The best of the loveliest of days. The weather is perfect, and we hosted a noice little party for friends this evening, capping a day in which I spent a terrific few hours hanging out with my friend Jeremy Hiebert from Summerland. Jeremy and I are old blog friends, and we get together every few years with that natural kind of "pick it up where we left off" kind of feel. Today I picked Jeremy up in the Cove, we came back up to the house for some beers and then we went for a little drive about, poking around Artisan Square and then hitting Hood Point beach for the nicest swimming of the year so far. Finn came with us and sniped at us from behind the big old tree there with a super soaker water gun. It has been a perfect summer so far. Not even the 24 small lacerations on my leg caused by an errant weed whacker have managed to make a dent in the vibe.

Lots of folks are leaving Bowen these days, many of them heading for Gabriola Island. Corbin Keep and Cindy Marsden left last week and Mara Brenner and Stu are looking at leaving soon as well. Our good friends the Hardin's are moving back to Manitoba next month.

I suppose it has always been like this - people coming and going - but it seems unfair that we are losing all of these good people. The economics of Bowen are not easy at all - it is hard to make a good living on island and commuting into Vancouver is becoming prohibitively expensive. BC Ferries operates now as a business rather than a public service and the fares increase once and sometimes twice a year. When I moved here in 2001 the price of a book of ten walk on tickets was $27.00 making a return fare to Bowen less than the price of a bus ticket into Vancouver. That same fare is now $5.20, with the commuter discount. Rents on Bowen are expensive and there are very few spots available for a family. The irony is that the economy is so high end now that the businesses like Tuscany Restaurant can't get the help they need to take advantage of the wealth in this market. With no affordable housing, service sector employees are coming to work from the continent, and with that ferry fare, they have lost a good chunk of their first hour or two of work just getting here.

I know lots of people read my blog here as they are deciding to move to Bowen, so my advice if you are thinking of it is to be careful about whether you can actually afford to live here. At this point the housing market is going a little soft, and you can get nice houses under $600,000, but in most of the rest of Canada, that would buy you half a province. So think about it carefully.

The economics are hard if you didn't get here when we did, when the housing market was cheap and interest rates were low. That's the reality, and I count myself as lucky that we are able to stay here, even as many of our friends head to more affordable and prosperous climes. It's funny to think of Bowen as so rich, we're impovrished, but that seems to be the case. Alas, we still have the great beaches, and good friends and sockeye salmon and veggie burgers to grill on the barbeque. Summer is what it is.

Summer time means things are dry. The Alska high has taken up residence in the Gulf of Alaska, funnelling beautiful weather our way. Yesterday there was a might northwesterly blowing -- all kinds of seaweed at Bowen Bay tonight -- and while we were overnigting it in Vancouver a small fire broke out on the mountainside not far from our house. James Glave, across the valley took some video of the water bombers that were called in to douse the flames, and they did a marvelous job. Everything is safe and sound, but for the love of humanity people...NO OPEN FIRES!

John Dumbrille posts a modest report about his team's successful defence of their University Master's World Cup title. This is a world class seven-a-side soccer tournament that John's team won last year as well.

Yeah Canada! Yeah Bowen!

Strange night last night. We had thunderstorms all night for the first time since I can remember being on the coast. It was a very Ontario kind of summer evening. The water was very still and the air got quite moist before it unloaded around 10:00 and kept going until dawn. A great soak for the garden.

The day before, Canada Day was a hit, with Morris Men and organic carrot cake from the Ruddy Potato and the firefighters soaking the crowd to end the festivities.

Summer is in full swing, and the garden is coming up beautifully, considering this is our first year. Today we ate the first two snow peas, and the tomatoes are coming along. Beans,, brussels sprouts, strawberries and blueberries are all promising. In the forest, the salal is turning from flowers to berries and the huckleberries are almost ready to harvest.

Ross Carter passed away yesterday.

I first met Ross when he and his wife Lois shared a B&B with us on Gabriola Island in 1998 during the Gulf Islands Celtic Music Festival. He was there with his wife Lois, who plays fiddle. They talked of Bowen over breakfast with us and those conversations were among the many that eventually brought us to this island.

Ross lived here for more than 45 years I think. He served the island as a municipal councillor and our rep to the Greater Vancouver Regional District as well as in the capacity of a patron of the arts, an artist in his own right and a gentle but influential voice for the community. I have two stories of Ross that stay with me, both of which speak to the kind of roots he set down here, and the kind that I have since set down as well.

The first was a couple of years after we moved here. One non-descript fall day, as we were travelling on the ferry, I came across Ross gazing out the window at the view up Howe Sound. "Look at that," he said. "Isn't that something?" I was struck by the fact that he was still taken by our landscape even 40 years after moving here. He never took the beauty of this place for granted, and I often tell that story just to reinforce the incredible luck we have to live in this stunning inlet.

Another time I was working with a group of citizens looking at sustainability and change. There was a lot of handwringing at the time over the huge changes to the island brought about by a lot of new people coming to live here. I was curious about change in perspective, and I asked Ross what the reaction was on Bowen when the first painted lines on the road. He chuckled and said something about people predicting the end of the world.

This island constantly changes, and with each small change we take a step in a different direction. Like Ross and Lois, I am committed to this place, regardless of the changes that come. There is something about staying in it, witnessing it as it were that seems to be an important role to play.

Now seven years after I moved to Bowen and started this blog, we are faced with another small change: the loss of another of our community elders. I will miss his warmth, his quiet reflective voice and his way of seeing this place.

My heart goes out to Lois. We'll have a tune or two for them at the next session.

Finally home for a good stretch. In the last six weeks I was here for five days. In the interim my beans have come up, the peas are climbing higher and we've eaten the first strawberries from the garden. Yesterday was our first ocean swim of the year and today we gathered a bunch of salmonberries for this year's jam (a jar of which will be entered at Bowfest, to defend my title).

All in all, summer has arrived and the sleeping on the deck days are here to stay...more photos here

No blogging for quite a while here. You have to be here to blog about the place, and I have been elsewhere a lot.

Salmonberries are coming in and everyone is complaining about a cold and wet spring, but it's been good for the salal which looks great. Tomorrow we'll go pick our first patch of slamonberries and freeze them for jam.

I turn 40 tomorrow.