Looking up at the wall mountain in front of me today, there are three waterfalls free-falling like a thousand feet down the front of one mountain. I nearly drive off the road staring, marveling at the sight of it. I get my head together and keep driving. I see it another three times, on three other mountainsides. Three water falls, falling falling falling thousands of feet through the air or running down the face of the bare rocks. Is it always like this? It just turns into Rivendell every time it rains?
May 16,
day 4 on job, day 8 out
9 hour ferry ride to Bella Bella!
Packed the car last night and tried to wash it. I couldn't find the hose, so I used a bucket. By the time I got to the trunk, I was feelin done, so it isn't that pretty back there. Load up the coolers, get some groceries for myself and for G, throw the stick for Lucy. Cook myself some meals to use up the leftovers, take out the garbage and clean up the kitchen. I try to put away my things, take some stuff out of the camper which is full of empties to return. I had planned to return them after work, but the depot is only open Fridays and Saturdays. So I am leaving them in the camper, with the windows open since it already smells. I feel like I'm leaving G's place nicer than I found it. Good, thats the right thing to do. Now to pack my clothes, bathe and sleep finally. I realize now, riding the ferry, that I did not bring seaworthy sweaters. I have three at G's, but was really warm and tired when I was packing. I watched some tv episodes, too excited to sleep, tossing until midnight. Wake up in a sweat, what is this? Yuck, then my alarm is bleeping at me and I feel poopy. I sit up and grunt and groan my way to my feet, half dressing, then wandering around for a minute. Do I want to drink coffee? No, not yet, I intend to get back to sleep as soon as possible! I pack the last of the bags, putting the gourmet travel food I cooked into travel containers that won't matter if they are lost. Putting lids on the cold coffees I have ready to go. Finish dressing, squash bathroom stuff and housecoat into my gym bag, and snap out of it as I'm driving. Looks like a full moon is making the sky bright, it beams into my eyes as I look up. It is resting between Nooklikonnick and Snootli Peaks(I am determined to at leaast learn the names of these mountains if not climb them! I might make a few mistakes until I get a more accurate map).
I park at the ferry and roll over until a knock at the window wakes me to check ID and load me up. The tunnel is what they call the side lane on the boat, and it's more narrow than what I'm used to! Navigate into my place, climb over into the passenger seat, grab my snuggly housecoat as a blanket and my pillow, and I'm lights out again, feeling conflict tugging at my heart since I will miss out on watching some of the voyage. But I decide I must rest or I won't enjoy any of it. Four hours later, I wake up exactly at the place that Alexander Mackenzie touched Pacific Ocean water in his crossing of the continent by land on July 22nd, 1793. In Dean Channel, at Mckay Bay, north of King Island. I drink one of my coffees, watching the sunny scenery, then wander around, looking for a bathroom. This ferry is so strange. I go up one stairway to a roped off sitting area, no way to get to the other side but down and up some other stairs. People are sleeping on the benches in the other sitting room, and still no bathroom. This is an adventure! I come down the stairs again to find K, L's husband, who I had met on the way to drop off G at the airport on Monday. He says he has just woken up too, and tells me where the bathroom is.
The sun is bright on the water in some places, illuminates the green of the trees that climb and fall n climb all over the round peaks all along the edges of the channels. It rains a little and the whiteness of the clouds on the water hurts my eyes. We come around a bend, past abandoned cottages, into Ocean Falls, where there was once a busy mill. Abandoned now, with only a handful of restored houses where people still live, it is perfection for photographs of decay. But I'm only given two minutes before I'm called back to put my car back onto the ferry, facing the opposite direction in the tunnel. There is a hydro dam there now that generates power for Bella Bella, Shearwater, and whatever other lil places are hiding around here. The raging waterfall comes right down to meet the ocean...yeah, hence the name.
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| Ocean Falls |
Back out into the Fisher Channel, we pass through a narrow place, called the dogleg channel, maybe informally, which we can only do in this little vessel. We are nearly to Shearwater now. It is similar here to my ride to and from Sonora Island. It makes me feel happy, and like I'm in the right place. What if this was your ride to work? Almost at Shearwater. We will leave our cars and catch a water taxi over to the marina at Bella Bella. The ferry workers have to have a shift break of eight hours before they can continue, so the boat sits there, full of cars, until ten pm, when it crosses the channel. You have to come and get your car at midnight. Crazy.
Guess I should get my carry off stuff ready.
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| Shearwater |
Got off in Shearwater and went to catch the water taxi. I was actually really glad when it sped off without us, which meant we would have to sit at the pub, in the sun, for two hours. Rough life. After lunch, we walked down to the dock, to find out about the boat. We talked to boat people and the guy who had been wandering around the place, P.V. He didn't smell like drink, but he acted it. Talking about the dog he used to have, miming this action that appeared to be the way he used to lift it by its neck to talk to it. At one point he showed me his knife, then brought his face close to my face to look in my eyes. Nice eyes, he says. Nice teeth. I wasn't afraid of him at all, but thought it was time to uninitiate the conversation. Who knows whats going through peoples heads. I felt glad to have K there, as he stood and stepped between us after that. Like a man should. Not aggressively. Just being a presence for me. What a good guy. I decided to look after myself anyways and moved to sit on the boat, but I appreciated that gesture. We arrived across the water in about twenty minutes, the town sits on this one shelf, and the trees are stunted like in Uclulet, with rolling, rocky bluffs. There are wolves here, I keep repeating to myself.
I meet up with G, and she shows me around. We do a home visit almost immediately to assess the safety of an elderly woman's home who has just had a bad fall, been discharged from Vancouver General, and will be on her way home soon. Then we are done for the day and we ride around from end to end of this place. I wonder if I'm on the moon. It feels like another planet, it looks like Uclulet a little with its stunted, coastal bonsai trees and rolling rocklands. G talks so fast and tells me about all of her plans for me. Writing proposals, attending a women's group, a supper club, working with a young family... she does alot and I wonder if I can keep up. I know that at one time I felt a need to do this much. But I don't really feel that it was a healthy time. Driven to distraction I believe is the saying?
Stories about dogs up on the Chilcotin, taking on grizzlies, getting caught in trappers' traps, the deer that went up a tree and didn't fall out.
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