family and skunk cabbage

My family are here! Yay for family. There is something a little incongruous about being with mum, dad and Jenna all of a sudden. It feels science fiction. It is as though I have teleported them all here, or I have successfully managed to exist in two simultaneous realities. Anyhow they are here, in the flesh and I have photographic evidence.

They were all a little tired and jet lagged on Monday, so I took them to the river near-by (in Lynn valley) for a swim. Mum and Jenna managed to find some poodles to play with. Another highlight was finding a lemonade stand, just like they have in the movies. Mum asked the kids whether they grew the lemons in the backyard. The question was met with confused looking faces trying to work out the link between real lemons on trees and lemonade. “Umm… no. It’s powder,” said the boy. Like, derrrrrrr. Powder and lemons aside, it was only 25 cents for a cup.

The next day we went for a kayak at deep cove. I had thought we would have breakfast in the sun at a nice café right near the water. It was closed. Instead, we had breakfast at a somewhat darker western style café, a block back from the water. It was run by a friendly Persian woman who managed to dig up some REAL tea leaves, and even and put them in a teapot for mum. Something I had neglected to do, with my caffeine-addicted perception of the world. Tea smea. After breakfast we paddled five kilometres or so to a beach and had a picnic on a wharf with several no trespassing signs, ‘cause we like to live dangerously. After eating a somewhat rushed lunch, Dad and I bravely fought off three vicious dogs on our way back to our kayak waiting on the beach. Well, not really, the owner called them back. But we were a bit scared for a while there as our lives were hanging precariously on a rickety wharf, with barking dogs at our fronts and deep glacial water at our backs.

Wednesday saw us hit the road to Joffre Lake, which I have written about earlier, but mum and dad and Jen were all as blown away as I was. We went for a walk past the first lake, but did not manage to get to the second lake, which remains to be seen another day. It is the stereotype of Canadian beauty - lush forest, magnificent aqua-turquoise hanging lakes and glacial formations all combine to take your breath away. Quite literally for J, who is still recovering from a serious asthma attack. On our way to Joffre Lake, I pointed out our favourite piece of granite (the Chief) and there were a lot of wow’s, ahh’s and mmm’s to be heard in the car. There was a climber (read tiny orange dot) in the middle of the grand wall, which really helped give perspective of how large the face is. A perspective that I think Mum did not really enjoy. We also stopped off at Whistler, because it is THE place that everyone talks about. We all agreed that the town felt sterile, fake and weird. Mum later read that the whole town had been deliberately created with rich baby boomers looking to buy second homes or investment properties in mind, and that the planner and developers deliberately did not include any “affordable” or lower cost housing. There is this whole model of “time sharing” where you can buy a share in a property, but that share can be traded on the stock market. I don’t really understand. Mmm… confirmed our impressions really. You can’t expect to feel any sense of community in a place like that. On the way back home we stopped at my favourite pub - the Howe sound brewpub and all had wild game burgers and home-brewed beer before cruising back home.

On Thursday we went to Capilano suspension bridge. This is one of those touristy things that Jono and I had ALMOST been tempted to do, but it costs about $26, and we have a pretty cool suspension bridge near-by that is free, and equally stunning (just not as long or as high). But our free bridge does not come with rainforest tours and first nations people talking about their culture. I was glad to have let myself be taken along, and I leant a lot about the native forest. I now know how to identify fur, hemlock and red cedar trees. I also know why North Vancouver does not have many mosquitos - something I had wondered about ‘cause it is so wet here, and otherwise perfect mosquito habitat. Turns out there are these neat little native bats that live in dead logs or in the pockets of hemlock tree bark, and feed on bugs, particularly mosquitoes. I want to import them to Australia! We can have a bat version of the cane toad infestation! Ok, so that was a joke. Still. I am mightily impressed. I am also really impressed with this native plant called “skunk cabbage”. It has caught my eye several times, and I have included a few pictures of it already in this blog - it’s that bright green big leafy spinach type thing with yellow flowers. I think in the plant world it would rank the highest IQ possible. Not only does it smell bad to attract the bugs, in order to help it pollinate, it actually has a metabolic process that enables it to generate heat, and melt the snow around its roots, allowing it to survive year round, and also further attracting the bugs to its warm little mini eco-system. It can be up to 25 degrees Celsius among its leaves in the middle of a Canadian winter! That is truly amazing. Nature astounds me. Oh, and bears also like the roots of this plant. It is one of the first things they eat when they come out of hibernation, as it makes them throw up, and purge all the toxins that have been accumulating during hibernation. And what else - oh, yes, first nations people used the leaves to wrap up their salmon before cooking it, in order to seal in all the oils and juices. The bears have not yet twigged on this use though. Anyway - skunk cabbage - it does not sound amazing, but don’t judge a plant by its name.

By Friday we had managed to wear Dad out. At least that is what we thought, but it is now apparent that he has come down with some kind of stomach bug. But with Dad out of action, the girls went shopping at Granville Island Markets. We were actually very restrained and did not buy much at all, except food items that would be quickly consumed, and a hard earned beer by the water at the end of the day.

Saturday - I was back in the world of retail.

The days so far have been punctuated by Bob’s remarkable friendliness. I was embarrassed enough already by how often he has brought us berries and produce from his garden and fish that he or friends of his have caught… all I have managed so far in return has been one batch of choc-chip cookies. But he has upped the ante in the last few days, as excited as me, it seems to have my family here! In the space of five days he has dropped over two huge sides of (scrumptious) salmon and a big bag of blackberries.

Meanwhile Jono is off searching for diamonds, and trying to get fat on the ridiculously huge servings of food the fishing lodge serve him up each day.

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