The Chilcotin is unbelievable- I’ve made a really hard decision about next season that will have me working in Alberta again and I’m going to miss the interior surprisingly badly. Farwell Canyon and the Churn and all of my favorite little places in Williams Lake and Quesnel- the greatest talent you can have when you are almost permanently on the move is knowing the best places in each town. Best bookstore, best coffee, best eggs benny, best karaoke place, always measuring it up against home. I carry around a few hundred maps in my head and I just have to dust off my Grande Prairie/Grande Cache/Hinton map. Prairie Sushi with travel mugs full of sake, the weirdly good sushi place in the mountains in Grande Cache, the swanky liquor store near St.John’s ambulance with all the good gin, Homesteader Health for refills of amber solid perfume and nag champa and kombucha, the farmer’s market downtown, smoking rooms at the Prairie Haven. Lone Teepee (iykyk). I feel adrift sometimes but it becomes more and more clear to me every time I’m stationary for more than a week or two that the constant motion and desire to be on the move is at the heart of my being. Bus life has its downfalls but getting on a ferry to a Gulf Island for the herring run on a last minute whim in March is fairly spectacular.
I’m incredibly thankful for the last eight seasons and the extensive travel and adventuring I’ve had the chance to do all around Canada. I’ve seen and experienced so many bits of Canadiana that most people never will. Treeplanting itself is a Canadian right of passage. Dear everyone who ever told me that horseback riding and horse farm work and all my injuries would eventually catch up with me- as a person suffering from chronic pain in their early 30’s, YOU WERE RIGHT. I would love to still be able to be physically planting, but again, I’m grateful for this weird, niche collision of skills where I still get to be in camp, albeit cooking. I’m grateful for the life long friendships and the sense of self and validation I’ve gained in camp. Its a place where I’ve been able to be completely myself and make these incredibly close friendships I never would have otherwise. There’s a dose of reality in camp- best and worst. But you can’t really hide who you are and there’s a lot of mutual respect and love based on capability and understanding.
Best moments of 2022 in retrospect: driving down highway 20 toward Bella Coola on a break between spring and summer trees (so strange how life has taken on the rhythm of trees) when a herd of wild horses emerges from the trees and canter down the shoulder, so I slow Althea to a crawl and maybe shout out loud- “Oh!” These moments make it all come together. When we bump down 25km of washboard gravel to the lake and park looking out over the beach and the Charlotte alplands, remote rolling green topography and snowy mountains that the low clouds cast billowing, Biblical plays of shadow and light over, its discovery. Three days on the beach with beers and my dogs and the mountains, just swimming, sitting in my chair, sitting with myself and doing nothing except existing. This is especially glorious when it’s a break from camp cooking, when all you do is work or sleep and any personal time comes at the expense of sleep and there’s no time to catch up and it all just sort of spirals out of control and into unreality. This personal time is sacred.