Tales of a hitchhiker on Salt Spring Island
5 June 2008
…The man from New Zealand in his pickup. Building a house on the north end, all the trees he chopped are now going to make the deck and the fittings. He came to Salt Spring for a weekend 29 years ago and now his son is in his final two years at the high school. Told me about the days of fishing, farming and forestry. Now it just seems to be about real estate.
…The cleaner in her old two seater, with the terrible tyres that don’t stop in the wet, so we nearly ended up in the back of someone’ s pickup. She moved from Malta when she came to visit the man she had been penfriend to since the age of 11 and ended up marrying him. They have a parrot.
…The young woman who moved here aged 1, left to get training and came back as a careworker. The only thing missing in her life is a man, but there is a big unbalance of men and women on the island, so the odds are not good.
…The young couple who moved here a year ago and find it too quiet so are moving to Vancouver.
…The mother and daughter from Quebec in their beaten-up campervan. The daughter is going out with a fishmonger from Ganges, France……………….
…The woman picking up her son from the ferry.
…The woman on her way to get gas for the car, as ‘someone left the tank empty’. Not sure if we would make it to the gas station, but the last bit was downhill. They moved here after 30 years in Saskatchewan,and England before that, but her daughter misses Saskatchewan.
A lot of people have moved from all over Canada. The 40 above and 40 below temperatures are ‘fine while you’re young’, but they are seduced by the mild winters and the lush vegetation and fed up with shovelling snow. I read my great-great grandfather’s journal and find his reasons for moving were much the same.
Nothing has really changed in 100 years. The gadgets are different, but early settlers were concerned about good axes and fashionable shoes. The island has Wi-fi, and a new swimming pool, a theatre and state of the art coffeeshops, and also tibetan yaks, llamas, a fleet of yellow schoolbuses, huge yachts and kayaks, farmers and technicians who work with space-stations, people who will fix your diesel-engine and others who will read your tea-leaves.
As some great artist said ‘ People are the same everywhere’.
So, now I finally made the news, I think it’s about time to leave. That and the confirmed sightings of a black bear on the island.
From now on it’s all working up the images I have from my 4 sketchbooks. The results will be available to see in the Mediatheque Lucie Aubrac, Ganges, France, from 5 – 27 September this year. It would be wonderful to see you all there.