When we first came up here (6/7 years ago) I wrote about my impressions at the time. The following piece is another ‘early’ observation and, tho still accurate to my recollection, is not how I would describe local culture today. I have changed. I see things differently.
Especially appearances – local garb now seems logical and practical and even, at times, attractive. Not so city garb. Both Sally and I remember distinctly how odd a recent city dweller appeared at the ferry parking lot with a clean sedan and wearing a business suit. “Wow! Look at that weirdo. Think he just went through detailing or what?”
Today, I am much more just like ‘them’ than I was when I wrote this. In fact, I am them. Interesting, don’t you think?
Appearances – Wilderness Style
Living in a cabin is not limited to the simple (hah!) erection of wood and other related stuff, it also includes the development of new relationships and participation in local community. The two go hand in hand. You can’t avoid it but knowing exactly where you fit in is not so easy either. Initially, it has something to do with appearances – the vehicle you drive and the size of your cabin. But after a time you are re-categorized by your global issue.
Everyone has an ‘issue’ it seems. It’s de rigeur.
All the locals know the woman in the old blue Chev convertible. She saves Vancouver Island Marmots, lives alone except for Novembers when her sister from Alberta visits. She dyes her hair with Clairol Brunette #2, prefers English Breakfast to Earl Grey and dresses as Bobo the clown for the annual May Day parade. She calls herself Claire but all her letters are addressed to Roberta and everyone calls her Louise or Thelma because of the car anyway. I don’t know of anyone who has ever actually spoken with her.
No one knows the SUV drivers at the government dock unless one of them sports a Liberal/NDP/Green Party bumper sticker, a Canucks flag or a forestry company parking permit. Then they are instantly, if not necessarily accurately, very well-known, categorized, pigeon-holed and graded accordingly! It takes years to correct the impression gleaned from borrowing the wrong vehicle.
I, provocatively, have used a different car for the last six visits up here and so the locals are justifiably confused and, naturally, becoming suspicious. I don’t blame them. Changing vehicles more than once in a calendar year is simply not done. It’s considered sneaky.
“Who is that guy?”
On an interim basis they are relying on my continually fresh scars and bandages to recognize me. Seeing the blood stained clothing, they instantly recall that I am the one building a deck just up the coast.
I’ve also noted that the ‘people-newly-met’ relationship to ‘cabin-square-footage’ ratio is in reverse proportion to the size of said cabin. Few people know the guy with the 5000 square foot chalet on the bluff but everyone knows the squatter living in the abandoned camper at the base of it. We are all rich in a different currency, I guess.
My new ‘locals’, neighbours and friends-in-the-making seem almost normal on the surface if you don’t dwell on their dress, mannerisms, odd deformity and/or obvious-from-a-distance skin disorder. Focus on their car, dog or their cabin and ignore the blatant and personal. That’s the rule out here. Which, by the way, serves me well as I am inclined to the repulsive myself and the increasing number of scabs and scars I am displaying would normally prompt a visit from the Centre for Disease Control if I were in the city.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not alone in needing some overdue tinkering and body-work. The locals are, if not certifiably shocking at times, record–setting eccentrics in their appearances anyway. There are more than a few that could use a few extra teeth, for instance – just to name one glaring omission from the ordinary. We could use a barber, too. But they are proud of themselves and they look like they are having fun! And that looks good.
For my part, I love eccentrics. I am partial to the slightly bonkers. I aspire to it myself. I have diligently worked hard at being sane for decades and the only obvious result is a ‘ticky-tacky house’ in a cul-de-sac and an AIR Care pass for my car. I have paperwork, pasty skin, taxes, more debt than a third world country and the personal allure of a shy Buddhist monk with bad breath. So eccentricity has some appeal or me. It is a change, anyway and it looks like fun.
And the rural setting is prettier at the very least. If you are going to ‘go nuts’, do so in the beautiful outdoors where there’s room to run around nude and dance under the stars. Going mad in a rest-home or a corner office has been done.
The foregoing is not to imply that all the locals are nuts. I am sure some are sane. But this much is definitely true: there is no consensus on who is sane, mad, good, bad, honest or crooked. There is no consensus on who does an honest days’ work, who cares about the environment or who votes which way. Everyone is under some degree of ‘gossipy-style’ suspicion. There is some consensus on who sleeps with whom but that changes seasonally for obvious reasons.
Virtually all the locals have character, however, and much of that character has blossomed into full-blown eccentricity. They do not function like the rest of us (soon-to-be-ex) city-types. They listen to the CBC. They grow herbs. They name their chickens and they eat and drink a shocking variety of strange things. They have local interests, habits, values and mostly local perspectives. But most of them also carry the extraordinary burden of a global concern or two.
Saving Marmots is big right now. Salmon, too, of course. Everyone is organic and eating local. But other times it’s the eroding agricultural economy of the Mayan Indians, fair trade cocoa, the declining bee population or taking inventory of every weed, flower and bush on the East Coast of the Island. Who knows?!
One local woman organizes to save herbs! Well, to be fair – ‘heritage herbs’…….whatever that means? Local people ‘round these parts’ pick causes like urban sophisticates choose gourmet cheeses – the more exotic and unfamiliar, the better.
So, basically, it boils down to this: we worry globally, fret federally, angst provincially, mourn environmentally, engage locally and act out colourfully. We dress funny, talk crazy and live eccentrically. We eat local, organic, eccentric or whatever happens to be available at the potluck. And we get to know each other’s pets and vehicles before we get know each other.
I think I am going to like it here.
Our Off the Grid Home 