On the Road Again 2012 Rainbow Gathering part #1

On the last week of July, I headed north to Lake Nimpkish at the Northern End of Vancouver Island for a Rainbow Gathering ( for more information of these Gatherings click on "My Academic Musings" to the right of blog). My plan was to take the bus to Sayward and hitched/walked the rest of the way.

I had forgotten how much I disliked buses. I was quickly reminded as soon as I handed my ticket to the bus driver in Duncan at 8:35. His first and only comment to me was " I hate people who put tickets in their mouth". I understand that that must be one of the hazards of his job but on the other hand he did nothing to assist me in (1) holding the ticket as I tried to get the rather heavy pack into the storage department under the bus (2) make sure my hat did not fall off and (3) maintain control of my small canvas shoulder pack that held a book to read, my mp3 player and large water bottle.


My impression of buses worsened as I sat down at an empty seat and realized that either they either had made the distance between seat smaller or the femurs in both my legs had gotten longer. On previous trips I don't remember my knees being so tightly jammed against seat in front of me. There was an hour or so wait for a bus connection at Nanaimo before the bus continues on to Sayward (225 miles north). Waiting in bus stations is generally not fun.  The bus station in Nanaimo was no exception. It was in fact, painfully boring and ugly. But our new bus driver was a very pleasant surprise.

He was a delight. He introduced himself over the PA system with flair and humour. He was both courteous to and slightly flirtatious towards the older woman who sat down in the front seat just across from him. He seemed well known to a few of the bus travellers and there was a lot of gentle teasing with him about getting lost. However in spite of him being a really nice driver, the trip took forever.The hour stop in Campbell River did not help. I suppose it is obvious why bus stations are not located in the most interesting parts of dow, but if  the were, it would make the travellers a lot happier.

I had asked the bus driver to let me off at the highway gas station just outside of Sayward. As the driver helped me unload my pack I thanked him for his courteous service and mentioned that it was obvious that he like his job. Then I shook his hand. Never done that before - but I felt the urge to do so. I am glad that I did. I had chosen the place to get off the bus well. It was a good location. My original intention was to just stay there until a Family member came by and picked me up. There was a bathroom and some water at the gas station and I was sure I could get something to eat as well. I had only had a small breakfast of two boiled eggs and I knew I would be getting hungry at some point.

I was quite sure as the seed camp had been going for a few days that there would be lots of people heading to the Gathering. I really should learn not to assume.

An SUV stopped and the driver offered me a ride. He knew exactly where the turn off was that I needed so it made so sense to get into his vehicle. It was a great ride. He was a member of a First Nations community in/at Alert Bay which is a small island just a bit north of Vancouver Island. He was so proud of his community's medical and educational services that the band council had created that it was a delight to travel with him. While he had been an engineer on a fishing trawler for a number of  years, he had hurt his knees and now worked for the federal government doing audits ( I think) for various band councils. He had been on his band council before and he talked about that when the present chief decided not to run again, that perhaps he would. Clearly a man with a vision of what his community could be. He understood that for a community to flourish it needed to educate its members ( he had gone to university after his knee problems), to plan carefully for the future, and to utilize all of the resources that are at hand.

My driver also talked about how some First Nation's families in the area manipulated the various types of commercial fishing licenses, and how unfair it had been for the people who worked on those big boats.

More disturbing was his brief mention of a taxi driver who, in some city, said to my driver on the way in from the airport..."residential schools were the best thing that ever happen to you people". How does one apologize to someone for that kind of comment? What could I possible say that made it clear I did not feel that way and that that statement was plain and simply - outrageous. I became even more frustrated at the stupidity of my fellow Canadians when my driver was talking about some sort of pre-treaty negotiation meeting between a representative from the Canadian government and a local band council. At one point as the Chief was perhaps waxing a bit too poetically about tradition land use, the representative felt the need to remind the chief that as the land all belonged to the Queen and thereby implying that they should be happy for what they get. What can one say? I suppose the government needs to hire a certain number of socially challenged/ignorant individuals just to keep them off the streets.

I was sorry when we had to separate when we came to the turn-off to Zeballos.He was continuing further north and I was heading onto the logging roads.

Where I was let off was not a very pretty site. The leaves of the trees were covered in dust from the big logging trucks. What few vehicles that did go by were were either working trucks or SUVs with kayaks on them. Neither group of vehicles were likely to stop. So I thought I would walk some more. There were two flaws in this plan. One was that I did not have enough water with me as I had neglected to refill my water bottle at Sayward and two it was a bloody long walk.

No vehicle until the last 500 or so meters of my 7-9 kilometers of my trek, even slowed down to look at me. Not that there were that many vehicles - perhaps 6 or 7. For the last 3-4 kilometers I saw nothing except for the two bears that ran across the road in front of me.They were not very big and I was quite sure (or at least almost sure) that they were more afraid of me than I of them. I was exhausted. My pack weighed (at an estimate) somewhere around 45 pounds.Considering that that is a bit more than the 1/5 of my body weight that is recommended, it was a taxing weight to have on my back. ( my son who lifted the pack upon my return suggested the pack weighted closer to 70 pounds. I think he was over-estimating the weight a bit - but then he does on occasion life 80 pound bags of cement so he should know) The gravel road did not travel in a straight line. As well it frequently felt that for every foot one walked down an incline, one climbed another foot and a half up the next hill. There were a lot of hills! By the time dusk was approaching I was thirsty, tired and more than a little bit concerned about the real or imaginary noises I could hear in the woods on either side of me. (it really doesn't matter if the noises are imaginary - if you think you hear something - it is pretty real). When I went around another corner and saw yet another long hill I decided that I could not go any further, I yelled a few times just in case there were campers near but got no response. I hoisted my bag on to a large slash pile left over from the clear cut logging, climbed up and waited for morning. I was tired enough that I could sort of nod off. Fortunately the mosquitoes decided to make it their mission to keep me awake. I say fortunately as about 10:30 pm a car came up the road, stopped and drove me the last half kilometer to the trail head. We got to this rather barren spot in the middle of a clear cut, put up our tents beside two other tents that were spending the night there and I quickly fell asleep. Grateful to be beside some others for the night.

I was also grateful that I would be at the Gathering early tomorrow morning. Remember what I said about I should not assume anything...............