The Sointula Art Shed

There is an artist residency program on Sointula. This summer I have got to know two of the artists, Femke de Fries and Ash Ferlito (above). Ash is leaving today to return to New York City (specifically Long Island City). She is the first person I have met in Sointula who comes from New York.

The photos here are from the small reception at the Art Shed yesterday displaying projects Ash has been working on while here. One subject that has particularly intrigued her is the birds she has observed. The other evening, over a glass or two of wine, she told me about her afternoon of birding, and was able to list a couple dozen birds that she had observed that day. You can see from the photo in her sketch book how much she has taken birds to heart.
 

This business of naming is intriguing I remember years ago talking to my friend Adrienne, who lives in East Chatham, New York. We were walking through a heavily forested area, and I mentioned to her that one reason it is so easy for us moderns to cut down trees is because most of us don't know the names of trees anymore. What was common knowledge to folks a century ago, at least in rural parts, is alien to most of us. I am pretty sure with maple, having spent these summers in Canada, but otherwise I am pretty deficient in this terminology.

We all collect stones here

Dragon boating

During my summers here I have participated in dragon boating. I am not sure how this particular Sointula activity got started, but there is a core of enthusiastic paddlers of which I am one. We go out on Tuesday evening and on Saturday morning. Every time you feel that the sea and the sky hereabouts could not be more serene, more beautiful.

From the beginning

This year we built a float for the annual Salmon Days festival. Herewith a few pictures, showing our entry in the Salmon Days Parade in preparation and at the parade. As always, click on photos to enlarge.

Progress

Puk and Leigh consult

In all our glory

Off-island visit to Port Hardy

Tyler paints the Burger Barn

Let me see if I can make a story of this. Imagine you live on a small island on which it is possible to satisfy your immediate needs without ever leaving. There is a co-op (mostly a grocery store, but also some "dry goods," school supplies, liquor), a gas station, a hardware store, a church, a pub (open from 4 p.m. until 10). A lot of the inhabitants have gardens, with such a surplus that they are able to sell their produce, so that in summer you have fresh beets, chard, kale, lettuce, garlic, and so on. There is a gal who cuts hair, another who does manicures and pedicures, not in shops, but at their homes. In theory, one can have most of one's needs cared for her.

But there is no restaurant (the one at the hotel closed this year), and the best food service is at the so-called Burger Barn, located at the harbor, which is open daily from 12 to 8. Good burgers, of beef and of halibut. Coho Joe's café has regular but limited service hours. Two other "establishments" offer pastries and pizzas. Unfortunately this story will not discuss them. Maybe next year when we hope to see some improvements.

Tyler paints Coho Joe's

 It's not a surprise that many of us occasionally feel the need for some variety, for a wider selection. No dentist here, for instance, no barber for men. So it is that we head "off island." And for most of us it is a modest trip to Port McNeill, a short ferry ride across the strait, where there is a large IGA supermarket, not to forget a real cafe, Mugz.

The first stage of an off-island trip is to take the ferry. There is always a line up of vehicles, many in line since the previous ferry left, as the boats are not always large enough to carry the traffic. In summer in particular visitors come here in large campers and trailers, and there is also some industrial vehicles. Waiting for the ferry is a rather sociable event: people get out of their cars and talk with other travelers or simply with folks walking by or filling up with gas. (The gas station is right across the street.) Yesterday while we waited for the 1:45 ferry, Tyler Wallace could be seen executing a portrait of Coho Joe's cafe, conveniently situated next to the ferry lineup.

Not all will be able to board

Small island life produces small but important pleasures, one of which is watching from the top deck of the ferry to see how many vehicles the B.C. Ferries loaders can get on the boat, and how many don't make it. The ones that don't get on have to wait in the line up for the next ferry off island. At 4:35. Quite a wait in a town when the café closes at 2:30. Oh, there is a museum, open daily from 12 to 4 and just a short walk from the ferry, and of course the Burger Barn will be open, but you would have to drive there and lose your place in line. But perhaps you could get one of the bikes from the Sointula Resource Center and peddle there.

Yesterday, I went with friends to Port Hardy a larger town north of Port McNeill, where there are even more offerings. There is Cafe Guido, for instance, which includes a charming boutique and a really fine, but select, bookshop. One section includes used books for 60 percent off the face price. There is also a HUGE supermarket in Port Hardy, a computer store, a large liquor store, and so on. In addition, boat travel to islands farther afield, to Port Rupert, for instance, originate in Port Hardy. There are kayak outfitters here.

The highlight of our trip there yesterday was dinner at Ha'me' Restaurant, which features a menu that is "aboriginally inspired," which probably refers to the seafood offerings. The link will take you to the menu. All I can say is that it holds up to any restaurant I have been to in Manhattan. The fish, we learned from the chef, was fresh, not frozen. I started with half a dozen oysters, which were luscious with Pinot Grigio. My main course -- halibut on a brioche -- was preceded by the most delicious homemade tomato cream soup. It was so good that we took home a quart, hoping to be able to figure out how to make it ourselves.

The restaurant is located in the Kwa'lilas Hotel, a place that I suspect would please the most fastidious traveler.

Utopia

Bonnie, Janet, and Scoop

 I came across something yesterday on the blog of the London Review of Books that reminded me of how I came to Sointula. It was entitled "Ruskin Dines Out" and concerned the attempt by the English writer and critic John Ruskin (1819–1900) to elevate the condition of the working class. It seems that as a young man Ruskin had been enjoying a repast that included two trout "just out of the river, of the richest flavour," a woodcock "on delicate toast," and a "small perfectly compounded" soufflé, all washed down with a bottle of Sillery mousseux champagne. While relishing this savory fare, he wrote, in a letter to his father, that he "felt sad at thinking how few were capable of having such enjoyment, and very doubtful whether it were at all proper in me to have it all to myself." Many years later, in 1874, he opened a tea shop in London, where he sold the best quality tea in affordable packets. He eventually also sold coffee there, "on the understanding ‘that the shop was to be responsible for the proper roasting of the coffee according to the best recipe."

 

The blog post (by Miranda Vane) also points out that the French utopian theorist Charles Fourier  recommended "a high degree of gastronomic refinement" in the communities to be founded under Fourierian principles.

People here frequently ask me how I "discovered Sointula." My response is always that "Sointula discovered me." Back in 2012 I received an email from a member of the committee organizing an event here in commemoration of Sointula's founding as a utopia venture. I was asked about my interest in utopias. It so happened that my occasional postings on my Goethe blog about 18th-century utopians had been seen by this committee member. The conference was called "Culture Shock" (see poster below) and took place in September 13. That was when I first encountered Sointula. It was during that visit that I also saw a house that I would fall in love with and would rent every summer for the next four years. So, this is my fifth year in Sointula.

I will write more about utopias in the coming year, especially when I am back in New York. There have been some recent publications on the subject that I would like to review here.

John Ruskin cigars picture credit: Daniel Wetmore

Sundown at the marina

The evening skies are always so beautiful in Sointula, and here, too, reflected in the still water at the marina.

Weather

An eclipse viewing was planned yesterday. True, Vancouver would not experience a total eclipse, only 80 percent, but my friend Frieda from Denman Island had picked up two pairs of solar glasses for me at the Campbell River London Drugs on her way up here last week. The second pair was for H******, who arrived yesterday morning at 9 a.m. The above picture shows that the eclipse viewing was a bust. Still, we spent two pleasant hours on the deck of my house. Much was discussed in the way of literary matters. She had just finished reading The Red Notebook by Antoine Laurain. We both agreed that it is charming, but thin. She is an enthusiast for the writing of Anthony Doerr, whose stories I am also learning to like. We both agreed that what made them interesting was the descriptions of work, of craftsmanship, of expertise. The first story in the volume The Shell Collector concerns just such an individual, who, although blind, traveled the world studying shells. His world was that of "shells conchology, the phylum Mollusca." As Doerr writes, "His fingers, his senses, his mind -- all of him -- obsessed over the geometry of exoskeletons, the sculpture of calcium, the evolutionary rationale for ramps, spines, beads, whorls, folds."

My favorite story in the volume is "The Caretaker," which concerns a man who experiences the horrors of the civil war in Liberia: "Rape, murder, an infant kicked against a wall, a boy with a clutch of dried ears suspended from his neck ..." Through refugee organizations, he is located to Oregon. His laborious attempts to wrench a garden from the earth are described in Doerrian detail. It is captivating. Oh, and he also learns sign language on the way.

As is typical of Sointula, in the afternoon it was blazing sun. I sat on the deck and read.

Sunday in Sointula

My reading spot near Sund's Lodge

Yesterday was Sunday, and I like the idea of a day of rest, but I did not attend the service at the church in Sointula, a small evangelical congregation associated with the Evangelical Free Church of Canada. I like to attend church services when I travel. My preference would be for a Catholic service, as I was raised Catholic. The Catholic service is the same all over the world, and Catholics know they are Catholics wherever they are, even if in some places there is the addition of local color.  Protestants are different. There are so many branches, so many denominations, or at least that is what it looks like to this outsider. Thus, congregations are connected by community. Protestants are therefore more sociable. In Sointula there is usually a small collation after the service, at which people sit and talk. Catholics don't do that. They go home after church.

335 Kaleva Road

Also, for a Catholic who did not grow up with frequent Bible readings, it is always a chance to study the Bible more closely You can see from the well-thumbed Bibles of the congregants here that they take the reading of Scripture seriously.

Yesterday, however, I stayed home and worked. I am departing already on August 31, and there remains much to do. First, I want to finish work on the seventh chapter of my novel. Second, I am grappling with the conclusion of a book review (The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet) Third, my essay on Camilla, on which I have labored for some time, needs finishing touches. And, then, of course, there is the social side of life here. Friends are coming for dinner next Monday. What on earth am I going to prepare? Plus, there is the poetry reading at the Pub that I am supposed to organize in memory of Hillel Wright, who recently passed away.

Bethany

After yesterday's pensum, however, I did go for a bike ride out Kaleva Road. Sund's Lodge is normally my goal, where I can also sit for an hour and read. Posted here are pictures I took along the way.

Gossip

This is the first post of this new blog, which I should have started four years ago. After all, this is my fifth year in Sointula. Later, I will talk more about what brought me here, but I would like now only to address the above topic. I went over to neighboring Alert Bay on Thursday to visit friends who were driving up from Denman Island. I had visited them last year on Denman, and we were talking about the differences in the places that we lived, for them permanently on Denman, for me for only two months every summer in Sointula. I said to them that I had never engaged in gossip as much in my life as I have here in Sointula. I soon corrected myself, however, for I do not mean gossip in the malicious sense. It is more the case that one is constantly exchanging information with others here. It reminds me of the conversations in Jane Austen's Emma, where the inhabitants of Highbury are constantly involved in conversation. I would not be surprised to learn that the novel is composed to the largest extent of conversation, even if it is in indirect discourse. It is often the smallest of small talk, and something similar goes on here in Sointula. It creates a sense of community.

 

After dinner this evening I took a walk and ran into S*******, who works at the co-op. She was on her way to the Pub for Karaoke evening. She told me her husband and her daughter were away, and she felt like she was sneaking out on her own for the evening. I am sure I will tell my friend H******* this anecdote at some point. She also mentioned that there was a pig roast out in Mitchell Bay this evening. I asked who was hosting. She didn't know, but I bet I will find out soon.

Pictures from today include the beautiful dahlias I bought from Fay and her husband, John, who are famous for the dahlias, which they sell to benefit the Cemetery Fund. The horse was a surprise. Lynn Ness's bright yellow lilies too.