Christmas morning

Sitting by the fire on Christmas morning intending to The Messiah, eating my mom's coffee cake and watching some weather come in. It has been a dry and calm December, but today it is raining and there is a title wind. Merry Christmas to you and yours from Bowen Island.

Location:Miller Rd,Bowen Island,Canada

Christmas Eve sunset at Bowen Bay

Merry Christmas

Cape Roger Curtis

Wistful afternoon. Pining for wilderness

The threat to the herring and the dolphins

John Matsen, who is the voice of the Howe Sound Herring Recovery project writes to all of us in the Sound about the threat to the thriving herring stock in our inlet:

I’m writing to inform you that all of these weak or recently returning runs are in serious jeopardy of being exterminated this year. Their enemy? You might have guessed it-the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They regulate Georgia Strait herring as one biomass and in their minds herring stocks in Georgia Strait are in great shape. Last year they allowed a 238 ton food fishery. This year the commercial fishing industry asked for an increase. Likely they wanted an increase to 600 tons of herring but asked for 6000 tons, likely expecting that to be reduced to 600 tons. Unfortunately the Fisheries regulators bit hook, line and sinker and Okayed a 6000 ton food herring. This is not 6000 herring, nor is this 6000 pounds of herring; they’ve Okayed 6000 TONS of “surplus” herring to be taken out of Georgia Strait. 

Are 6000 tons of “surplus” herring swimming aimlessly around in Georgia Strait? Hundreds of tons of these herring have now been scooped up and sold on the docks for 20 cents each. The Howe Sound herring run we’ve been struggling to bring back for 5 years spawns mainly in March. That means those fish are now swimming around in Georgia Strait ripening. Or were they the first 600 tons to be dumped onto the dock? Or were those first fish caught the False Creek run, or Powell River, or Pender Harbour, or Burrard Inlet? Nobody knows.

The work of the recovery project has  been immense and has resulted in something like 250 tons of herring returning to Howe Sound over the past few years.  This has been followed by the pods of dolphins who have been gracing our inlet with their presence.

All of this is in danger of being wiped out by the commercial fishery, who wiped the herring out in the first place and who have done nothing to contribute to the restoration of the herring in Howe Sound.  If you care, please follow the link above and send your thoughts to John and DFO.  The Georgia Strait and Howe Sound needs more protection of these animals and ecosystems, not more economic exploitation for a few bucks.

Explaining change

Our new postal code system explained:



V0N 1G1 = power stays on + groceries
V0N 1G2 = power goes off + beaches
V0N 1G0 = you have to come to the Cove to see if BC Hydro charged you a difference + pottery.

Frosty mornings

Hurricane coming...

The weather map as of right now.  It's windy out at the moment, gusting to 40 knots, and it's expected to get stronger over the afternoon.  Whether we get hurrican force winds (>63 knots) is yet to be seen.

Winter is coming

Sunrise

Sounds of fireworks

A minute of audio from the Causeway tonight during the fireworks at our annual Halloween celebration.  Hundreds of people, a crystal clear night with a sliver of a moon in the southern sky.  Beautiful.

Sounds from Monday evening by Salishsea

First snow on the mountains.

Right about on time.

Quiet at the Cape. Just a solitary loon on an ocean of glass

Bowen island has a new way to get around. Lift stops

New signs around the island let you know the best places to snag a ride.

Test

Memo.m4a Listen on Posterous

Sent from my iPhone

The view from the office away from home

Up at Artisan eats doing some writing today.

Passing the Genoa Bridge on the way home by water taxi.

Dissolved in time

The Earth
N. Scott Momaday


Once in his life a man ought to concentrate his mind upon
the remembered earth, I believe. He ought to give himself up
to a particular landscape in his experience, to look at it from
as many angles as he can, to wonder about it, to dwell upon
it.

He ought to imagine that he touches it with his hands at
every season and listens to the sounds that are made upon
it. He ought to imagine the creatures there and all the faintest
motions of the wind. He ought to recollect the glare of noon and
all the colors of the dawn and dusk.

For we are held by more than the force of gravity to the earth.
It is the entity from which we are sprung, and that into which
we are dissolved in time. The blood of the whole human race
is invested in it. We are moored there, rooted as surely, as
deeply as are the ancient redwoods and bristlecones.

I was just over at the gallery this afternoon having a peek at Tiffanee Scorer's show "Dissolved in Time.". Its last day is tomorrow, so you ought to get over there if you can.

Tiffanee's work is really stunning. The show is a collection of landscapes, all of which are imaginary, all of which are characterized by big sky, still clouds and serene meadows. There is a stillness to the work that is haunting. These landscapes are both real and not real. They are places that exist within us, in the memories and desires we hold about place, in the longing we feel to be cradled in the arms of earth. They emerge from Tiffannee's own experience as a human being living on this earth; they are in fact the earth itself coming through the artist. And for me, an observer, they are an invitation to find connection with the planet that gives us life, from which we are sprung, and to which we will return, dissolved in time.

As you walk through this show you will come at the end to a beautifully illustrated version of the above poem, and upon reading it I was struck by how well Tiff had caught the sentiment in the work. Her paintings are still life invitations to remember who we are and where we come from and they are also invitations to remember what comes from us, and to remember how deeply rooted we are to the earth and how deeply rooted it is within us.

Thankful for this place

A quiet afternoon at Cape Roger Curtis. The only human sounds are the occasional boats going by and the rumble if the heavy aircraft departing for the afternoon Asia bound flights.

Back home

Fall is here. Soup at The Snug.

Low sky Snug Cove.

What to be proud of

Was thinking this morning of the debate on Bowen around the National Park. I often overhear disgruntled conversations where people say weird things about why the park is a bad idea. Today on the ferry it was "you know once you involve the Feds it is forever. What if BC joins Alaska?" What?

I have also heard people invoke my friend David Smith's defense of the old general store as the kind of activism that opposing the park seeks to become. But I was thinking that at the end of the day we have that gorgeous building to look at and say "we did that."

If we vote this park process away we won't have anything to point at. And if, God forbid, something profoundly negative happens to the Crown Lands will we look back on a no vote with pride?


"At one time we could have had a national park here on Bowen, but we put a stop to that!" Not a sentiment to be proud of in my books.

The full sun after a harvest moon.

Ad the haze building in as our weather thinks about changing.

View from the top of Mount Gardner looking down to our house and across to Vancouver

Bowfest sunset. Summer ends before it begins.

I have actually enjoyed this summer despite many people bitching about how cool and cloudy it has been. Today though was a classic west coast summer day and perfect weather for Bowfest. Great social times and great bands with Wasabi Fox, Taken, Shari Ulrich, Adam Woodall and the amazing 3d rocking us into the night.

No Straight Roads

No Straight Roads from aaron may on Vimeo.

A short film made by and featuring many friends of mine, and filmed on Bowen Island. The film says something about Bowen too, especially the Bowen of the early spring time, all grey mist and green and horizontal sunshine coming through the clouds and striking us at reflective angles.

The historians are having a social. I want Lois Myers-Carter in the wheelbarrow race.

Off to town to hear Thich Nhat Than. These boats float still.

Mud shark washed up at Pebbly Beach

About two feet long, we came upon this guy at the sound end if the beach near the ship wreck. Go have a peek at him before the wasp and flies clean him out.

2011 Miller Road garlic harvest

Out garden loves growing garlic. For whatever reason the soil and sun and exposure makes it perfect. This is this years crop, freshly plucked and cleaned.

Full moon over Whitecliff

Hit in the eye with the sunrise on the first clear morning in days.

The air is finally dry enough at night for there to be no sea fog. Should be good for watching Perseids tonight.

Garden fresh lunch from tomatoes, basil and snow peas.

Midsummer days begin cool and grey until the sea fog burns away

And quiet too, with juncos chattering, cedar waxwings in the berry bushes and hummingbirds visiting the valerian.

Boats on Mannion Bay

A still summer evening. Quiet everywhere and the boats at rest on Mannion Bay, just the gentle ringing of the mooring.

Birth of a Bowen Island dynasty?

The Diggers have ascended, winning the Bowen Island Men's Fastpitch league this season and today with a massive 20-6 win over the Firemen in the final, they clinched the tournament title as well. They are a young team and a fun one to watch and seem set for a good long run.

What do you mean you don't have a copy of Ron Woodall's book yet?

Available at the BIAC Gallery for $20 and worth its weight in gold.

The toy deer of Bowen Island

Even the dogs here are bigger than these tame critters. And the fawns aren't much bigger than large cats.

Howe sound morning

Cool this morning but clear and promising hot with just a wisp of cloud over the Tantalus range.

Lost (#bowenislandproblems)

Perhaps we need a new kind of hash tag.

Early morning commute

Finn feels the early morning commuter life. He's at a soccer camp in West Vancouver this week meaning an early rise and an early ferry.

Midafternoon ferry ride home

Thick air and heavy sea breeze, heading for the island's gentle opening.

Swimming with sundogs

Summer finally arrives. Second ocean swim of the year. Latest ever.

Senior Road on a summer evening

Breakfast

Ten years I have been on this island. Nearly a quarter of my life. And thus summer breakfast of huckleberries and salmon berries has fed me every July.

Round Bowen race

The beginning of the Round Bowen race as seen from Artisan Square. If the wind stays the way it is, they'll all be there next week.

May menu at Blue Eyed Marys

The excellent Snug Cove eatery has its best menu ever on this month (sorry Carol!) We ate there last week and I had the asparagus etc crepe and the buffalo steak. Unbelievably good stuff.

Go. Tonight

Violet-Green Swallows

In the sun today, a real taste of the spring that we have been missing, the violet-green swallows are swooping around eating the freshly hatched insects that have taken the wing in the warm afternoon.  They are nesting nearby, although I can't see where, perhaps even on tope of our dormers on our house.  Regardless, these birds are one of the indicators of deep spring.  Once the Swainson's thrushes show up, we'll know that the natural world's summer has begun.  

BowFeast in a box meal number two

This week in the BowFEAST box we got a couple of kilos of asparagus, some chives, rosemary, sage, incredible parsely (what exactly IS it?) and rhubarb.  the rosemary and asparagus were crying out for eating, so here's what I made:

Roasted Asparagus quesadilla with asiago cheese and spinach
1 pound local asparagus, ends trimmed
4Tbs fresh local rosemary
4Tbs olive oil
salt to taste
4 oz shaved asiago cheese
 cup of fresh baby spinach, cleaned
1/2 cup of local chive and hazelnut pesto (see last week's recipe)
4 8" whole wheat tortillas.
1. Roast the asparagus with the olive oil, rosemary and salt for 10 minutes at 400 F, or until the tips are browned and the stalks are soft.
2. Spread a quarter of the pesto on half of a tortilla.
3. Lay a quarter of the asparagus, the cheese and the spinach on top of the pesto on each tortilla.
4. Fold the tortillas in half and bake for 5 minutes until the cheese is melted and the pesto is bubbling.

Serve and eat immediately.
That was an incredible dinner actually.  The trick with ultra-fresh local produce is to cook it as little as possible.  If this whole dinner take you more than 30 minutes, you're doing it wrong!  All the produce we are eating is available at the Ruddy Potato as well, so get some and get cookin'!

Rain and fog

Rain and fog today...la nina is holding on and keeping everything cool.  Leaves are slowly uncurling and it isn't cold or windy out, but there has been only rare glimpses of the spring.  This has been a season of flow in the woods, gurgling, bubbly water falling off the mountainsides, running in rivulets everywhere between roots and muscular ferns and shoots.

Garden tour

Sweet tour of the garden courtesy of my iPhone camera.

First BowFeast in a Box meal

This year we signed up as one of ten families piloting a community shared agriculture initiative here on Bowen Island.  Tonight our first box arrived with asparagus, chives, rhubarb, rosemary and tender baby salad greens.  Here's what I made.

 

Rotini with roasted asparagus, fiddleheads and chive pesto

Prepared the asparagus by drizzling with olive oil and placing under the broiler for ten minutes, then tossing with salt and pepper.  Fiddleheads were picked yesterday, washed and thrown in with the pasta to cook in the pasta pot.  The chive pesto followed this made up recipe:

Two cups of chopped Bowen chives

two garlic cloves

a quarter cup of chopped Fraser Valley hazelnuts

three quarters of a cup of olive oil

a quarter cup parmesan cheese

Throw it all in the blender and hit it for a minute.

For salad we had the Ruddy Garden tender baby greens tossed with a vineagrette I made using yet more of the local stuff:

A quarter cup white wine vineager

Three quarters of a cup of olive oil

1 Tbs mustard

1Tbs honey

Sea salt and pepper

3 Tbs Bowen chives

1 tsp Bowen rosemary

Same deal.  Chuck it in the blender and hit "play."

Eaten gratefully out of a bowl crafted on Bowen by Catherine Epps with juice out of a Vonigo mug made by Sue Ritchie.  

 

Otter eating a crab

The other day I went out on the water with my friend Dave.  We headed over to Vancouver in his boat, doing a little fishing and watching dolphins around Point Atkinson in English Bay.  While I was waiting for him to arrive I watched this river otter eating a big Dungeness crab at the Union Steamship marina.  The otter is eating next to a fresh water stream, and it keeps stopping to take big gulps of water, before ripping another leg of the still living crab.

This is the food chain in action.  The otter had two long cuts in his back to that looked like it had run into something higher up the food chain.   Incredible to watch from five meters away.

Some reason why I'm voting for a Park

Responding to some calls elsewhere for clarity and certainty on the future of life on Bowen Island with a National Park, I wrote: in things like this there is only so much certainty anyone can give you. Who knows what will happen in 30 years on Bowen, park or no Park? There are lots of unknowns because communities are complex beasts. They exhibit all kinds of emergent properties and you can't simply engineer them into simple cause and effect relationships. Creating a national park on Bowen is a huge game changer. We can guess at how those changes will go, but we can never be sure. The future itself is hugely uncertain. All I know is that I feel up to the task of moving forward into the long term future of this community with a National Park (literally) in my backyard. It feels right that we could have all of that green space slowly and irrevocably transition to old growth forest, that we can establish small and historical community uses of the meadow and the village park lands and that we could share this island in a low impact way. I imagine too that my property value will increase due to both scarcity and desirability and I imagine that we will then need to find ways to use the park's benefits to fund affordable housing for real. I imagine small business development and sustainability and a walking island, with trails that cross the Park and traverse the rights of way. I imagine a significant presence for the Squamish Nation here so we can all understand the real deep history and cultural ecology of this place. 

I can't tell you that these are facts, concrete proposals or certainties - but these are things I'm willing to work towards. I can see how elements of a park proposal give me starting places to pursue these ideas, and I can see that it is up to us to make those happen. So if we vote yes, much of what I have written will require the active participation of loads of Bowen Islanders to make it all work and to take advantage of the opportunity. Our engagement begins now and continues for all time, should we choose it.

Damp rain and fiddleheads

Lady ferns muscle up out of the ground.  It's amazing picking and eating these fiddleheads.  You can feel the power in them.  Unlike the sword ferns, the lady fern dies back every winter so it's always a mystery where they will come up again.  But in the spring, during April, the ground starts heaving in little mounds and the croziers force their way through the rain compacted topsoil and unfurl their fronds.

Here's some more information on lady ferns, and a recipe.  I've been eating them with pasta, risotto or on a curry plate for a couple of weeks now.

Maybe

Maybe they aren't wolf eels after all. Perhaps gunnells instead, but very big.

The weather is cold for late April. The snow is low and fresh on the mountains and rain squalls are sometimes hail. It is not the weather for picking fiddleheads - seems the wrong season to do so. Thriving life of spring contrasts with fall winds and winter snows.

Unusual creatures

Eels in Horseshoe Bay the other night. Wolf eels I think. And wood ducks on the lake migrating north. Flocks of geese overhead aiming for the Arctic. Our resident feral wolf-dog is not long for this world and the bear has awoken an resumed his roaming.

Things are on the move.

One way to get off the ferry

Not recommended

Fiddleheads and blackberry leaves for tea

Small bounty from an afternoon of casual foraging.

Why the dolphins are back

Great article in the North Shore Outlook, worth quoting in full:

There’s a change in Howe Sound.

Residents in Lions Bay have spotted them. People in West Vancouver and on Bowen Island are talking about them. Then there’s the boaters who have watched them play out in the waves.

Scientists are trying to figure out why the Pacific white-sided dolphins are back. But there’s speculation it can be partly contributed to a small group of marine enthusiasts and a fish.

This fish story starts in the early spring of 2006. West Vancouver resident John Matsen had been told herring were spotted around the Squamish Terminals. Historically, herring are no stranger to Squamish’s shoreline. In the mid-60s, 2,000 tonnes of the silver-coloured fish came up Howe Sound to spawn. But runoff from the community’s former wood preservative plant killed hundreds of thousands of them and by the 70s the herring had all but disappeared.

So when the co-ordinator of Squamish Streamkeepers got the call that they were back, he was pretty excited. But when they went in search of the herring, what they found instead was a mysterious orange slime covering the pilings under the Squamish Terminals.

“We questioned whether it was fungus,” Matsen says.

Matsen turned to the Internet to find out what the slime was. He found his answer in a report about San Francisco’s subtidal habitat. The document, written by several marine biologists, highlighted the need for the removal of creosote pilings from the bay. In it were notes on how creosote kills herring eggs and how, when the eggs are dead, they turn into an apricot-coloured goo.

That's when Matsen realized that what they'd seen on the pilings were millions of dead herring eggs. The herring had returned, laid their eggs on the pilings but the eggs had been killed by the creosote.

The Streamkeepers set about changing this. The next year, with the permission of Squamish Terminals, the Streamkeepers wrapped 60 of the east dock’s creosote-covered pilings with various materials. In March, when they returned, the organization discovered the eggs on the black landscaping fabric had successfully hatched; the eggs laid on plastic material didn’t boast the same survival rate.

“Each year [since 2006] we have doubled the amount of wrapping we have done,” Matsen says.

Last year, the herring switched their spawning location to the large concrete pilings under the west dock. Concrete has also proven to kill herring eggs. Fortunately, the Streamkeepers had wrapped 30 of these piles the year before. Between February and mid-April, the piles were spawned on four times. This year Matsen expects three spawnings.

What’s even better news is that the herring that spawned in 2007 have returned.

“We had great expectations when we started this, but we didn’t quite expect this would happen so dramatically,” Matsen says.

Other than the herring eggs covering pilings, a big indicator that the Streamkeepers initiative is working are the dolphins.

“We originally had the idea to bring herring back for the salmon,” Matsen says. “We had no idea it would bring back the dolphins.”

During much of the 20th century, Pacific white-sided dolphins were thought to be an open-water species, says Andrew Trites, UBC’s director of the Marine Mammal Research Unit in the university’s Fisheries Centre. Before 1984, they had not been reported in the Strait of Georgia, but were common along the outer coast. However, scientists did know that they once called the inner waters their home since archaeologists had discovered Pacific white-sided dolphin bones in First Nation middens – domestic waste dumps – along the strait.

In recent years, there have been a growing number of dolphin sightings. This year three pods were reported in the strait. Whether they are all members of the original pod or different groups that have ventured in from the Pacific is unknown, Trites says. There is some speculation that the main group of approximately 100 dolphins is a residential pod based around Nanaimo, but scientists don’t know for sure. Nor do they know why they returned or what they are eating. Herring would be a good guess, Trites says.

“We have more questions than answers,” he says. “They haven’t had a lot of people studying them.”

Erin Rechsteiner is one of the few people in B.C. trying to find answers. It’s speculated that the Pacific white-sided dolphin population along B.C.’s coast sits at 24,000, but without enough information it is difficult to back that figure, she says, adding that estimates range from 12,000 to 50,000. What is known is that the survival rates among the young are low, Rechsteiner notes.

Last summer and early this year, the UBC student started a report on the diet, distribution and food requirement of the Pacific white-sided dolphins. By looking at the mammal’s dinner plate and how many calories it needs to function, Rechsteiner hopes to find clues to their lifestyles and possibly figure out if the dolphins are following specific prey types along the coast.

Dolphins need four to five times more calories per day than humans, Rechsteiner says. Herring are high in calories and lipids, such as Omega-3 fatty acids. Before they spawn, the fish’s fat count is at its highest, Rechsteiner says.

“I am learning a lot about fish,” she jokes.

For five weeks last summer, Rechsteiner spent 12 hours a day trawling the sea on the hunt for feeding dolphins. When spotted, she would drag nets behind the boat which would pick up the scraps from the dolphins' meal, allowing her to figure out their menu. Rechsteiner is the first person to ever collect fish scale samples from dolphins feeding in the Strait of Georgia. It is the same technique adopted by zoologist Kathy Heise, who studied Pacific white-sided dolphins for years after they caught her attention in 1986 while working as a lighthouse keeper.

Some of Rechsteiner’s most successful sightings occurred after her pilot field work project. On Jan. 28, around the same time that the herring were spawning in Squamish, Rechsteiner was out on a boat in Howe Sound surrounded by more than 150 dolphins. While no one can say for sure that the dolphins are back because of the growth in herring runs, it’s certainly a good guess.

“The dolphins are a good indicator of ecologic health,” she says. “My guess is if there are a lot of dolphin around there is a lot of herring around.”

By learning more about the dolphins we could learn more about the health of our local environment, but without funding Rechsteiner is not sure if she will be able to continue her field work. She is currently on the hunt for grants.

“There is just so little known about them,” Rechsteiner says of her flippered friends.

As for the group behind the possible the surge of life in local waters, Matsen is now one of the world experts in herring spawning material, he jokes. Jokes aside, the Streamkeepers' work has caught the attention of the Department of Fisheries, among other organizations. A group of residents in Lions Bay is also interested in wrapping creosote pilings and Matsen has been in discussions with the Rotary Club in Pender Harbour. The creosote piles are a problem, but a problem that can be fixed, Matsen says.

“The best part of this fish tale is now we know the dynamics in the ocean are there,” Matsen says. “We are just help nature do its job.”

Reporting Dolphins

You can help Rechsteiner and other scientist in their studies on all cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises). The B.C. Cetacean Sightings Network, a conservation and research program of the Vancouver Aquarium, in partnership with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) have set up a Wild Whales website where anyone can report a sighting. The organization collects reports on all cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) and sea turtles from British Columbia and surrounding waters. Visit the site at www.wildwhales.org or call 1-866-I-SAW-ONE.

Bright green moss

This is how we know the spring growing season is upon us. The moss in the forest turns bright green, radiant in the woods.

Bright green moss

This is how we know the spring growing season is upon us. The moss in the forest turns bright green, radiant in the woods.

Rainbow over the Strait of Georgia

A third option on the park debate

Here's what I have learned so far in considering all the information I've heard about the park.

I have learned that I can live with both futures. One that has a park and one that doesn't. I am not afraid of either option. I am not swayed by emotional pleas for and against. I have heard good cases for both futures and I have heard plenty of nonsense too.

So I am strongly considering the possibility of NOT voting on this non-binding referendum. It doesn't make sense fir me to say one future is better than the other when I can honestly live happily with both. Plus such a stance - positive and FOR whatever happens means I don't feel at all victimized or pilloried for being a naysayer on any count.

Whatever the result friends, you can count on me to continue to do what I can to make this place a lovely place to be.

Memorial for the Swan

Prompted by my friend Corbin Keep, we held a small gathering in the cold and snow today to remember the swan.  David Cameron brought an ornamental swan head, pictured above, Corbin played The Swan by Camille Saint-Saens.  We shared some stories of Gus the swan and then and I led the group in a song I composed called "The Swan" also.  You can hear us singing that here.

Islanders now gather round

     The swan, the swan was swimming

The swan lays dying on the ground

     And the swan swims here no more.

Gathered on a wintery day

     The swan, the swan was swimming

On the rocky shores of Mannion Bay

     And the swan swims here no more.

Where salmon leapt upon the weir

     The swan, the swan was swimming

Where ducks and geese all lived in fear

     And the swan swims here no more.

All who came to know that bird

     The swan, the swan was swimming

Defied the warnings they had heard

     And the swan swims here no more.

Islanders have come and gone

     The swan, the swan was swimming

We had the swan to reflect upon

     And the swan swims here no more.

A stately bird of grace and poise

     The swan, the swan was swimming

Beautiful and mute of voice

     And the swan swims here no more.

For this wild creature was one of us

     The swan, the swan was swimming

A mute and silent blunderbus

     And the swan swims here no more.

Who are we without the swan?

     The swan, the swan was swimming

A part of us is dead and gone

     And the swan swims here no more.

The tide rolls in and fills the Bay

      The swan, the swan was swimming

But the waters here are still today

     And the swan swims here no more.

Now eagles chase the gulls away

     The swan, the swan was swimming

And things have changed on Mannion Bay

      And the swan swims here no more.

Sailing through the Squamish

Winter, it turns out, is having one last kick at us. Thus video was from yesterday, sailing through a Squamish wind that was blowing gale force.

Bowen Queen arriving

Off to town this morning

Thoughts on good decision making

A post I made on the Phorum today:


I've been trying hard to keep us away from getting into yes or no kinds of debates, because frankly, the decision that we will make with respect to the Park in my mind is not served by a strict yes/no vote.  It's really reductionist.  I personally can see different options in a park proposal that would work from my perspective, and some that wouldn't.  I can see a parkless future that is equally exciting under certain conditions, and a parkless future that sucks under other conditions.

I have run other public processes which have required decisions where we didn't vote.  When I was helping establish an Aboriginal choice school from an existing elementary school in Prince George a couple of years ago, we needed to ask the parents and students of four different schools whether they thought their school should be converted.  The committee initially wanted each school to make a yes/no vote.  Turns out that that wouldn't have worked because every community was opposed to it.  Instead we used a large scale decision making process using gradients of agreement.  Basically, we ran a series of dialogues and then asked the participants to rate, on a scale of 1-7, their preference for their school to be converted.  We drew a big scale up on a wall, gave everyone a post it note and they marked their preference and wrote on the note why they were voting that way.  That was incredibly useful, because we could see what the issues were.  Turns out the school that eventually was converted had lots of no votes but only because the school needed lots of renovations.  When the school board said they were going to renovate the school, everyone was cool.  Without that process, we would have had four no votes, no information and no way to move forward.

The problem with the current process is that much of the work of creating a proposal rests with Parks Canada and there are significant numbers of Islanders who are waiting in the wings to shoot the thing down.  That is the easiest route.  A harder route is to dive into the complexity of it and co-create a Parks proposal that is community based.  And in doing that we may discover that it isn't what the community wants, and that would be fine by me because it WOULD give us some incredible information about what we DO want for our future.

The most useful conversations to me have been the ones where we kick around ideas, blue sky, dream a little, roll our sleeves up and try and figure out numbers or options.  Not because we need to make a park work but because we need to make the FUTURE work, and the best way to do that is to be engaged in the present.

Done well, this whole process could be a launch for a new way of engaging and making decisions about our island, but we have to be able to think more broadly than reacting to one option with a stark, flat and uninformative yes/no reduction that is not really helpful.  If we're not careful we'll end up with a yes/no vote without understanding anything about what a yes or a no means to people.  The REASONS and the ideas behind voting yes or no are really, really important.  If we don't make them visible leading up to the vote then we will argue forever about what the yes side meant or what the no side meant.  That is useless chatter.

And that isn't to say that folks who are wholeheartedly opposed to a park in any way shape and form are not community builders, nor are they not valuable and important in the community.  They hold a view of the future that is really interesting and one we haven't really heard much in the past ten years.  As someone definitely on the fence, it has been interesting this week teasing it out of people.  I've learned a lot.  It makes us a much better place in general, because now I can see that we have creative and positive ideas on both sides of a yes/no vote on the park.  We can't lose with that kind of community capacity, no matter what the result.

Apparently we are in "lockdown"

The National Post is full of shit:

Wolf-dog hybrid puts B.C.’s Bowen Island in ‘lockdown:'

"Residents of British Columbia’s Bowen Island are in “lockdown” as a marauding wolf-dog hybrid that has killed at least one dog continues to be spotted across the island, leading fearful residents to keep children and pets indoors."

Don't worry. We're not in "lockdown." And one of our "prized" swans was found dead, but no one has established it's cause of death much less from the marauding wolf-dog. My kids play out of doors, although they are being careful around the learning centre near the golf course where the wolf-dog is on the prowl.

God, you'd think the end of the world was nigh.

The ornery swan is no more

On a morning where wintry has taken one last swipe at the coast with snow at 600 meters on the mountains, news comes that the swan who has lived at the Lagoon for 14 years has died from a dog attack.

That mute swan has attacked three members of my own family and so I had a mixed relationship with that bird. It was always based on wary mutual respect.

But now he is gone and the title of the most feared predator on Bowen can now pass to the hybrid wolf-dog currently patrolling the golf course. Once he is gone we will finally have a normal landscape again, where humans do most of the damage.

Happy birthday to Artisan Eats

Two years old today and never boring. Best view on Bowen and a crazy selection of home made food. Happy birthday folks!

First new growth in the meadow

See and download the full gallery on posterous

The time of year for firsts. Grass and skunk cabbage starting to return.

Terminal Creek

Above Carter Pond, terminal Creek flows in a steep canyon from Grafton Lake until it tumbles over the side of the Killarney Creek valley just below Carter Road. The forest back here is jumbled and rough, cedars and hemlocks and leggy salmonberries all trying to find the sun. There are lots of snags and old logging stumps and the ground is covered in ferns and braided feeder streams. Even though it's close to two rias the sound of flowing water drowns out all but the loudest ambient traffic.