|
Hello dear Reader. A February morning, 2010. A gray one after a long week of bright blue and gold mornings. Eight a.m. and suddenly a huge blast shakes the windows of my house. Blasting for logging, is it on Baker Island just across Cramer Pass? Or over on the mainland side of Tribune Channel? Every morning these days, four hours of helicopter buzzing overhead as fallers are flown to various islands around the Broughton Archipelago to fall trees. On the islands of my beloved Burdwood Group foliage is thinning and trees are dying. Where once rose thick impenetrable underbrush, there stands a lacy network of unclothed branches, frail and vulnerable to the northeast outflow winds. Not enough annual moisture to keep the shallow rooted plants verdant and healthy. Bugs get in and increase the speed of biodegradation, releasing carbon dioxide and heat into the atmosphere. A vicious circle that is evident all around us now. Our Hatchery Society was flabbergasted to discover sometime in January that Interfor was preparing to send in LeMare Logging to the headwaters of Viner River to log several patches of sixty plus or minus year old timber. Viner, as many of you will know is the once rich chum salmon river which Mainland Enhancement of Salmonid Species Society has been attempting to enhance and rehabilitate for over ten years. Interfor themselves have spent over half a million dollars on instream work in an attempt to mitigate the incredibly damaging effects of upstream logging. We quickly sent off several letters to the powers that be and then had a meeting with Doug Harrison, Logging Supervisor for Interfor and Senior Planning Biologist Warren Wartig. We expressed our concern about our exclusion from the consultation process but more importantly, our concern about the chum fry hatching and wiggling their way out of the gravel AS WE SPEAK. We were assured by Mr. Harrison that the First Nations people had ‘signed off’ on the logging but he would speak to his supervisor Dave Mackay....Luckily for the chum fry, our neighbor Pierre Alarie whose wife used to be our hatchery manager and who himself is very familiar with the history of the Viner as he is also Camp Watchman at Scott Cove was able to point out to Interfor Field manager Blair Iverson that now is not a good time to be logging the headwaters of the system. Mr. Iverson said the logging would be delayed until June. We are very glad that a last minute reprieve has spared this years hatch the traumas that would have ensued, we are however incredibly disappointed that in this day and age, when evidence has so irrefutably shown that logging upstream of a salmon producing river causes untold damage to the salmon stocks, that logging in this precious river is still slated to proceed. Our question is....Why is Interfor being permitted to log sixty year old trees across the numerous small streams that twine together to form the main stem of a salmon bearing river? So that is that topic addressed and I wish I was in a slightly more positive frame of mind. This month has been so remarkably lovely yet it is not the nature of February to bring so much sunshine and warmth. The heather, crocus, daffodil, salmon berry all are in bloom around the yard. I note eagle pairs cuddling on their perches as I run about in the speedboat and the hooded merganser males are getting possessive. Weeding in the garden and turning over the soil, adding manure, peat moss and compost are all underway. I was so lucky to have a great “WWOOFER”(see our Host listing on WWOOF Canada), Barbara from Switzerland spend two weeks with us last fall. Her efforts in the beds she weeded are all saving me so much work now. Bless you Barbara. Before I get to the good stuff (art, what else) I have another rant to get off my chest. Eighteen months ago after our old generator finally packed it in, we shopped around and finally purchased a 10Kpropane generator, brand name GENERAC, from Home Depot. I urge you all now to NEVER BUY ONE. After explaining our usage needs we were assured there is a three year warranty. The generator quit working, luckily my wonderful Engineering Genius found a good mechanic to talk him through problems over the phone, but he told us that Generac did NOT warranty their generator if it was used off the grid. We wonder of course why a 10K generator would be made if not to be used where there was no power? We have a substantial battery bank so only ran the thing three to four times a month, not an exorbitant amount of usage. Our mechanic sent the part needed, (350.00 plus taxes and freight of course) and E.G. installed it however a month later a bolt fell off the side of the machine while it was running and blew apart the copper wires of the actual generator. Now that I think of it, this was the second bolt that was faulty, E.G. had welded a replacement for another one that had broken several months ago. So all in all, we feel quite let down (i.e. completely screwed) by Generac and Home Depot. After a stressful week of phoning, internet searching etc. we rustled up another big chunk of change and bought a sweet little diesel generator from Discovery Diesel and, optimism unbounded, hope to live with it for a long time. OK the good stuff, the art stuff. I have always loved the Pacific Rim, Tofino, the big surf, painting and camping at the long beaches that lace the western coast of Vancouver Island. I have been making pilgrimages there since 1972. I went to Tofino with Barbara, my WWOOF friend last fall and then again in February this year. I met a wonderful artist/gallery owner, Signy Cohen and her cohorts of the Reflecting Spirit Gallery. Many times I have visited the gallery in Tofino and was delighted when Ursula Banke invited me to show my work. I stayed with my friend Vicki in Little River for a month, enjoying a number of activities such as watching my daughter Theda Phoenix’s performance at the Duncan Garage Showroom on the 13th of January and creating three new paintings to present to Signy and Ursula. Next time you are on the west coast be sure to visit the new Reflecting Spirit Gallery in Ucluelet as well as the well established one in Tofino. O yeah, I had a root canal too. My friend Patricia Gagnon made a fabulous stained glass window for our house. The design was inspired by my lily pond and Patricia altered it as necessary to suit the needs of construction. It will sit over the doorway to the bathroom with the light from the seven foot high bathroom window illuminating the glass. I LOVE IT. I just completed a canvas of a white water lily for her and I love it too. Hope she does... Other house advancement... besides the generator nightmare which has occupied quite a lot of E.G.’s time, he has been laying the bamboo flooring I bought for the bedroom floor. It is lovely, smooth and warm feeling underfoot and as we are running out of our own milled wood, it is a satisfactory substitute. So our own bedroom will be the very last room in the house to be completed. What’s wrong with this picture? I am pleased to announce that I will be presenting a display of my art at Pierre’s @ Echo Bay this summer and a demonstration of various painting techniques. I invite you all to drop in to the main room at the floating Lodge at Echo Bay, Friday July 30, Saturday July 31st and Sunday August 1st. I am open to questions of technique and invite you to bring your work and book me for an in-depth critique. The highlight of my summer plans are to join once again with my beautiful (in spirit and in form) daughter, singer Theda Phoenix (many of you have heard her sing at pig roasts at Echo Bay and Pierres Bay as well as her opening for Deepak Chopra a couple of years ago in Whistler) in a joint presentation of my art and her voice at a beautiful gallery space in Crescent Beach called Seventh Heaven. This will be my first art show in the White Rock area,( from where we moved in 1986) since the early 1990's and will also be a reunion with an old friend, Chloe Scarf, who with her partner Lucan Charchuk, has created this wonderful venue. Search for “Seventh Heaven” and have a look at their website. And one last announcement before I bid you adieu. SeaRose Studio, Gallery and Garden is now a member of the Chamber of Commerce! It almost makes me feel like a grown-up...see you this summer, cheers Yvonne
|