dutch treats, hammers and the Kemshaw Effect

the Further Adventures of Trashy Drifter

Chapter 36

Dutch treats, hammers and the Kemshaw effect

Dearly beloved, I realize it’s been a while since you have had word of my doings. I am still having
adventures as a grizzly guide and have been constantly busy and full of things to say, but my old
buddies, lethargy and procrastination, have been keeping me constant company, when I’ve not been
busier than a three dollar date at a sailor’s convention.

Every day I am so overloaded with natural beauty and critters of all descriptions from loons to herons to
grizzlies to otters that I hardly know where to start explaining what I see and do in one day. So I’ll just go
over a few highlights from the last few days for you.

You see, a lot has transpired since I last dipped my quill in the ink. I’ve just come back to relaxing 14
hour work days at the lodge a week ago after the huge adventure/ ordeal of moving our family to the
quaint and funky village of Cumberland, in the Comox valley on Vancouver Island. So, I flew home to
Drumheller, was received warmly by Wifer and my poopers , the girls were so delighted to see me that I
was nearly strangled with hugs and smothered with kisses and had to break up endless fights over who
got to do any little thing with daddy. It certainly is preferable to be missed than to be tolerated.

That night was a final gig at the Last Chance Saloon with my fellow noise makers, the Plaid Stallions. It
was a fairly great night, although tainted with maudlin sappiness and hyper nostalgia. Anyways, it was
a great bash nonetheless, followed the next day by a naked bike parade through the streets of town
and a five day epic ordeal of moving and packing and hauling and lifting and cleaning and scrubbing
and giving away many things that just plain wouldn’t fit into the U-Haul and had to be cast adrift. Such
is the fate of any chattel which is neither beautiful enough nor useful enough to be jammed into a tiny
space. Couches, lazy boys, drums, bicycles and even my foosball table all slipped back into the material
flow, along with my old comic collection, which my darling spouse evidently thought I had put aside for
someone else’s garage sale.

Oh well, it was great to have so many willing, if unskilled hands show up to help us crowbar our
household into our caravan. Some really sweet people have been very good friends in Drumheller, it
certainly was a great chapter.

So, with some warm memories and high hopes, we pulled up and out of the ditch known as Drumheller,
with a U-Haul truck pulling a U-Haul trailer with a table strapped to the roof, and a jam packed Honda
pulling our little Boler trailer, which was jammed to the teats with wagons, wine, bric-a-brack and patio
furniture. We noodled up the road, with an adult at each wheel, a kid in each car, the truck cab stuffed
with house plants, Swimmer the fish banging around in a pickle jar, and Pancake the dog whimpering

under my driver’s seat, the only place he would fit! Actually, it was a pretty good ride.

We left the whole mess of movable items at Rancho Miller (the in-law’s farm south of Edmonton) and
hightailed it another 6 hours north to the ultimate solstice celebration, the North Country Fair. Of
course, just telling what happened at the fair would take a pile of paper and not only that, it’s more
or less a fuzzy blur of good times and great friends in a great atmosphere. This was my third year of
running the family stage and I think I’m beginning to get the hang of it. It certainly is a lot of work, but I
feel like I am doing something important and worthwhile.

This year the kid’s area was looking really swank due to some huge efforts to improve it and bring in
new playground equipment, a rebuilt stage and the rudiments of what will someday be a magnificent
pirate ship.

It was Ava’s first fair and she loved it.

So, after many hugs goodbye, we basically ploughed on without any serious trouble all the way to
Cumberland. When we got there, Kelly, our contractor was mid renovation. We had to store all our stuff
in the leaky carport in the rain, tarped up, while we slept out in the yard in our boler and cook on the
BBQ.

It was at least a week before we were able to sleep in our beds, but aaahh that was a treat. To sleep in
our own bed in our own new house, surrounded by rhododendrons, cedars and flowers, that was grand.
Of course every day for the next two weeks was an epic ordeal of running around, doing the million
things that need to be done in a house under renovation. I can’t believe we spent so much money in
such a short period of time, but the place looks great, feels wonderful and is home sweet home.

So, getting back to the lodge was almost like a vacation. Just yesterday, I led a kayak expedition with two
hyperactive teenaged Dutch boys racing about and a septuagenarian Time magazine lady in the front of
my double kayak.

Between the Dutchies not speaking English, having unpronounceable names and being teens, they
slipped away from me and being freighted as I was with a wonderful, but not so helpful passenger, I
ended up chasing these joyriding punks through a maze of canals in the thick grizzly infested sedge
grass. The thing is, those canals are there at high tide, but not at low tide.

Going in was all fun and games, but the tide was rapidly flowing out and once again I found myself in
the wonderful situation of being the implement between the shit and the fan. We had to turn around
and quickly! If we got bogged down in our kayaks in the sedge, we’d have to drag them out through a
kilometre of mud. However, turning a sea kayak around in a narrow and rapidly shrinking channel is
no easy feat, and was only accomplished by me getting out and up to my guts in putrid grasping mud
and physically lifting and turning all the kayaks and their occupants around while nearly drowning in
mud and paddling like hell out of the maze just instants before the whole path dried up into a sloppy,
inescapable hell hole.

With that harrowing adventure behind us, we were suddenly slammed by Mike Tyson sized winds and

waves, which we battled against, up the estuary. It was the hairiest stuff I’ve ever paddled in, and soon
we were up watching a black bear, from a few boat lengths away, being tossed and driven ever closer to
the beast. (not that it cared at all) All these things that I thought were scary and dangerous were just the
cock for Dolly for Dutchies. What a treat. We made it back to the lodge, aching and sweaty and hungry.
Luckily, all those conditions are easily remedied.

Today, just a few hours ago, I was taking a group of guests was up the river in a skiff, on a particularly
high, new moon tide.

A fairly large bear poked his head out of the bushes and looked at us, from 25 feet away. He thought it
over for a moment, and then decided to cross the river anyways. He splooshed out into the river as a
dog would, and then when it got too deep, he stood up and waded as a man would, he walked across
the river on his hind legs, it was so amazing.

So, with a boatload of happy Italians and Swiss chirping over their photos, I plied back home without
incident.

Only one more thing I wanted to cover in this report, the Kemshaw effect. Kemshaw is a salty seadog
who works here at the lodge as a fishing guide/ boat guy. Luke and I were taken aside by Harold
when we first arrived and warned of the Kemshaw effect. Which is, the magical power Kemshaw has
to get himself and others sailor-drunk and belligerent on a nightly basis. After one such night, when
Kemshaw shot off an explosive bear banger in his room because someone had changed his facebook
status to ‘Gay’ he was forbidden to ever drink while at the lodge. Thus the Kemshaw effect magically
evaporated and turned into more of a Kemshaw legacy.

And so I bid you all adieu. I will soon be back with my beloved family for a week. We have a barrage of
visitors coming and no doubt a crapload of work to do, including installing all new windows. I’m sure it
will be a relaxing time off from work. Ha!