Mayne Island visit and memories

I always find it interesting how each Southern Gulf Island in B.C. has a very different vibe. Mayne Island has one of the most chill vibes. You can feel your shoulders lower within an hour of being there. It's so relaxing once you're there, it's hard not to want to nap.

I visited my friends Donna and Eric who have lived on the island for more than 25 years and it was so nice to get out of James Bay in Victoria, take in their mini Saturday market where Donna sells her jewellery and photo cards and visit the busiest place in town, their Thrift Store. We then drove out to Bennett Bay and took a stroll out to the point looking down onto the beach. We hung out in their backyard, which for me, as a non land owner, is a total luxury. Later on, we went down to Reef Bay and went swimming in the ocean before dinner where other locals had gathered for a dip on the small beach. Being the citified one, I had on water shoes Donna had given me during a previous visit to keep any little crabs from potentially gnawing on my toes. I thought back to my visit in 2023 when Donna and I were enjoying an ocean swim and then spotted two seals heading straight for us and we freaked out and scrambled out of the water as fast as we could in a moment of terror. Silly girls!

The three of us took a walk to Georgina Point early Sunday morning and sat on the new benches and  took in the ever spectacular views across to Galiano where a ferry was already working. They relayed stories of some of the people they knew, including themselves, who managed to live rent-free in caretaker positions, a reality that is almost impossible to come by now. With the onslaught of new property owners, many of them very part-time, the island they used to know, has shifted.

We went back home and puttered. Donna cut my hair in a chair in their backyard which is a luxury in itself, to have a friend fussing over your hair, snipping here and there. I didn't care how it turned out, I just loved the intimacy of the experience.  Donna made lunch and we relocated to their side deck. I took a look at an incredible photo album of all the wooden boats Eric has made in the past and got a peek into his workshop, don't call it a Man Cave. His "library" is full of books, and some incredibly detailed sketches he did in his earlier years, photos of boats, record albums and a t.v. which Donna forbids from "her house." He built the whole house with his own hands (with her help) but she's in charge! Early Sunday afternoon we went for a walk in the forest near the Mayne Island Brewery which I didn't even know existed and it was nice to see a newish spot to me, full of locals and tourists alike at the tables positioned throughout the yard.

I have so many memories of Mayne. My mom first took my brother and I there when we were maybe nine or 10 years old. A friend of hers, had a cabin on the island for a time. In my late twenties, I went there with Will before spending the majority of our time at Ruckle Park on Salt Spring. I also took more than a few cycling day trips in my thirties with a friend I knew then, Glenys. Our real excuse for all that exercise was to end up on the deck of the now closed Springwater Lodge for a beer, a burger and fries, and the view. I so wish someone with tons of money would buy that place and fix it up because I think it has to be one of the best views in all the Gulf Islands, right at the start of Active Pass and it's part of so many Mayne Island memories for so many people, good and bad, I'm guessing.

I think about the time I rented some tiny shack above Horton Bay and had to cycle there not realizing how far it was from the ferry, and the challenge of the gravel road that climbed up to reach it. My friend Colleen came to visit and I know she must have been swearing out loud with every push on the pedals, given that she wasn't in the regular habit of riding a bike. I made at least one trip on my own on my old fluorescent pink and lime green mountain bike, and I took a break at Georgina Point. I was lying down and suddenly  heard another person yell the distinct, "Whales" and as I sat up, I spotted at least four whales, moving fast with one of them stopping to spyhop. It was spectacular because of how close they were.

There was the time pre-Covid, maybe 2018, I walked 22,000 steps because I wanted to get out of Victoria, and so once I got to the island, I walked to the little village then took a break and had some food. I then kept walking down to Geogina Point where the lighthouse is. After a rest, I walked down to Bennett Bay and back in one day before walking back to the ferry to come back to the city. That is a Forrest Gump amount of walking for one day for me. I did love the feeling of freedom that comes from movement, walking along the side of the road there, admiring Arbutus trees and ravens and inhaling the dry grasses and the sounds of the birds and the peace. It's an experience I think everyone should have: Walking only with your thoughts as company on a Gulf Island in the forest, along the beach, on the side of a road where you'll notice things you never would in a car.

Come to a think of it, here's a book recommendation: The Old Ways; A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane, 2012.

A quick catch up at Sacred Mountain Lavender

I did a quick trip to Salt Spring this past week to drop off more of my books to Adina at Salt Spring Books and to take advantage of the time to see a friend for a short visit so that we could go to Sacred Mountain Lavender or more specifically she could drive me before depositing me back to the ferry.

There's quite major road construction coming out of Ganges to the south. I believe they are widening the road and putting in a bike lane to make it safer for cyclists which could mean a delay if you're a tourist who isn't aware of such things and thinking of visiting. On that day our wait was minimal.

I've always had a love of Sacred Mountain Lavender because of good memories when I first attended the lavender festival they used to put on many years ago. Unfortunately, because of popularity, and the impact of having too many people wandering around near their home, they have closed the lower field which was my favourite so I was a little disappointed about that. But the real purpose of my visit was to  pick up some more of their high quality products, especially the lavender spritzer and the oil, and I just like to be there, to linger in the fields. 

Lavender forces you to inhale, slow down, and dream. You want to linger and take in the colour purple at the height of the season.

It gave us a chance to catch up, savour some tasty lavender tea and sit for a while in the peace on a weekday afternoon.

If you're curious about all the products they sell, and can't get to the island, you can order off their website: https://sacredmountainlavender.com/lavender-shop/

That way you can keep one of summer's favourite and historic herbal scents around you, or on you, throughout the year.

Childhood memories through Alan Woodland's words

Yesterday, I was doing the ever-routine task of laundry which for me as a renter means having to take the elevator down to the first floor and go into the communal laundry room. It's my least favourite task. I'm not sure if thats because it reminds me I have never owned my own washer and dryer and that definitely feels like a fail or if it's because the gathering, the sorting, the steps leading up to being ready to do laundry always feel a bit daunting for some inexplicable reason. Then afterwards, it feels the same as well, not a big deal and should have been done sooner afterall. 

As in a lot of older apartment buildings, there is a common room somewhere near the laundry room and the one in my building is large and dark, full of books that other tenants have left, an assortment of furniture, an old piano, which I hadn't even realized was there. On one of the bookshelfs someone has left two books standing up as if a librarian has curated these two books they most want to spotlight.

My eyes were immediately drawn to one of them, a poetry book, because of the author's name: Alan Woodland, In the Space Between. His signature was written on the first page. The bill, tucked inside, made it clear it was purchased from Black Bond Books in Maple Ridge at Valley Fair Mall. It looks like the book may have been a gift bought Dec. 11, 2021. The book was published in 2021.

It's a slim book with a white cover. There's a picture of a beach in black and white, and a person, gender undistinguishable, running at the shoreline. Alan Woodland's photo is, as customary, on the back cover.

The reason this book stood out, and the author's name, is because my eldest sister, Heather, who died from breast cancer in 1991 at 43 years of age had worked with him at the New Westminster Public Library where he had been its chief librarian for many years. 

In the late sixties, and into the early 70s, I would hear his name mentioned at our kitchen table and always with reverance. I conjured up what he might be like.  A man of letters. Sophisticated. Gentle. Funny. This is the image I created of him based on some of the stories I heard of him, without having ever met him. On at least one occasion my sister would bring a co-worker or two home from the library for lunch and as a young child, 13 years younger than her, her work there, and the pile of books on her bedside table, her light on in her bedroom into the wee hours of a night, seemed ever present.

Is finding the book a sign from my sister? It made me happy to think that way. Why not? Of all the books people leave, why was that one on top of the bookshelf awaiting the right reader, a poetry book so many people would have no interest in at all? I like to think it was not a coincidence. Someone had to bring that book on a ferry to get it here to Victoria. How long has it lived on the island? Was it purchased at the epic annual Times Colonist book sale?  Was the person who put the book in our common room still living in the building? Did they read the book before putting it down there? I don't have any answers, and probably never will but it's my treasure now.

Alan Woodland would be about 95 years old now. I do believe he is still alive. I'm sure it would please him to know someone who has never met him, has a very warm feeling about him as a result of a sister who once worked for him in her hopeful, youthful days long before cancer took hold. 

I think seeing his face on the back cover may be the first time I have ever been able to put a face to the memories I have of this man's connection to my sister all those years ago.

It would be wrong not to share some of his words from one of his poems here. I've chosen a short one that seems appropriate in this context:

Between the Lines

We poets

write out of the long history

of ancestors and family

our hands in their earth

our words warmed by their fires

voices of ancient pipes

echo in our vowels

We poets

watch antd wait

sensing

the turning of their seasons

sunrise

moonwane

their stars in our breath

their tides in our hearts

We poets

listen for footsteps

snatches of old songs

search for fleeting shadows

dancing between the lines

- Alan Woodland

As an update, I heard from Alan Woodland's grandson, Chris, who told me that Alan passed away on June 27, 2025. He said his grandfather would have been so touched to read this blog post.