Bookclub day today. Sunday. It is a local community habit of unflinching regularity. Regardless of the weather, the women travel by small boat every month from various islands to some pre-designated site and talk about their latest read. Wine and home-cooked dishes augment the literary and topics-of-local-interest-laced conversations.

I doubt very much that Christy Clark being ‘appointed’ premier by the Liberal cadre of ‘select electors’ will even come up in conversation. These women are too practical to bother with such nonsense. The Canucks don’t rate highly, either. Neither would the Oscars or Obama or any of the other more typical water-cooler topics of urban folks.

They might discuss their gardens, home repairs, boat repairs, dead sea lions and other local live and dead fauna, though. Wolves, for sure. Recipes, too, maybe. An environmental issue probably. I think. But I am not sure. I really have no idea what they talk about actually but the meetings take up about 5 hours and less than hour is spent discussing the chosen book.

“So, do you guys ever talk about me?” I once asked Sal.

“No, sweetie. We never talk about you or any of the husbands. Sometimes a kid or grandchild but never a man.”

“But what about some guy who sets himself on fire, falls out of his boat or runs off with a bar-maid from the Heriot Bay Inn?”

“Nah. Men do that all the time. These women have all had those experiences with the men in their lives already. It’s old news, like ‘Dog Bites Man’, ya know?”

“So, we never come up?”

“Well, generically, sometimes. You know, like when the subject of the book is a heel, a scoundrel and a creep who brutalizes the mother and children. And the dog. Then we talk about men but, generally just to condemn them all to hell and then we move on to lunch or gardens or something nice.”

As you can gather from that, men are not particularly welcome in bookclub. Which is OK, mostly. None of us brutes afoot would read the books they chose, anyway. But, sometimes, it seems like a bit of a harsh policy.

Dodger was always welcome in past years because he had a big boat and took several women with his wife when she attended. And then he’d sit there in the boat until he could take them all home again. He stopped doing that after about seven years. They may have talked about him now and then. But not much. Maybe the boat.

Last year I stood in the food shed for three hours until Sal came out and said I could join the dogs in my room if I kept as quiet as they did, kept the door closed and stayed put! So, I got to spend the last two hours of book club locked in my room with two dogs and happy for the concession. It was bloody cold in the food shed.

Today, however, they are meeting at Discovery Islands Lodge, the main disembarkation point for a Kayak Outfitter in the area. Discovery Islands Lodge is centrally located and makes winter travel a bit safer for all of them as a result. You can Google it. Plus more of the Quadra women can attend since the lodge is on that island and connected by road.

Bookclub has been regularly held for over twenty years. On average about 12-16 women attend each meeting. There are about 25 to 30 members in all. They were recognized by the CBC two years ago as one of Canada’s most interesting book clubs which, when one considers the CBC, is an unfairly diluted complement. They deserve better but, then again, so does Canada.

Don’t get me started on the CBC.

Regardless, they are an interesting group. They are quite neat, really – their book topics chosen and read notwithstanding. The Discovery Islands Book Club is as close to an institution as we have out here. And, unlike the institutions we have come to recognize in our society, they are growing, changing, learning and a vehicle for spreading good will in the community.

Better than that and most modern institutions – they do no harm.