The road less cycled

We’re here at the house of a Rivershed Society of BC member, graciously granted the right to use the upstairs of the house, shower facilities, computers, etc. for the night.  Since arriving in Valemount last Saturday, we’ve hiked to Kinney Lake where we blindfolded each other, rafted down the river in a cheesy “guide does all the paddling” raft though the scenery of Mount  Robson and surrounding mountain ranges was amazing, canoed from Tete Jaune to Dunster, camped under the stars, canoed from Dunster to McBride, thrown frisbees into vehicles, canoed from McBride to Crescent Spur and the Goat River watershed, hiked the Goat and Milked the ridge, eaten countless wild berries, “debriefed” far too literally, seen 5m diameter cedars, swam in the Fraser, drank pure stream water, skinny-dipped in the Goat, eaten lots of raw veggies, and shared some good laughs.

Now we ditch the canoe and hop into the raft for the next 8 days or so, honey pot and all, before we emerge from the Canyon and enter the Valley.

Hahahaha.  You all believed me when I said “Valemount” would be my last blog entry for three weeks.  Fools.  As evidence that I constantly re-evaluate my decisions, here’s another entry.  By the time I left the library yesterday, it was around 4 p.m., and I still had a couple of errands, including buying rope to cache my food and checking out the IGA.  By then it was way too late to make it to Mt. Robson by nightfall, so instead I asked at the liquor store for a local bar.  It was, after all, a Friday night.  Here’s what I wrote in my notebook while in the bar last night:

Valemount, Day 2, August 1.

The Valemount bar counter

I’m here in Valemount, at a bar the name of which I’m not sure of, but it’s just north of the public library where I spent some time earlier today.  I’m here by myself, alas – tomorrow I’ll meet with my fellow SLLP’ers (Sustainable Living Leadership Program) in Mt. Robson, but for now I’m scribbling away by my lonesome.

A group of rowdies – all guys – are playing pool over to my right, and a speaker blasts out some pretty good tunes to my left.  I’ve had a gin and tonic and am on to a bottle of Becks – when I ordered I thought she said Vex, but it turned out to be Beck’s.  A mild beer with a bland name, brewed in Germany under the “German Purity Law of 1516.”

I’m munching on some granola I picked up at the Save-on-Foods in Abbotsford before I left, intended as breakfast/lunch/dinner food.  I bought more than I needed however, and I write better with some munchies.  Fittingly, I’ve always been a granola addict ever since acquiring a taste for it at Roots Health Foods in Maple Ridge. 

It’s much easier – though more expensive – to write here than in my tent.  Perhaps if I arrive at my campsite late enough and leave early enough I can avoid detection by Randy, the owner, and avoid paying.  Or I could just find a spot in the woods to camp, though a girl named Shiaka (aka. Stephanie) who I met outside Infinity Health Foods says there’s been reports of cougars stalking people right inside the town and that there’s been lots of grizzlies around as well.  I’ll play it safe and stick to the campsite, if that’s actually any safer.

My loosely vegan eating habits (I call myself a vegetableatarian – one who eats mostly plant food sources with the odd bit of meat/dairy) have been thrown out the window.  In a place where pizza goes for $4.50 a slice (since then I have found some saner prices), a hefty burger, potato salad, and bean stew all for $6.00 offered by the local Legion couldn’t be passed up.  I’m not a lover of trail food yet and hate to pass up a hot meal.  The legion atmosphere was nice – friendly people, if a little on the elderly side -and I passed a nice game of 8-ball pool with a fellow named Kurt.  The second game of pool in my life, and I can’t say I fared too well, with four balls left when I Kurt sank his 8-ball.  No matter; I’ve learned to play poker and 8-ball in the past week so I’m making strides.

It seems one great shortcoming of this town is the ratio of men to women here.  For every woman, there’s half a dozen men, and I’ve yet to see a genuinely attractive woman.  Perhaps residents would dispute that, but from what I’ve seen so far there’s not much grounds to deny it.  Perhaps I can ask somebody later tonight – might make a good conversation starter.  If there are any, they sure don’t frequent the bar on a Friday night.  Perhaps it’s only the average women who can handle the tough climates out here.

[Interjection:  Though some of the people whom I write about may read this blog, I pull no punches unless what I have to say might be personally hurtful].

My mind still compares everyone I meet to the woman I dated last summer, and few if any match up.  There was a sexy, intelligent woman and I’ve mised her ever since setting foot on the Greyhound on Thursday.  My major trips of the past year were both with her, one as partners and one merely as friends, and travel for me has become roughly synonymous with her.  It seems blatantly unfair, then, that when we’re both single and I’m ahem, more “open-minded” than at times in the past, that I travel alone. 

There’s a table of older gentleman and as usual, only one elderly woman, right in front of me.  The occupants stagger a little when they stand up – I recognize some of them from the Legion hall earlier, where they got started on the spirits.  One of them, a fellow with kindly eyes and red ball cap came over to say “Hi” and grab a handful of granola earlier, and another has come over three times now, most recently to ask what I’m writing about and then to lean over and try and read it.  I tell him I’m writing about whatever comes to mind – women, the town, my trip, my future, whatever, and he assures me his glasses can’t focus on the words anyway because they’re far-sighted.  Then  he shuffles away again.

It’s loud in here now – the volume is up and the people are getting into the action.  I haven’t seen anybody yet who I’d really be interested in chatting up – mostly rowdy guys gathered around the pool table, so I stay seated.  As further evidence of the unhealthily high ratio of men to women here, two guys stand up, clutching each other as if they want to dance, or maybe they’re just holding each other up, but nothing happens and I soon lose sight of them.

A fellow named Reid comes over and asks me, as he’s working the ATM, “What’s the coolest town you’ve been to?”

“This one,” I reply.  “It’s the only one I’ve been to.”

He’s obviously very drunk.  I beckon him over, and ask, “So is it true what I hear – that there’s no good looking women in Valemount?” 

He looks around before replying, “Well, I haven’t fucked a good looking one yet.”

“Write this down,” he tells me.  “Best line you’ll ever hear (Ha!).  I’ve fucked a lot of women, but I ain’t got no standards.  The only standards I got is they have to be automatic.”  He says this slowly with a slur, and I write it down all right, though I’m hesitant to do so – his words hardly bear repeating.  I only do to point out how far back in the Stone Age some people linger.

Before saying anything to me, he qualified even talking to me by saying, “You are straight, aren’t  you?”  I replied affirmatively because it’s true, but perhaps I should simply have said, “No, you homophobe,” and given him my best look.  Guys will be guys I suppose, and disapproving though I might be, who am I to pass judgement?  I’ve lots to learn yet.

Some more people have entered now, and I think maybe I’ll go for a walk around.

Woah.  Now a fight’s broken out.  I watch with interest – a lone granola crunching bearded figure smirking and scribbling away in the corner.  A table is knocked over as a couple of guys grapple on the floor.  The action is fast and furious, and like a wave, spreads to the other side of the room, where another table tips all its drinks onto the floor.  The waitresses – yes waitresses (Valemount’s equivalent of hockey referees) move in to break things up.  Miraculously, or perhaps not so, the guys break it up and order is soon restored, but it stays rowdy and the waitresses spend about 10 minutes calming things down and re-arranging tables and chairs.  A young woman standing beside me looks at me and says, “Only in Valemount!  I haven’t seen anything like this since the last time I was here!”  It does seem a rowdy place – lots of macho guys strutting around, and a few women watching with amusement, and hopefully, some measure of scorn.

I walk over and ask a couple of fellows if they have any idea what the fight was about, and one of them replies with one word:  “Chelsea.”

I reply, “Yeah?  Figures.”  I have no idea who Chelsea is, but I don’t need to either.  I’m starting to get the pulse of this town.  Well into the evening, everybody’s drunk, there’s been one good fight, loud, energetic music, a six to one guy to girl ratio, and the dance-floor’s empty and hasn’t been used either. 

________________________________________________________________________________________________

That’s the end of last night’s journal entry – around midnight I pack up and leave, getting a ride from the shuttle bus to the other side of town where I need to be, though I really don’t need the ride - I’m completely sober.  A fellow in the bus, drunk as punch, says the guy and girl sitting next to me are “all fucked up” but he’s fine.  Then he goes on to accuse the elderly female driver of being a bullshitter and spreading rumours of some sort.  She smiles and turns up the volume as the fellow next to me starts to sing, atrociously. 

I hang around the 24 hour Petro for a while until the drunks have cleared away, and then I head to my campsite – about a 15 minute walk away, though in the blackness of the night it’s a bit of an eerie walk, and completely illogically, my nerves rear up and I start at small noises.  But I make it to my campsite, pitch my tent, brush my teeth, and hope the manager doesn’t show up in the morning to collect his fee.

In the morning, and I wake a little on the late side, late enough to make the walk to Mt. Robson a little daunting time-wise, I head over to the visitor centre where I re-fill the water canister I bought in Squamish last summer.  It’s a piece of shit, really - it leaks when on its side and is plastic lined, but it’ll do for now.  I have some breakfast – trail mix, almond butter on knackebrood, granola, and arrive at the decision not to attempt the long,  hard walk to Mt. Robson, but rather to wait until the Greyhound carrying the rest of the participants arrives in the afternoon.  Given the choice between lounging in the library and coffeeshops or sweating my way to Mt. Robson, I give in and opt to stick around.  I don’t regret it at all – the Kiwa coffeeshop is really nice, cozy and welcoming, and the girls behind the counter disprove the notion that Valemount is lacking in that department.  Perhaps it’s only the bars that come up far short.

Either way, I have a black organic coffee, and we chat pleasantly.  They express a lot of interest in the SLLP, and we talk about some local hikes and things.  As a matter of fact, that’s where I’m headed for lunch right about now.  I’d post some pictures, but not expecting to be able to download them I didn’t bring a USB cable, only a battery charger “just in case.”

I truly think this will be my last post, though I’m making no promises. 

I’ll close with a quotation from my 3rd ever weblog entry:

The Elders say we must let go of the shore, push off
into the middle of the River. Keep our eyes open
and our head above water
See who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves. For the moment that we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.

This morning I watched a heron fishing in Swift Creek, delicately stalking the riverbank waiting for an unlucky fish to swim by.  As I stood at the riverbank, a large brown head appeared to my right, an otter I think, but perhaps a beaver.  For a split second its head broke the surface before diving under and being borne downstream.   On the way out of the campsite, I ate wild raspberries, and near the library a handful of saskatoon berries.  It is beautiful here in the summertime, though I imagine winters would be cold and unforgiving.  Mt. Robson, where I am headed soon, is more or less a ski-town. 

I’m safe and sound in Valemount at the moment, writing from the public library where the motto is, “A room without books is like a body without a soul.”  I’d amend that to “A house without books” but that’s just me splitting hairs.  It’s a small library, built entirely out of thick logs like many of the buildings here.  I”m glad to be able to take a rest, as from my campsite at Wilderness Creek it’s a good twenty minute walk with around 40-50lbs between my backpack and the bag I’m carrying. 

Everything here is insanely expensive compared to Abbotsford.  I was going to grab a couple slices of pizza, until I read that it was $4.50 a slice, 5 times what you’d pay in Abbotsford.  A basic meal, and I mean very basic, at the restaurant the Greyhound stopped outside of en route was over $11. 

It’s been raining lightly on and off today and overnight.  The vodka shot container I left on the picnic table while I slept had about 2-3mm of rain in it, and the moisture in the air and light rain made it difficult to start a fire with the wood I was given by my neighbours.  One of these days I’ll have to learn to start a fire without paper, but thanks to my notebook last night I did have a warm fire for a few hours.

Next stop is Mt. Robson.  I could wait around here in Valemount until the rest of the crew arrives by Greyhound on Saturday afternoon and I’d get a ride to Mt. Robson, but I think I’ll simply walk it and enjoy the scenery on the way.  I’ll camp one more night in Mt. Robson by myself, and then the group will arrive and the Sustainable Living Leadership Program will begin.  From the highway, the river looked fairly calm in most stretches, but the water is high for the time of year. 

Throughout the program, while spending much of each day on the river, we’ll be exploring various concepts that relate to sustainable living.  Already, a giant environmental issue has reared its head here.  The fellow who runs the Wilderness Creek campsite, who I spoke with last night, works for much of the year up at Fort McMurray where he operates equipment.  The money’s good he says, but the environmental damage is great, and it’s the money he earns there that allows him to take summers off and operate the campsite.  The footprint of the tar sands is indeed far-reaching; even here, many hours drive from Fort McMurray, it shapes the lives of the people. 

Last night I also attended a talk on the Mountain Pine Beetle crisis; here is another example of a problem that has wide-spreading implications.  It’s shifted the nature of the economy from logging to tourism, as the logging industry simply isn’t capable of supporting itself any longer.  For the time being, and this may be ending, there’s been good profits in harvesting and market beetle killed timber, but when the beetle kill windfall comes to an end there’ll be a death of lumber.  It will take generations if not centuries for the ecosystem to restore balance and re-generate to its former stature.

A train’s blasting it’s way past outside, reminding me that I’ve got to hit the road if I want to make camp by nightfall, and I doubt there’s a library in Mt. Robson, so you won’t hear from me for three weeks until I’m down in the valley again.  The problems facing us seem enormous, from the tar sands to the Mountain Pine Beetle, and contemplating them I think of Lao-tzu’s words in the Tao Te Ching (Dow deh Jing), which I do not profess to understand, that:

“Do you want to improve the world?  I don’t think that it can be done.

The world is sacred.  It can’t be improved.  If you tamper with it, you’ll ruin it.  If you treat it like an object, you’ll lose it.” 

And, “Love the world as yourself.  Then you can care for all things.”

And lastly, “He (The Master) holds back nothing from life.  Therefore he is ready for death.” 

At this time, travel seems the essence of life.  There is something unbelievably satisfying, stimulating about being on the road, that being home and developing a career or working in retail simply can’t compare to. 

There is so much in the Tao Te Ching that brings to mind Biblical corollaries.  Some seem counter, some complementary.  Interestingly, the translator of this version uses a Bible verse in his dedication of the book.