…Boonies.
Much has changed since I last posted and I will fill in the details of all that has transpired in a future addition. For the time being I thought I would give you a glimpse of my new surroundings (click on images to see enlarged). (btw it took me hours to upload these photos via dial-up so you better click on them!).
I am fortunate enough to have landed a sweet job on an organic farm for the summer and possibly right into October. It is about 5 hrs from Vancouver in the interior of B.C., near a town called Salmon Arm in the North Okanagan Valley. I love the cool names for places in Canada. Some of my other favourites include; Squamish, Kamloops, The Similkameen Valley, Chilliwack, The Kootenays, Saskatoon in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nova Scotia and especially for Dodo; Shuswap… Shooshwap!
Salmon Arm is actually located at a small bay on Shuswap Lake. It is a truly beautiful area a little dryer than Vancouver but colder in winter and hotter in summer. My first week here was spent working in temperatures of high twenties to thirty, this is after it last snowed here only three weeks ago! There is still visible snow on some of the surrounding hills.
Here are some photos of the farm. In the far left of the panorama above is Herman on his tractor. Then there is my cabin, where i will be living for the next six months. They have a kitchen and bathroom set up in the farm shed opposite.
So I arrived here last Sunday night after a sojourn through the South Okanagan with Braleigh. She is originally from Summerland, a smallish town on Okanagan Lake. They grow a lot of fruit like peaches and cherries there. I said a sad goodbye (for now) to her and continued north to the farm. I was greeted by my new hosts Herman and Louise Bruns and their kids Ari and Elena. Herman is of German origin and Louise of British but they both grew up here. Herman still speaks German (and only German!) to the kids and they German back to him. The kids were home schooled for the first 5 years and are really switched on and polite. They go to regular school now (which for Ari is French immersion) but they get days off to help out on the farm. I would have killed for a few days off when I was at school!
It is thunder-storming as we speak, something I really missed in Vancouver, where they get none for some reason. It feels like summer already here. They grow a large range of Vegies, everything from Asparagus to Zuchini (I made up the Zuchini for effect). I started in the fields on Monday morning and was straight into it, picking Asparagus and planting corn. I met my work mates Cammie, Eric and Alisha. We are expecting another full time companion in the next few weeks. There is also Janet and Theresa who are only part time. The Bruns’ also have a dog called Shasta who looks suspiciously half grizzly half retriever, which is somewhat alarming, as I am sure the two don’t normally mix. Sometimes when she runs up to me I feel I am greeting and old friend but sometimes I feel like maybe I should play dead or run and climb a tree.
So this is Bear and Cougar country. That sounds pretty serious, and it is. However, as it has been rightly pointed out to me by numerous Canadians, that it is no scarier or more dangerous than crocodiles, great white, taipans or funnel web spiders. Little do these people know, I have never even sighted any of these creatures in my many years in Australia. Everybody thinks Australia is such a dangerous place to live. It must be those adds they made to keep illegal immigrants out. That and the stories I keep telling them about crocodiles, white pointers, red backs and white tails. I am yet to sight a Bear, or a Moose or a deer, or anything larger than a Raccoon. Skunks don’t even smell that bad, they just smell like… good skunk. Anyway, I was fairly terrified of the concept of coming across a bear even before I came to this place. Black bears are fairly common around here but they are not as dangerous as grizzlies, of which there is apparently one who reins over the mountain in behind the farm. I am no-longer scared of coming across these semi-carnivorous black furry beasts simply because I have now been introduced to the concept of the mountain lion or cougar. Why wasn’t I told about these things before I moved here? My first day out of Vancouver, me and Braleigh are walking along an old railway line in Summerland and I say “why don’t we go that way” pointing over a nearby hill. “Oh no”, she says, “there are cougars up there. God I am scared of bears but I am terrified of those… uugghh.” Since then every second person I meet, even the most seasoned locals say something along the lines of “Now a cougar, that’s a creature I would not want to come across”. Every body is terrified of these feline killing machines, but not one person I have spoken to has ever seen more than one of their tales disappearing through trees. That is not because they are not around mind you. Apparently they are so stealth-like that you just don’t know they are there. They even hide up in trees and pounce on the deer who roam wild in the forest. People generally don’t survive a cougar attack either. Great.
Despite the imminent threat of being mauled I went and stayed at a friend’s isolated cabin in the middle of the forest over the weekend. It was my first break from the farm since I arrived. My work colleague Cammie kindly offered to have me to stay and drive me around Salmon Arm the following day to run errands and do shopping. So I bought some gum boots in anticipation of the expected rain this week, and visited the local thrift store, ever a good source of cheap but slightly stylish old men’s clothing, perfect for farming. On Saturday night she had a few friends and my other work colleagues to the cabin for a Potluck. Now a Potluck is a fine Canadian tradition where every body turns up with a dish (often leftovers mind you) and after some perusing and enquiring on the nature of the meals, every body fills up a plate and bogs in. Obviously during the meal there is much more oohing and yuumming and compliments all round for the contributions. I have been to many Potlucks since I came to Canada and have met many great people as a result.
The next day Cammie and I took a short walk up and over the mountain and checked out the view of the valley.
If you look closely you can make out the farm in these photos. It is the little red house with the white greenhouses in front of it, beyond the bridge over the Shuswap River. We did hear something crashing through the trees at one stage on our walk but thankfully that was probably just a bear… or we would not have heard it at all…
by Salmon Armshall