Spring on Bickford

Still in its infancy, the Chetwynd Outdoors Society is committed to continuing its restoration of a decommissioned fire tower on Bickford Mountain.  I hiked up on Saturday with four other members of the group to document how the tower fared in our brutal northern winter and begin planning a work bee later in the summer.

There was no shortage of lingering snow.  Nearly all were prepared with gaiters and waterproof hiking boots and layers for the wind and rain.  A tough slog up the melting trail and over a swollen creek was worth the view from the tower and summit.

May there be spring!

On a recent helicopter flight for work, our pilot commented that the Peace is two weeks behind his hometown Vernon.  The rivers here are filled with silt and not yet at their high water level for the year, snow still lingers in the bush and makes roads inaccessible, vegetation here is in various stages of leafing out while Vernon has had leaf out, flowers and is snow free!

We northerners cherish our summers.

It's rare for gardeners to plant before June due to lingering frost risk yet we're out on riverboats enjoying the snowcapped peaks and high water that makes areas inaccessible in warmer months.  Music festivals run into the never-dark night.  Black out shades sell out from the local hardware store a month before summer solstice as we attempt to adequately rest before launching ourselves into another high activity day of weeding, hiking, fishing, BBQs.  Even with our long days, it seems there's never enough time to fit it all in.

Disconnected travelers

I didn't intent to take a break from blogging this past trip. It wasn't a conscious electronic departure. Ample internet access was available as cafes and on a tablet thing when my dear friend Jaana was around.

On my last two trips, I've been deeply annoyed at wifi's pervading presence in guesthouses, restaurants, dive shops, bars and even places of worship. In the latter, I can assure you users were not communicating with the divine.

Yeah, it's great we can stay connected with friends, family and colleagues while we're away from our for-now homes but I fear there's a disturbing trend of travelers that aren't engaging with the locals or their fellow travelers.

It used to be easy as a solo traveler to meet new people or invite yourself to share their table. Now, when an ENTIRE table has their faces lit up by computer, tablet or phone screens, I'd rather dine, drink, explore sites, sleep alone than feel like I'm intruding on their electronic time.

An uneasy feeling of loneliness and isolation sets in as travelmates ignore you in favour of sending gang emails, updating statuses, posting photos or applying for jobs back home when the very people they are electronically "connecting" with are sleeping!

Such is the blessing and curse of the internet's popularity and deemed necessity.

I acknowledge I could not travel without it but I long to travel alongside people and connect face-to-face. To hear their stories first hand, not a polished online version of it. To laugh at cultural missteps, share advice on that delicious restaurant, cool elephant rescue place, warn against a dodgy overnight train, not read Tripadvisor reviews.

Ironically/fittingly/fortunately email, facebook, couchsurfing facilitates meeting with locals, distant family, friends of friends and expats. An online community persists when it feels like there isn't one.

As surfer, host and traveler at large, I have contacted and been contacted by members of the traveling community. I have dispensed advice and sought it.

I connected a dear friend and classmate who would be living and working in eastern Africa for overlapping timeframes. My mother's cousin's best friend's son let us stay with him in New Zealand and I have since visited him and his new family in several Canadian cities. My cousin and I continue to celebrate her birthday outside this country.

Yes, the world is opening up, and there's no shortage of people who've been there to consult with, but I caution amongst these marvel of being connected, we're guilty of not connecting to those around us in real life.

Hiking tea party in Sri Lanka

Haptule's mosque is meters and meters away from our rooms

"Would you look at those speakers!" Jenny, a recently retired Aussie school teacher and Sri Lanka tourmate, exclaimed as we oggled the imposing green mosque adjacent to our hotel. 

"There's roosters out the front," Paul said joining us as we marveled how the size and sheer number of speakers was disproportional to a) the size of the mosque and b) the size of the town.  Cursing our good luck we wouldn't need an alarm clock the following morning the multi-national Intrepid tour group keenly walked around Haptule after a stunning - and predictable delayed - six hour train journey from Kandy. 

Female pickers in the fields

Impossible slopes supported one of Sri Lanka's biggest exports - tea.  Nestled in lush valleys, the train skimmed along the ridge to a dizzying height of more than 1800 meters before descending into the mist.  Workers (mostly female) precariously perched at all elevations were clinging to the hillsides to collect their quota of 18 kilos. 

Gaaahh!  The gradient!

 After an interrupted night acclimatizing to the elevation and cooler night temperatures, our group set out for an overnight hike into the tea plantations.  Using the roads (and that's a generous term) and pathways the workers or lorries do to move the raw leaves and later final product to market gave our group an appreciation of the physical effort involved in a morning cuppa. 

Ten kilometers over a ridge, through villages and vegetable patches, we arrived at our hillside house. 

Mercifully unplugged from wifi and phone signal, our group was expected to provide musical or dance entertainment for our hosts in the hills.  They sang traditional Tamil songs accompanied by a sorry looking but powerful drum and we countered with national anthems, Waltzing Matilda and Savage Garden hits from junior high. 

Much giggling and a too many rounds of carrom later, we dropped into comfortable beds and waited for the neighbour's roosters to rouse us.

Guide Siva explaining a typical day in the plantations

Keen to get moving before the heat of the day, we set off along the tracks dodging sluggish tractors, transports and motorbikes.  How they gained traction and had confidence on the paths was mind boggling. 

Our knees were crying out on the downhill, we struggled to adequately replace the sweat that drenched us and we stopped often to inadequately photograph the stunning surrounds and still we slipped and slid down the paths. 

Glimpsing Sri Lanka's highest water and later the bravest of the boys swimming in its plunge pool we were refreshed and grateful to be back to our starting point in Haptule - even if it was in the shawdow of the town mosque.  

Foster cat update

Rarely am I involved in meeting adoption candidates for our foster animals.  Friday I had the pleasure of delivering Ella, a black beauty of a kitten, to good friends in Chetwynd.  They were looking for a companion for their male Pomerian and the male of the couple has always had cats around.  I did not hesitate for a second to recommend them as new owners to On Our Way Home's President.  

From the update I've received, she's settling well into her furever home and getting along with the dog while providing the humans hours of entertainment.  I'm glad she'll be close and we can monitor her maturing.  

Millie and Ella snuggling/battling

Millie and Ella again doing top kitty priorities

Carl joined us the same night we dropped off Ella.  Freshly neutered, he was still a bit dopey and sleepy from the drugs, so we set him up in the basement for a healing, restful night before introducing him to the house and Millie.  She's kind of a bully!  It takes her two to three days to welcome a kitten in and then they're fighting and chasing and having a grand kitty time.  She's still hissing at Carl.  They seemed to have worked out some sort of truce and he'll only be with us until we leave for holidays next Monday.  

Isn't he handsome?!?  I swear there's a storyteller trapped in his body as he's very vocal. 

Carl chilling in the sunshine

This handsome boy loves to snuggle and purrs like a chainsaw

2013 highs and holidays lows

Winter is reserved for dreamtime in several aboriginal cultures around the world.  A time of reflection, rebuilding, contemplation, planning, cleansing.  As 2014 looms on the horizon for the western world, I, too, am meditating on this past calendar year.

Along with my boyfriend, cousin and friends I hadn't met yet, I journey to the Great Continent after my usual months of Canadian employment.  Stunning diving; sunrises over sand dunes; terrifying car hires or, more specifically passing; seeing amazing creatures rumoured to be and actually in decline from poaching and habitat encroachment; coming face to face with the aftermath and rebuilding efforts of South Africa's apartheid; hilarious hostel mates all awaited.

A proposal to move in with my sweetie came while we were in Johannesburg.  I immediately dismissed it.  I reconsidered after my girlfriend that I usually rent from announced she was selling her house.  Mostly in cohabitation bliss, I was keen to add animals to the mix.  Every other week I was dog sitting, feeding cats or checking on fish but I wanted some critters actually in the house.

Enter: On Our Way Home Animal Rescue.  Within two days of expressing interest in fostering, we had two fraidy cats in the basement hiding in the walls, drawers and under the sofa.  They went to a barn where I hope they're chasing mice and snuggling together.  Two kittens (adopted quickly) and another adult female cat (that we'll likely keep) followed.

It has been my favourite volunteer gig.  There's always the 'isn't it hard to give them away when they're adopted?' question from others outside the Rescue.  Naw, I'm pumped that they're desexed and rehomed to loving and worthy owners.  It's also heartbreaking as hell when parvo rips through a foster's home and puppies die.  Despite the setbacks, it has been very rewarding to be a part of this great organization and watch its influence grow.

A few slow starts and underemployment marked this past summer and I finally had the time to take the Level 3 first aid course.  A rewarding and challenging two-week course that currently has me examining options on the way to paramedic.  Sitting on a construction project from Dawson Creek to Chetwynd reading my weight in novels every two week shift has been the reward.  And a fist full of cashola.

Dan and I recently returned from a great holiday that covered off Victoria and Calgary.  I am consistently blown away by the love within and generosity of his family.  I genuinely attempted to make it to Red Deer but Alberta in the winter still has tricks up her sleeve and our bus was turned around when the highway was closed due to REALLY scary conditions.

Bummed I wouldn't get to spend more time with my mother but also pleased I didn't have to watch my brother treat my mother SO poorly, I see it was a mixed blessing.  How much of Kevin's awfulness is brain injury and how much is him truly being an acewipe I do not know.

More cousin visits and playing pictionary into the night instead.

I have two favourite aunties.  One of them kindly and immediately opened her doors in Calgary when Dan and I were not able to make it to Red Deer.  Her father has been doing poorly for years and he finally passed in to the next world to join his wife.  I didn't know him well but truly I felt the joy and release of his ailing, tired and shell of a physical body.

So, thanks 2013 for new places and faces.

2014, Here's to health, fitness, travel, family, friends, job insecurity and animal rescue!

Holiday begins!

"To freedom," Lou and I clinked wine in short tumbler glasses in our shared Dawson Creek apartment. Today is our last day of work til January 4, 2014.  That's in, like, a whole different year!

Good work news: nobody has cut their leg open, severed their hand off, had a concussion or otherwise given me any business.  A few slow speed maneuvers ditching trucks and equipment has been the extent of my worries.  Bad work news: I'm way too excited to see this company in my review mirror in January.

My coworkers are flying, driving back to where they're from tomorrow morning- with a few sneaking out early this arvo - and I can't wait to see my sweetie tomorrow night.

It has been four years since I was in Canada for Christmas and I'm feeling medium about the whole thing.  This snow and cold continues to be dreadfully inconvenient, the shortening days are playing with my happy hormones and I miss the cat.  And Dan.

My immediate family never large on presents with our relationships floundering in the vicinity of functional, or recently, civil, it's the investment of time I'm most looking forward to spending with family - mine and otherwise.  Generously given from tomorrow til Jan 4th off, Dan and I are visiting Victoria, Calgary and Red Deer to cover off our respective families.  Can't wait!