the littlest birds

SUNDAY June 8
3 hour Ocean's Day and Ethnobotanist/Ornithologist/Historian hosted tour of the estuary.

Began at the wharf checking out the bones: the orca jaw, the seal and otter skull, the shark jaw and some crustacean eating fish jaws. Otter pelts and baby salmonids sent up from the Vancouver Aquarium. I love how enthralled the kids are. I'm so glad that when I check in, I am still feeling just as awed by it all. I look at the live touch-tank, but almost everything in it is dead, which is fucking depressing and very uncoolly irresponsible. Different from the cool kind of irresponsible. I listen for a bit anyways about the crabs, the starfish, the sole, the sea cucumber, the anenemes, and the urchins, all of which are dead in the kiddie-pool tank, most likely from some inner rage fuming out, rampaging, unsupervised child. The seasquirt or ascidiacea, which I'd never seen before and learned are sessile, meaning firmly attached to rocks, and sac-like but firm to touch, were crazy. And touch I did, until some little hellian smashed it on the cement like a psycho.

Took a break after that, losing hope in humanity for a few minutes, heading back to my truck and singing Old Number Seven until I felt right in the head again.
Came home and ate before heading out into the pouring rain to walk with the group touring the estuary. They had started down the trail already, but I caught up to the pack of six or so people as she began talking about reeds, grasses, and sedges, and maybe how the different kind of swamp grasses were used. Sedges have edges, reeds have seeds, grasses have nodes from their tips to their feet. Her poem reminder. There are the snakeskin lilies growing wild here among the horsetail and wintergreen! 

Sweet Gale, or Monkey bush has something to do with the one of the three kind of sasquatches. The one that lives here in the estaury area is small, hairy, and male, not as scary, and called the Boke. The bushes have a male plant and a female plant, the male will often end up in the middle of a bush of females. Nuxalk people boiled the branches to create a diuretic. Branches, bark and leaves have been used to make“ gale beer. The plant also has been boiled to create a potion that acts as an insecticide and to kill vermin.
 

Frittalaria affinis, or chocolate lily, have rice grains at the root in autumn, and stink as all flowers do that are pollinated by flies.
Bugbane are the palmate looking plants that shoot up one or two leaves per stalk. They can be mashed and are very acidic. When there was alot of trade here in this port town, there were a lot of cases of staph, with boils. It was used as a paste on the boil to burst it since it makes the skin blister. People use it sometimes with the MRSA that they get. Twisted clutching root used as labour inducer after too long a labour. It is strongly advised to not try this at home, but all but two of the group are over 60, so that was a funny warning.
 

Wild roses are ubiquitous here, you can smell them as you ride into harbour on the ferry. The fruit can be used dry in tea or soup, and raw in syrup, or purees. The ripe fruit is best after a frost as it sweetens, but watch for the fine hairs below the seeds that irritate the mouth and digestive tract. High in vitamin C, A, and E, flavanoids, bio-active compounds and essential fatty acids. Investigated as a food that may prevent, reverse, or slow cancers. Tea can also be made from the leaves. Young shoots are peeled and eaten in spring. Flower petals are used in water or cakes, but first remove the bitter white base.  A decoction of the roots is a cough remedy. The plant is high in tannin, and astringent. Infusion of the roots is a wash for sore eyes. An infusion of the leaves for smowblindness. A decoction of the stems and branches can be used as a blood tonic and for stomach complaints, colds and fevers. A poultice of the chewed leaves can alleviate bee stings.

Crow berries- or moss berries- blackcurrant-ish looking things, were used as a hair dye, to keep away greys! Mountain Ash berries were rubbed on the scalp to treat lice, and a branch bark and root infusion used for rheumatism and stomach pain, or an infusion of branches to stop excessive urination, such as for bed wetting.
The Nuxalk woman told of an elder who spoke of ridding headaches by pulling a thread that had been pulled through the stem of a hellebore, though the skin of her temple. The hellebores and devils club and dog something all look too similar to fuck with. All from the carrot family, they have that white flowering, flat top. The sap of devils club are nerve damaging, the hellebores are the same as what killed Socrates, wild hemlock, but the dog something was hugely useful. Its just that they all look so close to one another that you wouldn't want to use it, period, unless very well versed.

We ended up coming back around to a sitka spruce forest. They like the marshy places.
Sitka spruce sap can be used as a sterile antiseptic poultice on wounds, and I was told they often see people come into the hospital with it on. Young shoots are eaten raw. Young male catkins are eaten raw or cooked, and used as a flavouring. Immature female cones can be cooked. The central portion, when roasted, is sweet and syrupy. Inner bark is nutritious raw or cooked. It can be dried, ground into a powder and then used as a thickener in soups etc or added to cereals when making bread. The inner bark was usually harvested in the spring, though it was also sometimes taken in the summer. An emergency food, it is only used when all else fails. Seeds are eaten raw. The seed is about 2 - 4mm. It is rich in fats and has a pleasant slightly resinous flavour but is too small and fiddly to be worthwhile unless you are desperate. A refreshing tea, rich in vitamin C, can be made from the young shoot tips. A gum obtained from the bark is hardened in cold water and then used for chewing. It should be aged for 3 days or more before using it. The best gum is obtained from the southern side of the tree.
Medicinal Uses: Analgesic;  Antirheumatic;  Antiseptic;  Diuretic;  Laxative;  Ophthalmic;  Pectoral;  Poultice;  Salve;  Stomachic;  TB.
Sitka spruce was widely employed medicinally for its antiseptic and pectoral qualities in the treatment of lung complaints, wounds, sores etc. The inner bark is laxative. It has been chewed in the treatment of throat problems, coughs and colds. A decoction of the branch tips and the bark has been used in the treatment of rheumatism, stomach pains, constipation and gonorrhoea. A decoction of the cones has been taken in the treatment of pain. The cones have also been used in steam baths to treat rheumatism. A decoction of the bark has been used as a steam bath in the treatment of back aches. The resin is antiseptic and diuretic. A decoction has been used in the treatment of gonorrhoea. A poultice of the resin has been used as a rub on rheumatic joints. Combined with Indian Hellebore roots (Veratrum viride), it has been used as a poultice on rheumatic joints. The resin has also been used as a dressing or poultice on cuts, broken skin, boils, wounds, infections and suppurating sores. The resin has been chewed as a breath freshener and as a treatment for TB. The gum from new shoots and small branches has been placed in the eyes as a treatment for snow blindness. A decoction of the roots has been used in the treatment of diarrhoea.
Other Uses
Adhesive;  Basketry;  Fuel;  Gum;  Pitch;  String;  Varnish;  Waterproofing. The tough and flexible root is used in basket making and as a string. They grow horizontally over the ground, out from the tree, so there is easy access to them. The roots were burnt over an open fire to remove the bark, then they were dried and split to make hats, ropes etc. The roots were also used to make tightly woven baskets that would hold water.  These were cut into lengths 75 - 90cm long and 12 - 25mm in diameter. Whilst still full of sap and soft, these were split into broad flat bands and these in turn were sub-divided by knife and teeth until the desired size was obtained - a little larger than coarse thread, about like small twine. The vertical rods were made of hazel (Corylus spp) and the overlay was bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax). The limbs and roots can be pounded, shredded and used to make ropes. A pitch is obtained from the tree and is used for caulking boats, waterproofing boxes etc. The rendered pitch has been used as a glue. The pitch can be melted then used as a protective varnish-like coat on wood. The wood is a good fuel, knotted bits of wood would keep the fire burning all night. 


Talked about the skunk cabbage, and its bulb of yellow that holds and amplifies the sun, creating heat that allows it to bloom so early. It blooms in time for the bears to eat the roots, and after hibernation it works as a laxative or cathartic, to get their guts moving again. The plant was used by indigenous people as medicine for burns and injuries. Although the plant was not typically part of the diet under normal conditions, its large, waxy leaves were important to food preparation and storage. They were commonly used to line berry baskets, to wrap around whole salmon and other foods when baked under a fire, or line the cedar boxes in which food was cooked, with rose shoots and horsetails and oolichan grease. It is also used to cure sores and swelling.

What was notable was the birdsongs that went with the times of year the plants became useable. The Nuxalk have particular word names for these times of year; the birdsongs or plant beginnings as markers for harvesting times or growing seasons. The Nuxalk woman told us that her sister was named after the flowering of the roses which was accompanied by the Golden Kinglet's song.

the caffeine express!

 







I want to sneak this mug for Jas' collection of train things! It cracks me up!

 I dont remember my day anymore.
I drove up one road and got turned around where they're remaking one of the bridges that I drove over last weekend. That is a peculiar feeling...was it about to crumble? 
Down down back into town and out along the bouncing valley road to the first place I camped, grabbing up deadfall and tossing it into the camper along the way. I was only one can and half an hour in when I came upon the road crew and their big bear sniffing dog on the Clayton River FSR, so I'm fine still for public roads. I turned around at the WORST place, haha. A drop to a river from a loose gravel bank on one side, and these rude baby alders butting right up to the road on the high side, so that I just backed up until I felt them pushing against the camper, then inched forward til I felt the gravel become slight. I would gasp and punch it into reverse again, gently gently pushing the gas pedal like there's eggs underfoot. Follow the road crew out and back along the road to town, then out through the other side.

ROAD POP, N

STEEEEP DROP!

Take a right at the hairpin turn where the 20 crosses the Nusatsum River. At one point as I drove along this now near-familiar road, faster than I should be going, really, I look down and thought I saw a small hair growing out of the top of one of my boobs. I freak out, grabbing at it once or twice with my chin stuck to my neck. There is the furious sound of scraping, and branches are whacking my shoulder through the window. Whoops, swerve back into the road, it's not that important! [It turns out to just be an eyelash resting there- by the way] Look up to notice that the driver's side back strut has dropped down, the opposite one from my last drive up this same road. Glad I noticed it before it hit the ground. I stop, get out and zap strap it shut. The back door has also swung open, so I shut it at the same time. What a whirlwind! This is what happens when I try to rush anywhere. After that the damn door swung open three more times before I shuffled the big logs further into the guts of the camper and it didn't open anymore.
I arrive at quarter to seven, pull the wood out and get the fire going, then climb in, tear my clothes off and go to work, enacting my ritual until my pussy is sore. I see the light, touch the divine, come hard, whatever, and am wrecked, and have to try to get the fire to stay going when Im done but the energy it takes is going to be too much. I've burnt the hairs off of my right hand and there are two hot spots where some wicked vapour snuck up and breathed onto my fingers. I am more tired than I thought. I can't really even be bothered to feed myself tonight, but I toss a smokey on the grate and impatiently eat it too soon. I don't want to do anything. I want to sit inside in my housecoat and nothing else, and put lotion all over me and lay flat on my back with my legs up. So that is what I do.

Rarrrrrr! The water yells, and I sit inside tonight and sing my song session. I learn one song that is four or five notes played over n over and that makes me glad. I learn the chords to another but they're complicated and I can't sing along- not even close, or get any of the chords right- not even close to time. So I just put the guitar away and sing along, and that makes me happy as I lay half on the bench with my feet up next to the little stove with the back curtains open so I can see the falls glowing as the skylight dims.

TMI and the woods

May 31
After midnight, on the way back to Bella Coola.
Fell asleep as we parked on the boat, 2am, pretty much. Bundled up under my blanket, I rolled over with one numb arm when we drove off to turn the car around in Ocean Falls, the sun was up at 4am already. Covered my face and slept four more hours. Woke up hungry and ate my cheese and crackers and eggs. Watched a hundred porpoises jump past us. I'd awoken in the same place as on my way out to Bella Bella, at the Alex Mackenzie monument, where the boat appeared to be heading straight for the rocks, slowly, but straight into them. I got out to see why it was so close to shore and there was this concrete spire that showed how far west he'd gone. He never met the people on the outer coast at all... His loss. I go back to the car and put a movie on, I know where I am, but pull out the map anyway, I need to see it. I decide to go upstairs after the movie, and open the door to an BC Ferries employee with a jug of coffee, cups, cream and sugar, standing at the bottom of the steps. He serves me coffee right there, in the small space between the heavy doors. I'm laughing so hard as I mix my stuff together. From the lounge I look out the window as we pass a waterfall that comes pouring out of the forest, over the barnacled rocks. The tide is halfway it looks like. A great big glacier -the Bentwick Spire maybe?- is the next thing to stare at, then I see a shape in the trees on the mainland side, like a large man just standing still among the stunted trees. Is it Sasquatch? As I look I realize he would have to be so very large that it's unlikely, and the man becomes part of the shadows that the trees are casting. Listen to stories about elderly patients these nurses used to see, the hundred year old man with the wooden shoes, and the blow torch in the bathroom to kill the flies his glaucoma convinces him he sees. When they assure him that there are no flies in the bathroom, he asserts, "because it works!"


Start to get a headache as we disembark. Also smell the flowers. It's been weeks since I smelled flowers! Realize there are no flowers in Bella Bella like there are here. The wild roses are all blooming. Decide to collect some petals for rosewater this weekend. Return a truckload of wine bottles that turns out to only be $15 worth, then pick up cheap booze and food and ice, pack my camper, check my fluids and roll. Not far up the highway, I turn onto the forest service road and crack a can. I gulp it down as I steer the truck, hoping to ease this headache off. The green is beautiful and I crane my head all over, soaking it in. Waterfalls and creeks and mountaintops, this is nice country. Up I go, and stop at a tiny fall of water that is emerging from some moss in the sun. I dunk my head into it, and scrub my scalp, this hair is greasy already from a long night of traveling on the ferry. Its dulling cold and my headache is secondary for a few minutes. I notice a definite wet dog smell though as I drive on and wonder if that spur of the moment excitement was worth it, or is my hair full of mosquito larvae now... Grab some more cans from the fridge and keep on, stopping once more when one of the camper struts has dropped down and is dragging, hitting the ground six times maybe before I stop and wrench it back on straight, push it back up into its cylinder and zap strap it to stay. I'm suddenly at the falls. The campsite is a pull off from the road, but it doesn't matter, I'm the only one here, so I'm happy. My head is still pounding and I've been thinking of something dirty the whole way so I get into my camper for a session. People and their dogs pull up just as I'm almost there, so I cover up, make myself invisible, and take a nap. I wake with no more headache, eat and start a fire. The falls are beautiful, coming right out of the blue sky, framed by a few snowy peaks. It's colder here, there's an icefield refrigerator next door, and the mosquitos are easy to kill, they're so enormous and slow. I layer up and set up my tote table and comfy chair. Nine twenty and it's getting cold, even with a nice fire going, maybe it's time to crawl back in.

Sit out and sing songs to the trees until eleven, thinking about that guitar up front. Not tonight, but soon, I should pull some tabs for next weekend. Finally settle in for sleep, fully clothed, and drift away to the roar of the falls. I wake up to the ice and bottles in the fridge shifting, and wonder who is in my truck. Try to sleep in, then decide to start the day. I can't sleep in any more even though I really want to, I see the sun coming in the windows.
 

GOOD GRAVY its JUNE 1ST

Squeeze out of the foxhole and lounge around in my camper naked for awhile, this is the rulingest feeling in the world. I love my new camper, I wouldn't do this outside. My imagination gets caffeinated so I crawl up for a go, flying over the trees toward the cascades as I fall over them and over them, drifting through the sky with the mist coming off of them. Put some music on and a few clothes. Dance around in the sun outside my camper to the old self-titled Jane's album. Wash my face and hands and self and get dressed. I would like to go for a walk. Turn off the music and watch the hummingbirds, the bees, the flies and the moths buzz around in the sun between the trees. I would like to go exchange some energy with that forest over there, where the trees are massive, nearer to the river.
But I have this fear...
I begin to step slowly into the woods, out of the sun. It is achingly beautiful to me, this quiet place, with all the moss and shade and dapply light. I want to lay down in the soft moss. I collect the morning webs and for once I am not bothered by them, more like feeling blessed by this morning. Yet I stop at the top of the trail, where it begins to drop, and I can't go forward. I look around, scanning for danger, but I don't see anything that might be causing this fear. I'm angry with it. Go away, fear, I don't need you right now! I yell at it in my head. I speak the words out loud. But it won't go. I stand rooted next to a tree, and put my hands to it, to feel its safety. I take one step past it finally and jump as a squirrel chides me for coming too close to his tree. I can't do this- why!? I am disappointed and look down at the diamonds of river water I can see at the bottom, wanting to be next to it, to feel its rushing and let it take away the bad that I have been remembering.
I consider staying another night, and how long it would take to get to work by eight from here. How long will it take to shake this fear? I want to stay until it has passed, I want to get to where the water meets the ground again, and rolls the rest of the way to the inlet.

Finished some more coffee, took some photos and then set out again, making it all the way to the river's edge this time. It's a big mess of fallen tree debris in the river, there must have been quite a lot of rain this winter. I jump once when some little creature squeaks, and am constantly scanning, but I make it, getting spooked only where the trail ends, and looks like it got washed out. I am going to go up to the falls now, especially since there is one other family who pulled up after I was just finished another relaxing session. I feel like a teenager with all this masturbation, but it's okay. I haven't had any time to myself, there is some great energy shift happening, and I feel damn frisky out here in the woods, all energized by the high air, so what the hell. I keep thinkin' a Sasquatch is going to smell sex on me though, come and steal me away forever.

Wonderful walk in the woods. There was a family picnicking and it gave me the facility to go walk, without fear, into the woods, along the mossiest, loveliest trail I've seen in some time. I took pictures of creeks, streams, sun through the trees, and nice places in the moss to lay down. Stopped at one, because I can't quit imagining how it would be, making out in one of these soft hollows. Thought I'd give it a try. I was much too nervous to get anywhere, but I hiked up my shirt and bra and rolled over on it. It was not as soft as it looked at all! Kind of wishing that I hadn't ruined the way it felt in my mind. I hiked on, through the thick of a few fears, and came to the bridge where the waterfalls were seen best. It looks like the trail beyond was washed out. I sat on the bridge and ate chips, watching the cascade for awhile, then headed back, threading my way across the few streams where the trail bridge had washed away, coming out to find the family gone. I had done it all on my own, and that felt better than succumbing to the fear. Decided when I was done to head back into town and sang my way, driving slowly, back down the road, stopping a few times to pee and once just to dance to the Littlest Birds.

Drive back towards town, pick up another block of ice and some breakfast yogurt, check messages, then make for the town centre and get some off-sales and smokes. Wash my hair in the bathroom at the pub, and the lady at the till tells me that the Jay Lakes road might still have snow, it might not be passable. Oh, hmmm. I decide to drive it anyway, and stop where there appears to be a pull-out by the Clayton River. Or one hour. I decide I will commute one hour to work in the morning and no more. 

At one hour exactly, it appears that I've missed the pull out on the map, but there's an unmarked rec site, just a pad of gravel extending from the road, really, and two picnic tables. Lovely. At the rec site, there is plenty of wood, stacked and ready. As well as shotgun shells and a pampers box. I collect the cardboard, leaves and deadfall, some left behind wood chips and old fire logs left in the metal firepit, and build a fire in an outside circle of stones in one try. I don't even tend it and it goes. Sweet, guess I will back the truck up to it and go from there. Dinner is hummous and crackers, and leftover salad. And Palm Bays. And wine. I pull out the guitar and try to strum along to singing, but it sucks, so I put it away, and turn off the music. I'm tired. Big day for little Em.

Faced and conquered this inexplicable fear of the wild, and drove my truck up some nice 4x4 road in the last stretch, here. Love my truck, love my camper, love my life. I'm toasty warm and fed, a little tipsy and connected. I've missed being out in the woods and near to giant trees, whirling wind, and whooshing water, taking all my bad energies away with them.
Thought today to let people know that they just  need to get here, that I have places to sleep for three. One, other than me in the camper, one tent, bag and mat. I have next weekend off, then the weekend after, I go back to Bella Bella. I'm back for seven days when July starts, but then I want to go over for G's friend's wedding, as well as the canoe journey.

Cracking myself up with silliness while I'm doing chores, washing dishes, feeling stoked on me cos I brought almost everything I ever need. Good God's Urge spinning me into la-la land What I don't have is: Hand axe and music speakers.
At some point, I decide that the big bench will make a perfect pee hanger. I plunk myself down and the whole damn thing lifts up, with my wine glass next to my computer, rising into the air on the other end, riding the plank of the bench up up up! hahaha, I laugh and try to steadily lower it down while not peeing on myself!