the further adventures of trashy drifter

the Further Adventures of Trashy Drifter

Tossed and driven on the deep blue sea

So, here I am. Floating in a lodge made of logs in a fjord, deep in the endless Canadian hinterland.

The lodge is tethered to the sea floor by a web of cables and giant steel plates. The reason that the

lodge is tethered here, in Glendale Cove is that the place is infested with grizzly bears. Or at least it is

supposed to be, that’s why people pay good money to come here.

This little cove is now a wilderness retreat, but in the not too distant past it was teeming with industry,

it was home to a logging village with a population of 2,000 souls, a school and a dance hall. Across the

cove where the lodge now bobs was a fish cannery which had segregated living areas for the white

bosses, the Chinese workers and the native fishermen. Some of the Chinese workers were paid in

opium, the tiny glass bottles are still found washed up on these beaches.

There used to be dances here every Wednesday and Saturday night. Now, the only evidence of all those

people living their lives here are the algae and barnacle encrusted dock pilings that reach up from the

sea like broken teeth.

I wonder what went on at those dances, what the music was like? What happens when you mix

opium- loving cannery girls with loggers and Indians? That’s a gig I would have loved to have played.

Speaking of gigs, yesterday we said goodbye to our first load of guests. They were from a group

called ‘Vital Ground’ and they are an advocacy group for grizzly habitat. Apparently, Dean, the lodge

owner, donates a five day stay to the group as his contribution to their efforts. They are the guinea pigs

for the new guides like me to try their hand at. So, they are the folks that nearly get drowned, lost in the

woods and lied to (by me). Also, they didn’t see any grizzlies, not a one.

We took them in skiffs, we took them in kayaks, and we took them to viewing stands, to trails, all

day long, every day, for five straight days. Nothing. No grizz. Lots of black bears, lots of eagles, mink ,

porpoises, harbour seals, dolphins and ducks, but no grizz.

I began to feel like a fraud, a pimp with no hookers, a shyster. So, I decided I would give them at least

something.

After they had been liberally dosed with fine wine and dinner and were in a humorous mood due to

a comical anecdote recounted by a charming Austrian, I made my entrance into the dining hall with a

teddy bear costume on, complete with an inner tube around my belly underneath to make me even

more bear shaped. I pulled out my guitar and sang them ‘Let me be your teddy bear’ by Elvis and they

laughed so hard tears were being wiped away.

I would say it was a turning point in my career, back to big foam heads and singing and dancing, where I

belong. So, as the guests got happier and drunker and sillier, I pulled out the karaoke machine and then

it was game on. A good time was had by all, they had so much fun, and they forgot that they hadn’t even

seen a grizzly yet.

Two of the guests, a father and son pair of immense grizzly bear sized plumbers from Pennsylvania really

stood out. They were so fun it was ridiculous. They liked my songs so much they made me write down

lyrics and chords. So, if the song, ‘hookers and blow’ comes on the radio, and it isn’t me singing it, you

can bet that Jack and John Langdon had something to do with it.

Jack owns a big plumbing company and has been doing his own ads for 35 years. He’s a self made

celebrity, in his latest ad; at Easter time, he came out of a giant toilet dressed as an Easter bunny and

proceeded to hand out faucets and plumbing paraphernalia to kids. So cool!

I had to do a presentation for the group on their last night and I was somewhat nervous for several

reasons. One reason was that a lot of them probably knew far more than I do about grizzly bears, such

as Doug Chadwick, who is a senior writer for National Geographic and has written several outstanding

books about bears. The other reason was that the first time I had tried to give them my presentation, it

didn’t work, technical glitch. Luckily I was wearing gaudy plaid golf pants which distracted them from my

failure and I was able to whip out a guitar and sing a few Johnny Cash songs before Doug saved the day

by firing up his power point about the elusive and amazing wolverine.

So, when the final night rolled around and it was time for me to do or die, I’m pleased to say, it went

swimmingly, plaid pants and all. My presentation was about bears in myth and legend and how there

are real bears out there, but that we humans have bears in our minds and our culture and symbols from

ancient to modern times. They quite enjoyed it methinks.

After the presentation, I noticed a bright light travelling quickly across the skies. It wasn’t a plane and it

was too fast to be a satellite. I pointed it out to a few folks and wondered if they knew what it might be.

The red headed ad exec assured me that it was a GPS satellite, which she proceeded to tell me about

at length and detail due to her longstanding affiliation with Lockheed Martin and other high powered

military industrial complex connections. Yikes, apparently when North Korea shoots down some of our

communications satellites, it will be the first salvo in a weird and wicked world war three which will be

waged in wacky ways. With that grave uncertainty in mind, I slipped off to bed, where I was serenaded

by a symphony of snoring geezers in our squalid shack, which squeaks as it lurches and listened to the

mice munching the insides of the walls.

The next morning at the float plane there was real warmth and hugs and sincere thanks and

appreciation from the guests as they reluctantly left. Jack even gave me a jar of his special homemade

moonshine, which smells like it could also easily be likwid plumber. I’ll save it for a really special

occasion.

With the first load of guests gone and some spare time, we guides got to go into the woods to play with

chainsaws.

A few trees had fallen across the spawning stream rendering it unnavigable past a certain point. So,

led by Jamie, Luke, jasmine and I headed into the stream in our chest waders to chop up the trees and

either toss the evidence in the bushes, or let it wash downstream.

Luke and Jamie were the He-Man lumberjacks, wading around on slippery rocks with running chainsaws

and Jasmine and I were the cleaner- upper- afterers. As it turns out, I was also the comic relief of the

day. I went wading across the river to go pull a dead tree loose, but miscalculated the depth of the

water, in other words, I filled my chest waders with water, then struggled to get to the dead tree which

I clung to. That dead tree decided to sink too, and pretty soon I was being washed downstream with a

hundred pounds of glacier water in my pants.

I later found out that a lot of fly fishermen die that way. Once you get water in your waders, you might

as well throw an anchor around yourself and jump in, that water is heavy and with a swift current, you

can end up dead downstream quite easily. Guess I got off lucky this time. Note to self, ‘be more careful.’

That was yesterday. Let me ever so quickly tell you today’s highlights. We have a mom and a dad and

their daughter from Adelaide, Australia, and a couple from Minnesota. That’s it, five guests, and three of

them leave tomorrow, which will leave us with two guests.

Bob and I took them on a cruise up the inlet this afternoon, where we saw all the usual magical

waterfalls and loons playing hide and go seek with harbour seals. We went way up the inlet to Glacier

Bay, where huge mountains tower on all sides. There we happened upon a pod of dolphins, at least 50

or 60 who had trapped a school of small fish up against a beach and were dipping and diving, leaping

and turning, catching and gobbling up these tiny fish, who burst out afore them and exploded from

the water like popcorn. It was amazing; all around the boat, in every direction, there were at least 20

dolphins in the air at any moment.

While we were mesmerized by the dance of the dolphins, a huge crack and a roar above us, announced

an avalanche, which echoed and boomed all around the cathedral walls.

Well, the dinner bell has dinged and I’m afraid it’s time for yet another delectable feast, tonight is

stuffed roast pork loin with fine wine.

Mmmmmm.