The Lillooet Nation Rodeo

It was a misty day at the rodeo. Five bucks got you through the wooden gate, and we parked under the shadow of Mt. Currie next to the rv selling "Property of the Lillooet Nation" t-shirts. A couple of concessions stands were underneath wooden lean-tos advertising "Hamburgers, hot dogs, Indian Tacos." Apart from three tents with blow-up dinosaurs, there was a serious lack of the commercial. "Whoever parked their car near the toilets, the fire truck has asked you to move them," said the announcer from the loudspeaker booth.

The rodeo is in the town of Mt. Currie on first nations land, and perhaps this lack of sponsors (and lack of advertising) is a first nations style. Nothing flashy, nothing expensive, just real cowboys and cowgirls roping baby steers. The young boys even rode some cows. As in, cows. With udders. Kind of weird. But a what a relief, because if you go to Whistler Blackcomb's Telus Festival for example, sponsors swarm you, throwing raw-nut protein bars, blue perfume or strawberry milk samples from their branded tents. You have to duck to avoid a concussion. At the rodeo, the only time you'd have to duck is if the horse's hoof sent out a dollop of sand from the ring, which it did from time to time.

"Mt. Currie, are you asleep?" asked the announcer. "This is one of your own, put your hands together for Shequila!" And the crowd clapped and whistled while a fourteen year old flew out into the ring and lassoed her hat instead of the calf that was charging ahead. "Ah well," the announcer chuckled. "Thank you anyway." We watched adults on bucking horses, and a few calf wrestlers who fell from their saddles onto the freaked out babies and tried to pull them to the ground. No luck. "Well ladies and gentlemen, we're now moving to what we call intermission," said the announcer. The mist had moved to tiny rain droplets, and people pulled their blankets and umbrellas closer. "We'll see you back here in one hour and a half. Stay tuned for bingo." The crowd mumbled and began to disperse.

Behind the bleechers, the mountain seethed green and kids ran wild through the tall grass while riders exercised their horses. A woman's voice was calling out numbers on the bingo chart, and a collie was running to and fro nervously, looking for something to herd. "So let's go?" I asked. Michal was eating a hot dog with relish and he shoved the rest in his mouth. "Asi Jdem," he said. "So let's go." And we did.

A false start: The horse that didn't want to get out of the holding tank.

Life Goes On, Surprisingly.

There have been a few surprise developments in moving winter to spring and then spring to summer in Pemberton, BC, Canada. One is, that after a dull and listless gray sky all winter with a low cloud cover always, and the chance of precipitation (think rain, not snow) hovering around usual, we've had nice weather. No, not nice weather, STELLAR weather. Mountains radiate their purple mountain majesty (oops, is that copywritten only for the States?) and their snowy top coat like gorgeous rocky divas showing off their assets. People skip around town in perpetual peppiness, biking and hosting garage sales and supporting children in their lemonade stand enterprises. We went to a garage sale yesterday where Michal picked up a fishing rod, and I bought a colander. Michal was carrying both, and an older fellow drove by on a bike. "Looks like you've bought both a rod and a net," he said.

I started working in landscaping, and nothing was as surprising as learning I was totally and hopelessly out of shape. Not that I'm alone. Carolyn, our boss, complained about the wimpiness. "I'm there putting soil into wheel barrows and managed to make four or five trips while some of these boys did one," she scoffed. "I mean, they're twenty years old." She's like the terminator, the woman version. Half the boys are scared shitless. Like Christian said, a Kiwi dude who lasted all of a week: "I bet Carolyn is on a lot of people's don't fuck with list." The awe in his voice was audible. As for me, with the enthusiasm of someone who half-relishes and half-dreads the boot camp experience (and quite frankly, using a power broom conjurs up images of a North Korean prison camp as read about in the Guardian) I am building muscles in places I didn't know had useful muscles. Lower left hand side of the back. Between thumb and forefinger. Neck.

Lastly, and perhaps not too surprisingly if one thought hard about it beforehand, dog-sitting is an incredible amount of hard work. I had it in my mind that I would have this cute doggy (he is cute, for the record) and we would frolic and play, go on long walks and generally have a good ol' beast and human fabulous time. We'll give Ash credit here, my lovely friend Kerry's lovely Collie dog, because something was up with that Kibble. He wolfed it down, acted a bit nervous, frolicked and then did a big doozy in my car. Like a big sloppy shit which got into the tiny cracks of the plastic door casing and all over the upholstery. Then there was some more nervous eating and some pooing inside our house. I'll spare the rest of the details, but it went on like that. "Wow, your car is really clean," said my friend Carolyn. "Well," I said, "You shoulda seen it last Saturday." We did do some very nice walks however, me and Ash, which suited him just fine cuz he could run into the dandelions if the stomach-going got rough.

Last but not least (You always say "last but not least," said my Swiss ESL students)I am surprisingly giddy with anticipation at returning to the States in some months time. I'll leave you with a quote from a story called "Letters to Caitlin" by Dylan Thomas who had been in San Francisco and then Vancouver, Canada. (1950)

"Vancouver is on the sea, and gigantic mountains loom above it. Behind the mountains lie other mountains, lies an unknown place, 30,000 miles of mountainous wilderness, the lost land of Columbia where cougars live and black bears. But the city of Vancouver is a handsome hell hole. It is, of course, being Canadian, more British than Cheltenham. I spoke last night-or read, I never lecture, how could I?--in front of two huge union jacks... The pubs--they are called beer parlours--serve only beer, are not allowed to have whiskey or wine or any spirits at all--and are open only for a few hours a day. There are, in this monstrous hotel, two bars, one for Men, one for Women. They do not mix.... And thank God to be out of British Columbia & back in the terrible United States of America."

I can't say there are still segregated beer parlours in Vancouver, though BC, which still has some of the strictest liquor laws in Canada, was probably not the ideal place for an alcoholic. But that terrible United States....it's calling my name.

Pow--Not just for knocking people out in cartoons.

There are a lot of words that I have learned since coming here. They fall into two categories: embarrassing and words for the Cambridge English Test. Let's start with the first category. Anyone who has lived in/near a ski resort or has ever chanced to sit in a gondola with four young Australian snowboarders might have come across the word "pow." Short for powder, and usually paired with "sick", (as in "it was the sickest pow I ever saw mate,") this is a well used word in Whistler, because of its heavy coastal precipitation and consequently pow making abilities. The next word, which is promoted in numerous publicity campaigns by the Whistler Blackcomb corporation, possibly to show a chummy, we-know-what-you're-all-about relationship to its mainly young, Australian employees, is the verb "to shred." Shredding is almost synonomous to skiing or boarding, but not quite, cuz when you are skiing or boarding you might be doing it awesomely or unawesomely, the nuance is left open to interpretation. Not so with shredding--when you shred, you are doing some fucking awesome skiing or boarding, dude.

"I work safe cuz there is so much shredding to do."
Whistler Blackcomb poster, in the lodge staff room.

I'm missing umpteen other exceptionally cool words for riding up a large rock on a lift and then getting back down on variously shaped pieces of wood and metal. But I've had my ears and eyes full of teaching English to eight Swiss guys who are studying for a Cambridge English test. Their favorite words in English are either "Fuck" or "you're useless," both of which they say with giggly enthusiasm. The more scholarly words we have been reviewing (and honestly, some of which I have been learning for the first time) will have to wait for another time.

Today though, there were blue skies. Fresh snow had fallen on the previous day's fresh snow. It was sick dude, all that fresh pow. And I don't mean I skied sort of awesome--I shredded it.

West Coast Canada Represent or Mountains Mountains Mountains

2011 was a travel year. After a bike trip through Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia-Hercegovinia, Montenegro, and Albania, we hopped to England, then the United States and finally to Canada. Our trip across the United States was like a never ending movie reel--Vibrant Vermont colors, rain soaked Great Lakes towns, armpit strip malls in Illinois, beige frozen fields from Minnesota through South Dakota, the deep Bad lands and the endless bill boards for road side attractions. We were quieted by the yellow and brown emptiness that was Wyoming and tramped through Yellow Stone National Park (stopped for a glimpse of those coughing geysers). Then flew across the highway in Montana, catching a glimpse of Idaho as we quickly descended into the dry prairie of Eastern Washington state, and then were sucked quickly into the rain and gaping temperate rain forests of the coastal mountains. Whew. By the time we reached Whistler, BC, our destination, my brain was spinning with pictures.

East Coast Americans aren't too sure what Whistler is. Many have some dim memory of possible Olympic Games. You can be sure that they've never heard of Pemberton, BC, the town next door with a history of farming, horses and gold. Pemberton is where we settled--due to cheaper rental prices, and a good 25 minutes respite from the resort mania that Whistler generates--and on clear days, snow streaked Mount Currie towers over us from 2,591 meters or 8,501 feet. (On other days, it is entirely enveloped by fog). The area was first settled by the Salish tribe of First Nations people, and now the neighboring town of Mt. Currie serves as the administrative seat of the Lil'Wat Nation. It was settled later by pioneers who were not-the-faint-of-heart. For a long time, you had to take a ferry from Vancouver to Squamish, and then travel by rutted dirt road up over the mountains and into the Pemberton Valley. Now, after a revamped highway due to the 2010 Olympics, Vancouver is a 2.5 hour car trip away. Because of its proximity to the Whistler Blackcomb ski mountain, Pemberton is one of the fastest growing communities in BC, though it lies in a low valley susceptible to floods. Here there are a few interesting juxtapositions--old farms with white fences stretching along the river bed and new condos built in a "frontier style." There are hunters and fishers and potato farmers living next to Whistler marketing managers, writers, artists and moms who jog with SUV strollers. The scenery is stunning.

Mile One Lake

Top of Whistler Mountain

Postcard from Olomouc

Jen and I took the train to Olomouc . Olomouc is a small city tucked into Northern Moravia in the Czech Republic, and it boasts two main squares, a Socialist themed Astronomical clock and a very large Holy Trinity Column which in part celebrates the end of the Plague. It also houses the densest number of university students in Central Europe, including a Theology Faculty at the Palacký University of Olomouc. We saw many young men in black robes roaming the streets before and after Sunday Mass. Church spires gleamed brilliantly in the cold, spring sun, and their bells pierced the air.
(March 2011)