Marg's Pick

 

 I awoke to the sound of rain. It had been raining all night.  No big surprises I suppose, as the rain had been almost non-stop this past June in British Columbia. A cool eleven degree breeze blew in from the open window.  No real reason to leap out of bed, after all it was Marg’s pick today.

   Back in the summer of 79, Jan and her university friend, Marg, had hopped a train from Toronto, heading west.  Visiting friends and family, they played their own version of trains, planes, and automobiles across Canada until they settled briefly in Vancouver. There they were joined by another friend, Wendy, and the threesome headed south to San Francisco to give California a look.

 As often happens when you are young, your pocket book begins to run out sooner than your spirit of adventure. They compensated by staying in “Flea Bag Inns” and subsisting on a diet of cheap cheeseburgers. Marg would frequently complain of having cheeseburger hands, a persistent odour from holding too many of them.

 At summer’s end Jan returned to Ontario to her teaching job. Wendy went back to Edmonton to her job with a TV station. Marg, who by this time was by far the most broke of the three, took a chance and went to Vancouver hoping to land a job. For a while, that job turned out to be a night clerk at a hotel. Enough  for a start that would enable her to eventually she became a community centre manager with the City of Vancouver.

  This past June found us in BC once again. Upon our arrival, we hauled our luggage up the front steps of Marg’s Burnaby condominium knowing that she wouldn’t be home until later. No worries.

We found the stashed key, crossed the threshold and headed for the kitchen. As the note said, there were munchies, a very well stocked wine rack and a fridge well stocked with craft beer. Craft beers are big in B.C., big enough that we had just missed The Vancouver Craft Beer Week, a regular “hopapalooza” with 60 participating breweries.  One look at all of the singles that occupied a complete shelf of Marg’s fridge made me feel that I hadn’t really missed out.

 I knew that if I scrounged around enough I would find a bottle of scotch. However it would be better to wait because Marg and I had a long history of sharing a dram or two.

 Our scotch sharing tradition cemented itself back in 1984 after what had been billed as a fun white water rafting trip down the Thompson River.  It started leisurely enough in the upper stretches that flowed through scenic desert canyons. Things began to change as swollen tributaries entered and brought the Thompson to flood levels.  The rapids became larger, but still fun. The mood began to change as we passed over the tree tops of an island that we were supposed to have stopped on for lunch.

 There were other rafting groups on the river, but most of them were professional enough to have a least one heavily motorized rescue raft plus a few kayaks for back up. We had nothing. We couldn’t just stop, as we were mostly in the middle of nowhere and the canyon walls were straight up.  A group ahead of us had to be helped by rescuers who had made their way down the cliffs. Our guides just decided to go for it.

  The raging water was creating its own whirl pools. Sometimes the water would be flat as if it were lying in wait. We had just gone over a flat section when we began to get drawn back.  We began to spin and slide towards a widening dark hole. The water tipped, forming a funnel and we began to descend. “Hang on, we’ll come up eventually!” yelled the guide and I immediately began to wonder how long “eventually” was.  Just as the front end was starting to be engulfed, the river seemed to lose interest in us and the whole thing began to flatten out. We paddled furiously as the guide rowed. We had just made it to the edge of the whirlpool’s influence when it started again. This time we broke free.

 Somewhere in the rapids of either the Devil’s Kitchen or the Witch’s Cauldron we got broadsided by a rogue wave that had been built up by the high waters and high winds bouncing off the canyon. The raft was pushed up to near perpendicular, causing people to be spilled down onto the people on the downward side or tossed right out into the rapids. When the raft righted itself it was full of water, making it really unstable, and there were people missing. Some of us tried to bail with a couple of buckets (“Bail for your life!” were the guide’s exact words shouted in my ear) while others reached out to those caught in the white water. 

 When the raft had tipped, its metal top frame had briefly separated from its rubber body leaving enough space for the arm of one young girl to slide through, but when the craft righted itself, the frame snapped back in tight, acting like a giant mouse trap. Now she was being dragged, her head just above the water while she was helplessly pinned to the raft. If she didn’t drown she would be bashed to death by the rocks. The guide and I were working together to try to lift up on the frame and down on the raft and slide her broken arm out.  We weren’t having any luck.  Although our guide was an experienced raftsman, he had never been dumped before. At one point I looked over to see the guide standing still holding her wrist with his left hand while holding a large knife in the other. I will forever be left wondering what he was thinking, as at that moment her fiancé, a chiropractor, scrambled over the side of the boat and joined us.  While the guide and I pushed down together on the raft, he was able to free her arm and haul her in, in one motion.

  Marg was the last to break the surface. She had been trapped under the raft.

  By the time all three rafts made it to the landing, everyone was completely wired. The company tried to calm everybody down by bringing down three cases of beer to the shore. Marg would have none of it. We went straight to the nearest hotel and ordered scotch. Then we ordered more scotch.  We’ve shared a scotch each time we’ve gotten together ever since.

  So, by the time our feet hit the floor that rainy morning, in-laws Mary Lou and Bryon, along with Jan and myself, had already completed our “2012 Tour of Vancouver Island’. Jan and I were back at Marg’s, and Mary Lou and Bryon had stayed over in a hotel and had given themselves but one day to see some of Vancouver. There could be no better guide than Marg.

 Over coffee she scrutinized weather reports from online sites and the newspaper and the TV weather channel until she found a somewhat optimistic forecast to plan our day around. A brief in-car tour of the Olympic Village proved to be enough to soak up the rest of the morning’s rain, so we headed off to the Vancouver Aquarium. This place is going to be busy no matter when you go but today was the start of all of the summer day camps and it seems that every darn one of them had booked into the Aquarium to kick off their programmes. It was jammed. I was on a bus in Beijing in rush hour once that was slightly more crowded but that would be it. The 4D movie, the beluga show, the penguin display, the Rainforest room, were all “enjoyed” while we were being pressed on all sides by kids who had just escaped the confines of the classroom for the unbridled noisy freedom of the day camp. Looking at the faces of the young camp leaders I figured that they’d all be full blown alcoholics by the end of the summer.  I started to get to the point where I was willing to pay more to leave than I did to get in when Marg declared that our time allotment here was over.

  Next came a driving tour of the Stanley Park seawall with lots of stops for photo opportunities and “lupper” at Prospect Point – a beautiful setting, and salmon burgers all around.

 Being practical she next included a stop at Everything Wine so that we could all stock up. Like the name indicates, there are lots and lots of choices to be made here and choose away we did.

   The real find of the day turned out to be a trip to Deep Cove. The drive wasn’t far as it is on the east side of North Vancouver but the change in scenery and mood was amazing.

A lot of what makes this place unique is that the town must accommodate the steep slope of the foot of Mount Seymour.  An eclectic mix of housing styles is also designed to incorporate the numerous streams that come raging down the mountain. The water can be found tumbling under anything from dens to car ports. 

The houses that are nearest the shore have driveways that go up to the road at dizzyingly steep grades. I couldn’t imagine having good enough brakes and fast enough reflexes to avoid driving through the garage door and out the other side. An ascent up to the road would require an extra low gear even on a rain or frost free day. If this was Ontario you would be stuck at the bottom of your driveway for 10 months of the year.

  The harbour is a great place for a walk as you will get to do lots of people watching. A large group was having a BBQ.  Two people were getting deliberately overturned into the cold sea water during their kayak lesson while another person blasted by practicing an Olympic kayaking sprinting style.  Several people were mucking about on their sail boats and the Rowing Club was having a gathering.

 The town is an interesting walk in itself and if you are a mountain bike enthusiast you might want to stop in at The Deep Cove Bike Shop which is credited as being the shop responsible for bringing the first mountain style bikes to Vancouver.  Their web site is quite interesting to boot if you are a fan of the sport.  

 All this walking around made Bryon and I hungry for a little snack before dinner so we headed over to Deep Cove Pizza. This is not your usual slab of bland cheap cheeses with the same old toppings. These people use ingredients fresh enough that you can taste the difference and have a good stable of interesting choices like “Patate Con Aglio-Crumbled feta, thinly sliced potatoes, white onions, split garlic roasted to perfection, fresh rosemary and crushed black peppercorns”.

By the time we had finished enjoying our pizza al fresco, the clouds and fog had thinned and the sun was in full retreat. Marg had one last pick. “Let’s go home and start drinking some of that wine we bought today.”  Good choice, Marg. Good choice. 

Panorama photo of Deep Cove courtesy of Bryon Monk