The road less cycled

Leaving behind for a minute the question of what is money, how do we make it, who makes it, and what is it really worth, let’s accept for a minute that money as we know it is currently the way in all things are valued, and let’s face it, is an unequivocal bottom line, the determining factor for so many of the things that matter. We instinctively recoil at that thought – I know I do, at least – but it’s very difficult if not impossible to get around the fact that without access to funds, it’s going to be very difficult to acquire the things that we need, or establish something of a safety net so that when shit does hit the fan in our lives, we have something to fall back on. Without money, we can’t buy health care, we can’t buy natural health products, transportation is next to impossible, post-secondary is out of the question, and the list goes on, and on a little bit of a larger scale, corporations and extractive industries continue to be able to wield the “job provision” stick in justifying the pillaging of our wilderness.

Now, money is central in our lives, but even more so for regions far more poverty -stricken than here.  Often, just a small sum, is enough to make a start at a business that can mean the difference between continuing to live in poverty and creating some flow of income so that there is hope for the future. That’s what micro-credit finance is all about. Pioneering it is what won Mohammed Yunus the Nobel Prize. The high re-payment rates of loans made on the micro-credit principle speak strongly for its success. It should even make the hardline right-wingers who decry what in my economics class they call, “transfer payments” – social benefits, employment insurance, welfare, GST rebates, child benefits, and the like – happy, ’cause what microcredit is undeniably doing is giving a leg up to those just don’t have a means to get a start otherwise, and not doing so in perpetuity or extended periods so as to create dependence, but just providing a start-up amount so that people can put their ideas and skills to the test.

So that’s just micro-credit off the top of my head. As with everything these days, there is a wealth of information about it online. At Dr. Google. Or…fine…I’ll do some research. Go here: http://www.globalafc.org/blog/press/microcredit-an-agent-of-change/

So micro-credit fits perfectly with my belief in a need for far-reaching reform, but that only a massive shift in how we use money is practical right now. We can use small sums to fight poverty. We can donate small amounts to non-profit groups doing work that we believe in. We can make small sacrifices in the monetary sense so that there’s still some money at the end of the month, and we can contribute to something we feel good about. It’s the path I was on back in 2006, and got away from in a big way since then, and would like to re-capture.

Even better, there’s a program I’m going to do next summer called the Global Agents for Change, in which money is raised by participants who cycle together for weeks at a time. Three rides are available in 2010: Vancouver to Tijuana; Amsterdam to Istanbul, and a Cambodia ride. Now I ask you, was anything ever designed that was more suitable for me? A 2-3 month bike ride, an extremely low-carbon and pro-fitness way of travelling, while raising money to lessen the income gap between rich and poor nations? I was intrigued from the moment I heard about this, so it didn’t take me long to make up my mind that I was going to do this. It’s going to happen. Summer 2010, and I’ll do what it takes to get there. I’ve been throwing around ideas for long distance bike rides or walks for a while now, and this totally fits the bill.

So what do I need? Well, $3000 bucks and a good bike. Not that I don’t have  a good bike. Right now I have an old Raleigh, probably from the ’80’s somewhere. Bright blue. A little faded. No gear slippage. Sturdy, if a little heavy. A good touring bike? Not really. Too heavy, considering I’ll probably want to carry 60lbs of gear. Not customized for my body, and for a 9 week ride, that’s essential. So a new (used?) touring bike is probably essential for this trip.

How am I going to get the bike and the money? Scrounging. Not eating out. Buying and re-selling. Re-developing the focus I haven’t had a semblance of since I had a concussion at the behest of a giant, moving, chunk of steel in March, and leveraging that into having a job while going to school. That, for me, is hard. I’m not a great saver. I tend to say, “screw it, when I decide what I want to do with my life I’ll save. For now? No way Jose.” But to cycle from Amsterdam to Istanbul, it’s worth it. No question. So I’ll do that, with a little help from my good buddies who read this blog who have my permission to give me a good kick in the ass whenever I spend too much…

Speaking of getting some money together, if you like and believe in micro-credit and want to see what it can do, feel free to send some cash in the direction of this important cause – from now until June saving to donate money to this is what I’ll be doing, that much is certain. Although….probably best to wait until I’m accepted before you decide to contribute

Our booth in Clikz

The drive to see a transit link between Abbotsford and Chilliwack is accelerating, and I have no doubt that if we can follow through and collect the target number of signatures, that we will succeed. I said after U-PASS that I never wanted to hear the words “bus” or “public transit” again. U-PASS, to me, was a big victory, one that has the potential to significantly change the drive-by culture of this university. The campaign itself, however, was nauseatingly repetitive, and now I find myself in the same situation with the campaign to finally link up Abbotsford and Chilliwack with some form of public transit.

When this campaign wraps up, I will be taking an extended break from this type of public transit advocacy. I am passionate about public transit that adequately services the community and region, and strongly feel that there will still be tremendous room for improvement once we do get the Chilliwack-Abbotsford Connector route, but for the short term, I will not be involved on more than an advisory level.

Now that we have that out of the way, I’ll quickly update how this campaign is going. There are 489 signatures to SFS’s petition online, and I have in the neighbourhood of 950 collected in hard copy. We have some 1-200 still circulating, so we have almost certainly passed the 1500 signature threshold. That’s one quarter of what Edith Griese collected to get the Aldergrove line in place.

On Monday I rode the #21 over to Aldergrove to pay Edith a visit (and get her to sign of course!) I chatted with Edith for about 20 minutes, and at the end of that conversation, I was more determined than ever that to succeed in this effort. We needed this service 30 years ago, and seeing Edith’s resolve and enthusiasm, despite being well into her senior years, was uplifting. In total, Edith collected some 6 000 signatures, taking just over two years to do that. Now, there is no way I am spending two years on this – currently we have been doing this very actively for perhaps three months, so at this pace will need one full year, or 9 more months to match her total. I want to do it faster, as I can’t commit to being here for that long. To accomplish that we will be setting up booths at the Farmer’s Market, the Flea Market, the Greyhound station, and the Welcome Back BBQ’s in September.

Recently, the Abbotsford News wrote a story about this petition effort, and the Aldergrove Star will be publishing a similar piece today (Thursday). The story can be read here, along with my ugly mug about to be run over by a bus.

http://www.bclocalnews.com/fraser_valley/abbynews/news/49038981.html

I am sitting in Clikz cafe, the Tim Hortons on campus as I write this, having collected an additional 50 or so signatures over the last few hours.  It is interesting how people seem to be too preoccupied to notice the petition despite there being a highly legible banner displayed out front, but once you invade their consciousness by asking them if they’ve seen the petition, generally respond enthusiastically. It makes me wonder how many opportunities in life they miss by simply being oblivious to them, being too focused on where they’re going to pay attention to anything else.

This petition, in fact, is one reason that I’m still in the Fraser Valley. When SFS helped the Student Union to pass the U-PASS which will be implemented this September, we committed to advocating for a Chilliwack – Abbotsford Connector, so it was important that somebody take this on. After my bicycle accident in March, I have the time to spare, so here I am, striking a few blows for a workable transit system.

The issue has recently taken on added importance, with UFV’s declared intent to build a ring road and adjoined parking through what is currently one of the last intact mature Douglas Fir forests in the area, the woodlot on the southern half of the campus. To erect new buildings, UFV must provide more parking, and this is the only space which they have to do this, so  they are willing to destroy a grove of mature forest, in which some of the trees must be at least 300 years old. If we can encourage a broad mode-shift to transit, the need for parking will be reduced, and the building permit authority may just waive the strict requirements for more parking for the new buildings.

You’d think that if the City can build a 6 or 7 thousand seat Entertainment Centre with 500 parking spots, that they could arrange something to ensure this small tract of rare forest is preserved.

Life has slowed to a crawl, just in time for the hot weather to sweep in. If your parents ever sang that song about, “Lazy summer days, with the fish jumping and the cotton being high,” well, that’s what things feel like right now. Replace the cotton with reed canary grass or corn, and the fish jumping with red-tailed hawks soaring, and the songs fits perfectly.

I walk home everyday from the bus stop on Blueridge, from which I span the rural-urban divide, going through the subdivision, around the detention pond under the power-lines, through the barbed-wire fence, along the makeshift pathway through a young alder grove, down the hill as the pathway snakes through a grove of middle-age cottonwoods, and then through a large patch of grass that’s waist high, before I cross the creek and cross the field to my house. All in all, it’s about 10 minutes from the bus stop to my house, 13 if I’m going uphill.

It’s a bus route on which I’m starting to know some of the users. There’s Rick, the laid off reformed gang-member and now born-again Christian who’s using his free time do some serious working out. There’s the girl who goes down to the City Blends with her laptop to do her homework and do some people watching. There’s the red-haired girl who draws faces on balloons to pass the time. There’s the Indo-Canadian security guard, who remains the only one to offer to sign my petition to implement a transit line between Chilliwack and Abbotsford. Everyone else I’ve had to approach. There’s the lady who disagrees vehemently with Tim Felger’s “election” signs downtown which say things like, “Your mom called. She said to bring home a baggie.”

Riding transit so much, you start to love the endless variation among the people on the buses. The quirky bus drivers, the poverty, the young punks who hang out in the back of the bus, the young single mothers who you feel sorry for but admire for their pluck, all the people who don’t jive so well with the rest of society. Who you don’t see are the young professionals, the businessmen, the people who think they’ve got it made, who drive sporty cars around town and still believe the world’s their oyster and shun transit at all costs. Here in Abbotsford, there’s a certain homely feel to using transit, almost a sense of ownership that simply isn’t present when you’re in Vancouver or some other urban metropolis, where the sheer multitude of people makes any sort of group identification based on transportation routes unlikely.

Transit slows things down as well. Countless times I’ve walked the 15 minutes to get to the bus stop, lounged for 20 minutes reading or chatting at a bus stop, or walked the distance that the bus was going to cover because it wasn’t going to arrive for 20 minutes. As I recover from the concussion that I suffered, I’m not working yet, freeing up 35 hours per week or so. I’m still too stubborn to apply for student loans, having paid for everything out of pocket so far and determined to keep doing that as long as I can, so I’m not taking any classes because I just can’t do it financially. That leaves me with a lot of time to myself. Heck, I don’t even have the money to use all the free time getting my entertainment fix. Instead, an independent business opportunity has arisen to which I’m dedicating myself – one to which I see no downside or risk, and the potential for great rewards –  along with some casual, simple work in my garden, and some excellent literature. Ebay, too, has become my second home as I try to liquidate all the un-needed items that  are scattered around the property.

It’s a lifestyle I’m going to miss when I move on, and make no mistake, move on I will. This little 15 hectare patch of land bi-sected by Downes Creek and containing my little garden patch will be places that I will always visit fondly, albeit with mixed memories of a place that sustained me throughout high-school and early university, literally and spiritually, but also saw the accumulation of more sheer stuff than I could ever use or reasonably dispose of, along with the emergence of health challenges about which I’ve been relatively mute and will remain vague.

All my instincts scream at me to simply play it safe, and establish some kind of shelter against what may or may not metamorphose into an international if not a global catastrophe, as our society’s energy supplies start to stagnate, taxes rise, the baby boomers leave the active economy and demand their social security benefits instead, and the extinction crisis driven by a changing climate begins to mount, affecting not just the world’s ecological systems, but the people who are intricately tied to them.

By nature, I remain a cautious person, with an avid dislike for casting preparation to the wind and letting the chips fall where they may.  Yet, there are things to be said for a devil-may-care lifestyle governed more by the changing of the winds and the seasons than the fickle shifting of society’s economic outlook. It’s a hardy, no-expectations and no set plan lifestyle which takes life as it comes and doesn’t focus too much on the future, outside of idle speculation to pass the time. Perhaps most importantly, it relies on natural skill and capability to pull one through when hard times do arise instead of reserves that have been put aside in good times. What I can’t seem to decide is whether the people who lived in that way did so deliberately, knowing that any disruption in the current socio-economic state of things could turn their world upside-down, or whether they were simply too ignorant, lazy, stubborn, or selfish to focus on getting ahead and laying something aside to help them deal with bad times when they did arrive. I’m not mentioning many names, mainly because there are really only a couple of figures who characerize that lifestyle who I know much about, and even my knowledge of them is limited. But I am thinking of the people who characterized the Beat Generation, the free lifestyles of the 60’s, 70’s, and more recent decades as well. What I am coming to realize is that there was no heavenly balm of peace and good times which settled over that post World War period. There was the Cold War, and the ideologically justified combat of the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. The threat of the annihilation of a way of life was ever-present, as it is now. As I develop a broader understanding of the way things work, I find it more and more difficult to pronounce anything with certainty.

The idealism that would have seen the proliferation of public transit and bicycles, high density self-sufficient housing, community gardens, and the emergence of a government aware of the complete inadequacies of economics as usual, is fast fading within me. From the time of the first catastrophic detonation of the atomic bomb, groups have called for nuclear disarmament without success. The Kyoto Treaty was first adopted in 1997 and took effect in 2005, and today we are further from its goals than we have ever been. People continue to gradually lose traction against the ceaseless wheel of economics, as more slide into poverty and taxes rise ever higher. We are at the point where prominent British scientist James Lovelock, founder of the Gaia Theory, believes that we have finally passed the point of no return, and that the best expenditure of energy is now in preparation for the inevitable collapse of the world as we know it. Now, that’s easy for him to say – on the one hand, advancing a theory that costs him nothing but casts him into the spotlight even if he is dead wrong. But on the other hand, the science and economics of where we are does look grim. The main point here is that progressively minded activists have been calling for certain changes since many of my friend’s grandparents were teenagers, and as far as I can see, have been stymied by a range of factors, from the military-industrial complex, to fractional reserve banking, to simple human nature and greed.

Yeah, that much vaunted idealism that saw me quietly advocate for the things I believed to be of paramount importance, is giving way to a higher degree of realism that espouses one of my brother’s core beliefs: That if you don’t help yourself, you can’t help anyone else. In the face of escalating financial challenges that make a mockery of the naive, simplistic, and innocent desire to triumph over the power of money, the cogs of ICBC, housing markets, food costs, the price of accredited education, physical limitations, and prohibitive health care expenses,  a lot of the edges that defined my core beliefs about the role of a good citizen are being worn away – as near as I can gather, what happens to all idealists who don’t take jobs with the goverment or in government funded academia.

I have not yet seen or met anyone who meets two conditions: 1) is not constrained by money, and 2) acquired their wealth through means that obey the “do no harm” principle. Willful ignorance, rationalization, forced justification, and turning a blind eye seem to dominate in people’s mindsets, which is certainly not to demonize humanity, but to assign fault and to acknowledge our inherent imperfection and pragmatism.

To fly in the face of established wisdom about conclusions, I’m not writing a proper conclusion here. Rather, I’d simply like to urge you, if you read this, to disagree vehemently or simply play the devil’s advocate. I do hate it when people agree with me. I know I’m right anyway; I just wish people wouldn’t admit that. So come on. Tear my impromptu essay to shreds. Give me a failing grade, and I’ll do the same for you. Tell my why and how I’m wrong, and I will be your friend forever. Just know that I don’t make many enemies.

Running with the crowd has never been my thing, quite possibly to my detriment, but at certain times, most definitely to my great delight. I wrote a few weeks ago about the oxymoronic ubiquitous phenomenon of claiming not to be mainstream, but truthfully, very few people can make that claim.

What I do know is that I haven’t developed a great deal of friendships, mainly, I think, because I’ve never been remotely interested in what my peers were doing. By Grade Six I had an extensive list of bird species that I’d seen; no one cared when I did mention wild birds.

In Grade Six I’d pull my desk over away from the rest so that nobody would bother me. My future Grade Seven teacher wonderingly said I must like it that way.

By the time my peers reached age sixteen, some were beginning to acquire driver’s licences. Me? I couldn’t have cared less.

After high school, I cycled and bused across town to get to a university, and watched in amazement as the parking lots swelled each day.

At a youth gathering at a friend’s church (ok, I had some friends), when mentioning facts about ourselves, I said, “I grow my own food.” Despite the stifled laughter, it was true. In Gr. 12 I’d put in a veggie garden, to see what my backyard could save my family.

On Sunday mornings, despite going to a Mennonite school, I wouldn’t go to church, even though I promised a cute girl that I’d go with her one day. Instead, I’d go on long rambles over Fishtrap Creek or Downes Bowl, figuring that was all the church I needed. In retrospect, they weren’t long enough by miles. Oh yeah, she’s married now, a fate I’d sooner put off. But that’s what they all say, isn’t it?

These days, I cook stinging nettle for dinner. It’s free, abundant, and great for you. What better combination is there in this world than that, and yet who among my peers does it?

I never have cared much for alcohol, blazing, smoking, or drugs, reckoning this world was still good enough I didn’t need those things. Besides, I ride transit. I know where overuse of them will land you. It ain’t pretty, though better than some fates I suppose. As to whether this world’s good enough, well, the jury’s hung on that one. And they’ll probably appeal the verdict anyway.

To find like-minded people, Abbotsford probably isn’t the place to be. I know that, and yet I can’t leave. Besides, I’d probably find a way to disagree with the like-minded ones too.

Probably it’s the stinging nettle. I hear the system can only handle so much before you become an ornery contrarian. Haven’t you heard? It’s called biomimicry.

 In recent years, the City of Abbotsford has been giving the creation of bicycle lanes a little more consideration, making progress by creating a Bicycle Master Plan, participating in Bike to Work Week, and most importantly creating bike lanes on a few of the major east-west running streets.

One of those east-west running streets is Downes Road, a major thoroughfare that lies outside Abbotsford’s urban core and is marked by a long succession of hills, one after the other. I happen to live on Downes Road, so have seen firsthand the efforts to make it bicycle friendly.

At this point, the City has finished most of the job of widening the road, painting the lines, and installing signs alerting drivers to the presence of the bike lane. They have yet to paint bicycle symbols on the lane though. The bicycle lane is well positioned to connect to the bike lane on Clayburn Road, though between the two lies a  hill that is intimidating to drive up, let alone bicycle. The new lane also connects to the bicycle lane on Mt. Lehman Road, but that bike lane is plagued by the presence of a lot of gravel, while also being intermittent and limited in scope.

So when the bicycle lane on Downes is finished and connects to these other two bike lanes, what Abbotsford will have is something of horseshoe shape of bike lanes on its northern perimeter. These lanes also happen to be  located on some of Abbotsford’s hilliest roads with the exception of the urban growth on Sumas Mountain.

So make no mistake about it. These new bike lanes will never accomplish the task of making Abbotsford a bike friendly city. At best they will make it more pleasant for people who already cycle to do so. They are little more than glorified shoulders in their current state, and the cynical will argue that the construction of bike lanes is a nice way to add money to the road-building budget, and use it to upgrade poor shoulders.

Though the new bike lanes on Downes are by no means unwelcome, they aren’t particularly helpful either. What is needed is bike lanes on the major roads of Abbotsford that come close to the urban core – on South Fraser Way, Sumas Way, Hillcrest, George Ferguson, Clearbrook – and other such roads, to send a message loud and clear that Abbotsford intends to become a bike friendly city as soon as possible.

Though these new bicycle lanes will do very little to boost the popularity of cycling, I can understand the thought process used by planners. Since Abbotsford had virtually no bike lanes prior to the construction of the ones on Bevan and Peardonville, they probably felt that bike lanes on Downes and Clayburn would be a good way to introduce Abbotsford’s drivers to the concept, bridging the way to make Abbotsford’s core bike friendly. If this is the thought behind these bike lanes, I can understand it – on the assumption that making the rest of the city bike friendly happens sooner rather than later.

The sun blazed down from the sky yesterday, Sunday, warming the Fraser Valley as much as it is really capable of doing at this time of year as it nears its Spring equinox period of matching daylight and night-time hours. As I mean to do every year and only accomplish some years, I went for a long walk, clearing some cobwebs from my system while picking stinging nettle (Urtica dioica) for the evening meal. Stinging nettle is a fantastic edible potherb that grows wild in great abundance, pulling minerals and vitamins from the top layer of soil and making them available to us in a way that they wouldn’t be otherwise. At this time of year, I supplement our diet with big buckets of Urtica, and this year, still being more or less decomissioned because of my Mar.4 accident, finding the time to go and get it wasn’t really a problem.

From my place, a ramble out through the field, over the creek, up the hill, through the barbed wire fence is certain to yield some of this plant, and extending the walk is sure to fill a big bucket or two.

It’s possible to walk all the way to Highway 1 by going through the suburb at the top of the hill, and then down the trails which snake down the hillside over to Fishtrap Creek, which flows south into Washington and the Skagit River. Here it’s still a small tributary, rippling through residential suburbans, a forested ravine, busy roadways, industrial sites, and farmland before coming to the border.

After that, I don’t know what it does, though one day, when the similarity of all of Cascadia is recognized, I hope it is managed in its entirety by one  authority so that its headwaters and mainstem are subject to the same types of regulation. I mean, who knows what them Yanks are doin’ at Fishtrap’s mouth, eh?

My sister accompanied me on the first portion of this walk, helping me to pick stinging nettle, so by this time my bucket was getting pretty full. Fishtrap was not very rewarding with its Urtica populations, and besides, what’s to say the legion of people who walk their dogs here have kept their dogs away from it? Not likely, so I simply walked around Fishtrap without picking very much. There was a bald eagle here, as well as two double-crested cormorants and an abundance of waterfowl – gadwall, green-winged teal, Canada geese, American coot, double-crested merganser, mallard, and others. Here’s a photo of the habitat at Fishtrap:

Fishtrap Creek Park, looking south

Stinging Nettle is quite easy to recognize. It’s high in minerals, especially the young shoots which are available for perhaps a month in the springtime. I don’t have a picture, but it tends to grow in thoroughly wooded areas where deciduous trees predominate. At the end of the walk, I gathered almost a full bucket. It doesn’t have the most pleasant taste at the best of times, so some people like to mix or season it. Today I mixed it with some potatoes from Aldergrove, causing the unpleasantness to more or less disappear as the potato taste dominates. Otherwise, a simple addition of toasted, ground sesame seeds and/or olive or other oil does wonders and makes this plant very palatable. Who needs early salad greens when you can start off the growing season by consuming this wonderful, free, green?

So much more happened on this walk that I could comment on; the construction of the Discovery Trail; the salmon art at DeHavilland and Old Yale; the vista of Abbotsford you get from up on Blueridge; the action’s of the landlord in and around Downes Creek; the curiously dense growth of red alder on the hill, forming a natural monoculture reminiscent of a tree farm, and more. Despite Abbotsford’s rapid growth, it retains some of its natural features and remains an intriguing city, from both a cultural and naturalistic perspective. Here’s a few more photos.

This grove of Red Alder (Alnus rubra) has dramatically changed the environment of this hillside.

This is the view of Abbotsford from the top of Blueridge Hill, complete with a boring Oak that still retains it’s leaves! What? Don’t these trees ever lose their leaves? I guess that’s why they plant them. Retards!

A pair of red-tailed hawks have used this stately black cottonwood (Populus balsamifera) to nest in for years now.

On March 4 I was hit by the driver of a Lexus while trying to find a way to bicycle to New Westminster.I was on Broadway, heading East around dusk, and woke up a few hours later in a hospital bed. Of the interceding period I have no memory, and my memory of days and events immediately after the accident is patchy at best.

I haven’t driven or bicycled since the accident, and have walked, taken transit, or been carpooled everywhere. Since then I’ve seen a flurry of doctors and a couple lawyers, spending most of the rest of my time at home just “takin’ it easy”, as Buck 65 says about his trip to the fishing hole. I’ve rediscovered some wild places, started some good books, and tried to remember that I actually do still have some academic obligations. I think I’d kinda been in the unconscious process of dropping out of sight and starting afresh in some ways anyway.

What matters is that despite having been in jured while riding my bike, in no way will I be deterred from doing so in traffic again. Perhaps my resolve is even stronger. In a sense I’m lucky to bere; some maniac irresponsibility on the part of the driver of that Lexus, who was going 65km/h in an intersection, while according to the police officer who attended the scene, I was doing everything right. My life however, wouldn’t be the same without my bicycle, so damned if I let this be a big setback in that regard.

Mentally things have been a little patchy. I don’t always reconcile with reality, I guess you could say. For instance, in the preceding text, I’d swear I’d written “incident” instead of “accident” as my subconscious seems to prefer that word. When I go back and read it however, what do I see? The word “accident.” Perhaps most strangely, my family queries me about things I did just after Mar. 4, and the event in question simply doesn’t register on me. I have no memory of some of those things. Days seem to go by like the flash of a shutter; I’ve barely started one before it’s time to go to bed and start the next one again.

Oddly though, I’m not getting any mental feelings of regret or resentment; only a feeling of  “this is how it is, this is what happened, now you find the best solution.” Nothing else, other than a seeming inability to focus on the mundane and the occurrence of an obsession with the bigger picture that’s a little disconcerting.

I mean, it’s a bigger picture which includes the prospect of continuing ecological destruction, a dysfunctional economic system, a patchy job market (or soon to be patchy if it’s not yet), and a living situation that has more questions than answers.

More insanity than mundanity.

I’ve never, ever, sincerely regretted a bike ride. I’ve had flat tires, gotten soaked in impromptu rainshowers, ran out of water, been dead beat so I felt I couldn’t pedal any further, been honked at by retard drivers, been honked at by sane drivers because I was a retard cyclist doing stupid things, pissed off bus drivers, flipped the bird to more than one driver, cycled home from Langley, cycled to Cultus Lake and then dragonboated for a couple hours and then cycled home, gone over the handlebars after being cut off and jamming on the brakes, and had all kinds of other wonderful bike-related experiences. Three things I haven’t done, which perhaps disqualify me from being a true, blue, cyclist, are cycled drunk, cycled naked, or doubled anybody. Neither have I ridden a tall-bike, ridden a unicycle, or texted while cycling. All of those are on the list of fun bike things yet to come. Here’s to all things bike-related!

Of note, just yesterday I was cycling home along the Bevan bike lane, which I usually avoid because it’s hillier than the alternative route, but today I took it because I wanted to do the hill. Guess who was riding the opposite way? The only cyclist I saw riding that day? Abbotsford-Clayburn’s MP, B.C.’s Solicitor-General, and Minister for Public Safety, John van Dongen. As long as I’ve been involved in cycling advocacy, he’s been a strong supporter of more bicycle infrastructure, and someone who really listens to his constituents. He’s a busy guy, yet somehow he finds time to ride his bike to and from work now and again.

And he was taking the hill too.

This here’s a site that’s very special to me. It might look like little more than a jumble of weeds and brush, but it’s far more than that. It’s located on the site of my old high school, tucked in behind the elementary school where the creek runs. Downes Creek.

Five years ago this site was decked out in head high blackberry thickets from one fence to the other. Around the time of my grad year, and the year after that, some friends of mine, all students, calling ourselves The Streaming Eagles (after the school mascot), began doing some restoration work on the creek, and we began with this site.

We used hand held clippers, and lots of hot chocolate and muffins, and worked away at clearing the blackberries on many a weekend. Then we were able to use a grant available through the DFO to purchase a whole bunch of native plants and then one fine morning we re-planted the entire site with natives – Pacific Ninebark, Black Twinberry, Baldhip Rose, cedars and hemlock, Bigleaf Maple, Red-Osier Dogwood, and others. This is what the site looks like now. Some of the blackberry has recovered, but the natives are also doing well. This site is well on its way to recovery now; in 10 years or so the native vegetation should have a good strong foothold, requiring very little maintenance.

Today I spent a few hours back in the blackberry patch, clearing out all the blackberries that have begun to establish themselves. Many of the natives we planted are doing ok, but two of the cedars have succumbed.

Red-osier Dogwood canes, gleaming red against the snow.

The creek, small but worthy of restoration.

I’ve been writing all day for impersonal reasons; the Cascade Newspaper, e-mails, and U-PASS advocacy. It’s time to write something for myself for a change, now. There is so much I could write on; economic concerns are front and center, of course, as is the U-PASS and my thoughts about the majority vs. minority issue, and appreciating the bigger picture. I think I just want to focus on the awesomeness that was my bike ride today.

I didn’t really need to be anywhere in particular, but needed to get out and get some exercise so I decided to cycle over to the gym. I could have simply gone to the MRC which is only 5 minutes by bike from my house, but instead I chose to go all the way across town to the UFV gym where I can workout for free. This way, by cycling, I’m all warmed up by the time I get there, so I can get right to the workout without a warm-up session. It’s getting quite chilly these days, and since my Apollo Club Tourist has an abundance of metal parts, the warmth gets sucked out of my hands real quick. I don’t really bother wearing gloves  just yet though; not quite cold enough for that.

The University is about the furthest destination I could have within Abbotsford, short of Sumas Mountain or the residential on the far east side. Yet on my bike I can get there in 25 minutes and not have to worry about parking at all; it saves me gas $ so I can go on long midnight drives and still break even financially and emissions wise. Please don’t judge me for that; it’s a sanity retention tactic the necessity of which I regret.

By the time I get to the University today, the gym has just closed. Damn. Should have checked the hours today. I don’t really mind however; the main thing was getting my cardio, and by now I’m breathing hard and breaking a sweat. I always feel that somehow my day’s been unsatisfying when I go the entire day without getting any significant physical activity. I’m not on the level of a Randonneur yet; Randonneurs go for long 100, 500, 1000 km. rides, sometimes lasting for several days, but I’m getting there, and a few modifications to my posture on the bike and I should be able to attempt that.

Meanwhile, on my ride through Abbotsford, I realize how much I really do love this city. The more time I spend elsewhere, the more I realize how many ways Abbotsford comes up short, but the city’s coming along. There are still so many interesting nooks and crannies that give it some character; have you seen the medieval architecture on Langdon Avenue? Or the specialty bakery dealing in wheat, sugar, and gluten free products across the street from it?

I’m really enthused by the growing coffee shop music culture. Nearly every weekend you can drop in at a coffeeshop and come across some live entertainment, usually just a local performer or group trying to spread their reputation a little bit. Sometimes, like today at Seven Blends, just a group of friends showing support for each other; sometimes a destination event drawing a sizeable crowd. Ethical Addictions is perhaps the pacesetter in terms of being a place for young people to hang-out and enjoy some live shows. It’s become the east-side place to be if that’s what you’re looking for. City Blends Mt. Lehmann is coming to fill that function on the west-side, hosting live shows almost every Friday. I see these shows as a great warm-up if you’re planning to spend the evening at one of the local pubs, of which the Duke of Dublin is certainly the star attraction in this city, though the Bull ‘n Raven has great location and atmosphere as well.

If the outdoors is your thing, well, Abbotsford continues to expand and develop, but if you know where to look, you can still find some great places to go for a quiet walk. There’s been some controversy over it, but the Discovery Trail will be a great recreation corridor for the city, going through some of Abbotsford’s best parks – Fishtrap Creek, Douglas Taylor, Downes Bowl, Horn Creek, Willband Creek, over Sumas Mountain, and then McKay Creek as well. On it you will be able to avoid the monotony and sterility of the farmland and dykes, and if you choose, go cross-town in one shot.

On the way back from UFV today, I stop in at Lifecycles to make some enquiries, and then, spying a rare sight -a fellow cyclist – I opt to follow him down King Road instead of going through town like I normally would. He doesn’t set an insane pace, but he’s obviously just a little better equipped and I do have to push to keep up. He’s one of those “true cyclists” – dressed in skin tight aerodynamic clothing. I’ve never been a fan – sure, it’ll give you some added efficiency, but I dislike the hassle of putting it on and taking it off every time I get on and off my bike. Moreso, I love the casual appearance of cycling in my street clothes; it combats the impression of cycling as an exclusive transportation method that only a few people are equipped for; I’ll ride in whatever I happen to be wearing and pack along some raingear, and slap on an ankle-ring to keep my pants out of my sprockets. In Europe you won’t catch people in cycling tights; cycling is just how people get around and you don’t need much special gear.

So I end up going north on Clearbrook where I hog the one lane in the overpass so some impatient driver doesn’t try to squeeze through the narrow space between me and the centre line. Some guy in a huge truck guns it as he roars past me when the one-lane becomes two; from his acceleration rate he seems angry, and I can’t help it; I give him the finger. Probably he wasn’t even overly pissed, that’s just what his car sounds like, but it still gets under my skin. I haven’t had any accidents yet, but I’m still fairly jumpy on the road. Not like some – my buddy Trevor’s had two recent accidents, and I once came across him on his bike while I was driving, and I heckled him a little, and before he saw it was me he’d growled at me to “back-off, buddy.” Justifiably, he’s on pins and needles when cycling in Abby; between us and the other cyclists, we’re educating Abby’s drivers one at a time. Perilous.

So instead of heading straight down Clearbrook, I detour down Langdon, stopping in at the aforementioned bakery and the library where I take home an armload of books, a number on raw food diets, a book on the future of real estate by Garth Turner, and some others, most of them for my sister. It’s amazing how much you can accomplish on a bike with some planning ahead; I always feel like I come out ahead because of cycling instead of driving, and I dream of the day when South Fraser Way is clogged with cyclists, the Discovery Trail is packed with people, the coffeeshops and basements sport a thriving underground music culture, and development is contained within the current urban boundary, supported by a robust transit network and increasingly densified residential development. I can see myself living here for a long time, working towards that vision. There are many forward-thinking, progressive people  here; more than you’d think. However, I can just as realistically see myself travelling for quite a while and perhaps settling down halfway round the world, should I find someplace or somebody I especially like.

By now it’s dark, and I turn on my lights. My Apollo that was bought used came with this really great retro generator; a headlight and tailight hooked up to a little wheel that runs on the tire’s kinetic motion. As long as you’re pedalling it’ll stay lit. I plan to spend the evening at a coffeeshop, but in the meantime I’ve had a great ride, more convinced than ever that in this city, probably half of all trips or more could be accomplished on a bike by anybody who’s reasonably fit. If we really used our bicycles, cars could very well become the exception rather than the norm, only used for the odd trip to conduct an errand that a bike simply couldn’t handle.

Imagine where our automobile industry would be then. And you know what? Cry me a river. Humans are smart; we’re adaptable; we’d find a way to make the economy work. I’ve no confidence in the consumption based, manufactured obselescence economy, but I’ve every confidence in the power of human ingenuity.

My head’s been awhirl lately with the seemingly limitless reverberations of the collapse of financial markets. Today we heard that Citigroup chopped over 50 000 jobs; one of the biggest downsizing operations in history. It’s sobering news; especially considering that I once almost worked for a Citigroup subsidiary, Primerica, where representatives used having Citigroup as a financial backer as ammunition for the stability of their products.

My own RRSP’s have crashed, insignificant as they might have been. Am I concerned over that? Not overly. When I took them out, I did so knowing that markets have always crashed and risen again; that boom and bust cycles are inevitable and that the long term market average is positive despite the crashes we’ve seen in the past. In financial services, they call this riding out the market via dollar cost averaging; contributing a set amount on a regular basis in solid investments irrespective of what the market happens to be doing. But I’m rather nonchalant about my RRSP’s for another reason as well.

Mutual funds are not an investment I would make again. Having learned what I’ve learned since, knowing what I know now, I do not believe that mutual funds are a responsible investment. They’re a mainstream financial vehicle that serve to maintain the status quo, providing huge sums to the biggest corporations in existence. Sure there are some socially responsible investments (SRI) out there, but they’re just mutual funds with a smiley face; by and large just business as usual with a dollop of reason.

For someone looking simply to get ahead in this society; to put aside a nest egg for retirement, or to provide for one’s family, mutual funds are a solid investment. Diversify yourself well; don’t be too jumpy with your money, and the value you’ve lost in the past months will be regained, barring worse developments than a mere recession. But try to do those things while also thinking about your children’s future, and their children’s future, and mainstream mutual funds, even SRI, won’t get the job done. Many SRI funds do not filter their investments on a sustainability criterion; rather, they have a “better than the rest” criterion. They’ll pick the best of a bad bunch, but in general, they won’t boycott any but the absolute worst, the least reputable, all the while filing shareholder resolutions which amount to dick-all if they’re not eventually backed up by a withdrawal of investor money.

Money still calls the shots in this world. What we need is solid financial management on a local level. The withholding of money from the financial mega-machine which runs all our lives, and the usage of said money in the construction of strong community partnerships and investment in local, new sustainability economy type businesses. My local Mt. Lehman Credit Union is a prime example, as is the Aldergrove Credit Union. They might not be as green as we’d like them to be, but given more involvement from those of us on the cutting edge of that front, they can and will be.

The last true depression saw many people out of work; widespread hunger; and desperate measures all around. Hell, people were happy to go to war, just to have a job to do. Nobody wants to believe we will see a repeat of that scenario, least of all myself. If we do however, are we prepared for reduced wages, widespread cost cutting, empty grocery stores? Most people seem oblivious on two fronts; on what’s actually happening, and what caused this in the first place. Whatever the case, now’s not the time to be spending any more than we can absolutely afford to, irrespective of our leaders urging us to keep on spending the well dry. We can see where that mantra’s gotten us – in the shithole and more of the same just isn’t going to wash. We can bail out our banks until the cows come home, but in the meantime more people will have gone broke; the gap between the rich and poor will be even greater; more people will be homeless, taxes will be higher, and any strong governmental action on climate change will have been thrown out the window, because obviously we can’t afford that. Oh no.

I don’t know about you, but I for one am not taking for granted that our benevolent leaders will solve this problem and we can all go toodling back to our dreamworld where everything is done for us and all we have to do is show up fifty hours a week (does anyone actually work fourty anymore) and we’ll be taken care of. Recently I published a list on Facebook from ex Halton, Ontario MP Garth Turner’s blog The Greater Fool, (also the title of his latest book) which outlined the steps to take in the case of a depression. It included such drastic measures as moving to the country, freeing onself from reliance on government services, getting off the grid, getting a dog, a bike, and chickens.

Will that be necessary? Don’t rightly know. Could be yes, could be no. Whatever the case, doesn’t sound like a bad lifestyle.

Shared, it could be a party. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go make some hummus.

A lot of thoughts simmering tonight, none of which I will elaborate on but several of which I will take time to outline.

A friend posted recently that activism was true education. I could not agree more. I’d like to that statement and add a dimension to it as well. For me, much as I resent the fact, activism is also the primary component of my social interaction. I very quickly get bored and frustrated and out of place when “hanging” with people to whom the word activism is raison d’etre to change the topic or turn up the volume. So I’ve been deliberating the role of activism in my life, and it’s a mixed bag. I want to be able to walk into a social setting and feel at home regardless of the context, but at the same time, if that context isn’t a purposeful one, I find it draining and de-motivating. In short, I suck at “just hanging.” I start pacing, and fidgeting, and staring at the ceiling, and generally being a less than sociable guest.

I have a hard time thinking of a better feeling, socially speaking (not physically or emotionally) than the aftermath of a successful event. The positive vibe created by the passionate airing of ideas and solutions to problems and the spirited social atmosphere which tends to prevail is something I find tremendously uplifting and is something I seek all the time. Perhaps it’s why I’m so frequently disappointed.

So I’ve established that my role is an activist one and that anything less leaves leaves me unsatisfied. Robert Jordan’s epic fantasy The Wheel of Time contains an intriguing concept; that of ta’veren. In the fantasy, the context of the events that transpire is The Pattern; the giant web of life in which each individual weaves his or her own thread. The Pattern is complex; not all can influence it significantly. It can absorb minor changes and weave around them, but only some individuals have the power to influence large-scale change; these individuals are ta’veren.

“sometimes the Wheel bends a life-thread, or several threads, in such a way that all the surrounding threads are forced to swirl around it, and those force other threads, and those still others, and on and on. The first bending to make the Web is ta’veren,” (http://www.generationterrorists.com/quotes/wot/eyeworld.html)

Ta’veren is a neat concept to run with. Are we all ta’veren or are just some of us, like for instance, Martin Luther King or Adolf Hitler, or JFK, ta’veren? Can we all change the world we live and do we have an obligation to try, or should we simply go with the flow and trust that things will work out? How have I changed the world? Will anything I’ve done trigger history-making change? Who can say?

That’s one concept, and for no very good reason, I’d just like to copy the opening to each book of the Wheel of Time, for its poetic and lyric beauty as well as its philosophical relevance, in light of a discussion with an old friend at Afterthoughts last night:

“The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legends fade to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the third age by some, an Age yet to come, an age long passed, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings or endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning.”

In a different vein, we all have sacred places. We may not have as strong a connection to our environment, and by environment I mean more than just the natural world, as those who inhabited this land before us, but I think that inevitably most of us develop strong associations with certain places; places we go to for comfort, or for relaxation, or places to visit for inspiration. Places that hold strong memories, or perhaps places that touch a chord deep within us though we may not know why. What are yours, if any come to mind?

All of the places that are sacred to me occur right here in the Fraser Valley; I haven’t yet travelled extensively enough with sufficient duration to really get to know any other places. Most of them are closeby, not more than a 45 minute bike ride, though some are a little further. Some are sacred to me for the memories associated with the people who accompanied me there; some sacred for other, spiritual, or associative reasons.

Most have to do with waterways; salmon have been and are my passion, along with all that sustains them and us. One is the point where McLennan Creek goes under Olund Road, where two tributaries of it meet and converge into one fast riffle before emptying into a deep slow moving pool that serves as excellent habitat for juvenile fish, trout, good hunting grounds for heron and kingfisher, and a well earned respite for the salmon that travel upstream to this point.

Another is up Clayburn Road a ways; just downstream of where two Poignant Creek tributaries merge and form a unique waterfall; one of the most beautiful sites in all of Abbotsford. There are several waterfalls here, most magnificent in mid-winter during high flows, and no salmon can travel upstream of it. It’s where I got stoned for the first time; and where young people like to hang-out at night and build fires. I like during all times; during the day to admire it’s beauty, or during the night around a fire to hear its roar and absorb its wildness. It’s so uniquely un-Abbotsfordian; it doesn’t seem to fit in to this city of farms and flat roads and motorists.

There’s a giant Sitka Spruce along Downes Creek; perhaps the biggest tree remaining near the urban core, and almost no one knows of it. It has to be protected.

All libraries are sacred. They all have their own unique character and ambience and hold the records of that which we cannot afford to forget.

The place where I grew up that is now a parking lot is sacred, especially the crumpy Douglas Fir tree with perfect crow’s nest whorled branches that still stands in what used to be our front yard is sacred. It would have broken my heart if they’d cut that down, too.

A last thought – does loving make one lovable? Or is there more one must do?

A mite dismayed am I at the quantity of electronic consumer goods I’ve been acquiring over the last year or so. Everytime I make such a purchase, I flinch a little bit, not because of the financial cost to my person, I can make up for that, but at the way I completely vouch for the sanity of our consumption based economy when I do.

To summarize, the last year has seen me acquire a laptop, a camera, headphones, and now a plug-in device for my cigarette lighter in my car, as well as a voice recorder. I felt like it was more, but that’s all that comes to mind at the moment. I’ve also gone a little overboard when it comes to buying/downloading music, if that’s even possible. I still don’t have a cellphone, blackberry, Ipod, or Mp3 player, which leaves me trailing most people I know. All of these things seem like necessities of life, and it’s nearly unthinkable to consider that a merely 25-50 years ago many of these accessories were not even available.

Whatever happened to the simple lifestyle characterized by hard work and strong community connections? What will happen when the 4 billion or so people who do not have the luxuries I do decide they want equality? There’s no doubt in my mind that the quality of my life is enhanced by these devices; I do not deny that I enjoy them immensely. Yet I also sense that they deprive me of time which could be used acquiring much more practical skills; wilderness survival, urban gardening, bike repair, the banjo, harmonica, flute, or mandolin, herbal medicine, etc.

In the end, I’m an optimist; while it’s clear that as a species we have the capacity to annihilate our life support systems, I don’t believe we have the capacity to annihilate the very reason for our existence; in other words, to fail at whatever it is we are supposed to accomplish. It has to be important that we learn collective self-restraint and abandon selfishness by embracing altruism and humility, and we have some level of free-will in determining our path, be it self-destruction or evolution to a higher level of consciousness, I have a hard time believing that all of this can end in the erasing of one of the universe’s chapters, namely the human chapter, with nothing to show for it. That we could simply fuck things up, orchestrate our own demise, and become a mere blip on the radar, a failed experiment on the part of God knows who.

No, there has to be something bigger, something we cannot discern, something beyond this world that we graduate to as the next step in our development. I’m not a nihilist in the sense that I think that no matter what we do, it’s of no consequence anyway so we may as well enjoy ourselves while we’re here in whatever way we know how. I’ve certainly moved a little towards nihilism on the idealism/nihilism spectrum, which is freeing, but at the same time I’ve still got one foot firmly in the idealism camp. I may not be a centrist on the political spectrum, but perhaps I am on what I’ll call the meaning of life spectrum.

Thanks for bearing with me Ironically, this treatise began while listening to Sam Roberts’ “Stripmall Religion”.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written here. A great deal has happened, and nothing has happened. Having arrived back in Abbotsford at the beginning of September, I’ve only been home for a month now, though it feels far, far, longer. Being on the river and travelling the coast seems an eternity ago now, though as soon as I get a chance I’ll be striking out again. Due to my citizenship status I’m still restricted to Canada, but like GN on the SLLP trip, taking time to explore my own country is tremendously appealing. We live in such a diverse country that in theory, a lifetime of travel within Canada’s borders would continue to uncover new experiences and places. Eastern Canada and the North must be the next destinations.

In September, to recap, I enrolled in 5 courses and dropped three of them, scraped together tuition money by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin, attended innumerable delightful meetings with Students for Sustainability and the U-Pass committee, wrote in three editions for the Cascade, covering such beats as music interviews and foreign affairs (ie. Russia & Georgia at each other’s throats), met some extremely personable and intriguing young ladies, made some new friends, slept in too many times, spent too much time online, on e-mail, Facebook, The Onion, and various news sites, went to a lot of coffee-shops including Seven Blends for the first time (where the new owner is doing 16 hour days while caring for a family of 5 children), slept in my car once, washed my car zero times; rode my bike too few times, played too few board games, ate homegrown garlic, met a young lady from Mauritius, and watched with fascination as Stephen Harper dropped the writ and plunged the country into an election that will coincide with the American one in an attempt to extend his hold on power and by so doing drive the country’s reputation further into the ground. Perhaps I am biased or over-reactionary, but I see a comic in my mind’s eye that has Canada embodied by a figure underground up to the waist, with Harper holding a sledgehammer driving the figure further into the ground, with the sledgehammer representing the election, and then there’s a crowd of people watching lazily, commenting, “My goodness; look how decisively Harper swings that hammer. I’ve gone through periods in my history as an informed voter where I cheered for the Canadian Alliance (back when my opinion was based entirely on the one-sided slant from the media that portrayed the Libs as old, tired, lying and corrupt). I’ve sided in heart with Jack and the NDP, having read Jack’s book and admiring his vision for Canada and his experience with the Union of Canadian Municipalities. Recently, since Dion became leader and Garth Turner defected to the Libs, I’ve become a strong Liberal supporter, recognizing in Dion a principled, respectful, intelligent man who represents a different kind of politics; even Duceppe has briefly held my admiration. Today I’m hopelessly torn between the Greens and Libs; Green leader Elizabeth May is so authentic and dynamic as to make one actually believe she has a chance of connecting with the electorate like Jim Harris was unable to do, and Green policies may not be perfect but they’re as close to perfect as we’ve got in recognizing the fundamentality of environmental sustainability in creating a strong, stable, thriving, and enduring society and moving beyond the short term political stunts seemingly employed by the other parties.

I am only one person out of 33 million, but as one person I urge everyone to get out there and vote after talking to your candidates; political apathy is not acceptable, and in many ways is the reason for the gradual downward trend in the Canadian living standard and quality of our environment. The Cascade will hold an all-candidates meeting on the the 7th, and it’s your chance to meet some of the local candidates.

Phew; just realized that was one big chunk of text comprising about 15 minutes of typing; if only I churned out my homework or Cascade assignments so rapidly.

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.

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.

The guy in the picture to the right, Tyson Kellerman from somewhere back east, is one cool dude.  He’s cycling across the country this summer, and dedicating his trip to the Green Party of Canada.  I think that’s awesome.

Before I get to the political stuff, I’ve added Tyson’s blog to my blogroll – I encourage you to check it out.  What he’s doing is awesome and I definitely plan on doing some similarly long bike trips, whether they be across Canada, the US of A, or Europe. 

Now a warning.  Political commentary upcoming.  Those of you who suffer from Acute Politics Exposure Syndrome (APES) stop reading now and direct yourself instead to the following link: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/today_now_how_to_pretend_you_give

Politically, I’d have a hard time placing myself firmly in the camp of any of the major parties, as each have their strong points.  However, what I will say is that the Green Party has had a tremendous impact on the Canadian political scene despite never having managed to elect an MP.  By consistently capturing 5% of the vote in recent elections, and polling very close to the NDP and higher than the Bloc in recent months, and creating a five way vote split, they have ensured that it will be very difficult for either the Liberals or Conservatives to win a majority government.  Some say this will stall the country by throwing it into a deadlock; I say this will force actual discussion, cooperation, concession, and sacrifice, as well as a measure of prudence and greater represention of the electorate on important decisions.

It’s nearly sacrilegious or heretical in our society to openly express acceptance of littering, or to actually engage in it oneself. In high school, Principal Neufeld spoke of using the amount of litter in the hallways as a barometer of student’s attitudes. At the time I agreed in full; and to some extent still do. If the hallways are cluttered with garbage of all sorts, it’s generally an indication that the students don’t give a shit, which would appear to translate to more than simply the cleanliness of the hallways; also their marks, morals, values, etc. Concern for one’s habitation (and make no mistake, school was and is a habitation) is a basic benchmark of character. Ever hear someone labelled a “pack-rat?” Well, I doubt that person was a socially respected individual.

There are exceptions of course; some people are just natural tinkerers, fixers, refurbishers, recyclers of whatever they can lay their hands on. These people are driven and can’t stand waste, hate to see anything thrown out. So they don’t. Instead, they’re always welding this gizmo to that gadget, and coming out with some pretty spiffy stuff. Kudos to them. But for every one of them, there’s five who never throw anything out regardless of it’s condition, and seem to attract “stuff” like a messy beard attracts food crumbs or blood draws sharks. The metaphors are appropriate, as more than likely they have the messy beard as well, and like sharks, their stuff will eventually consume them, weighing on their backs until they can turn neither left nor right and stagger with each step. Remember the late and brilliantly offensive George Carlin saying how, “Other people’s stuff is shit, but somehow your shit is stuff”?

Of course, dirty hallways can also be indicative of apathy at higher levels; perhaps the administration simply doesn’t care enough to adequately fund the janitorial department, or the janitors take every chance to slack off, or in the case of my high school, (remember, this is hypothetical) the private donors don’t care enough to actually donate in adequate levels forcing budget cutbacks, or hell, perhaps dirty hallways can be traced right up to those who control our money supply not caring enough to manage it wisely, generously, responsibly, or perhaps most of all, honestly. Truly, there’s a crescendo of implications.

But let’s not think about this too deeply; we might just hurt ourselves or actually accomplish something and we couldn’t have that. Oh no. Let’s just accept that littering is bad and those who do it are lazy and apathetic and that lots of litter means bad people and clean streets mean good people. Keep it simple, stupid.

Before I continue, let me point out that I’ve participated in garbage clean-ups, and not just at the behest of an elementary school teacher in a bad mood and equipped with lots of bright new shiny garbage picker-uppers, or, just to use my favorite childhood phrase, “super-dooper-pooper-scoopers.” No, stretches of Clayburn Road, Clayburn Creek, Ravine Park, and Downes Creek are all cleaner because I felt the desire to chip in and lend a hand, or in the case of Downes, herd some of the fearsome “Streaming Eagles” crew down into the creek to haul out whatever we could find.

What happened next, to use the Downes Creek example, to the 11 garbage bags of wrappers, busted sports balls, barely recognizable bottles, and other miscellaneous junk we hauled out of that creek? We put it in the school dumpster for a garbage collection agency to come and collect, and lo and behold, to dump it again!!! That’s right. We put in all the effort (a good part of our weekend as I recall, to haul this shit out, just so it could be re-dumped, several hours drive away. How does this make sense?

Moreover, what actually benefit did we do the creek? Sure it looked a little nicer to the human eye, but I don’t think a coho salmon decked out in bright red spawning colors would look at that little pocket of intertwined condoms wedged in a back-eddy behind a log, and turn tail back downstream because “boy, I don’t know if I can spawn in the vicinity of used condoms.” (and for that matter, the contents of those condoms might well enrich that streambanks nutrient profile, lol) No, that old tire wedged in the streambank might take thousands if not tens of thousands of years to decay, so it’s not significantly affecting the water quality. Nor is it likely to be impeding fish progress, or in any way posing an immediate threat to wildlife or the local ecosystem. One exception would be six-pack rings which can strangle waterbirds, or plastic bags which can do the same, but in general, I think we can agree that a lot of garbage is fairly harmless.

So now we’ve taken our 11 garbage bags and dumped them. All we’ve done is re-arranged the waste and emitted tons of carbon in order to do, and oh yes, we’ve bumped up the GDP a notch because us urbanites paid those Cache Creek hill-billies money to take our crap. Whoopee. Now the waste is all concentrated in one area where nobody can see it, instead of being spread out where everybody sees it. So what happens next? Well, out of sight, out of mind is what happens. We accept that we can simply send our waste elsewhere. We subconsciously condition ourselves to believe that it’s okay to generate copious quantities of waste because it doesn’t affect us tangibly. We don’t think twice about buying those oh so tempting muffins from the supermarket and throwing out the package afterwards only to repeat the process next week. Sure we can sometime recycle the package, but only for a limited time and not neccesarily for the same purpose, besides which recycling takes energy too. Eventually it’ll still end up in Cache Creek.

What if instead of doing those garbage clean-ups, we had dedicated our time to educating people about the automotive waste fluids which undoubtably affect Downes Creek? I’m by no means advocating apathy here. Merely that efforts be re-directed, as has become almost cliche in the health-care field, towards addressing the issues rather than the symptoms. Instead of picking up somebody else’s garbage, why not write to manufacturers indicating the future loss of your business should they not take whatever steps possible to reduce packaging? Or put time into re-vegetation of the streambanks (which we did, too)? Or any number of projects with potentially valuable long-term impact?

Do I regret participating in those garbage pick-ups? No; the exercise did me well and I made friends out of it, and gained some great feelings of accomplishment, because at the time, I believed wholeheartedly in what I was doing. My opinions have evolved; hey, if Stephane Dion can evolve his opinion of a revenue-neutral carbon tax that affects an entire country, I think I can update my thinking about garbage. Because, as I can’t resist pointing out, my thoughts ain’t garbage.

Neither do I regret, however, releasing two organic energy bar wrappers and a bag that contained mixed nuts out of my sunroof today. I may have ruffled some feathers, but that’s about all.

What I do regret is buying items wrapped in plastic in the first place. That is true apathy. I am conscious of this when I buy, and I will buy items wrapped in plastic again because I’m one person on a schedule, but perhaps it’s time to re-examine packed lunches and homemade snacks. Were I truly motivated, it’s what I’d be doing.

That’s right; brown-bag it. Just like your momma taught ya.

You might be able to detox in a matter of days, but the planet can’t. No, the planet, needs thousands of years, and you just might not survive that process. I, for one, would rather not risk it.

13 days, approximately, until I leave for Valemont by Greyhound. I’d considered just strapping on a backpack and going town to town over the course of a couple weeks all the way to Mount Robson, but those twin identical demons that are really one and the same, time and money, stood in the way.

This leaves just enough time to do what I hope will be a thorough detox. JB did this with excellent results. It’s a very simple procedure. No solid foods over a 10 day period, in which you’re to ingest large quantities of a lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper, and water solution, along with laxative teas in the evening and internal salt water bathing in the morning. This 10 day regime is followed by three days on orange juice, and then it’s back to business as usual.

I start tomorrow morning, so if I make sudden and seemingly random trips to the washroom, you know why.

Gas at $144.9? To be blunt, I couldn’t care less. What for many people is a fact that raises blood pressure nearly to the point of apoplexy and causes them to grumble all the way to wherever they’re combusting their way to, has been nothing but a boon to me. It’s been the final piece of motivation I’ve needed to leave the car at home with much greater regularity than when gas was at $1.20. Overall, I think I’ve saved money with the higher gas prices, especially since mileage reimbursement at my job as a delivery driver was increased. On top of that, the BC Libs sent me $100.00 to try and soften the political damage resulting from their carbon tax. On an aside, while I’ll take the hundred bucks and treat it like income, it looks like a cheap political gimmick to palatize the policy; make it annual or invest carbon tax proceeds in emission reduction programs, and then I’ll give the Libs credit.

Even when I drove to the Okanagan, and the six of us split the cost of gas among other things like camping and food, the total cost for four days of cycling, drinking, camping, and swimming including gas was around $75.00. I can’t complain about that price – chalk one up for local holidays.

Today, for instance, I cycled to the University to drop off some library books, headed over to Save-On foods for some shopping, and then over to the Matsqui Recreation Centre for a swim, all in the mid-day heat – a trip that’s not easy given the traffic on Sumas Way and the 25 + degree temperature. Cycling, though, felt great, pushin’ pedal in the midst of 2 ton SUV’s, loaded mini-vans, motorbike riders all decked out in summer gear, one vulnerable cyclist criss-crossing the town on nothing but muscle power and sweat, and then stopping in for a refreshing swim on the way home.

Flash-back to a time many years ago, at the very same pool, the MRC, with my brother and I taking swimming lessons, one of the few activities we were ever to do together. Our lack of confidence in the water was obvious; granted our swimming lessons were a luxury that didn’t last long, but both of us were terrible swimmers. Well into the lessons, the rest of the kids were diving off the low-dive for the first time, while the two of us could barely tread water. I joked about calling us “the Sinking Brothers,” bu there was Papa, off at the side watching the lessons, the frustration at watching us flounder palpable. He could swim like a fish, even as a kid, so you can understand his mounting frustration. We never did learn to swim well, and the lessons were soon discontinued, though I’ll probably never know if he was just pissed off or if he simply didn’t have the money.

That was then; since then I’ve learned to swim, and more, learned to love swimming, though by no means am I an expert. Regardless, I can’t seem to get enough of it, though I still hate the chlorine in the water at public swimming pools. It irritates my eyes and my throat (somehow I always swallow some pool water), and relegates the best swimming to alpine pools generally only accessible through 3-5 hour hikes. The kind that make you feel like you earned the swim, but also of the kind that rarely fit into my schedule.

Though I’m far from an expert, if what Richard Heinberg and others have to say about declining oil stocks has any credence, I think that gas prices will only go up from here. The trend of governments finally slapping a price on carbon dioxide emissions will only exacerbate this trend, so I won’t be surprised to see more and more bicycles on the road.

Not to mention people washing off all that sweat at the local watering holes, be they chlorinated in the city or fresh and clean hundreds of metres into the mountains. Up for a hike? Let me know.