San Juan County

I have had a very pleasant stay on Saturna Island. Saturna island is the way I thought all Gulf Islands should be. It is fairly sparsely populated with 60 percent of the island owned by Parks Canada. As it is much more sparsely populated than the other Gulf Islands, I had to travel from Pender back to Schwartz Bay to get there. It took all day. I did have a very interesting conversation with a Russian man from Vladistock Russia who now is a first engineer on the large ferry that runs from Sidney to Vancouver.

I was very fortunate to have stayed my 4 nights at the Saturna Lodge a boutique hotel on the island. I had tried to book at the Breezy Bay BnB but they took 6 weeks to get back to me which I thought was a bad sign. I went and checked it out and it wasn't as nice as the Saturna despite having a nicer website. The power of the internet to distort reality. Laura who runs and owns the lodge is a fire cracker of a person. She has endless energy. Originally from Surrey she had worked in the tech sector in Seattle and San Francisco. She drives a Lexus convertible. About six years ago Laura purchased the place and has been upgrading it. She has obviously brought some more worldly ideas to the lodge and island. I wonder if she has ruffled some feathers of the people on the island in doing so. The Saturnia that I have met seem to be moving much slower than Laura. I really wonder the motivation behind people who after retiring from one career take on the the responsibility of running such a place. Laura strikes me as someone who can't sit still.

My first evening on the island I bicycled out to Narvaez Point which was about an hour away from Saturna Lodge. I met Ida a BCIT student from Guelph Ontario heading out on her bike to Narvaez bay. It was nice to have some one to bike with and talk to. At the point, I left Ida and wandered around. It was very scenic. It looked like a farm had been located there at one time. No whales. I biked back through the forest to the lodge.

On my second day on Saturna, I biked out to the east point about 18 k from the lodge. It took me about 1.5 hours. The point is the location of a lighthouse and is now a Parks Canada site. They had two of the red parks Canada chairs. I told a woman who had a place on the island and came and sat beside me that it would make my day if I saw a whale. She thought that I had a slight chance. The point is supposedly known for whales but having biked by many whale watching signs I have become skeptical that one would ever see a whale from such a location. She left and I sat reading my book in the red chair. After a while I noticed a flotilla of boats off shore. The chairs were located in the shade next to a building converted into a small museum. They loaned out binoculars which I borrowed and off in the distance I could make out Hump back whales surfacing and blowing in the water. They were quite far off but just the same I saw some whales. Some people asked me what type they were. I told them I was from Alberta and that I had no idea. The boats left and I lost interest. I wandered the point a little and then came back to sit in the chair. It was occupied so I sat on a nearby bench and started reading my book again. After about 15 minutes someone shouted Orcas. I jumped up and there were four Orca whales swimming and surfacing only 25 metres off shore. In my excitement, I forgot to start the video on my phone and only caught literally the tail end them with my camera. It was spectacular. The world was finally coming to me. I continued sitting there hoping they would come back. They never did but a Bald Eagle carrying a huge fish flew over. A navy frigate went by and a helicopter flew over very low. It was my most exciting day of the trip.

My third day of the trip I had booked another little kayak trip. When I turned up at 1 I was the only person booked on the trip. Their policy was to take the tour even if only one person was booked. It was very pleasant to be back on the water paddling and seeing the shore from the kayaks. Cedric my guide from Victoria was pleasant to chat with. Very strangely he had never heard of the Alberta oilsands. I thought he was pulling my leg at first but no it was for real.

My last day on the island was my hiking day. Laura gave me a ride up War Burton ridge. The ridge went along the entire length of the south island and commanded wonderful views looking out over Pender Island. I walked along the ridge pretty well the entire way to Narvaez bay before catching a fire road back to the road which I had to walk on to get back.It was still early in the afternoon. I met some people at the grocery store who were heading out to east point. I had nothing to do so I caught a ride with them back to east point seeing that I had such an exciting time there before. When I was out on east point I saw some hump back whales but they were farther off in the distance then Friday and with the binoculars you could just make them out spouting. I started discussing books with a couple of American women who had retired to Mexico. They didn't like visiting the states. They were up visiting their friends who had retired to Victoria from the US foreign service. They were good enough to give me a ride back in their little Honda Civic. They all detested Donald Trump.

I have spent so much time on these Gulf Islands alot of it by myself that I am starting to feel like a modern day Robinson Crusoe. I am also starting to have some pretty unusual thoughts. Things I never thought about when I was at home in Alberta. I have been thinking that perhaps global warming is real. I sometimes think that we should be burning less carbon and that a carbon tax would be a good idea. I know these are crazy ideas but I can't stop thinking about them. Maybe when I get back to Alberta I will need some type of government counseling. Would conversion therapy work to rid oneself of these environmental ideas. Maybe that is why the province of Alberta won't get rid of it.

I am now off to Saltspring Island to visit our friends Rob and Norma. I always tell Rob and Norma that they have the best Air BnB on the island so I am looking forward to the visit.

I have read another 2.5 books since my last update. I read Tara Westover's biography about growing up with a dysfunctional survivalist Mormon family and about her difficulty letting go of the family despite their significant dysfunction. I read a book called Bad Blood about a start up company called Theranos in Palo Alto California who had tricked people into believing that they had developed a method of laboratory testing only requiring a pinprick of blood. Through business and political connections, legal threats and a dynamic president known as Elizabeth Holmes and intimidation, they were able to maintain this serade for ten years before being exposed by a writer for the WSJ. They were able to raise 900 million dollars from investors. It was a very well written book. Finally I am working my way through the book called Wilding. The book is about rewilding an estate in Sussex. Rewilding is letting the land revert to it's original form which allows the return of natural plant and animal species. It is what I believe my neighbours are doing in Edmonton. I always thought they were too busy to do yard work however having started to read the book I believe that they are just rewilding their property by letting all the weeds grow even if some of the weeds are invasive non resident species. In fact they are so successful with rewilding their property that they were able to attract a family of skunks to live under their porch. My other neighbour Synovia was quite upset with the skunks but hopefully when I loan her the book on my return she will understand the wisdom of rewilding. I see my role in the neighbourhood as that of a peacekeeper.Read more