Happy New Year!Apologies for the delay! But when you read what has been happening , particularly during the last half of 2006, I am sure you will understand.
The year started with me flying home to Nuk Tessli as usual at the beginning of January. With no aircraft available (there was very little snow so no one had skis on their planes yet) I resorted again to the helicopter based in Bella Coola, and was presented with a dramatic, if gloomy flight through mountains where the rocks poked through the low snow cover like the ribs on a hungry dog.
Once again Richard, the pilot, placed all my freight into the sling and lifted it up to the door. I'm beginning to take that kind of service for granted! Shortly after I arrived it did begin to snow quite nicely. We ended up with a more "normal" winter although still one with a low snow cover. I had planned to stay in right until breakup - a 6-month stretch, but in February I was forced to fly out again.
Towards the end of 2005 I had been having health problems. Chief complaint was a major stiffness of muscles, sore even when I was sitting still, and even when I had no particular exercise. Other complaints included slight but persistent headaches (which I never used to get), an almost chronic sore throat, excessively rapid pulse, and a general exhaustion. Once home, the symptoms got worse, and reluctantly I decided I would have to go to the doctor. This meant packing all freezables in the root cellar and bringing dogs, manuscript material, computers and so on out with me as I did not know when I was going home or where I would be staying. (The cabin I used to use at Nimpo is no longer available to me.) Oddly enough, despite heavy falling snow, I could get through to the helicopter pilot by radiophone and he said he would be in the following morning.
We flew out about an hour after daylight in a snowstorm so thick I could barely see across the lake. The pilot took a low elevation route, following the Atnarko River in the Trench toward Lonesome Lake, and all we could see was a bit of the ground beneath, all looking very white except for the sraggly black ribbon of the river. A low pass over Turner Lake brought us to the Talchako, and as we descended, bare ground appeared and in Bella Coola it was dumping rain.
I was taken straight to the hospital in Bella Coola where the doctor said there was nothing at all wrong with me. Well I still did not feel good, and decided to stay out for a while - fortunately I could put up in an empty house on a friend's place right beside the Bella Coola river where I could walk the dogs on the gravel bars. The rain finally quit and the sun came out - the cabin was far against the north side of the valley so was one of the few privileged places in that valley that could receive some winter sun. It was certainly spectacular at times.
Two weeks later I felt ready to go home. But then, ironically, I needed poor weather, for the helicopter outfit was busy with heli-skiers and while the sun was shining they were up in the mountains every minute of the day. I had to be ready to go at a moment's notice and finally, one afternoon, was told to be at the helicopter base in half an hour as the pilot was on his way in because, although the sun was gorgeous, it was now quite windy and the wind chill at higher elevations made it too dangerous to ski. We lifted off at 4.30 pm, which was the latest we could leave and allow enough daylight for the pilot to get home before dark. To fly where the air was less turbulent, Richard picked a course way over the top of the mountains. With the late afternoon sun gilding the peaks, it was the flight of a lifetime.
I was still getting some of the ill health symptoms and a friend suggested I might be having food allergy problems. I looked up various sites on the internet and sure enough, the symptoms they suggested were mine exactly. The information suggested giving up wheat among other things - and I make the best bread in the world! Wheat, however, did not seem to be causing much bother but cutting out sugar and meat made a big difference. I found that out just after canning 5 cases of buffalo! An added bonus was losing 20 lbs; another symptom of food allergies or sensitivities is an inability to lose weight by normal dieting and that had certainly applied to me as well. Now I just wish I knew the key to losing the next 20 lbs! (To cut a long story short: over a year later I still haven't ironed out all the kinks in my diet but am a great deal better.)
Once home, I had the great pleasure of living at Nuk Tessli during spring and the breakup of the ice.
It is such an exciting time with the first migrant arriving at the end of March, and the first flowers showing through as soon as the ground is bare.
The ice was late going out in 2006, it did not finally go until the 1st June.
I stayed in about a week longer to enjoy that wonderful and very rapid transition between winter and summer, then flew out by floatplane for a couple of weeks to shop and do business that needed either a phone or human contact prior the summer season.
One of the pieces of business I needed to take care of was buying a piece of property. During the spring my mother died and I inherited enough money to think of doing this. It was a very exciting prospect for someone who has led a very much hand to mouth financial existence all of her life.
I looked at several places but the one I chose was the first I heard about and the second I looked at. It consists of two 40-acre lots with crown land on three sides and about 300 metres of river front on the forth. Across the river is a small ranch whose buildings are invisible from the property. It is 3 miles off Highway 20, about half way between Williams Lake and Bella Coola on the Chilcotin. There are a number of packrat-infested barns on the lower property, but there was no dwelling on either; however, there was a spectacular building site looking over the Kleena Kleena river backed by the distant peaks of the Niuts.
As the plane flies, it is actually slightly closer to Nuk Tessli than Nimpo Lake, but there would be no easy way to go that route.
Property-looking and shopping was a rush, but I fitted in a couple of days visit down at the Precipice before I flew home. My dogs need to be chained there, to keep them away from cats, livestock and garden, so must be specifically exercised. One morning I was down in the dewy meadow below my friend's house, and was just stepping across an irrigation ditch, when Raffi decided to tear around like a lunatic and 100lbs of dog sledge-hammered into the inside of my knee at about 50 mph. I was pretty sore but managed to walk back to the house. Two hours later the knee was swollen and I could not walk.
It was Saturday, July first weekend. Once again I was going to have to visit the doctor in Bella Coola - a 3 and a half hour drive from the Precipice. Would there be an x-ray technician on duty this holiday weekend? When we tried to find out the cranky receptionist who answered the phone said, "It is the doctor's decision as to whether or not you need an x-ray" and she would not tell us if one would be available. This is very unusual for the Bella Coola hospital as everyone else is very laid back and accommodating. We did not want to make a 7-hour round trip for nothing but told her we would be down as soon as they opened the following morning.
Once there (no one had been notified that we were coming, needless to say) we were treated to a surprising display of people coming in on crutches and nursing swollen wrists and arms - even an ambulance load at one point. It was the Bella Coola Rodeo weekend so of course an ray technician was on duty (as they are always, apparently) - why the receptionist could not tell us I have no idea.
Prognosis was a chip off the knee bone. I would not have to have a cast, but would need a brace and to be on crutches for 3 months. "Three months!" I wailed. That is the whole tourist season!"
Unless you have been on crutches, you don't realize how difficult it is to function. The problem is not so much getting about - that is soon learned - but the inability to carry anything. Life at Nuk Tessli involves hauling wood and water - I could not go home without someone to assist me. Fortunately, a wwoofer from two years ago, who now had a job on a local ranch, was able to spare a couple of weeks before haying started, and as he was a good handyman he was invaluable in building steps in the rough rocky trail and doing other chores; by the time he left my first wwoofers had arrived and they overlapped the next batch and so on.
I also was able to retain a superb guide. I was somewhat apprehensive when I heard that his main guiding job had been for an outfitter - what kind of macho character would this be? - but when I heard that he took his knitting to hunting camp that somewhat softened the image, and indeed a more helpful and sensitive man I could not have wished for. So the business did not suffer at all. The only one who was miserable was me. Everyone else, including dogs, was off enjoying themselves all day, while I stayed home and did dishes. The only hiking I did all summer was crutch-hop to the outhouse and back. People said "We'll take pictures of the flowers we see and show them to you" but that only made me jealous and more miserable.
Well all good things come to an end. I was just about off the crutches although still walking with difficulty in a brace, when I and the last two wwoofers of the season flew out on the 20th September. First I had to go to Bella Coola to get another x-ray, and as this was prime time for spawning salmon and feasting bears, we checked at all the best viewpoints along the Bella Coola and Atnarko Rivers. After little success for most of the day we were rewarded, not only with the sight of a mama and three year-old grizzly cubs feeding happily on a stretch of river at the bottom of a very steep bank below us, where
they were unaware of us, but also of a black bear up a big fir growing form the bottom of the bank, a stone's throw from us, who was sitting on a fat branch with his back to us, intensely watching the grizzlies below. Grizzlies will kill and eat black bears so he did well to be cautious. The black bear was aware of us but did not consider us worthy of his attention.
But that was the only free day for the two wwoofers. I had hired a cabin at a B and B about 20 minutes drive from my new Kleena Kleene property, and for their remaining 6 days the two wwoofers worked like mad, digging, hauling massive concrete blocks from the old barns, falling, peeling , dragging the logs for the foundations.
While this went on, the fall colours changed from partially green to absolutely flaming spectacular gold with many red aspens to give an interesting accent of colour. (This is actually a picture of Nimpo Lake).
This cabin needed to be erected as quickly as possible as I had nowhere to live out on the Chilcotin. I also desperately needed storage space for all my unsold books and artwork, slide show stuff, town clothes, and other junk I cannot bear to part with as it "might just come in handy one day." Also, by early November I had to be on the road to launch Wildfire in the Wilderness, my 7th book, which culminates in the story of the Lonesome Lake fire. So no fancy building structure was involved - just whatever materials I could get. I bought the floor and walls for a 20 by 16 foot "shed" and these made the interior walls, and outside I built a structure using lumber lying about the place, fence rails, some beetle-killed trees, a few live trees, and some more bought lumber and stuff. After the two wwoofers left I was on my own for a couple of weeks, and working very slowly as it was still very difficult for me to walk far or climb ladders, and then my summer guide, Dylan, came for about 10 days. Not only was Dylan a good general handyman and pleasant to have around, he was also 6'7" tall and extremely strong which made him quite literally a human crane. So things at last began to take shape. Before he left, two women arrived. Stephanie and Katherine had wwoofed for me during the fire year and had in fact been evacuated with me. During the intervening time they had been teaching in north Ghana and had culminated their adventure by bicycling across the Sahara to Spain. I had jokingly asked them if they felt like wwoofing for me again, not only helping me build but staying here and looking after the dogs while I went on my book tour. I knew them to be good workers so I was delighted when they said it was exactly what they needed to wind down from their tropical trip. "They couldn't wait," they said, "to be cold!"
By the time I left for the book tour, we had cobbled together an insulated box with a roof over the dwelling area (but no porch), a bay window overlooking the river, and, on my last day, a door. I had equipped the cabin with a solar power setup and satellite internet, and the stove and chimney were in so the two women - and dogs - could be relatively comfortable although they would have to live with piles of lumber, building junk, and boxes of my possessions. Not a very prepossessing place, but it was at least warm and dry.
By the time I left it had snowed a bit - in fact I drove out through 6" of new snow on the highway to Williams Lake. We were still staying at the B and B but my two helpers planned on moving over during the next few days. All the best laid schemes of mice and men..... Two days after I left, another 18" of snow fell. Kleena Kleena is a very dry area and this much snow has not been seen for years and years. The women drove to the end of the 3-mile road and packed in supplies by ski and toboggan for a few days. Two days later, the temperature dropped to -35C. You will remember that the women "couldn't wait to be cold". You get what you wish for!
So once I got back to my new winter home I had to scramble to get some kind of order into the mess. The ceiling was the first to do (it had been insulated but the covering had to be installed), and then the floor, and yesterday I put in the last of the windows. All these operations meant moving the mountains of stuff from one side of the cabin to the other and then back again.
The shelves and cupboards still have to be built - everything is still in boxes on the floor and I still have to wriggle around a pile of lumber - but at least things are more or less in logical piles but thanks to all my great wwoofer help I am getting there.
One more word about my new property. It has been vacant for 20 years but the previous owner (whose cabin was torn down) was a real Chilcotin character. An eccentric spinster no less! Her name was Nedra Jane Paul, but she was always known as Ginty (with a hard "G"). I can best describe her by quoting the lady who owns the gas station at Anahim.
"They was really rich, you know ["they" being Ginty and her father, always described as "Mr. Paul"]; they had them candlebras [that's how my informant pronounced it] all over the place. Really British. But the chickens and goats ran into the house and messed everywhere. The place was disgusting! We visited there once and was offered tea. Well I said no. I survived Fred Ingerbritsen's coffee but I didn't think I could survive chickenshit tea."
Ginty's Ghost is a book just begging to be written!
