Over the years I have romanticized about the kind of person who would inhabit such a macabre structure. Since I never saw any sign of life in, or around, the home I fantasized that it belonged to a swashbuckling pirate and his motley crew?

A few weeks ago as I sat at West Bay Marina`s outdoor café I saw the pirate atop the home helplessly gaze down at his beloved mermaid being carelessly tossed into the back of a rickety old pickup truck. My heart sunk when I realized what would happen next.

Guess what! I went by today and the pirate no longer protects West Bay Marina`s high seas and a perfectly green parcel of land fills the space where the home once stood – an uncanny resemblance to a cemetery plot.

My only misgivings are that I didn’t get to meet the seafarer responsible for building the mysterious hideaway and I will never get to see what was inside the home.

Has anyone else ever noticed this amusing little landmark? How many other of Victoria`s eccentric homes are being replaced by cookie cutter condo schemes. What can we do about this progression – or is it regression?

Photo Credit

Photo by Heather Hess – All Rights Reserved

Bruce Davies is the Curator at Craigdarroch Castle and a very good friend of mine. Bruce has asked us to help spread the word about a very important issue for The Castle Society. Where are the original building plans? Please help by sharing this article with your friends. You never know … one of them might have some important information! Thanks … Gil

Castle Society members, volunteers, and others have been looking for the long-lost building plans for Craigdarroch Castle for decades. All of the logical public repositories have been checked. The descendants of Craigdarroch’s architects, Warren H. Williams and Arthur L. Smith, have also been contacted. They have no idea where the Castle’s plans ended up.

These plans are needed to help The Castle Society conserve and present the Castle. The original purpose of some rooms in the Castle remains a mystery. Furthermore, renovations undertaken in 1919 were so extensive, that evidence of original room configurations, built-in furniture, and the associated service fixtures has been lost. This problem is particularly evident in the old kitchen and pantry areas. The Society desperately wants to recreate these rooms in the museum.

A lengthy article has been written about the search for the Castle plans that is now available on The Castle Society’s website in PDF format. We hope that by making the article widely available to people over the Internet, it will reach a larger audience than just those who read the Society’s paper newsletter.

The article explains where people have looked for the plans so far. It briefly touches on the work of architect Warren H. Williams of Portland, Oregon and directs readers to the principle sources for information on Williams. Importantly, it also explores the life of Craigdarroch’s other architect, Arthur L. Smith, a native of St. Louis, Missouri. Various published sources have referred to him as a mystery, or have simply stated that nothing is known about him. Thanks to members of his family and numerous supportive architectural historians, museum, university and historic site archivists, some of Smith’s remarkable professional story has been revealed for the first time.

Click here to read the whole article.

Photo Credits

Castle Drawing – Craigdarroch Castle Collection – All Rights Reserved

Home Page Feature Image – by Bruce Davies – All Rights Reserved

First Posted at the Craigdarroch Castle Website

Guest Author Bio

Bruce Davies
Craigdarroch Castle’s Curator, Bruce Davies has spent most of his working life at Craigdarroch Castle in British Columbia. He holds a Diploma in Cultural Resource Management from the University of Victoria. He has been active with and served on Boards of various community organizations, including: the Financial Development Association of Vancouver Island; Tourism Victoria; the B.C. Museums Association, and currently is a Director of Music By The Sea, a non-profit organization that holds an international music festival and mentorship program each July in remote Bamfield, Vancouver Island.

From 2005 to 2010, he was President of The Victorian Society in America. Headquartered in Philadelphia, the Victorian Society in America is the only non-profit organization of national scope in the United States that is committed to historic preservation, protection, understanding, education, and enjoyment of nineteenth century heritage.

Visit the Craigdarroch Castle Website

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My husband and I just returned from a week’s vacation on the high seas. It was truly a wonderful holiday; celebrating the New Year on a cruise ship is, I would say, a highlight in my life. Getting there, though, was somewhat of a challenge.

A challenge because, well, we are not avid travelers and it seems we spend a lot of time constantly checking and making sure everything is in order: Do you have your passport, the insurance? So many things to remember and keep track of. It seems that getting to your destination is a lot of work, so once there you can only hope that all that work and sweat – and often tears – pay off and your vacation really is one of rest and rejuvenation!

Our adventure started off at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport at 5:30 on a fairly cold morning in December. We had taken a cab to the airport and were feeling pretty confident that we would have plenty of time to catch our flight. We had our boarding passes but had to check our luggage and while doing so discovered we had to pay $63.00 dollars for said luggage to get on the plane. Well, that was a shock but what was even more shocking was when my husband went to pay with his Visa: he discovered he didn’t have it. The look on his face was priceless – no, that’s the MasterCard slogan; we were missing the Visa. The look was one of fear, frustration and stress, so I remained calm as he rushed out the airport door and grabbed another cab back home while I waited with the bags in the airport. In less than an hour we were fine; with Visa in hand we checked our bags and our dream vacation was about to begin.

We flew into Fort Lauderdale on Saturday and spent the day in the lovely Radisson Hotel. Going out to the beautiful pool and discovering that the pool was not heated sent a chill up our spine, literally! We sat ourselves down in the deck chairs and stared at the pool praying the sun would come out. It never did. Well, at least it wasn’t snowing!
Sunday. The day to board our ship had finally arrived and it was time for us to pack up once again. We would be on our way in just a few short hours to the Mecca of the sea, to our “ginourmous” cruise ship. The packing ritual was repeated: Do you have the passports, the tickets – the credit card?

Getting to the port was another adventure. We called a cab and of course the driver took us on a roundabout trip that cost us $17.00 dollars when it should have cost us $5.00. We were on time, though, and we were getting more and more excited as we came closer to our final destination, our home away from home on the high seas.

The ship was everything and more: It was rich and opulent and shiny, it sparkled inside and out. The winds were brisk but gosh darn it, these two old West Islanders were going to enjoy this trip come hell or high water!

When I unpacked my things in our lovely stateroom the next calamity was discovered. “Brian, you are not going to believe what I forgot at the hotel in Fort Lauderdale!” Brian looked at me, his face once again turning pale. “What, oh man, what?” he responded. “I must have left my Foo Fighter shirt in the room. I don’t have it!” I said. “Oh, you’re kidding me, right? I thought you forgot something else like your passport. It’s just a shirt, so don’t worry about it.” Now I know it may have sounded like an adult talking to a child, and, well, in this case it may have been as I felt like a kid who’d lost his favorite toy. “Hey, that was my FOO FIGHTER T SHIRT! You know, the one I bought when I met the FOO FIGHTERS! That shirt was a part of my music history,” I said to my husband with a touch of sadness and anger in my voice. “It’s okay. We’ll get you another one,” he blurted back, busying himself with his own unpacking.

So it was official: I was the child who’d lost her favorite toy and ,well, the answer was to just get another one. But the loss of that shirt kind of stuck with me for a few days. I am sentimental that way!

Shirt loss aside, I did manage to have fun on the Ruby Princess, a wonderful ship indeed. Once we set sail we really got a load of what those sailors endure for weeks and months on end. Our first couple of nights were rough; a lot of large sea swells, wind and, well, just not very nice weather made our voyage somewhat rocky. Does the movie Poseidon Adventure come to mind? You know, the whole New Year’s Eve party happening, the drinks, the music and dancing, and then – Boom! – the wave crashes through. Yes, the film did come to mind on a few occasions. And I did find myself wide awake a couple of times at night listening to this massive ship creak and strain against the elements on the sea. But as we sailed toward the tamer waters in the Caribbean I seemed to forget about that too.

Our ports of call were beautiful and the views from our balcony on the cruise ship were awesome. Looking at each of the tiny islands from the ship, so picturesque with the lights in the small villages and towns twinkling in the early dawn, was magical.

Princess Cay, St. Maarten, St. Thomas and Grand Turk were our ports of call. Each island was so very different. The tranquil aqua water, the quaint, brightly colored towns different and unique in their own Caribbean way. The beaches were stunning, especially Magen’s Bay in St. Thomas, a spectacular beach with not a rock or stone, just warm wonderful sand and soothing crystal clear turquoise water.

St. Maarten, a beautiful island, had (in our opinion, after being on a tour bus) some of the most dangerous roads on earth. If the seas were rocky the bus tour was knuckle-bitingly frightening as we came close to the edge of many a precipice on our hour-long ride through the island.

St. Thomas was by far our most spectacular tour. The tour took us to the above-mentioned Magen’s Bay, which was voted by National Geographic as one of the top 10 beaches in the world. Brian and I most definitely concurred. If we were to travel again to this region, St. Thomas is a destination we would find alluring.

Grand Turk was a walk-off excursion as our ship docked right by the beach. Again, a place like none of the other stops we made. We parked ourselves on the beach and soaked up the sun and swam in the cool, refreshing waters.

Travelling can be very stressful but once home safely and back into your routine you want to start planning your next adventure. Because once you get done with catching those planes and buses and cabs and boats, travelling is truly magical and romantic and rejuvenating.

Photo Credits

Photos by Martha Farley. All rights reserved

But this is a key reason why Canadian visitors told us that the Gulf coast of south Texas is “the best kept secret for sun-seekers.”

This area gives Florida a serious challenge. Summer, when Canadians usually stay near home, is high season in south Texas (big city folks from Dallas, San Antonio and Houston flock to the seashore to beat the heat). So the rest of year (except for a week or two in early March when the spring break college crowd gathers) is off-season with a sub-tropical climate and amazing prices for food, accommodation and attractions. Plus, the beaches on the outer islands of the Texas coast are extraordinary.

Our first stop was Corpus Christi, a thriving port city of 300,000, protected by a long, sandy barrier island. Like many cities, the downtown has suffered decay but is being revitalized with more hotels and good restaurants.

Before hitting the beach on nearby North Padre Island, it’s worth a day or two exploring some unique attractions in the city. Foremost, in our view, is a giant piece of World War Two history. The USS Lexington, the oldest remaining aircraft carrier in the world, is now tied up in Corpus Christi Bay as a National Historic Landmark. The huge ship, three football fields long, was known as the Blue Ghost for its apparent invincibility in the Pacific war against the Japanese. It was built in 1942 and served in active duty until 1991 when it was decommissioned and donated to the city of Corpus Christi. Guests can now visit the massive indoor hanger, see dozens of vintage and modern planes spread out on the long deck and climb narrow staircases as the sailors did, to living quarters and the operational areas. There’s even a flight simulator and IMAX type theatre.

Nearby the Lexington are the Texas State Aquarium (remarkable for a small city, with many hands-on exhibits), the gleaming white Art Museum of South Texas and the Museum of Science and History, which specializes in marine archaeology. That museum includes the remains of both the oldest recovered French and oldest recovered Spanish ships in the western hemisphere, as well as full-size replicas of the Christopher Columbus ships, Pinta and Santa Maria. The Nina replica is berthed at the Corpus Christi marina.

Most people come to south Texas for the beaches, so we crossed a long causeway to reach Padre Island, the longest barrier island in the world. Parallel to the coast, the narrow strip of sand stretches almost 200 kilometres from Corpus Christi south to the border of Mexico. The smooth sand is firm enough to handle vehicles, so many cars and trucks drive along the beach (15 mph limit) or park by the surf for fishing or a picnic. We drove along the beach and the quiet highway to the small resort community of Port Aransas that prides itself on having no big box stores and no McDonalds. Instead, the town of 3,500 offers relaxation, good seafood restaurants and excellent fishing and birding.

One cannot drive the length of Padre Island (much of it is designated as “National Seashore”), so visitors travel inland on Route 77 to reach the southernmost part of Texas, its “tropical tip”, and the pleasures of South Padre Island.

Boasting the best beaches in Texas, along with world-class birding, fishing and dolphin watching, the community of South Padre Island has fewer than 3,000 residents much of the year but happily handles 60,000 to 100,000 visitors on hot summer weekends. The attractions are many. We visited a sea turtle conservation building on Padre Boulevard where guests learn about the five species of sea turtles found in the Gulf of Mexico and where injured turtles are kept until well enough to return to the wild. Close by is the South Padre Island Birding and Nature Centre, with a five story observation tower overlooking the bay and boardwalks that extend over four acres of wetlands frequented by a large variety of wildlife, including hundreds of species of migratory and local birds. In the afternoon we boarded a boat for dolphin viewing. Seven pods of the mammals, numbering about 250 individual dolphins, frequent the bay and immediate Gulf area. They love to get up close to tour boats and show off.

Food on South Padre Island is inexpensive and delicious. You can bring your own fresh-caught fish to many of the seafood restaurants and they’ll gladly cook and serve it to you, along with salad and dessert, for about 15 to 20 dollars. For breakfast we tried Yummies Bistro (rated a well-deserved number 1 on Trip Advisor) and found a new favourite dish – fresh grapefruit pie. Unique and amazing! Evenings are so pleasant in south Texas, everyone will enjoy the sunset dinner cruise on the Southern Wave Catamaran. The boat glides up the bay side of the island, past beautiful homes, while a talented singer rolls out clever ballads and the chef serves a feast of fresh grilled shrimp and Mexican fajitas.

Our vacation sunset came all too quickly as we headed to the mainland city of Harlingen (along with Brownsville, it has the closest airport to South Padre Island) for a quick visit and a flight home. This city of 75,000, with a small home-town feel, boasts the original Iwo Jima Memorial (based on the famous photograph, it’s 10 metres tall with an 18 metre flagpole) that has a better known brass copy in Washington, DC. The downtown is enlivened with large, colourful murals, including one honouring Bill Haley (of “Rock Around the Clock” fame) who died in Harlingen after spending much of his life here. An old-fashioned soda shop downtown has a showcase filled with Bill Haley and the Comets memorabilia. Near the city are flourishing citrus groves and aloe plantations.

In Harlingen we met John and Lucy Morey of Port Dover, Ontario. Retired for a decade, they’re now known as “Winter Texans” (the term, “Snowbirds”, seems to be reserved for Florida) and spend several months of each year in this part of the Lone Star state. “We tried Florida,” John Morey told us, “ but here in Texas people are just much more friendly and the cost of living is much less.” He and his wife noted that they could play a round of golf for $12 and buy wine or beer in a store or restaurant for less than half the price they pay in Canada. They also love it that Mexico is close by. “I can drive 30 minutes to Progreso, Mexico, and get a thorough cleaning from a good dentist for $20.”

Lucy Morey noted that more and more Canadians seem to be discovering south Texas. “Actually, we’re taking over,” she laughed. “We have friends here from all ten provinces.” John Morey agrees. “We come here because it’s warm and I think it extends my life. I don’t have to deal with cold weather.”

Photo Credits

All photos by John & Sandra Nowlan

On board the USS Lexington Museum

Original Iwo Jima Monument in Harlingen, Texas

Cars are Allowed on many Texas Beaches

Shrimp Boats and Corpus Christi Skyline

My magnet, the geography that draws me back time and again, is the rough and inhospitable country of west-central Alberta, Canada. Brazeau County is the heart of the Pembina oil field. As such, its thick woodlands are crisscrossed with oil industry survey lines, pipelines, well heads and service roads. There is some logging activity but much of the terrain is boggy, producing stunted trees and brush not suitable for commercial forestry.

Brazeau County, Alberta

For many generations, people have moved through the area – but very few stay. Indigenous people, fur traders, map makers, homesteaders, oil explorers – they came, they exploited what they could, and they moved on.

I lived there myself, for one school year, at the highly impressionable age of eight. Now, every few years, I am drawn back to explore those intersections of time and place.

I headed out in my rented 4×4 twice this week, with a goal of getting down to the remote pasture alongside Blue Rapids, on the North Saskatchewan River, south-west of Drayton Valley. That was also the location of Boggy Hall, a fur trading post used for a few years by Alexander Henry, David Thompson and others.

Sign for Boggy (aka Bogey) Hall

It’s a maze: that crisscrossed interlay of oil lease roads does not necessarily follow the north-south / east-west axis. Without a lease roads map in hand, I cobbled together destinations based on historic maps of fur traders’ routes, current County maps, and “good old Google.” Cell coverage extends into much of the region so I had intermittent use of Google Maps satellite images.

My first day ended just short of a serious looking mud-hole. It’s been a wet year in western Alberta and the clay service roads offer less and less gravel the further back you go into the woods. When wet, the narrow clay surfaces invite even a 4×4 to slide sideways down into a watery ditch.

Day two I got lucky. With fresh rains, I had decided to stick to actual numbered roads with a sprinkling of gravel, when I came unexpectedly upon this intersection. Bogey Hall, the sign said. I won’t quibble – Bogey must mean Boggy. I turned up a service road (like all the others, copiously marked with ‘private, commercial use only’ signs forbidding trespassers). I’m not a trespasser, I figure, I’m a writer. We writers don’t read well.

Decisions. These lease roads present many. Every few hundred metres there are more intersections, more branches, more options. Most are easily ruled out – you can see the well head (and dead-end) just up the way.

I also knew from my cobbled together maps that my destination was due east, about eight kilometres.

About four km in I come upon another interesting intersection. What possessed some joker to plant a stop sign out here, at the j

unction of two mucky trails where vehicles must meet once every few weeks?

Sliding and slashing, bumping and slipping, I managed to find my way to the crest of land just above the river valley. Just then, my cell reception came back and Google Maps confirmed I was at Boggy Hall. (An interesting aside is to wonder who supplied the data that Google used to mark this location, given that there are no known remnants of the post.)

A final decision point: I study the hill down into the riverside pasture and decide that indeed I should be able to four-wheel it back out. I lock into low gear and slide the Dakota down onto the flats.

In 1811, Alexander Henry wrote, “At this place we had an establishment a few years ago… but Beaver getting scarce we abandoned the place in the Fall of the year 1808. The situation of the House is very pleasant, having a beautiful Meadow on one side, sufficiently large for a horse race, the whole is bound in by tall poplars, aspen and pine.”

Indeed it is very pleasant. That beautiful meadow is what my grandparents called “the place at Blue Rapids.” Interestingly, canoeists on the North Saskatchewan now remark that Blue Rapids no longer has any significant rapids. Rivers evolve too.

Pasture at Blue Rapids, Alberta

The stories of this idyllic spot are stories of searching, of hardship, of misadventure. In the late fall of 1809, famed fur trade map maker David Thompson seems to have lost his way (for the only time in his career) here. Stopped at Boggy Hall, he was intending to make an expedition over the Rocky Mountains to trade with the Kootenays. A Piegan blockade meant he couldn’t proceed up the North Saskatchewan through Howse Pass. He attempted a cross-country shotcut, through this dense and tangled terrain, but missed his mark and had to retreat back to Boggy Hall.

My siblings and I speculate on what drove our grandparents – with my dad (age 4) to trek by horse from their still-young farm west of Edmonton to this small pasture hidden in the woods on the banks of the river. Were they trying to ‘get away’ from the rush of land development in Alberta, or did they see them as pioneer developers, opening up yet another frontier?

I suspect the latter, given that they came back to the region 40 years later to build a hotel in Lodgepole, when the first oil boom was flaring.

Today, the meadow bears the imprint of yet another wave of explorer / developers – the oil and gas industry. Three well heads grace the pasture area. There are a few cattle pens – signs that someone has grazed stock here in recent years. It must have been drier years than this one because I can’t imagine a cattle truck getting in and out of here this year.

Why do I come here? I stand in the rich, wet green and wonder. It’s a quiet place, still. A breeze in the trees, waving the tall grasses of the pasture. We humans look for signs, for ideas. We explore. Wayfinding. We exploit. We might settle, ever so briefly.

Then we move on. Our generations intersect, sometimes without knowing.

Photo Credits

All Photos © Lorne Daniel. All Rights Reserved.

Gary Schneider sees himself as something of a matchmaker. “I try to get people to fall in love with their forests,” says the buoyant founder and manager of the Macphail Woods Ecological Forestry Project on 2000 acres of crown land east of Charlottetown, PEI.

Given his enthusiasm for his work – “I adore my job,” he gushes – and the many potent love potions at his fingertips, Schneider has good reason to believe he’ll succeed in fostering a love affair between the people of Prince Edward Island and their Acadian Forests.

A flyover of the Macphail Woods homestead and surrounding area.

Pausing to marvel at a patch of pink lady slipper orchids on a walk along the Wildflower Nature Trail or spotting a spunky nuthatch marching down a tree trunk along the Stream Trail where Sir Andrew Macphail himself once took daily dips is an irresistible proposal from nature to many visitors. (Raised on the property, Macphail was McGill University’s first professor of the History of Medicine and founded the Canadian Medical Association Journal. For his efforts as a doctor in World War I, he was knighted.) For others, it takes a visit from Gary Schneider himself. “People tell me I’ve gone for a walk in their woods with them, and it’s changed the way they looked at their forest. I love working one on one with landowners.”

But as the saying goes, one can’t live by love alone. The Macphail Woods Project employs a dozen or so seasonal workers, and they have to be paid. Grants from government and private foundations supplies some of the required funding, but the Project itself generates revenue.

Gary Schneider tries to get people to fall in love with forests.

Aside from offering guided tours of the five nature trails – add the Rhododendron Trail, the Woodland Trail and the Native Plant Garden Trail to the first two – Schneider and his colleagues deliver popular wildlife and forestry workshops. They run a nursery where they seed and sell native plant species that are also used for on-site forest restoration. They run summer nature camps for youth, and they’ve planted trees at about 20 schools in the area. At the old Macphail homestead, staff and volunteers operate a tearoom, host art displays and sell nature guidebooks, many written by Schneider himself.

Future plans include a portable sawmill and, ideally, a woodworking shop where staff can build furniture, crafts and other goods to sell. Schneider likes diversity from as well as in his forests. “I love cutting trees. I burn wood. I like to build wooden houses. I think wood is a great product. But if you look at all the benefits that a forest gives you, the wood is secondary.”

As with many love affairs, Schneider’s relationship with PEI seemed mismatched at first. Schneider is a journalist from St. Catherine’s, Ontario – the son of a bank manager, one of six children. As for agriculture-heavy PEI, it’s the last province one would associate with woods of any kind. Schneider himself admits, “For somebody interested in forests, this is probably the last place you think you’d wind up.”

Macphail Woods native plant nursery.

It took a mutual acquaintance to introduce Schneider to his adopted province. While working with a small newspaper in New Brunswick 34 years ago, Gary’s brother invited him to live on a piece of land he’d purchased on the Island. While living there, he got interested in birds and their habitat. “The more I learned about the native forests, the more I fell in love with them,” says Schneider.

Schneider’s goal is nothing less than the restoration of the province’s forests. Employed by the Environmental Coalition of Prince Edward Island, Schneider manages 26 distinct pieces of land – most of them attached to the original Macphail property – under a 10-year renewable lease with the province. For each, he’s developed a detailed management plan.

A stream runs through it — efforts to preserve PEI's forests are a labour of love for Gary Schneider.

In a press release from 2005, Jamie Ballem, Minister of Environment, Energy and Forestry at the time, said, “If this partnership is successful, the Province may enter into similar public land management agreements with other non-profit groups.” Given that the province is the largest landowner on the Island at more than 50,000 hectares, the impact of the Macphail project on PEI’s landscape could be profound.

Schneider describes the Acadian Forest as a “condition” more than an inventory of specific trees and shrubs. Because of varying conditions and a history of clear cutting and intensive forest use, no single location contains all 26 species native to PEI’s Acadian forests. But many do have the three most prominent conifers – red spruce, white pine and hemlock – and the three main deciduous trees – sugar maple, beech and yellow birch.

The original Macphail property was one dominated by scrubby woods and dotted with gravel pits. Sometimes working one tree at a time, Schneider nursed the place back to health by bringing in rotting wood, compost and even soil to the worst areas.

The Macphail woods now includes everything from ground covers and shrubs to canopy trees and trees that will eventually become giants. Insects, animals and birds have returned. Seedlings he planted fifteen years ago are now thriving. “I’ve got red oak over 20 feet high,” says a proud Schneider. “In a hundred years, it’s going to be incredible,” says Schneider. “But even in 20 or 25 years, it’ll be fantastic.”

For 19 years, Schneider’s infectious affection for Acadian forests has been spreading across the island and over the generations. “This is an agricultural province,” Schneider admits, but he also sees strong evidence of change. The days of farming marginal land are numbered. Buffer zone legislation protects streams. People with giant lawns are asking the Macphail project for help in transforming what Schneider calls their great five acre lawns into Acadian forest. “People are starting to think maybe we could all contribute.”

If he continues his matchmaking, Gary Schneider will one day find that an entire province is smitten with his own beloved forest.

For further information, visit www.macphailwoods.org

Photo Credits

Flyover of the Macphail Woods homestead and surrounding area. Photo courtesy of Macphail Woods Ecological Forestry Project

Gary Schneider tries to get people to fall in love with forests. Photo courtesy of Community Forests Canada

Macphail Woods native plant nursery. Photo courtesy of Macphail Woods Ecological Forestry Project

A stream runs through it — efforts to preserve PEI’s forests are a labour of love for Gary Schneider. Photo courtesy of Macphail Woods Ecological Forestry Project

Cherry blossom season along the Tohoku coast, where disasters have kept many tourists away. Photo by Kozuki Ohahara for the NY Times.

Everything I know about Japan I learnt because of my Japanese penfriend. She never referred to Hiroshima or even Minimata in her letters. Obviously, with all the disasters raining down on that small group of islands I have been thinking of her, although we stopped communicating in the 60s when she left home to go to Tokyo University.

At the end of the 50s, the idea of Japanese penfriends was launched, I suppose, to repair international relations after the last war. Penfriends were the big thing. I had two French penfriends, an American penfriend from Texas, and one in Austria and another in Australia. You can imagine how beneficial these friends were for the development of understanding on a more international scale plus – we learnt to write well in our own language! We were not yet seduced by the promises of television so penfriends were a way of learning about the world and its ways.

I was particularly fascinated by Chizuko Kuwahara, my Japanese penfriend, whose whole life style and system of beliefs were so far from anything I had encountered.

Chizuko Kuwahara, Julia's pen pal from Japan

She lived with her family in Hokkaido the southern-most port on the North Island, just around the corner from where the earthquake and the tsunami hit and, more crucially, not far from the problem nuclear reactor.

Chizuko was a bit older than me, and her English was practically flawless, as my father kept pointing out! My family were all astonished at the quality of her handwriting (really good firm Copperplate) as opposed to my indecipherable scribble. Her written English was impeccable. She would diligently write to me about her life in Japan, her family, the festivals and her religion, which as a convinced Christian, I couldn’t begin, in my small mindedness, to comprehend.

A picture from Japan

I remember being slightly puzzled by the Japanese veneration of natural wonders like the cherry blossom. I hadn’t realised that for the Japanese, nature was an all-important part of their Shinto beliefs. It connected the Japanese to their land in a mystic way. For them, some parts of nature are considered to have an unusually sacred spirit about them, and these are objects of worship. They are frequently mountains, trees, unusual rocks, rivers, waterfalls, and other natural edifices. In most cases they are on or near a shrine.

The Japanese also have a shrine to their household gods. Although I don’t remember Chizuko telling me about a home shrine, I do remember that she described a day out in a local park where people put little paper boats in the water and watched them sail away downstream. This was at Obon, which is celebrated at different times throughout Japan depending on whether they are following a lunar or solar calendar. The festival was called Toro Nagashi, which means floating lanterns. Families send off their ancestors’ spirits in little paper boats lit with candles inside lanterns. They float out to the ocean and are thus liberated.

Japanese floating lantern ceremony

It is a Japanese Buddhist custom and has evolved into a family reunion holiday during which people return to ancestral family places and visit and clean their ancestors’ graves, and when the spirits of ancestors are supposed to revisit the household altars. This is like the French Toussaint (All Saints and All Souls) where family graves are cleaned and flowers set out and there is a big family get-together in memory of the departed.

My penpal sent me a special card with a lady in a kimono on it to tell me about the Japanese New Year’s holiday (January 1–3) which is marked by visiting Shinto shrines to pray for family blessings in the coming year, dressing in a kimono, hanging special decorations and eating noodles on New Year’s Eve. I remember her explanations, but I thought British Festive turkey was one up on noodles!

When she had no photos, she drew. I remember her pencil drawings of her house with its rice paper screens, futons that folded up into the wall, low tables and cushions for chairs. I thought they must be very poor.

She detailed her family’s visit to Fort Goryokaku local park to admire the cherry blossoms in May and explained some of the cold rice dishes they ate as a picnic under the trees. I was sure my Mum’s rice pudding was nicer! She sent me a huge collection of sepia postcards of all sorts of Shinto shrines and Buddhist temples, the Emperor’s palace, and the little bridge leading to it and other important public buildings. In themselves, they didn’t encourage me to go to Japan, but as I got older I realised that there were many similarities between her world and mine.

Coming from Wales, I knew all about King Arthur and his knights, the Mabinogion stories and the Irish legends, so I was not at all surprised to find that the Medieval Japanese had their Samurai and a Bushido code. I began reading all sorts of old Japanese legends, learnt about the Geisha, and read novels and travel books about Japan . My chance came when my husband’s company sent him to Japan and I was allowed to accompany him.

Julia's penpal Chizuko Kuwahara from Japan, shown with her family

I got hold of a book on how to speak Japanese (written in Roman letters) so I could learn all those useful phrases like Where is the hotel? Where is the toilet? What time does the train leave? Can I have two teas, please? Thank you for your help. Sorry. Excuse me. I don’t speak Japanese. We went several days earlier than his schedule of meetings so that we could stay in a Ryokan in Kyoto and could eat in choice restaurants. That is when I fell in love with Japanese food.

People were so impressed by my attempts at Japanese that I had a wonderful reception everywhere. As I was taller than most people, I could see over heads in the subways and people would come to offer advice even if I wasn’t lost. In the Ginza, the Japanese were so helpful and thoughtful, even drawing sketch maps to show me where to find a shop I wanted.

I realised after a few days that they were also like that with each other. The girls who bow down to you as you enter a big Japanese store, are showing you deference and welcoming you to the store but they do this for everyone. No one jostles nor pushes (except the station master trying to fit everyone in the subway!). The streets felt very safe although I was the obvious foreigner. It was one of the best holidays we had. Everything was so different but the Japanese made it so easy for us by their imperturbable natures and permanent gentle smiles.

My sister was so impressed by this holiday of mine that when her husband died and she wanted to assert her independence at 75, she went off to Oxford one day a week and learnt Japanese, and then spent a month in a school north of Tokyo. She now has a huge number of Japanese friends and has showered me with beautiful silk kimonos and obis.

I tried to re-contact Chizuko Kuwahara when I went to Japan but without any luck – this was before computers and Facebook. Although Chizuko would now be more than 75, she is probably still alive as the Japanese are amongst the longest living people on earth. There are 34.7 centenarians, in some parts of Japan, for every 100,000 inhabitants and that is the highest ratio in the world. Wikipedia says, in relation to Okinawa, “The possible explanation is the diet, low-stress lifestyle, caring community, activity, and spirituality of the inhabitants of the island.”

The Japanese have incorporated Buddhist beliefs into their daily lives so well that in addition to a respect for nature, their ancestors and their elders, they are capable of being very zen. This probably explains their incredible stiff upper lips in the face of all that life has thrown at them in the past few months. Television coverage hasn’t regaled us with scenes of wailing people shaking their fists at the gods or stretching out their hands in supplication.

Japanese spirituality and the Bushido code seem to have contributed to a certain national equanimity in the face of tragedy. Although the cardinal virtues of the Abrahamic religions are very similar, we Westerners no longer seem to face our tragedies with the quietness of spirit and intestinal fortitude of the long-suffering Japanese.

Photo Credits

All black and white photos courtesy of Julia McLean

Cherry blossom season along the Tohoku coast, where disasters have kept many tourists away. Photo by Kozuki Ohahara for the NY Times.

Japanese Floating Lanterns

Victoria, British Columbia has been my home for 17 years now, and it felt like home since the very first moment I set foot on this beautiful island paradise. This picturesque capital city of British Columbia has somewhat of a small town feel, despite it’s size, and it’s home to many interesting and amazing people from all walks of life. There is an energy about this place that is, in my experience, wonderfully magical.

Victoria is both quaint and captivating, perhaps because it is a seaside city surrounded by an abundance of nature: be it the breathtaking view of majestic snow-capped mountains across the ocean, or its close proximity to awe-inspiring magnificent giant trees within our neighbouring ancient rainforests. In truth, those things never held any interest for me until moving here. Now, 17 years later, they combine to weave the very fabric of my many passions and unwavering reverence for life.

The city itself holds a very special place in my heart. It is unique. There is something here in tremendous abundance that I have yet to experience anywhere else…love. As I’ve said, there is a sense of small town community here that is rare for a city of this size [area pop. 365,000]. I’ve always found it surprising to hear people says how hard it is to meet other people here. This notion is completely foreign to me, as my experience has been the opposite.

I often feel that living in Victoria is much like walking into an episode of the popular TV sitcom “Cheers”. Not so much in the beer drinking aspect of the show (although yes, beer is definitely a highly consumed beverage for Victorians, as is for many Canadians across the entire country).

My reference to “Cheers” is based on the sense of familiarity, friendliness, and loving energy. It’s a place where, you know, “everybody knows your name” Everywhere I go, on any given day, I inevitably run into someone I know — acquaintances, beloved friends or one of the countless people that fit somewhere in between (I really wish there was a word for that). In short, I know a whole lot of people here. Having been a server at the same restaurant for almost 15 years will have that effect, I suppose. Again, it’s like “Cheers”, only with food — although, it’s much more than that.

Perhaps it is my experience, or rather what I bring to it, that has created the amazing and wonderful journey I’ve enjoyed since moving to Victoria. By being open, kind and loving to all who cross my path, I have set the stage for my own version of “Cheers” …”where everybody knows my name, or so it seems, and I LOVE it!

I love knowing that I may run into someone I know at any given moment. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling to see the familiar smiling face of someone who is as happy to see me as I am to see them (usually accompanied by a huge loving hug). What a wonderful gift to brighten an already amazing day. Quite often, I find myself standing on some street corner chatting with someone who I just crossed paths with and end up saying a smiling hello to two, three, sometimes even four other familiar faces as they walk by. LOVE it!

I suppose I could bring this positive and open-hearted attitude with me to other cities…but I really wonder how well it would be received. It wouldn’t be impossible, but it would definitely be more challenging. It all has to start somewhere, right? This is an attitude that can be cultivated if we have open minds and hearts and don’t allow ourselves to get sucked into the hustle and bustle of a faster pace and densely-populated environment.

There is a certain anonymity in other large cities I have experienced that just seems to lack kindness…warmth…connection. Now, some people prefer the anonymous way of life. Not me. I love connecting with people way too much, whether it’s for a brief moment or an entire lifetime. Connection is what fuels my fire and makes life worth living.

There seems to be a suspicious uninviting tension between large city folk as they pass each on sidewalks, and if you dare to smile at them they’re not quite sure how to respond, if at all. Of course, there are certainly exceptions; however, I have found it to be more common than not.

Although Victoria is no stranger to such cool reactions to friendly overtures, I find the people here tend to have more of a willingness to engage. For the most part, they want to reach out and connect, or at least they are more receptive to it when I put forth the effort to engage with them.

I believe there truly is something special about this magical place — an energy that inspires people to be more open and receptive to a way of being that many other places have yet to embrace.

I may be completely biased, but I will tell you this: if you truly open yourself up to it and put forth genuinely friendly energy towards others (if you feel safe enough to do so, of course), it may very well begin to shift for you, wherever you happen to be. Your city may likely become your own personal “Cheers” as well.

For more on this topic read my Life As A Human article entitled “Random Acts of Hello“.

Namasté

Bill Jamieson lives in an 6,500 square foot one bedroom apartment in an exclusive part of downtown Toronto. He uses most of his extra space to display his eclectic collection of primitive art… and to throw some of the best parties in town.

You may have heard of Billie’s acquisition of the mummy of Pharaoh Ramses I when he bought the contents of a museum formed in Niagara Falls, Ontario in the 19th century. It’s not unusual to find a mummy or two at Billie’s digs. One has to store them somewhere and besides, they make great backdrops for his legendary Halloween parties.

Of course invitations to these parties are in great demand… and I was lucky enough to receive just such an invitation. As you exit the private elevator into Billie’s posh condo you can’t help but notice his collection of shrunken heads on the right hand side. Gathered by real South American head hunters, one of the diminutive crania sports red hair and a mustache, certainly not the first European to lose his head in the pursuit of adventure in the jungle.

Apparently the preparation of these little trophies involves fishing the skull and brain out and then slow baking the remaining tissue to an amazing miniature of the original owner. Other primitive collectibles include skulls fashioned into ingenious decorative and spiritual items.

Further perusal reveals such intriguing items as the back of a horse-drawn hearse, now holding a saltwater fish take full of colourful tropical fish. The two headed calf and the various ferocious looking reptiles are mounted and pose no threat to visitors. Oh, and then there’s the stuffed full grown ostrich in Billie’s “modest” bedroom.

If you can draw yourself away from the exhibits you never know who you’ll find at his parties. Donovan Bailey, once the fastest man in the world, sometimes wanders downstairs to join in the fun and even Sir Mick Jagger has been known to pop in to see Billie’s collection. You often will run into the cream of the international scientific world here because Mr. Jamieson is a member of the world famous Explorers Club.

Of course this mix of people results in fascinating conversations. Often some major museum’s curator will give an impromptu talk on the history of some of Bill’s new acquisitions. The gentleman who exhumed and autopsied the members of the Franklin Expedition has been know to frequent this venue as have world renowned wildlife painters and photographers

You might run across a young female air force aerospace engineering officer who just finished climbing the highest peaks on all seven continents and a solo trek to the South Pole. Then again you might get an expert pole dancing demonstration from Billy’s fiancée  Jessica, a fitness instructor (there’s one installed in the living room).

The bottom line is you never know who is going to show up or what’s going to happen at Billie’s parties.

And that’s just the way it should be.

Visit William Jamieson Tribal Art

Photo Credits

All photos © George Burden

“Author with engraved skulls”

“Deco Lady”

“Parties at Billie’s are always intriguing.”

Stumbling Upon Some, um, Bondage

Rosie is Fit to Be Tied!
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After the Bliss of Bondage

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