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5th Oct 2005
Cowichan Bay
Wednesday 5th
Not a massively inspiring day; raining outside and the usual procession of joggers, power walkers, itinerants, dog walkers and as Anne observed, a gorilla. All looked decidedly bedraggled. Consequently I decided to catch up on a serious internetting this morning … catching up on various e-mails, checking out a few references but we finally underway down the town via Fisherman’s wharf at about 10 o’clock. Drove out along the south coast of the island watched turnstones, black oystercatcher and harlequin ducks around the rocks, saw some of the emerging and obviously very expensive houses with sea-frontage and then came inland at UVic and took Highway 1 up towards Nanaimo with the intention of getting to Duncan ‘City of Totems’.
It didn’t quite go according to plan; one turn too early and we took the (very) scenic route through Cowichan Bay gazed longingly at the pier and the fish and chip shops but pressed on with Totems in mind. It soon became apparent that the people sign posting the tourist trail had lost interest after Cowichan … and we then discovered that we only had a very mickey-mouse map supplied with the car. After half an hour we had to cut the losses and get back for a fish supper on the quay.
Cowichan was a busy little place even at this time of year and people we spoke to testified to the fact that this was very quiet. They were all really friendly; the lady who was selling fresh fish, the lady in the book shop and the native artist in the boat shed at the Maritime Centre.
Herb Rice, carver of masks and plaques, looks like a native Indian but his manner and accent indicated he had travelled widely and had no hang-ups. His market aside of the odd tourist plaque of ravens or bald eagles or salmon seemed to be bespoke panels for the wealthy … and I should think he makes a fortune on this.
Aside in his workshop were two full sized doors, made from yellow cedar panels with a frame of Douglas. The Douglas was remarkable and it was this that sparked the conversation; the grain was so tight, and very obviously different to the usually available timber that I asked what it was. Herb described it first as ‘Douglas’ but when I pressed him, he described it as ‘old growth Douglas’ in explanation of the tight grain. I can imagine it is the best of materials to work with. The grain spacing was approximately 1mm apart and the frames six inches by two.
He makes his own tools, relying mostly on a short knife with which to pare the timber away in slivers. Its quite a fine steel blade set into a handmade, rough (probably yellow cedar) handle.
Alongside him in the workshop there was a traditional boat building ‘programme’ or course under way with a number of students working with a boatbuilder to produce a little pram-nosed dinghy … it looked like larch or pine perhaps on oak. Quite strangely they were building it inverted, with the keel secured at the top of a series of cut sections and were working down either side, measuring out the planks in pairs as they went.
The exhibit out on the pier showed contained a series of archive photographs of Cowichan during its pioneer and logging days and also an exhibit of various styles of boat and outdoor motor. Right there occupying one of the cases was a ‘British Seagull 40+’ outboard of the same vintage and style as we have at home with all the history noted alongside.
We ate at the Cod Rock Café; a huge bowl of fresh halibut, with prawns and clams served with fries and coleslaw made up a dish called ‘The Mates Plate’… all for about a fiver.
With my meeting back at UVic looming we jumped into the car and set off back down the road arriving at just about 3 o’clock.
Anne at this point headed off for the bus as she wanted to check out the quilts and samplers at the museum of BC and I went in to meet up with Graham (self confessed computer geek) who is applying various methods to try to register oblique archive photographs on to GIS and Trudi, the Rocky Mountain project photographer and PhD student studying aspects of Visual Anthropology (ask away … I had to!).
It was a useful meeting. We were joined at some point by Eric who was generally busy with meetings and builders etc etc and also by Adrienne who is another of the masters students.
I got a sift through the technological work of the project and the most amazing scans and re-takes which they are accumulating ... and managing
Eric had left a message back at the hotel for us, which of course we hadn’t received inviting us over for supper, which was really kind and I accepted on the proviso that I would link up again with Anne before we were due to convene.
I stayed at the department until just after 5 and gained some really useful knowledge.
Back through the late afternoon traffic to the hotel and found Anne who had received the general gist of the message but had failed to grasp that it was supposed to happen in 20 minutes time! A bit of a scramble and at 6pm we swung in by the liquor store to purchase a contribution to the proceedings … except it closed at 5:59:59 and although the guy was cheerily tilling up inside, he wasn’t about to respond to me hammering on the door like an alchy.
Had a great evening with Eric and Stephanie and for half of it, two year old Logan … who was a remarkable little chap for his age.
We got back to the hotel at about 9.45.
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