BC Gold Rush excitement

At 9am this morning there was a knock at the door and a film crew of five tromped in, armed with tripods, cameras, lights, baffles (and Purdy's chocolates).  Turns out, the Royal BC Museum in Victoria is creating an exhibit about the BC Gold Rush and, for this, had asked if they could come and interview Cole as part of a 15-minute film.  I was expecting one interviewer and one camera-man.  But no.  What with camera-men, interviewer, producer, script-writer, and curator, I think there were seven.  Then where to film?  Cole rather favoured the nook, but when we saw all the stuff ...!  Even the living room barely held it all.

My large harp wheeled out, the furniture shifted ...

… even the piano - and a movie set was created

The professor, in his favourite Ottawa-Valley chair, ready to talk ...

… then, pouring over Mike Kennedy's map of Chinese placer mining sites in the Fraser Canyon (in "BC Studies")

Not sure what they will make of Cole's talk, but, eavesdropping from out-of-sight in the back hall, I found it fascinating.  Cole just knows this time and place, and can put his thoughts into such good words.  I love it!  I always learn stuff.  Today, for example, that there were only about 200 non-native people on the BC mainland before the gold rush (in 1857) - mostly fur-traders.  Then came 25,000-30,000 men in 1858, mostly from California.  Mainland BC was not yet a British colony, but the Colonial Office in London acted fast and created the Crown Colony of British Columbia that year, pre-empting annexation by the US.  One consequence was that the eastern "Canadians" could now see the possibility of a trans-continental country.

Phew.  Wiltshire Street is now restored to its usual tranquil state.  I was told the exhibit opens in Victoria in May, runs through the summer, then goes to the Museum of History in Ottawa.  May see it there!

Sunday game

A beautiful Sunday afternoon for a field hockey game - UBC versus Jokers.  Rowan and team-mates - Rachel, field-player-Gabby (as opposed to goalie-Gabby) and Sophie (or her twin, Amy?) in goal for a short-corner.  UBC eked a 1-0 win from a penalty shot.  Doco and I and a few other proud parents were "the crowd".

Protest

"Save the Sacred Headwaters.  We all live downstream!"

Thursday found Doco and me at our first-ever protest - on Hornby Street, outside the head office of Imperial Metals, owners of the proposed Red Chris open-pit copper mine in the large alpine basin that is the headwaters of three major rivers in Northern BC - the Stikine, the Skeena, and the Nass.  Imperial Metals is the same company whose tailings-dam at the Mount Polley copper/gold mine burst last August, dumping tailings into Quesnel Lake, feeding into the Fraser River.  The Sacred Headwaters region is unceded Native land - Tahltan.  A coalbed-methane-gas fracking project proposed for the Sacred Headwaters was cancelled in 2012 after two years of blockades.  Last summer, Fortune Minerals started work on a huge coal mine in the same area, and blockading Tahltan elders were arrested.  Thursday's demonstration was to protest the granting, to Imperial Metals by the BC Government, of permission to start mining, dumping tailings into a tailings pond like that at Mount Polley.  No one from Imperial Metals appeared.  Hmm …  I wonder what they thought.

Two-thirds Unitarians, one-third Aborigines, 80 or so in all

"Fish" and her mother hold up (for 2  hours)
"IMPERIAL METALS,  NO MORE"
Lots of honks and waves.

But the best part - "the Raging Grannies"
with their glorious hats and their version of "this land is your land … '"
Shall I join them?

P.S. Wade Davis published "The Sacred Headwaters" in 2012.  I think I'll look for it.
P.P.S.  Forgot to say that I got there because of playing my harp in Susie's recorder group!  We had to stop early because my friend Joane was going and I joined her.  These recorder players!

DIana's birthday shenanigans

A perfect day for a January birthday.  A Saturday.  Only a little rain.  And the first day of Celtic Traditions January Sale!   Damage done.  For Diana a gorgeous Yorkshire "Buttercup" cardigan (modelled below).   For me a repeat purple-Harley-pullover.  (You never know when you may need a new copy of your favourite sweater, and chances are, when I've gone through the elbows, had them patched, and then gone through the patches, Michael won't be able to get my favourite sweater anymore.)

where I'm spending much of Thursdays this winter -
harp lesson in the afternoon, Celtic session in the evening

Next, to Spanish Banks for a walk along the beach with the Saturday strollers and joggers, and the winter ducks - mostly out of my camera range, but an obliging flock of widgeons bobbed up and down on the waves just off-shore.

And to top off the day, Rowan was free (after her indoor hockey game) for a birthday sushi
supper with Diana, Doco and me in front of the fire.

"My corner" of UBC

On Wednesday afternoon, back on campus for the first time in a month, I found my corner of UBC (as seen from my home in the Wesbrook Building, at the corner of University Boulevard and East mall) to be in more of a mess than ever.  This corner has been a construction zone my whole life at UBC.  I thought that, when the Bookstore rebuilding was finished in the summer, at least this part of the corner would be calm.  But no.  Today, outside my window, they have the entire street dug up - between the Bookstore and the Wesbrook Building.  They are putting new hot-water-heating pipes throughout the campus (replacing the ancient steam-heating system) and I guess it's our turn this month.  A big job!  Students-and-all stream in and out of the Bookstore in a narrow path between wire fences.  And the opposite corner, across University Boulevard, is still a major construction site - the nearly-complete Alumni Centre and Student Union Building.  They have also begun dismantling Empire Pool and have construction underway all around it.  Funny thing is it all feels quite normal.  I figure that by the time I finally "retire" everything will be done and all beautiful.   Will I recognize it?

Wesbrook Building, itself quite tranquil -
 until they start the renovations before Biology joins us

Views from Wesbrook, left to right ...

Michael Smith Building, with pipes

Bookstore and Chemistry from the Wesbrook steps

Alumni Centre behind the fence

In the gap, a flagperson tries to keep walkers and construction apart 

Corners of the almost-done Alumni Centre and Student Union Building
with a start on Empire Pool demolition in the distance

Then, as Diana and I were walking in a mob of students past all this mess, whom should we meet but Rowan (no photo).  What are the chances of that?  Diana figures that next year, on one "bad day", Rowan could run into her grandfather, grandmother, godmother, uncle, and aunt!

… and back with the Vancouver Unitarians

Back in Vancouver and right away back into the Unitarian community.  No market until June, but Cole is in charge of the opening words for today's service and here are his words:

"Good morning and welcome to the Unitarian Church of Vancouver.   My name is Cole Harris, and I am a member of the Worship Committee.   My wife Muriel and I have been away for the last six weeks, visiting family in Oxford, Ottawa and Montreal, and although we have had a wonderful time with children and grandchildren, I want to say how pleased we are to be back in this city, back among this congregation.  In Montreal three days ago, the early morning temperature was – 27 degrees Celsius.  Here jasmine and witch-hazel are in bloom.   In Oxford we were enmeshed in the rich, many-centuries-long texture of that wonderful place.   The night before we left, we attended evensong in Christ Church College cathedral: glorious early gothic architecture, glorious English male choral music, a service theologically unchanged, as far as I could judge, since the Council of Nicaea early in the fourth century AD.  Sitting there amid all that inherited beauty and theological rigidity, I though that one can be too pressed in upon by the past.  I thought of this church, of its open, experimental architecture, of its open, experimental congregation, and was sure that, in many ways, the advantage lies with us.   It is good to be back." 

UCV, half an hour beforehand - musicians getting sorted in one corner
Doco and today's speaker in the other 

Lily and Alice selling mushrooms at the market table last July
(photo from Rachel)

from Montreal to Vancouver

off to school in Montreal, Jan 7 ...
(beauty in the snow, at 15 below)

… back home in Vancouver, Jan10
(the first witch hazel coming into bloom)

Luckily for us, our plane was only an hour-and-a-half late leaving Montreal, and got us (Diana, Doco and Meo) to Vancouver at midnight on Jan 8th.  AND Rowan was there to meet us!!!