Along the Merry Way....

When sailing south from Alaska, you will pass the magical islands of Haida Gwaii, formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands. Home to the Haida nation, this archipelago is filled with history and rare animal species. It is also guarded by the Haida watchers, who guard the inlets and grant permission for ships to anchor and come ashore. Once ashore, these watchers will give visitors an incredible overview of the region.  As we rounded the tip of Haida Gwaii, the forested shoreline of the northernmost island lay wreathed in mist. At this point, we were becalmed for three solid days, inching our way forward with the drifter sail whenever we got a tiny breeze or nudge of current. On the second day, it was the type of calm where time stood still, and the sea looked golden and glassy. The ship was suspended at right angles to the water, but we also felt as though we were sitting on the curve of the horizon, making us feel like we were perched on the edge of the earth.  It was at th...

Another reason I love Victoria :) I'll add more as I find them.         I like this: Sink the Bismark and then Go Confidently in the Direction of Your Dreams! :)

For the past month, the windowsills of the classroom have been blossoming and little tendrils have been climbing their way up to the light. We started a few seeds, watered them, and waited breathlessly until they "hatched". We even planted some jellybeans for fun, but the kids gave up on them after a week or two. The seedlings have grown so well that we had move some into the principal's office. Then other teachers asked if they could have some too to take care of. Then some of the teachers who didn't have them in their classroom came asking for some! Pretty soon, we had a plant nursery production going on - pumpkins, sunflowers, zucchini, beans and lots of flowers! As they were threatening to take over, the local pastor luckily gave us a space in his garden plot, and we were able to transplant the majority of it. The others we gave away to friends and even strangers! Whoever was willing to take an extra pole bean or zucchini off our hands :) PS. My pictures ...

It's been a year since I picked up and moved out West. At first I thought it was going to be for only 4 months, and then I fell in love with Victoria :) It has been quite a set of adventures, building life up almost from complete scratch again. Everything may be unknown in life, but anything is possible! I'm grateful for the ocean and the mountains of Washington in the distance, beer on the beach, and swing-dancing in just about every physically possible place in the city. Living with addicts and lunatics (the boarding house) and learning how to handspring over other human beings :) Living in a creepy house with echoing wooden floors. Not so nice, but a great place for a temporary dance studio. From having one suit-case and nothing, I now have a job in a community of dear, sweet folk with quirky, endlessly entertaining students; finally, a cozy little home in Fernwood with a room-mate who is wise, positive, and adventurous (and a popcorn addict like myself). Finally, dear...

Poor little Tony has been told and teased multiple times that he looks like a piglet. Unfortunately, this has sunk very deeply into his impressionable little pysche. Anyways, the boys had been studying falcons and other birds of prey, so Jane decided to take them to a local birds-of-prey sanctuary, where they could watch the falcons and bald eagles swooping around. When they arrived, Louis, the smaller of the two boys, was ecstatic. He is naturally very curious and spent hours investigating the critters in the pond out back, drawing birds, and voraciously learning as much as he could about local wildlife. Tony, however, was petrified. He had read that bald eagles eat small animals, which includes small rodents, which probably includes little-boys-who-closely-resemble-piglets. Tony is small and round and very cute, and his nose is slightly upturned, but he very definitely looks human, and eagles are smart enough to tell the difference between piglets and cute little boys. Nevertheless, ...

I moved from house-sitting in a creepy old house with a sordid history of crime and a high-tech alarm system (another story), to a cozy apartment on the edge of Fernwood, the funky village within Victoria. Fernwood, as I mentioned before, is the hang-out spot for artists, musicians, and Bohemians. Community gardens are a source of food for the people who live here, and the musical gather in the gardens to play together on Sundays. I've moved in with a potter - a wonderful, adventure-loving, and peaceful girl. Our place is filled with clay mugs, pie-plates, plates, vases, jugs and anything else that can be whipped up on a potter's wheel. Here are some pictures of the "pink snowstorm" or "cotton candy trees" in Victoria: This is for you Mary and Will - the street is right next to my home: The Fernwood Inn: The Belfry Theatre in Fernwood: Funky Victoria architecture: Craigdarroch Castle (a little fairy-tale castle on a nearby hill): A...

Last year at this time, my former fiancé and I had recently gone separate ways. Feeling pretty grief-stricken, I decided to do something constructive: Operation Spread the Love . I made valentines and gave them out to strangers - street bums, lonely-looking people, and anyone who appeared sad in downtown Ottawa. It was so much fun, that I decided to do it all over again here in the new and lovely city of Victoria on Valentine’s Day this year. It's a lot easier on the laid-back West Coast! I gave out almost two dozen of them within a very short time, and people glowed and laughed and thanked me! One lady was a bit defensive at first, thinking I was targeting only lonely-looking people, but she thawed a bit when I said they were for anyone! Another couple chased me down afterwards and asked me why ? So I explained that it was a tradition to Spread the Love a little bit. Another ricketty old man, sitting alone, was really happy to get one, but only after I assured him that there was...

I was walking down the street today and hit a wall of perfume! Flowers! Growing on February 1st :) It made me love you even more, Victoria :) Actually, they started blooming on January 1st, to be more precise. You know it's Victoria when......double decker buses drop you off closer to your home just because...it's closer to your house. Flowers bloom almost all year round. You can look at the mountains of Washington across the strait and clamber onto a tall ship if they invite you on board. People play keyboard in the park or double-bass on the beach just for kicks. There is always someone more oddly dressed than you. Elizabethan homes with stained glass windows! Veggie gardens and obssessive-composting everywhere. Little mountains poke up throughout the city, shaking off the homes near the top, hard-core rock-climbers and joggers still clinging to the top. You can sit by the ocean and have a chat with an inquisitive harbor seal. It's the abode of healthy neo-hippies...

Well, several people have been asking lately that I tell them about the swing-dancing here. The specific style is called Lindy-Hop, which originated in Harlem, New York, and involves a pulsing foot-work that is almost primal. The dance is upbeat and fun, and the dancers tend to be upbeat and cheery too. You can't help being a bit bouncy and happy when you spend several hours a week dancing to Big Band music :) The dance itself is all about connection between partners: sending and receiving subtle messages so that you have effortless transitions between moves. Then there are the aerials, or “air-steps”, which means lifting, jumping, and being hurled in the air. This is terrifically fun and involves a lot of hilarity when things go wrong! We usually try to have "spotters" (people to catch) just in case anyone slips when working on the flips! Here are pictures of some of them: Fancy Dip: The Frankie Flip: The starfish: Once you develop a taste for swing-danc...

Well it has been a while since I posted! I decided to try my luck in the lovely, funky city of Victoria until my money ran out. Here, I have had so many adventures that I'll have to write a book about it at some point :) The first few weeks I lived in a boarding house that would have been inspiration for a Dickens novel. My fellow in-mates (as I fondly think of them) were for the most part completely crazy, and I arrived once to find the police rummaging about the place and investigating a theft. At some point or other, I was pulled aside by almost every boarder, who warned and gossiped against each other: "Don't trust Bill," or "Never leave your door unlocked or Nancy will get in," and "Never make a deal with Tom." People's food was going missing, and at least one person was well, how to put this politely.....not entirely trustworthy, so I rigged up an alarm system for my bedroom door (I was quite proud of myself) to prevent against theft. ...

We were able to substitute the regular morning phonics class for a "baking class" and made apple crisp together. The children were super excited that they got to mix the topping with their bare hands. Clumps of butter-sugar topping seemed to keep on mysteriously going missing. The little imps: Nick and Louis! Tony, learning how to peel an apple: Tony and Martin (fondly known as To-to and Fartin'): Here is the very simple recipe: Apple Crisp 1 half a bag of apples, preferrably old, soft ones (peeled, cored, and diced) A few sprinkles of cinnamon One tablespoon of lemon juice Topping : 1 cup of butter 1 cup of sugar 3-4 cups of rolled oats 1/2 cup of flour A sprinkle of cinnamon Mix the topping together with your hands until it's crumbly. You can add other things like milk and honey if it is too dry. If you want more topping, then just add more sugar, butter, and oats. The good thing is that you can use just about any kind of fruit that is starting t...

Two bedraggled children – Tony and Louis – shuffled into the living room yesterday, leaving little damp foot-prints behind them. They stared shamefacedly down at their feet, shoulders slumped and hands behind them, as water dripped off their noses and trickled through their sodden clothes onto the floor. “Teacher,” Tony confessed to Jonquil, not daring to look up, “Teacher......we........went in the pond.” The pond is a deep and wide pool behind the house. It is the muddy home of crayfish, salamanders, frogs, and turtles and seems to have a magnetic pull on the little boys. They are fascinated by all the exotic creepy-crawlies that they can find there. “Teacher,” Tony continued, “We were trying to catch crayfish, and..........we....... fell in .” They were so afraid of getting in trouble that they could hardly believe it when all the adults started laughing at their sorry plight. Louis gave me his version: “Teacher, we were walking in the water and very fast it was deep." So, I...

The oceanside at Victoria. It is very, very peaceful here although sometimes the little sailing vessels get careless and cross paths with the giant steamers and then a Hell of honking breaks loose! You can explore for many kilometers....There are high grassy knolls and criss-crossing paths through waist-high grass and flowers, and great smoothed out tree-trunks are scattered about as though some giant had tossed a bunch of them around like pins. Some kind of long arm, or sea-wall, stretching way out into the water. The Fisherman's Wharf in Victoria: A cluster of floating homes, a little village bobbing up and down. The little critters in the picture below are called Goose Barnacles. If you touch a clump of them, they cringe. I'm pretty sure that I heard them squeak in alarm too :)

Today someone left the gate open, and all of the llamas escaped from the neighboring farm. We stared out the window in disbelief as a herd of five llamas galloped across the back lawn and then disappeared into the woods. Jonquil ran to alert the neighboring farmer, and while she was gone, the llamas appeared out of the woods and trotted into the backyard again. They munched happily on the grass. Then the old farmer showed up puffing and panting, and together we chased them around in circles and finally off the property. About half an hour later, I set off in my car to pick up some supplies in town, and about half a kilometer down the road, I faced the same herd of llamas! They were galloping round the corner and down the side of the pavement towards me. Not far behind them, the same old farmer was in hot pursuit, this time driving his little red truck! Between bears and llamas and wild peacocks and baby deer, you never quite know what will show up around here :) The escaped llamas ...

The wildlife here is prolific. First, the deer are extremely presumptious, wandering onto people's lawns and gazing boredly at your car after they leisurely trot off the road. There are rumours of cougars in the neighborhood, and twice now a black bear has lumbered right into our back yard. The children were beside themselves with excitement. These are children who, for the most part, have never even seen the stars before! After the second bear-sighting, Jaeho ran out with a camera and I ran out with a big stick (just in case :) and we tried to hunt the bear down, but it had disappeared. Our neighbors found this tiny, amazing creature on their lawn. It was only a few days old and the mother deer was grazing nearby. I can't tell you how cool it was to see! Bambi's way cuter in real life than in the cartoon :) The mother deer, grazing at a distance:

Then there is Seymin (His name is a bit of a joke among the teachers, poor little fellow). His mother is living with us and helping to cook. He is the most incredible child I have ever encountered. He is only one, but he wears the clothes of a four year old. He is gigantic but still has the muscle control of a baby, so he lumbers awkwardly about like a big wooden puppet. He has wandered around ever since arriving from Korea with a rather stunned and upset look on his face, saying all the time, "Boi? Boi?" (This literally means, What the Hell? What the Hell? ) Even in church, during a quieter moment, you'll hear, "Boi?" echo from the back. Like a walking tank or machine of destruction, he lunges for the weakest and most breakable things. I've seen the child attach himself to the cane of a wobbling old man and try to rip away his only support. I've seen him charge the sun-glasses stand in a store. He springs again and again at drinking glasses, knives, po...

These guys always look hilarious--the bangs on the brown one especially! Emperor Kuzco: Ahh! My face! My beautiful, beautiful face! I'm an ugly, stinky llama! Wah-hah-hah! Llama face!