Echo Bay

Today we made an excursion to Echo Bay, which is in the Broughton Archipelago. As in 2016, Jim Macdougall took us out on his boat. We set out at 7 a.m., in heavy fog, from the tip of Malcolm Island. Echo Bay can be seen in the map above, on Gilford Island. We made a stop at Billy Proctor's Museum, which contains found objects from a lifetime of collecting, often from the beaches of this part of the world.  Herewith some pictures. Click to enlarge.

Femke, Goethe Girl, Heather, Jim

Islands in the fog

Early birds catch the fish

Scenes from Billy's Museum:

At the marina at Pierre's, I came across someone who had just bagged a big piece of cod was preparing it for dinner.

Lauren

Malcolm Point hike

Yesterday was a wonderful hike with two Sointula friends, Milan and Lauren. Wonderful, but exhausting. Last evening when I downloaded my photos, I was obviously so tired that I posted my report of the trek on my Goethe blog. If you want to see some photos of our hike, go there. In the meantime, one photo from that expedition.

Sointula skies

The sky here is so beautiful, constantly changing. Here are a couple scenes from today. (Click to enlarge.) The first was taken this morning. The black spots against the mass of clouds were eagles, which my iPod obviously could not capture. What amazed me later when I looked at the photo, however, were the clouds.

The second picture was taken just a few minutes ago, 9:30 p.m.

Settling in

Yesterday morning there were deer in the back yard again. In the afternoon I saw a deer jump a fence, one about five feet high. To protect your garden, I hear the fence must be at least six feet. There is a big influx of deer this summer. Later in the day the Jensons gave me a huge bag of crabs. Heather and I spent two hours this morning cracking the shells. By the end we had a couple of pounds of crab. Tonight was the first installment on our efforts: "crab melt" on brioches. Oh, gosh, it looks like I will be eating a lot of fresh fish this summer. As always, click on photo to enlarge.

Back in Sointula

Here I am again, ensconced in my cottage.  I flew via Toronto to Nanaimo, where I rented a car and drove north. Stopped on the way at Fanny Bay and picked up a bucket of oysters, along with some halibut burgers and crab cakes. It was 98 degrees when I left New York; here it is 60 degrees in the morning, rising to the low 70s in the afternoon. Morning I work indoors on my novel; in the afternoon I sit out on the deck (see picture below, a painting made last summer by Tyler) and read. My summer reading is mostly Hermann Hesse, as I have a review to write by November of the English-language translation of a recent biography. Like many Germanists, I have read Hesse, but not in depth, and have also taught him. Demian was always a good choice for undergraduates. Now I am going back to the early works. Peter Camenzind: what a wonderful novel! It is wonderfully quiet here, although interrupted occasionally by power saws cutting firewood for the winter. Long walks, conversations with old friends. More news to follow.