Chapter 54 Ropin' the Wind

the Further Adventures of Trashy Drifter

Chapter 54

Ropin’ the Wind

Oh Beloved,

It has been a very interesting season and I am long overdue in putting letters on a page to chronicle the ongoing saga of life and its strange turns. I beg your forbearance and indulgence in my ramblings.

First off, I should report that all are well. Bella has started at a new alternative school in Fanny Bay called Beachcombers, where part of the curriculum involves walking on the beach and rambling in the woods. Yaya got a job there as an educational assistant, 16 hours a week. Ava is here beside me, she’s also beside herself, because she absolutely refuses to go to school if her best mates Sophie and Helena aren’t in her class. Kicking, screaming, crying and running from the classroom have been her school activities so far. We’ll have to see how that all plays out.

Also, in big news, the ten acres surrounding our homestead have been sold to a developer, so we may become an island in suburbia soon, or who knows what. There is a palpable shroud of uncertainty hanging over almost every aspect of our lives here now, and I am beginning to feel like it is a symptom of Lotusland living to be suspended in a state of nebulous intangibility. In three years here, we have yet to get any regularity or reliable employment. That being said, I have recently embarked on a career path or two of sorts and experienced some success and some challenges.

Since being a bear guide, I have done a few different things. I mowed a few lawns with a friend’s landscaping company. I spent a week before Easter suffocating in an Easter Bunny costume, roaming the streets and avenues of the Comox valley, silently handing out chocolates while contemplating the absurdity of anonymously impersonating an ancient pagan fertility idol; panting and dripping with sweat and squinting out through obscure eye slits at the smiling delighted faces of young and old.

After several months of unemployment, scraping by and sucking slough water; I got into a self-employment program called Community Futures, that helps people create their own careers. On the strength of my plans for Captain Thunderpants and the Vancouver Island Film Institute, I was accepted into the program, paid a small wage and encouraged to make my big plans to conquer the entertainment world.

I set up a website and facebook page, shot a TV pilot and began booking appearances. Unfortunately, mid May is far too late to book into most summer festivals, but I did manage to book some festivals and a lot of library appearances.

One thing that I have discovered about ‘self employment’ is that it’s very difficult to know what one should do all day to advance one’s career when one’s career is to be a singing space pirate. It’s not quite the same as operating a lemonade stand, which I can barely manage to do.

Anyways.

One morning in mid July I awoke to a phone call from Gooey, the drummer from the Dukes of Dodge.

“Hey Trashy” he says, “You wanna go do some work?”

“Of course” says I, “As long as I’m done in time to go to Artswells festival.”

“No worries” Says Gooey, ”We’re just going to drill seven holes up in Port Hardy, we should be back in five or six days.”

Well, that was the beginning of an epic adventure; the likes of which I have seldom embarked on, the adventure called ‘real work’. Being a diamond Driller’s helper is honest to God, honest brutal work. Lifting, grasping, carrying, heaving, hauling, rotating, greasing, cranking, wrenching, breaking, pulling, pushing, yanking, pouring, twisting, tightening, loosening, dragging, hooking, reaming and a host of other verbs are on the agenda from 4:45 am to 6pm every day. Day after day after day without stopping for 6 weeks straight.

Well, actually I did stop for a week, because I sprained my ankle getting out of the helicopter.  I instantly knew it was sprained, and I got to come home for a week and rest while WCB paid my wages. I missed the Artswells festival. Which was heartbreaking. I had to cancel two library appearances, which was embarrassing. I made a crapload of money to support my family and give me some kind of hope of being a provider, which is priceless.

So, what were we doing? Well, there is a big company called International Power, they are investing in installing 55 wind turbines on the mountaintops of Cape Scott, above Port Hardy. They contracted Borea construction to build the $350 million project. Borea needed to know what was under the earth on the mountaintops, so they hired Peak drilling to drill core samples with a diamond drill at a fee of $5000 a day. Gooey works for Peak, he hired me to help him with this crazy project.

There are no roads up there, everything and everybody must be flown around in helicopters. So, I went from never having been in a chopper to flying 8 or 10 times a day and being the guy who catches the hook and attaches it to equipment to fly from drill site to drill site. I can tell you that the metal hook sometimes accumulates a mighty static charge and blows your teeth out of your gums as the chopper blades blow your helmet off your head and your drums out of your ears.

This weird mountaintop landscape is an untouched natural wonder. I got to see and work in a pristine place that few humans have ever, ever been to. Because it is so windy up there, the ancient trees are stunted and twisted, festooned with lichen and moss. It is an alien bonsai forest studded with tiny lakes full of lily pads and frogs. On a clear day, you can look out and see all of the northern tip of Vancouver Island, the coast mountains on the mainland and humpbacks and cruiseships out at sea. Of course most days weren’t sunny clear days. Most of July and August I wore long underwear and could see my breath and we were socked in by fog as thick as porridge.

On the day that I was scheduled to play at Artswells festival, I spent most of the day kneeling in the mud cranking greasy wrenches and dragging heavy hoses that kinked and wiggled like rabid anacondas. I shudder to recollect my dismal outlook on life at that moment.

On the flip side, we got to eat anything we wanted at any restaurant in Port Hardy on the company tab and my days and nights were spent in the pleasant company of Gooey, Buffalo Bob (an old redneck hippy logger who knows more jokes and tells more tall tales than anyone I’ve ever met) and Darren, a Geotechnical Engineer who spent his entire days carving walking sticks while I sweated and toiled like a slave. He received a nickname from Buffalo Bob that stuck. Dingledork.

I met a whole slew of folks while working that I otherwise would never have met, who I could name and describe here at great length. But suffice to say, that there are a lot of colourful characters involved in roping the wind.

As it turned out, I was able to get off the mountain on the morning of August 20^th. That night, I played a solo show at the Gorge Harbour marina on Cortez Island, for an appreciative audience of campers and yachters. Yaya and the girls came with the Boler and we camped for several days. Glorious. The adage is true, only a man who works hard can truly enjoy leisure.

Upon returning to Cumberland, I received a call from a producer at SHAW TV. Turns out that they want to air my program! How exciting is that? So, I met for coffee with this exec and told me that everyone really liked my demo and they want to air it across Vancouver Island. They’ll air any more episodes that I make as well. This was very good news, the down side is that they don’t pay. However, they will help me shoot and edit the program at their TV studio in Campbell River, so I can do a show with professional equipment before a live studio audience at minimal cost. Who knows? This could get picked up by a network and turn into something actual and TANGIBLE. The show is kind of a mash up between Raffi, Oprah and the Price is Right, all hosted by a deranged space pirate. Everyone seemed to enjoy it.

 After that I got to spend the week with cash in the bank and ten different gigs at libraries across Vancouver Island that went very well. I finished off my gigs playing at the Blackberry Faire on Denman Island, which is an old timey country fair, complete with pie contests and petting zoos. We stayed at a B&B which was a complete luxury. I am proud to say that I am the first performer that they have ever hired to play at that festival. So, things on the CPTN THNDRPNTZ front seem to be proceeding beautifully, which gives me great satisfaction and hope for the future.

As we speak I am on deck to head to Yellowknife. Perhaps on Sunday or Monday, I’ll get on a plane and head north for at least a month. This time we’ll be living in tents at the edge of a lake called Quest Lake. We’ll be drilling 24 hours a day until it freezes up and we can’t get around any more. Soon we’ll be flying around in helicopters and grinding diamonds to drill for gold.

Until next time Beloved, keep yer chin up and smile.

P.S. Since writing that last bit, Ava has been accepted into Beachcombers school as well. She is getting in as a two for one deal because Yaya is working there. This is wonderful because now all my family including Pancake will be attending a great school together. It’s ideal. When we went there the other day, there was a mild earthquake and the school was evacuated; hopefully not a common or fatal occurrence.

In two hours I’ll be getting on the plane for Yellowknife. Quest Lake, here I come.