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| NOVEMBER 2007 SHOAL BAY NEWSLETTER
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November 27, 2007. After too long an absence, Mark MacDonald at Shoal Bay has brought forth another of his memorable newsletters. For those who don’t know about Shoal Bay, it is located on Cordero Channel on British Columbia’s Inside Passage, surrounded by evergreen forest covered mountains. The only electricity is from a diesel generator; the only water (as explained in the newsletter) is what Mark pipes in from above. The only access is by boat or float plane. But enough. Read and be carried to another place.
RAVENS
November 19, 2007. We are approaching the end of another year. Perhaps you are wondering what has been happening in Shoal Bay? Perhaps you couldn’t care less. In either case, I totally understand.
I have just now returned to Shoal bay after spending about a month out in fantasyland. There was a time when I used to say that I was being forced to leave Shoal Bay in order to go and do some work in the “real world”. I have come to realize that in fact for me anyway, Shoal Bay is the real world and out there is what has become very unlivable. A week in Los Angeles and three in London was wonderful in that I was able to re-establish valuable relationships that are truly priceless, but it was also a rude reminder that I am no longer physically or mentally capable of existing in such places. The question now being, am I just a weak shadow of the man I once was, or am I in fact a wiser, better, even stronger citizen of the world. Please keep your opinion to yourself.
It is an odd, difficult to describe feeling when you step off the boat onto the Shoal Bay dock after being away for any length of time. It always seems to be a sense of relief. I left my boat in Campbell River this time and traveled out on the water taxi. So I was dropped at the dock with several boxes of groceries, a few other supplies and my companion Blair, the fat, black cat squeezed into his travel bag. I resisted the temptation to kneel down and kiss the planking and instead started carrying boxes up to the upper dock. It was grey and damp, with heavy mist held in the clutches of the treetops. There were mergansers and buffleheads swimming the bay and the token gulls perched on the pilings. Two huge ravens cackled at me as I carried the boxes up the ramp. It seemed to make perfect sense to let the cat out of the bag (sorry) and walk up, open the cottage, light a fire, and turn on the generator before returning a bit later with either the ATV or at least the wheelbarrow with which to carry all of the groceries up the 600 feet of dock.
The cabin felt cold and damp but I knew as I lit the fire it would soon be magically transformed into warm and cozy. It could not have been more than five minutes before the fire was breathing life into the cabin and I stepped back out headed for the generator shed. The first indication that something may be amiss was when I glanced up at a raven gracefully gliding over my head. It almost seemed like it was carrying an envelope of Quaker instant oatmeal in its beak . . . odd. I was still contemplating this when a second raven came into view carrying what was without question an entire loaf of seven grain organic squaw bread. Unsliced. He was obviously struggling to keep his grip on the plastic bag, maintain altitude, and audibly laugh at the same time. Not surprising, that is a damn heavy loaf of bread. I made a couple of steps with the intention of galloping along underneath him with outstretched arms hoping for the inevitable drop pass but first I decided to glance out towards the end of the dock where the rest of the groceries were.
What do you call a large group of ravens? I know it is a pod of whales, a gaggle of geese, a pack of wolves, even a pride of lions, mmm . . . not sure about ravens. All I could see on the dock in the distance was a mass of huge black wings, claws, and beaks, and what I could only imagine were bits of my groceries being torn to bits and thrown skyward in unimaginable ferocity. By the time I got down there all that was left of my food that hadn’t already flown off laughing to the treetops was spread out in pieces all over the dock. They always sound like they are laughing. Am I paranoid to wonder if they laugh at everybody around here or only me? I don’t know which one flew off with the Preparation H but I will get some small satisfaction knowing that any discomfort that I endure this next week will be tiny compared to his. I think that can just hear his faint hacking and gagging coming from the trees as I write this. That prick with the carrot muffins is a happy camper though. They are gone. There was not a single package that was unopened, undamaged, or missing altogether. The menu around here will be an imaginative one for the next little while.
In the morning when I turned on the tap no water came out. Nothing came out. Not even air. When you have just gotten up and have yet to even brush your teeth or have a cup of tea. This is unsettling. Bugger! I am sure that you have had similar experiences in town countless times. I found myself trudging around endlessly in the rain with a serious case of jungle mouth, up the mountain to the source and back down again endlessly disconnecting and reconnecting water line wherever it was accessible. I actually held the line up to my eye and looking into the plastic pipe like a total moron thinking that I might actually see what was blocking it.
Eventually, after heaven knows how many disconnects and reconnects, several slaps in the face by wet branches, and the subtle giggling of the f%*king ravens, I found the problem at the final valve where the line enters the cottage. It occurred to me at this point that this would have been the most logical place to actually begin the search (Cue audible raven giggling). So I remove the line from the valve and find no water flow but an obvious blockage of some sort that is virtually hanging out of the end of the pipe. I give the pipe a shake and a rap against the ground as any professionally trained plumber would do and plooshhhh . . . out flies a blob of something followed by a substandard flow of water. I set the line down hoping that the flow would naturally increase (Shoal Bay being the epicenter of wishful thinking) and examined the blob more closely, what originally looked like a lump of mud upon closer scrutiny appeared to have . . . well . . . could those be? . . . they kind of look like . . . maybe legs? About that time another large plooshhhh . . . and out flies another blob followed by a torrent of water at high pressure flipping the line up into the air and directly at the back of my legs, effectively filling my rubber boots with the cleanest, coldest, most refreshing creek water known to man.
The shriek caused all of the birds within miles to simultaneously lift from the trees. Magical. Had the ravens actually had pants, they would have been pissing them with laughter. I swear, they were actually looking back over their shoulders in glee as they flew away. So when my respiration finally returns, I take a closer look at the second blob and it appeared to be actually . . . yes . . . it was definitely . . . kinda moving. Some kind of little brown salamander thingy in the last throws of its very existence. The poor little fellow expired right there in front of me. I bet it was quite a wild ride down that water line, though, at least for a little while . . . up until that last valve anyway. Just another crisis properly assessed and corrected by an able bodied, self-sufficient, wilderness man (Cue audible raven giggling).
The vegetable garden has continued to expand and this coming spring will mark the third and undoubtedly the largest crop yet. It seems to be a massive disappointment to many, my brothers in particular, that between the greenhouse and the garden, all crops harvested have been of the entirely legal variety. It seems that the mere existence of the greenhouse arouses suspicion in even the most square-looking of visitors. I caught one seemingly non-agricultural boater in there this summer stuffing plant leaves in his pockets thinking he had found my “stash.” As I walk in he pushes by me and as he sort of rolls his eyes he says ”Nice Plants!” It took me a second before I realized what he was doing and what he was saying. I stuck my head out the door and screamed at him in the distance “They’re just tomato plants you idiot!!!” Then I found myself hoping he either didn’t hear me or didn’t believe me wishing that he would actually try to smoke some of that later. I stuck my head back out and yelled “You want some papers with that?!!”
I have often found myself complaining that every project in its completion, creates three more. The success and growth of the vegetable garden has brought on the need for a new garden shed or cabin and a root cellar in which to store and preserve all of this wonderful food that we are growing. I use the word complain loosely because this phenomenon of projects creating more projects is without question one the things that I truly love about this life. Every day that I get up I have an endless list of things that I can do and create with my own hands that will make my life here even better than it is now. And my life here right now is better than any life that I could have imagined in my wildest dreams.
I want all of my friends to come and visit me here. I want them all to realize that if I am indeed crazy, it is a good crazy, a happy crazy. I would like them all to find out like Paul Nicolo, a great friend who I hadn’t seen in decades, who came to visit hoping to catch a fish this summer, that it is all right here. Everything that I could possibly want or need, it is all right here. Not only that, but Paul found out that the fish are here as well.
Perhaps I don’t write as often now because all those wild circumstances that used to strike me as odd and hilarious just don’t seem that odd anymore. Could it be that it has become commonplace for me to share my front yard with killer whales, to bring the cat in so the wolves don’t eat him, and to address and sometimes even correct the calamities in my life with my own bumbling two hands? What I find most odd now is the circumstances that I find myself in when I leave Shoal Bay. Those things that not so very long ago were thought to be perfectly normal parts of my everyday life, like sitting alone in traffic for hours and hours, looking across at countless other people sitting alone in traffic for hours and hours. Eating food that I know absolutely nothing about, and being bombarded by a relentless stream of intoxicating images convincing me that happiness was just one needless purchase away. That is what seems to be so very odd and so obviously wrong now. At least it is for me anyway. My happiness has not been as much about finding Shoal Bay but more about what Shoal Bay has forced me to do. It has forced me to realize how little I really need and how the simple life kicks complicated’s ass every time.
It is an “Unkindness of Ravens” . . . Magical.
Markv
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