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.

***

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

Munn Road Melody

In these horizon-foreshortened days of both voluntary and mandatory isolation, peregrinations are necessarily more local than they once were. Our trusty Vibe sits idle most days and when we do start it up, it is only to drive a short distance. This being the first week of May, Munn Road beckoned. We drive there to park at a pullout under the hydro line that separates Francis-King and Thetis Lake parks. The powerline and adjacent parkland are an excellent place to see and hear returning migrant songbirds in these early days of a new breeding season. 

Jan and I get going early, arriving at 0517 hours to take in the dawn chorus. The day starts with a bang: distracted by the imminent excitement, I crush my left thumb in the car door, something I'd have preferred not to do. Oh well, even with a battered thumb, I cannot think of anywhere I'd rather be on the fourth of May than in the woods and open places on either side of Munn Road under that powerline. To be there with my better half.

Long ago, in the early-mid 1980s my excellent birding pals, Ron Satterfield and Bruce Whittington, could be persuaded to join me in a birding 'Big Day', an all-out effort to find as many bird species by sight and sound as we could squeeze into a very long day, twenty hours or thereabouts. Even at the time, in my mid-30s I knew what boon companions I had. I cherished them. With the benefit of hindsight my view of them is burnished that much more. I drove my friends hard. If a coterie of birder pals want to see 130 kinds of birds on south Vancouver Island they have to take the enterprise seriously. They did.

I loved Ron Satterfield. I use the past tense because Ron is departed. Gone four years now. Bruce and I were in our mid-30s back then, Ron past 60. Many years after we'd given up the Big Day game, I told my old pal that I felt a little regret about how hard I'd driven him back when. The Great Satterfield asserted that no regret was necessary. He said those times were some of the best of his long, rich life. I knew he meant it.

So yesterday when Jan and I revisited Munn Road for another session of hardcore birding, I was flooded with memories of days gone by, of Ron and Bruce, and all the adventures the powerline delivered when two of the trio were still young and one, not so young, was as intrepid as ever. Two sorts of peregrination unfolded yesterday: the literal kind and the time-travel variety a trip to Munn Road invariably sets in motion.

In a 1980s-era Big Day, after several hours listening for owls in the dark, the trio would typically welcome dawn at Munn Road. There was no time to squander, we would dash into the powerline, keen of eye and ear, and come out an hour or so later fifty species to the good. 

When Jan and go into the powerline now we do not dash. There are no other stops to worry about. The modern version of a May Big Day happens in one place. We take our time. The goal is still 50 species but if it takes the whole morning to reach that target, so be it.

Busted thumb notwithstanding, we have a fine, memorable time. A sapsucker delivers his irregular drumbeat love-song to the woman of his dreams. Jan is widely known by a well-earned nickname: Hawkeye. But her hearing is every bit as sharp as her spotting ability. She has left me behind. I no longer readily hear the kinglets and high-pitched warblers I detected so easily a third of a century ago. She shakes her head at my hearing loss. I wonder how much longer it will be before I get the heave-ho, before she summons the locksmith to re-key the Ontario Street doors.

I do manage to see or hear seven of the eight warbler species we can expect on our route. Especially in the early hours we have the place to ourselves: there are no other people to practice safe-distancing with. A barred owl accommodates our wish for a close look. At the sub-station ponds we find two wood duck families—the adults and their young broods. A pileated woodpecker—the species oldtimers called northern logcock—bangs out his nuptial melody from a distant snag. A medley of songbirds join the morning chorus—purple finches, black-headed grosbeaks, house wrens, common yellowthroats, McGillivray's warblers, goldfinches, a Hutton's vireo—all of them ardent to produce a new generation of their kind. 

It takes the whole morning, all seven hours of it, but we reach our goal: fifty species. The Great Satterfield would be 99 were he still in the land of the living. I miss him, and offer silent thanks for the great, stalwart friend he was.

Doris Irene, 1923-2020

Doris grew up in the multi-ethnic Ontario Street neighbourhood of Montreal, a community that burnished her native kindness, tolerance and acceptance. During the Second World War she worked as a bookkeeper for a large insurance company. Her younger brother, Eddie, a seaman in the Canadian merchant navy, impressed a Cape Breton crewmate, Hugh John MacLeod, who wondered whether Eddie might have a sister. Told he did, HJ demanded to meet the sister the first time their ship landed in Montreal. Doris, 21 at the time, felt that HJ was like Errol Flynn, only better. They married within a year and proceeded to raise a family in Nova Scotia.

It was the best, luckiest decision HJ ever made: during a marriage enduring nearly half a century he was a principal beneficiary of Doris's devotion, dedication and sense of duty.

First came a son, then twin daughters, then a final daughter. In her late forties when her own children were grown, Doris decided to start all over again. She happily took on daycare responsibilities for her first grandchild, then a second, third and fourth.

Doris was first, last and always a mother, a caregiver, a nurturer. But she was much more besides. She paid close attention not just to family and friends but to the world at large. She was a reader, close follower of world affairs, a student of human nature. Possessed of rare empathy and intuition, she was a marvelous listener. She would ask new friends about their lives and families, not merely to be polite but because she was genuinely interested in others. A friend would only have to report family details once: Doris would remember.

She was a role model for growing old: positive, resilient, brave. She understood that abundant good cheer was as beneficial to herself as to those around her.

Left to lament that she is no longer available to share her common sense, wisdom and compassion—and to induce laughter at just the right moment—are son Alan (Janice Brown), daughters Nora (Ron Whynacht), Nancy (Donald Nelson) and Kathleen (Jon Prentiss), six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

All of whom will have to make do with the world of memories she leaves behind.