left my heart in Bamfield
Elisabeth had to work, & I'd extended my stay because she'd told me about Sointula on Malcolm Island: it's south-facing, so it's always sunny. The people are very friendly. Erin in Port Alberni, 3 weeks earlier, had made me promise to go there at least for a day trip because "you know how everyone always says that their little hippie island is the best one? Well, this one actually is."
Bamfield is a tiny fishing community. On the east side there is a Marine Science Center, an outdoors store, a grocery store, a motel and a pub. The owner of the motel is in prison for embezzling money. There's a tiny park whose entrance on one side is marked with the most adorable sign, suspended on a chain from two trees: BAMFIELD COMMUNITY PARK. There's a school that goes up to grade four, I think. A volunteer fire hall. A diner with breaded clam strips & fish burgers.
Each of its two sides slope toward the inlet, and the west side's got a boardwalk that is considered part of the transcanada highway. On the boardwalk are composting toilets with signs warning against putting refrigerators or mattresses or anything that is not feces (shit) or urine (piss) in them. Also on the boardwalk are the feral cats the community was unable to rehome, so they've built a small kitty village with boxes whose glass & wood doors are open just wide enough to be a cat entrance. The boxes are painted to look like motels & lighthouses.
At five o'clock every day, the fishermen & artists gather on the dock outside the west side store & drink single beers, as if that's all they have. They eat ice cream and talk about their most recent or largest catch, their wife, the weather. The upcoming wake for Fay.
Port Alberni is two towns as well, & is about the size & structure of Thunder Bay- without the mall between the two previously distinct cities. For some reason they hide the grocery stores in residential streets, as if testing my ability to ask strangers for directions. There is a main drag & the Fat Salmon hostel's on it. Just outside town is Sproat River, & the germans & I went out there in Susan (another guest)'s minivan to watch the salmon jumping. The two young German ladies, Susanna & Lisa, wanted to see a bear across the water. The two young men from Germany, Hege & Michael, wanted to "meet" a bear. They also said one of my new favourite things, to another traveller who was anxious about where he'd stay in Tofino or Ucuelet. "We don't make plans, like whether to go to Ucuelet or Tofino. We'll go out to the road tomorrow and see which one we go to. We don't make reservations- we have a tent, and if there is a park, that's great. If there's no park, we can just set up the tent somewhere. If you don't have a tent, ask someone for lodging & they won't turn you away."
So beautiful, these men! They asked me what I thought of first in relation to Germany & I said technoviking, which amused them greatly.
The problem with Port Alberni is it's pretty rednecky, & my friends who live there, Brian, Dag & Sean, all like to pop pharmaceuticals for fun. LAME. The farmer's market is fantastic, and the weather is more extreme than other parts of Vancouver Island. It can go up to 40 degrees in the summer & well below 0 in winter. If there's no breeze from the inlet, it can be stiflingly hot -like Winnipeg has been, this year- & twice a day, a tiny train goes a short distance with children on it.
EVENTUALLY I WILL WRITE ABOUT SOINTULA.