In Pursuit of Pipsissewa

Deprived by Covid-19 of a 2020 sojourn at beloved 'Bigadore' in Cape Breton, I seek distractions that might ease the sting of the loss. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia's cherished chief medical officer, tells us to stay close to home, abjure unnecessary travel, and adjust ourselves to near horizons. I try to do my bit but after a hundred days and more of the new regime I admit to chafing at being confined within a walkable radius of our Ontario Street shack, especially since the crown jewel of Victoria's city parks—Beacon Hill Park—is ever more being taken over by people in tents—the homeless and perhaps others who like the prospect of no-cost camping in blithe surroundings.

I leapt at the prospect of teaming up with Jan and best-buddies Mary and Mike for a grail quest requiring the use of motor vehicle and the burning of fossil fuel. Yes, a departure from strict adherence to Dr Bonnie's prescription but a fellow can take only so much confinement.

The subject of our grail quest was flowers, yes, flowers. Wildflowers to be specific, ones that were pretty much strangers to all of us.

Starting at 0630 hours we made an early stop at Goldstream Park. None of the tenters domiciled at the park campground were yet out of their sleeping bags but the musical accompaniment provided by the dawn chorus of birds was well underway—varied thrush, olive-sided flycatcher and that most sublime of our woodland songsters, Swainson's thrush. Just a few days before, Mary and Mike had spotted two flower species new to them and to us—the lovely pink wintergreen and gnome-plant, the latter a pale oddball that makes its way in life by attaching its roots to self-sufficient plants and stealing some of their nutrients. Now they were in full bloom.

The main thoroughfare running north-south in our James Bay neighbourhood is Menzies Street. The name honours a Scots scientist of the 18th Century, Archibald Menzies, who made a name for himself as ship's taxonomist on George Vancouver's expedition to our part of the world in 1792. I have become something of a Menzies fan: I decided that before shuffling off this mortal coil I had to see the last of the west-coast plants named for the eminent Dr. Menzies. The very last happened to be beguilingly-named Pipsissewa—a word adapted from the Cree original—whose taxonomic handle is Chimaphila umbellata. 

Mary, our intrepid floral researcher, had found evidence that pipsissewa had lately been spotted close to the Koksilah River. That is where we headed next and it was there, by the rushing Koksilah, that Mary spotted the first of a gang of C. umbellata. Now I have to admit that the little flower is just that, a mere flower, and not a big showy one at that, but I couldn't have been happier had I been given ironclad cosmic assurances that Donald Trump will be tossed from the Oval Office come November.

Further downstream the river is crossed by the Koksilah Trestle, one of the world's tallest, most spectacular timber rail trestles. The chugging steam locomotives are of course long gone, but the trestle was well restored a decade ago and now attracts tourists keen to imagine a bygone era and to marvel at what could be achieved a century ago by the hand of man.

Our happy quartet made its way to Bright Angel Park where a picnic table in the shade provided the venue for a fine lunch of sandwiches, fresh fruit and—best of all—an array of licorice allsorts. A narrow pedestrian suspension bridge crosses the Koksilah a short distance from the picnic table. The little bridge does not impersonate terra firma. We staggered and slewed like drunks to the other side, cast eyes upward to the tops of towering red-cedars and sought to keep safely distanced from the families drawn on a hot day to the river's cooling pools.

Close enough to hear the roar of traffic on the bypass highway at Nanaimo,  Harewood Plains—a 'lifer' for all of—is one of a handful of sites in BC where one can hope to see Lotus pinnatus—meadow birdsfoot trefoil. We found all the trefoil we could possibly want to admire, and a host of other flowering lovelies: nodding onion, yellow monkey-flower, crown brodiaea,

I find I have something in common with birds: we tend to like the same places. Though it was now late afternoon the meadows at Harewood were alive with bird song—black-headed grosbeak, white-crowned sparrow, house wren. A garter snake soaking up sunshine tolerated my close approach to take its portrait. Turkey vultures drifted overhead, perhaps waiting for one of us to expire. Lovely.

The only flaw in a splendid day with good friends was that it came to an end. Ah well, enough of these and I might just survive a summer without the restorative charms of Boularderie Island.

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To see an array of images from the day's adventures go here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/bigadore/albums/72157714782795898