our moving castle

Vancity

"Without question it may be said of Vancouver that her position, geographically, is Imperial to a degree, that her possibilities are enormous, and that with but a feeble stretch of the imagination those possibilities might wisely be deemed certainties."

- A. N. Homer, The Imperial Highway

We are city dwelling in Vancouver, happy to have arrived at our first temp destination. Vancouver is colloquially known as 'van-city', and this is highly appropriate due to the sheer amount of camper vans here. Travelers and Vancouver natives alike live in vans. For travelers, the liberal socialist outlook of the city coupled with the amazing temperate weather makes Vancouver a haven with nature, culture, and opportunity abound. For Vancouver natives, the ever rising unaffordable housing bubble allows for 'normal' people to live and work in a place they can call their own. One residential street alone is home to four vans on average. Parks become small communities with 'take something leave something' shelves to help out other van people. Street parking regulations barely exist in the cool and relaxed East Vancouver neighborhood we have made our home. Gym/shower memberships at community centers are available for 3 dollars a year and our address cost us 1. We will work here for awhile before the PNW coast down south becomes a reality.

Vancouver is a botanical garden with streets. Blackberries and strawberries spill out onto the sidewalk from the front yard jungles of purple and teal houses. Free communal herb gardens in street roundabouts supplement the kitchens of the masses. In our neighborhood, its as if its a city of cottages, each one with its own fairytale story; a rope swing on the street for anyone to enjoy, a tiny wooden chair up in a tree, pungent smell of deep forest, returning to a summer home in real time; perpetual nostalgia. The cottage feeling, that once a year feeling, but every day. It's hard to explain but its real. We haven't before felt this happy.

Nature is on steroids here.

Squamish has our hearts forever. Our 'cottage', or weekend getaway.

Shawn swam across this channel to rescue a guy's kite-board risking hypothermia and mako sharks !! (Adrenaline junkie/good Samaritan of the year).

kd kid

Free oven!! Van cakes forever.

To the coast

After much deliberation, we decided to leave the farm we were working at. There simply wasn't enough work. We had never worked on a farm before and before now could not empathize with the plight of a small scale farmer once pests, invasive species, drought and disease hit crops, often at the same time. The work we were anticipating was lacking due to these problems, it was no-one's fault. The life of the farmer is left completely to chance sometimes, when the pastures of plenty do not provide. We left with toughened hands, muscles, invaluble knowledge about small scale irrigation and a new respect for the non-stop labour of the fruit and vegetable farmer.

We were very very excited to leave the desert. After an hour of driving, the presence of humidity and rain started to create a landscape more familiar to us eastern Ontarians. Breathing that wet air and leaving such a dry micro-climate was like sipping a long needed glass of water. We went to Squamish, the outdoor recreation capital of the world, for what was to become a vacation within a vacation.

For days we browsed cute vintage shops and had coffee at the aptly named zephyr cafe, watched kite-boarding and danced at the wind festival, climbed the chief, worked an odd job and swam in the azure lakes. We met a friend we knew 6 years ago in Ottawa while hiking a rural trail around one of the lakes; we came over a boulder and there she was. The universe works in mysterious ways when you are living authentically.

At long, long last: the Pacific.

The mountain we were to climb the next day, Stawamus Chief, looming in the background.

A rest halfway through the climb complete with lemonade.

Upward, and upward and upward

Tantalus range

A selfie (he loves it)

Bath time (safe-soap) :)

The girl and the deer

If you ever go to Monck provincial park on Nicola lake and walk past the beach, past the large hollows in the grass where the pit houses used to be and into the forest there's a fawn there. If you look into her eyes and present her a flower as per (my) legend, she can tell your future.

West is Best

We had been calling British Columbia the promised land well before we left, and this was proven to us within 15 hours of arriving. As we approached the rockies leaving Alberta, we saw road trippers and van-dwellers alike pulled over, desperately fixing flats, so close yet so far, weather beaten hitch-hikers walking toward Banff as if Woodstock. I don't know if we were expecting in true Ontario fashion for a path to be blown through the Rockies, but I personally was not anticipating the freaky drive between Banff and Golden, where we stopped for the night.

Picture this: Mindblowing drop-offs metres away from the road, which is narrow and winding with hair-pin turns while transports honk at you to go past the speed limit, avalanche nets supporting rocks on one side while big-horned sheep grin at you on the opposite side where they are standing on an impossibly steep cliff as if daring you to join them and terribly steep hills with run-off roads and break check stations- all with not the best breaks. But we made it and had a celebretory rum and coke in Golden, staring at the snowy peaks and green river. We arrived in Golden around 7 pm. In the morning by 10am, before Shawn even awoke, we had a job. I texted a number I'd found on kijiji for pickers on a fruit and vegetable farm in Spences Bridge, a few hours from where we were staying. They told us to come on down. What we didn't know was it was the HOTTEST PLACE IN CANADA, the only desert; complete with rattle snakes and black widows, and temperatures rising to as high as 46 degrees in the dry, nosebleed inducing heat of the prime summer, which we signed up to work in the unforgiving fields in.

Enough with the dramatics though. We marvelled at the fact that less than four days before we had been wearing jackets watching Canada day fireworks in the small town of Wawa. Why not go from 10 degrees to 50? We had free camping with hookups, could make our own hours, and come tomato season, would have a small fortune, enough to allow us to travel further and enjoy more. We are here likely until the end of July, and, now that we can afford a few surf lessons, hello Tofino?