| Raindancing in the Nude |
| Did you cedar!? |
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| Vancouver, Canada (pt. 1) My great-grandfather Harry Frazis escaped from the Russian czar's army early in the 20th Century. Lunchtime was a roughtime for a Jewish cadet, and the wool of the uniforms itched. Canada was his destination. This country has welcomed immigrants for a long time, at least once you get past customs. That took a long time for me too, trying to visit from Washington. For some reason, crossing the north border has always meant a good long search of pockets, bike bags, backpacks, wallet, conscience. Everything ends up inside out. "Don't worry!" the cheerful cop told me. "I'm a mother too. But don't act up or I'll get the big fellas out, eh?" She sized me up. "And why are you breathing so fast?" I guess it's my Issues with Authority and an hour in a plastic chair at the Vancouver train station. I look like a bear after weeks in Alaska, big hair and beard, fattening up slightly for winter hibernation. Looking on the bright side, I think the reason my bike and me are given the full inspection is simple curiousity. And the custom cops are allowed to ask more questions than a girlfriend waiting up for you at 4 a.m.. How much money do you have? Do you take drugs? Where are you going and where have you been? Might as well stand and enjoy it. A Canadian customs cop is not the most intimidating creature either. In the fabulous movie "Canadian Bacon," Stephen Wright plays a Mountie. It's perfect casting. Released into the semi-fresh air of downtown Vancouver, that's the thing that gets me. All the feelings of a big city in the U.S., the constant tension and opposition coming from nowhere and everywhere, the hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck standing up, is gone. There are no more gentle people on this planet than a Vancouverite, polite, soft-spoken, willing to compromise. It's enough to make me homesick for Market Street in San Francisco after a good demo or screaming match or brawl. San Francisco, a greedy gold-rush town with the values of a gunfight, is considered "liberal" by the rest of the U.S.. Vancouver, a pocket of contentment and hippie heaven on certain moon-filled nights, is thought to be "conservative" by the rest of Canada. The salmon runs in downtown Vancouver only ended in the 70's. Old growth pockets of massive Red Cedar, Hemlock, Douglas Fir, still exist close to the city. Downtown is neo-Stalinist apartment cones, destined to grow moss and turn from gleaming to green in twenty years, victims of the constant rain. But of course this year has been dry. Fires raged in or out of control all summer. Luckily, I brought a bit of precip with me from wet Alaska, so the parks have been reopened. My guide Suzy has taken me to the right spot for my first night, Wreck Beach The story of that night will come later this week when I get back from a bike trip to Stein Valley, a sacred First Nations site a hundred miles east. Many hear human voices murmur in the wildernesses here, soft-spoken or insistent. It is easy to imagine spirits hanging around the beautiful spots on the planet, not ready to break free. Canadian history of contact between the French Voyageurs and First Nation peoples was often skin-on-skin. They married instead of murdered. Even the prissy English followed their lead, and didn't exterminate savages like south of the border. Canada learned to love, boring as that sometimes is, with all its discussions and compromises instead of six-guns. Not that there aren't huge problems. The political system is broken down, a roulette wheel of the same suits with different names that the public keeps spinning. You can recognize paradise when you hear lots of good-natured griping. The port town Vancouver, shielded from the big waves and wind by its islands, comes complete with "legal" marijuana (you buy it at storefronts with a scale in the window) and prostitution (the ladies were being serial-killed until that happened.), socialized medicine, free pools, outdoor parties celebrating summer's end, classic rock, cute little aquabus ferries, honky-tonk commercial drags, low rents (until the Olymics come in 2010), the beautiful people chewing brown rice and salads, land rovers, sprawling houses for the first nations and almost everybody else (there's few homeless), and that strange politeness that's the most remarkable part of the place. Even the pitbulls here say please. For passion, though, people must leave. |
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| the aquabus |
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| downtown |
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| industrial tourism, canuck-style |
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