item could be interesting, so I chose the caesar salad. I should disclose now that I’m suffering from a heavy cold so my senses may not have been operating at full speed. But when I see a salad like this I’m afraid my heart sinks: it’s just too hard to eat with a knife and fork. The parmesan rounds were crunchy and attractive but, like the bacon shards, shattered on impact; the croutons were, I’m guessing with approval, house-made from interesting breads, but too sturdy to be forked. So it took a good deal of cutting and balancing to negotiate into my mouth. The dressing had a nice bit of heat; the leaves were fresh, and that’s probably enough said. I was next drawn to the Rosehip Creme Brulee which was pretty but I rather wish I’d tried the Crabapple one which might have had a more identifiable flavour. Will write that off to my congestion. Anyway, all attractively served by charming and friendly waitress and a proper send-off to the rest of my journey to join the Wired Writing Studio which commenced properly this morning.

I’ll be working with Stan Dragland on seeing if it’s possible to shape some of this blog into book form, and otherwise rubbing shoulders with a geographically scattered group – participants have come from Ireland, Argentina, New Hampshire, Australia, the Yukon and NWT, and all points from Nova Scotia to Victoria. Unusually I seem to be the only West Coaster this time.

I’m sorry to have missed the Salt Spring apple festival, and the zillion other things that are happening on Vancouver Island this harvest season. But we can all celebrate wherever we are Animal Health Week, which the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reminds us is good for our health too. I’d listened to a couple of audio books on the way out here and in Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond makes the point that human illnesses had their origins in the animals we domesticated – and colonizing cultures brought both diseases and animals with them as they moved into new territories. So it’s a complex and important thing to think about.

Speaking of healthy animals, I hope that little orphaned Hunter is happy and healthy; he stopped over with me for a month this summer, keeping the rats at bay, taking me for long vigorous walks and hectoring my neighbours, and is otherwise looking for a permanent home after a lifetime spent mostly in a crate. He’s a handful…