North to Alaska

Today was really an administrative kind of day. After breakfast we got on our bus for the last time and headed for the shipping terminus. A walk, followed by a seated waiting time, a check in, followed by a walk, followed by security, followed by another walk, and a long wait in a queue for the Americans to approve our entry, then another walk and a second time in a seated waiting area. Another hour and we were permitted to cross the gangplank of the Island Princess. We had arrived.

It didn't take us long to find our cabin which is quite comfortable and has a balcony. I had hoped for a starboard side cabin and got a port, but if I want to see the other side there are plenty of places to grab a comfy seat and watch the world go by. We did sail by a large pile of yellow material on a dock. This was sulphur. It is exported in some quantity for chemical and manufacturing purposes.

We both settled in to our cabin and checked out its features, including the safety message on the TV. This will mean nothing to the younger generation, but those who remember the 70s TV series "The Love Boat" would be amazed that they have found so many of the original cast still alive. Captain Stubbing, his daughter Vicky, Isaac the bartender, and Doc explained what to do if the ship starts to sink, backed by a Jack Jones impersonator singing the classic show theme. I'm not sure if I remember the safety drill, but the presentation is burned in my memory.

We had a practice emergency drill then set about finding the restaurants and shops. The Casino was ghastly as all casinos are and I will happily give it a wide berth. The outside swimming pool area has an enormous screen for showing movies at night. It blared away most of the day so I didn't wait there. I found a quiet lounge deck with lounge chairs looking out over the ocean and we parked ourselves there to watch the ship leave harbour. It was very relaxing. Unfortunately, the smoke from the fires hangs heavily over the ocean here and the coastline was barely visible. Being from Belgrave, we fully understand the notion of fire and I have only sympathy for the people. What had been a glorious day with unexpectedly warm and clean air, had become laden with a brown haze as the smoke wafted through from the fire zone. It is some distance from us, so we are in no danger at all.

As we sat and watched the world go by, we contemplated what would go into today's blog. We began making a list of the things that had been left out from earlier days, because of space or time, and felt that today' s entry would certainly give us this good catch up time. So here we go.

1. The slug we mentioned yesterday was more interesting than Ross led me to believe. It turns out that this 30 cm yellow slime creature has 20 thousand teeth! That seems extremely excessive to me. It would make being a dentist to slugs a highly lucrative business. Additionally, its slime is so thick that the creature can ooze across a sharp knife without cutting itself. This didn't surprise me so much. The relative size of the slug and the knife would have meant that knife would not have been a issue, but the guide felt it necessary to stress this.

2. The original owner of the Capilano Park was a First Nations man. He and his family were well established. His mother, a woman in her 90s would go fishing each day, then paddle her catch across the waters to the village to sell. This caused concern for her family. She was getting too old. So one day they took her canoe away from her. She was not pleased! That canoe has now disintegrated but a similar replacement has been made and is now on display. It is still amazing to think such a thing could be made with such primitive tools and that a 90 plus year old woman could manage this heavy object all by herself. After all it was made from a hollowed out tree.

3. This part of Canada is heavily treed. At first it looks like pine trees everywhere but if you pause by the side of the road or rail line you can see as many as six or seven different kinds of conifer leaf or needle. The tree that has been attacked by the voracious beetle is called the Lodge Pole Pine, presumably after the use it was put to by the early settlers. It is still the one most harvested because it is so straight. After that there are other forms of pine, fir, spruce and then there are other, deciduous trees. Some stand straight and tall with upward pointing branches while others, with a more silvery foliage drape down and are more fullsome in their coverage. They are clearly firs because they are so much like the Christmas tree. Others have thicker trunks, more sparse foliage and a spreading habit in their branches. They look to be spruce.

At lower altitudes we see lots of silver birch and aspen. These are a strong contrast to the darkness of the conifers. They have white and silvery trunks and light green leaves. In some places there is the hint of change in their colour as they begin their autumnal phase. The leaves flutter and shimmer in the lightest breeze like nervous butterflies. When individuals of these varieties poke their heads through the dark conifers they create a striking contrast.

Other trees in the region include the Western Red Cedar. Some claim it to be the Provincial Tree. This tree is highly regarded as a forested product and also by the indigenous people who called it the tree of life because they used it to make canoes, instruments, baskets, blankets and even 'diapers'. It drinks five bathtubs full of water a day to survive.

The hemlock tree is nothing like the hemlock plant that killed off old Socrates. This one is used as a medicinal tree and provides a tea that is considered good for people to drink. Socrates should have chosen this one over the other.

A Douglas Fir in Capilano Park was 205 feet high, 20 feet in circumferance and was considered to be somewhere between 400 and 800 years old. But the biggest tree in this park was the Western Maple which is somewhere between 800 and 1200 years old. They cannot be more precise than that without either drilling a hole in the tree or cutting it down, neither of which they are prepared to do. This means that this tree may well have been around at the time of the collapse of the Roman Empire. Quite remarkable.

There are many kinds of maple too. The Eastern maple is the one represented on the Canadian flag. It also produces the better maple syrup. The tree produces sugars in its sap to combat the cold and to stop the sap from freezing and killing the tree. We tap this sap, catch it in a bucket then heat it to remove any nasties. It is absolutely delicious. The Western maples come in different leaf types from the large, broad faced leaf to the smaller, narrower leaf similar to the oriental maple. These types still produce the syrup but it is not as sweet because the climate is not as cold.

4. Water. The people here keep telling us about the lack of water they have been experiencing. This too must be relative. Just about everywhere we have been there are lakes, rivers, ponds, bogs and puddles, rushing, drifting, seeping or just lying there, wet and soggy. Some of the bog lands were the work of beavers, but much of the water is naturally what is there as part of the regular environment. Certainly, there was the dry area around Kamloops where the sage brush is prolific and the occasional lawn showed signs of drying off after the summer sun, but everything else looked very lush.

5. Totem poles. These are not religious as the first missionaries thought, but memorials, or family crests, humorous jokes or statements of important events or stories. The story concept is the most frequent. One story we heard was of a giant who discovered an interest in eating young human flesh. He stole two children and began preparing to eat them. The parents of the children were not happy about this and rescued their children from the giant. To punish the giant they set fire to it and killed it. Bits of the flesh of the giant flew up into the air, getting lighter and lighter until they turned into the mosquitoes which came back down in vast quantities to sting and feed on the humans. The moral, we are told, is that we need to be careful of the consequences of our actions. All our best intentions may have consequence we cannot foresee and which we may live to regret. I don't think we should read this as a need to feed children to giants to avoid annoying insects, because I think we would regard that as not good, no matter the outcome. If the giant had liked the taste of children then the consequences may have been more dire.

Totem poles are the art form of the coastal peoples and are relatively recent in their history. Missionaries mistook the poles as idols and persuaded, cajoled, forced the people to destroy them. This was probably not so absolutely terrible because, being made of wood and kept outside, they were going to rot. The real problem was in refusing to allow them to build any more. The art very nearly died out. A few elders were able to pass on the craft and now there is a resurgence in their creation. It has been appropriated by more and more regions, probably because of the tourist trade, but at least the knowledge is active and being passed on, even if it is not by the original creators.

The notion that the bottom of the totem pole is the lowest rank is, in fact, quite wrong. The most important is at the bottom, at eyeline, where everyone can see and admire the handiwork. The top can be done with a little less accuracy or flair because almost no-one would see it. Something to remember when using that aphorism in the future.

This brings us to the end of the day. We had dinner in the Bordeaux Restaurant with some other folk from the tour, then hit bed, ready for a lovely night's sleep. The bed is very cushiony. I am hoping it will be cosy and restful. Tomorrow I hope to be able to wake up to see some of the islands as we pass through the straits.

We understand that wifi is well nigh impossible on board unless you go to the internet cafe where they charge a dollar a minute. I will upload and check emails in rapid time today.Read more