I still love Barkerville

 Just before the plague struck down the bulk of our holiday plans, we managed a very short trip to one of my favourite places, Barkerville.

It was so cold on the day we were there, right at the end of the season. There were few tourists wandering the streets, and most of the actors that help bring the place to life had also left, back to university or winter jobs.

The stagecoach rumbled up and down between the buildings and their raised walkways, and when I raised my camera to photograph it the little boy riding up front gave me such a look of distrust that I could only smile at him.

Cariboo Lakes

Our trip to Canada was plagued by the plague, or at least what seemed like the plague. First I was ill, then JP, which meant most of the adventures we had planned had to be cancelled. Needless to say there was no shortage of frustration or disappointment in that regard. But I got to spend time with my family. One highlight was peeling apples with my grandmother while my mom cooked them for applesauce. Three generations of kitchen women all together.

I also got to see my glorious and wonderful friend Moe, and wander in awe around their stunning new house.

JP and I spent most of the time at my parents' place by one of the area's many lakes. For your viewing pleasure, I give you three Cariboo Lake photos: Canim Lake, Lac des Roches, and sunset on Timothy Lake.

What does home mean to you?

“We go to Canada for a new life, and you go back the other way,” says my grandfather with a mixture of sadness and humour.

I have repeated this line countless times over the past few years, and it was the first thing I thought of when I was asked to participate in this year’s Refugee Week Scotland. The theme of this year’s event is "Home: what does it mean to you?" Organizers have been asking bloggers around Scotland to share their thoughts about “home.”

My grandfather had been referring to his and my grandmother’s decision to leave Germany in 1958 and make a go of life in Canada. After the war, life was not the same. For my mother’s parents, it meant using false papers to get across the border into West Germany in 1951, with my then one-year-old mother. Already not able to go home, my grandfather began to dream of a new life for his family. He taught himself English and journeyed to Canada by boat, finding work wherever he could and generally getting things organized for my grandmother to follow six months later with my mother and my aunt.

Years later in 1989 when the wall came down, we sat around the television watching the news. My grandparents cried. Then came the fear that other people who had fled to the west before the wall, would come back and claim their properties. Our family was lucky - no one claimed the house they had called home for decades.

For my paternal grandfather, it was a similar story of having no home to return to. He grew up in a small town in what had been Prussia, but after the war that part of the world belonged to Poland. Already cut lose from the section of the earth he had known, after several years he simply saw no reason to stay. He took a job on a farm in Ontario, and many months later my father, then five years old, followed on a boat to Canada with his mother.

My family recently celebrated 50 years in Canada. So after all of that struggle, all of that working for a new life, why did I pick up and move to Scotland? And why do I stay? I have not been displaced by war, I am not threatened by my government for my beliefs. Other immigrants who have left their countries not by choice but by necessity, look at me quizzically and say “but…Canada is a GOOD country,” implying that once you’ve made it to a free, safe place, why leave?

That’s the difference between being an immigrant and being a refugee. The difference between my being drawn to Scotland and all of its history, gorgeous stones and haunting music, and the story of the Iraqi man I met in Oslo, who had left his country because of the war and who was waiting in agony through each and every long day, hoping that things would improve so that he could go home again without fear of violence.

My mom tells me of how her and her sister’s journey to trying to fit in in their new country, included practicing their pronunciation of “Toronto” in the Canadian way, so that it slurred together like “tor-on-no.”

Last week I met a man from Poland who has lived in Glasgow for five years. His accent is littered with Scottish phrases like “alright - on you go then.” I realized that he and I are doing the same thing: trying to hang pieces of Scotland from our accents, trying to fit in so that when we speak, we won’t be immediately hit with the question we have already had to answer so many times: “Where are you from? How did you get here? Why did you come here?”

We are lucky, this Polish man and I. Our white skin helps us to blend into the crowd, and it is only when we speak that we are recognized as being different. Those with brown skin probably get asked for their stories a lot more than white European immigrants. Or worse - they don’t get asked their stories. They are stared at instead, layers of silent judgement cast over them like a matador’s cape.

I love reminding people of the substantial influence that Scottish immigrants have had around the world. I tell them of how often I moved around British Columbia, and how no matter if the town was small, or if the January snows were piling up, somehow, somewhere, someone would be holding a Burns Supper.

And I love to ask people who have left Scotland for new shores, where they consider their home to be. Some say it will always be Scotland, while others say they are completely at home in their new country. Most just can’t imagine being without either place in their lives. Despite being in Canada for so long, my father’s mother still refers to Germany as “home” and she still gets emotional if she thinks too long about it. But at the same time, she wouldn't want to move back there. “Too many people,” she says.

So where is my home? Like many immigrants, I can’t decide. I think about the ranching country of the Cariboo-Chilcotin, and the smell of the willows and the pines in the spring, and there is a pain in my chest that brings tears to my eyes.

But the same thing happens when I walk to work in the morning, and see the Scottish Saltire flying above the government buildings, and Edinburgh castle jutting out atop a mountain of ancient volcanic rock, bold and black like it was carved from the stone itself.

It happens when I think of my friends and family, especially my grandmother, because I feel guilty for not being there. But then I think of JP and our glorious adventures around this little country, and a flush of love pulses through me that is so strong it feels like it will cause my bones to dissolve.

This is what I have learned: Home is the place that makes your heart lurch like the squeaky stair that betrays your presence to a silent household. That’s home. But it doesn’t have to be just one place. It can be two or even more. And it can be a person, someone with whom the world seems to be set to right. Someone with whom you would face any foe.

Here are the photos I promised to post:

The Cariboo’s beautiful Lac des Roches in the autumn:

And a view in the Highlands around Fort William during the same time of year:
A ferry pulling into the harbour on B.C.’s West Coast:
And a view out to the wide Atlantic in the far north of Scotland:
My father (that’s him in the sailor suit and hat) and his mother on the boat, about to leave for Canada. My grandmother’s sister is in the foreground with her daughter.
And part of our ever-expanding clan in Canada:
Thanks to Refugee Week Scotland for asking me to be involved in this fantastic project. I am so, so grateful to be living in this country. Refugee Week runs from 15-21 June and you can learn all about it here, or by taking a look at their YouTube channel.

Mountain race

The leaders of the pack, Tsi Del Del Mountain Race. The photo is about eight years old but remains one of my favourite shots that I've taken. I am crouched behind a log on the other side of the creek.

Once they charge down the mountain the riders race across a wide plain to the finish line, the horses kicking up plumes of Chilcotin dust as they run.

A handful of the most experienced horsemen take part in this nerves-of-steel section of the annual rodeo. Tsi Del Del is a small community, but they still put on one of the best rodeos in the Cariboo-Chilcotin.

The standoff

Intimoocy

Digging through paperwork yesterday I found a disk with some old photos from when I lived in Williams Lake. So this week I'm going to indulge in the past by posting them, starting this this one. I had completely forgotten about it, which makes it extra special.

The postcard countdown has begun! A few Scotland postcards, a random envelope and a Canada postcard have been claimed. This is ridiculous good fun. I'll be doing a mailout every Saturday until they are all gone. Please join in! My email address is: scotland4thesenses@googlemail.com

Going over

Well, thank the goddess that’s done. Let’s move on. Think of other things. Celebrate the cool breeze coming in through the window.

Listening to the blues….

Think, if you will, of railroad tracks that spread over hundreds of miles to form a giant V. Travelling this track you can expand yourself over valleys and mountains before you find the musty depths of the Fraser River Canyon. Get off and find a spot where you can inhale the scent of pine needles scattered on the dry earth. In the late summer heat they will have picked up a telling spice of expectation, as if at any minute they will start to pop, desperate to turn themselves inside out.

Wait for the first sensation to be pulled into you by the drone of the harmonica, which has itself been unfurled from the distant creak of a rocking chair. (The old man who sat there once had lived long enough to find the rhythm of acceptance, and he died with a smile).

And now that you’re here, I’m telling you, you can let go. Let go and move the way they always said you shouldn’t. Pretend this music is the strong, gentle fingers tugging at the fear of your body’s potential for pleasure. Set yourself loose the way a cat would stretch on a flat rock in the sun. Lean way back and let the light fall over you and then sink in, the yellow warmth on your face and arms, your stomach. Meanwhile the stone is pressing softly against your spine, like a curious god’s fingertips reading the Braille of your bones.

Think of nothing.

The long, lonely pluck of this guitar string will vibrate inside your body for a full hour, slowly growing stronger as the hum becomes low and choppy. Now there is a friction in your flesh like marbles turning inside a warm palm. If you resist the fear that will want to lead you to distraction, you will find yourself churning blissfully toward a precipice of knowing.

Go over.

(songs: Lucky 13 (Slide guitar) by Gashouse Dave/Desolation Blues by Gilbert Yslas)

Haggling with the sun

When we were teenagers, Norah used to write poems as an offering to the wind so it wouldn’t mess up her hair.
At the moment, I am sweltering. It is hot. The heat is pressing down on me, making me feel like a sandwich in a grill. I expect the apocalyptic visions to strike me at any moment, splatters of molten lava bubbling through the fireplace grate. It’s been well over a week now, with no change in sight. And I am torn because the show starts on Thursday and it would be cruel of me to ask for cooler weather when any rain would hinder the performances, but…surely we must be able to reach some kind of compromise.
It’s worth a try…

Summer In The Hay Fields

The men chose the day
for its dry heat
the grasshoppers chiming
cut-dry-turn-dry-bale

our family worked together
over uneven ground
where evaporative tongues
grew tall like weeds

while far away the sun was born
into a blue wasteland
its feverish body raging
for some long forgotten reason

ocean salt pumped
out of our skin
and the tides of our blood
drew the manic horseflies

who bit our burning necks
leaving red rivulets
which we smeared
with our damp palms

the deep afternoon
and the air quickened its friction
as if to create a spark
that would set the sky on fire

we hurried then
stacking bales amidst
the sudden hush
of windless expectation

thunder is like a shout
blended with a burp
the black cloud on the horizon
a blob of burnt dough

the last bale, the last rake
and the first hailstone
to mark the transition
into blessed, violent relief

Two photos from 100 Mile