If trees could scream I'd have a very disturbing job...

So, back from the bush for the time being. Currently sitting in the Prince George London Drugs shortly awaiting a chai latte from Starbucks with my name on it.

We were put on fire hours as soon as we left to brush in the Munro/Blackwater area around Williston lake. This means, that because of fire hazard, we had to get up every morning at 3 and be in the trucks before quarter to 4, so that we could brush from sun-up till 1 pm. It sucks for a variety of reasons, one of the biggest being that we don't get paid full wages, the other involving the spiritual logistics of waking up at 3 am to work.

Nonetheless, work progress nicely on a huge and flat (about 111 hectares) block about an hour from camp. The first day, when we drove in from PG, was pretty hard. However, by the second day it was as if I never left the block last year. Technique came back very quickly and it seemed like the whole school-year had been some quick blure that had taken mere moments to pass.

It was hot though. It got up to 28 degrees one day. So needless to say, I'm generally sweating like mad out there. The bugs were awful as well. As soon as you shutdown your saw to fill up with gas (it's a manual block = no herbicide) they're all over you. My arms actually turned red from bites. It looks like a rash all over my arms but it's just from mosquitos.

I had a harder time of it last year adjusting back to brushing than I'm having this year. Quitting smoking certainly helped and the mountain hiking I was doing with the VOC helped as well. My waistline is already starting to slim up and I'm 5 or 6 days into my second month without cigarettes. They've even been offered to me several times at camp and I've managed to turn the offer down. I'm on stage three patches now and expect to be off them entirely pretty soon.

We have a much smaller crew this year. Maybe twenty guys. Already a few of them have quit. Most of that happened on the last day before we got shutdown and pulled from the area. Pretty strange. One guy got canned, a frenchy with a bad attitude, and it was hard to feel sorry for him. You have to fuck up big time to get yourself fired from Apex.

So right now some brushers have gone back home (with the next rain expected in a week or so), others are going planting, and I'm hoping that a contract at Babine (near Smithers) opens up tonight. In which case, it would be off to brusher's paradise.

I've almost completed that 1421 book which has been great and served well to point ou what a small deal Christopher Columbus's sailings were at the time. The European explorers already had maps of the new world and we well aware of it before he set sail. I can't wait to get off to a camp like Ospika and dive into the book my Dad got me for Christmas.

That's all for now I think, time to lounge about in PG, and go get that Chai latte. It's the simple things you miss when you go to the bush.

Signing off...

Hurry up and wait...other thoughts in preparation for the season...

For a little while there a nasty rumour was circulating that we might be doing a little bit of tree-planting before the season started. I was left to ponder, what had we done wrong. Had we offended the Brushing Gods without knowing it; not enough herbicide libations poured out last season. After a tense afternoon bracing myself for the first thing to go wrong this season, word came down - a shift and a half of manual brushing at Munro camp (Manual means without herbicide - nothing to carry in the backpack except gas - easy as pie). Grace and the Brushing Gods had clearly chosen to smile upon us.

The last few days have been uneventful. I did go with Justin to pick up a truck from the tree-planters camp early this morning. It was good to start to get a little experience in the trucks before the season starts. It increases the odd chance that I might end up driving one at one point (though there are other candidates around).

The crew has been busy with their herbicide course (for which I already have 5 years certification) so I have been bustling around PG preparing for the 6 or more weeks that are to be spent in Ospika camp. The non-smoking thing has been going just fine: 4 weeks today and I'm nearly done with the level 2 patches soon I'll be off them entirely. I made sure to bring to fully unread Adbusters magazines from Vancouver and I just picked up a Harpers today. Over long stints in the bush, good magazines are to me as clean, cool water is to the parched man. Comraderie can only take you so far. There is a great need to distance onself on occaision and escape into the verbal/visual world of good writers.

On that note, I've advanced leagues through 1421: The Year China Discovered the World. It's a fantastic book and accounts the explorations of a massive Chinese fleet throughout the new world in the aforementioned year. The book is a result of 15 years of research and reads like an account of the author's investigations. For that and other reasons it's quite an exciting read as he travels from one corner of the world to the next one always finding the shreds and clues he's looking for. His evidence is substantial and solid and the very idea turns European exploration on its head. I love the account of the one wing of the Chinese fleet (who had been sent by the emperor to gather tribute from the inhabitants of the unknown reaches of the world) coming into contact with the ancient Mayans in southern mexico and their flourishing empire.

It's also amazing just what a backwater Europe was at the time of the explorations. The so-called civilized world was composed of Arabia, India and China all of whom traded with each other. Nowadays, after writing my China paper for my class on development and underdevelopment, the time for the rise of China is already underway. Searching through news articles and other data I found that China has, in the last few years, established itself as the dominant economic force in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It's power in that trading bloc is only slightly off-set by the emergence of another regional powerhouse: India. It has replaced America as the prime trading partners with Mercusor, the South American trading bloc that includes Brazil, Peru, Paraguay and Chile. China has also expanded into Africa, signing oil deals with Nigeria, Chad, Angola, Zimbabwe, Kenya as well as replacing Canadian company Talisman in the Sudanese oil conglomerate. China is rising to its formal imperial glory without the use of the sword (although, its sheer economic size is often enough to negotiate trading arrangement with other countries that sway heavily in favour of the Chinese. Where America is floundering in a war and dropping further and further into debt, China is flourishing without debt and remaining cool when America tries strange WWI triple-entente military alliances with Japan and India (trying to hem in China). China doesn't need to fight the Americans, they can sit back and let their competitors on the world stage for the title "superpower" slowly or quickly economically disentegrate.

Ahh, well, enough for now. Stay tuned to the blog for updates from Ospika when I get into camp. I'm sure keep this blog will be one of the many things I will use to keep my sanity in that place.

Once more unto the breach...

So just a short post regarding my whereabouts for the next 6 to 8 weeks (read: middle of nowhere). I'm currently sitting in the London Drugs in Prince George after taking the overnight Greyhound. There is no way to sleep in greyhounds, I'm convinced their seats were constructed with joint and muscle pain in mind.

There seem to be a lot of rookies around and very few veterans. I'm the only one from my year so far, a couple have come back from last year, but the pickin's are looking slim. I'm stuck in PG for the next few days while everyone else does the herbicide course. Then, from the sound of things we head off to Ospika camp for a 6 to 8 week stretch.

Rookies are going to drop like flies, it'll be a baptism of fire. Ospika is 10 hours into the bush and nothing but gnarled trees, rivers, mountainsides and wasps to welcome us. It'll be good money for me, and I did bring a ton of different books. I just keep looking forward to the Africa trip at the end of this stint in the bush. Once Ospika finishes it'll probably be August already.

I saw Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" with Dave the night before I left Van. Pretty good, a bit too Gore-centric but interesting and frightening nonetheless. The vast majority of it was simply good scientific evidence of global warming's effects and frightening predicitons. Should the western antarctic go sea levels go up by 20 feet. Read: 65 million refugees worldwide. It's a film that people skeptical of global warming should see. If anything it simply cries out with irrefutable data. I have a sneaky suspicion though that the anti-global warming position of many conservatives is more of a political stance than it is a true belief. It's kind of like saying "we're a red state and don't fall for that liberal bias about the environment". It becomes about the current administration and where you stand rather than the environment. It's a shame too, because the environment and its changing weather patterns doesn't give a shit who you voted for. Hurricanes aren't selective.

Well, time to sign off and go try to get a room at UNBC. Hurry up and wait, that's the order of the day. Two months in Ospika, good God...

Radical Islam the greatest threat to Democracy?

After all the hooplah following the arrests of the terror suspects in Canada, a lot of chatter has been going around the various news networks regarding the threat that "homegrown" radical islamists pose to "democracy" (another term as vague as "freedom" these days). This claim, I believe, does have creedence and must be addresses but it is not monolithic - to assume that Al Queda is one monstrous octopus-like organisation with operatives everywhere is just naive. The allure of fundamentalist Islam to disenfrachised Muslim youth, in Canada and the E.U. especially warrants open discussion and discourse.

What annoys me is that this problem is a double-edged sword, with only one side being addressed by media outlets. After the Canadian arrests, there is outcry for debate and solutions, however - the other side of the story, the events and actions that truly inspire the terrorists and give them their best reasons lie south of the border and are never talked about.

What about American foreign policy since the first Gulf War. The landing of a huge, American (read: Christian infidel if you're Osama) in the Kingdom of Saud, the home to Mecca and the prophet Mohammed's homeland. The land was defiled by the simple presence of the troops and so the first reasons to strike back are in order.

A few years later, Osama strikes and bombs the American embassy in Nairobi. Clinton responds with a barrage of cruise missilles targetting supposed terrorist training camps as well as a "weapons factory" in Khartoum, Sudan. Most of the missiles fall short of targets, in the words of Gwynn Dyer when I heard him speak before the start of the Iraq War "My eight-year-old daughter with a dart-board and a handful of darts could have done a better job." The missilles instead land in rural Pakistani villages killing civilians (a fact non-challantly passed off by the media as if expected) and the weapons factory in Khartoum was actually making medicine (another oops). If I lived in the mountains of Pakistan, and a bomb killed my family, I'd certainly be angry and sad enough to pledge alleigance to an organisation that promised me revenge against the people behind the bomb. Wouldn't you?

The CIA has a term called "Blowback". It refers to counter-reactions that occur as a result of actions taken by American forces, covert or overt. Along comes September 11th and the whole world gasps at the magnitude of the attack. Where did this come from ask the American people? Why do they hate us? Is printed across Newsweek amongst other rags. Blowback on a huge scale.

To believe that America went to war in Iraq to pursue and wipe out terrorists that were and are a threat to America (the "fight the over there so we don't have to figh them here" argument), is to be ridiculously naive. Saddam Hussein was a secularist, Islamic radicals had been a threat to his government and he was well known within the area for torturing and killing any Islamic terrorists he was able to get his hands on (seeing them as a threat to his leadership).

Iraq has oil, yes, a lot of oil that is easily processable. It also holds a seat on OPEC, and shortly before the Iraq War, Saddam was pressuring the oil-producing nations' organisation to switch their reserve currency from the American greenback to the euro. Now, by proxy, America has the oil, it has a seat on OPEC (they still use the greenback). As Dyer, points out in his book "Future Tense" the Iraq war was illegal (i.e. deemed by the U.N.). He believes it was not only launched to secure oil reserves, but as a show of imperial might by the American government. It was to show other regional powers (E.U., Russia, and especially China) that the U.S. wasn't playing by the rules anymore and would occupy entire regions to secure that their political and economic interests were met.

Take the position, if you will, of an Iranian man middle-aged living in Tehran. You faught in the Iran/Iraq war and have no love lost for Saddam but are aware that the Americans funded and armed your enemy during that time. You watch as countries to the East (Afghanistan) and West (Iraq and Saudi Arabia) are occupied by the imperial military forces of the Christian West. It doesn't help when President Bush describes the operation as a "Crusade". To you, it would seem that the Islamic world is having its very existence threatened by a power on the other side of the world. Now your country is threatened with war if it doesn't stand down and stop nuclear weapons research. Why should you and your country bow down to the Christian invaders? How would you view the actions of America and its allies in your neck of the woods?

The call comes for solutions. Though, personally, I support the presence of a U.N. force to stabilize Afghanistan believing that the Taliban were the shame of the world long before September 11th, I believe the very fact that our troops are seem as allies to the Americans is putting our troops at risk (no matter how good their intentions are). Hamid Kharzai is seen as a puppet of the Americans and his government as well by a large percentage of the Afghan people. Perhaps replacing our troops with peace-keepers from muslim countries would be a start. Bring in Pakistani and Iranian peace-keepers, draw in these countries (Pakistan the lone muslim nuclear power) and Iran close to the U.N. (the ultimate vessel by which a nation may save face in front of its people while negotiating). If the rest of the Muslim world sees the western forces withdrawing from these area and the appearance that the members of Muslim world will help their neighbours when in need - good things could come of this.

Of course, American troops won't withdraw for a very long-time. It would probably take an economic crisis (they're heading for one right now) to do that. For the time being, "to preserve that American way of life" in the words of the President they will be there. That can be translated as securing and guarding oil reserves so that seas of SUVs have sufficient gas to run for another few years.

So before we wonder where all this hate comes from in the muslim world, take a look around and try to understand their position.

Signing off...

The allure of the hills...

I've spent the last few days on hikes with members of the Varsity Outdoors Club (VOC) in the mountains inbetween Chilliwack and Hope. While I was hiking, especially today, I spent a good deal of time trying to rationalise and figure out just what it is, ontologically speaking, that draws me to these hills and these actions.

The first hike was up Elk and Thurston mountains just east of Chilliwack. When I was a kid, travelling on the Trans-Canada to Qualicum for the summer, these lush, forested mountains with their spectacular waterfalls signalled that I was truly in BC and soon I would be smelling ocean air (after a brief transfer through the cow-dung stink of Chilliwack - Thank God cows can't fly, my dad used to say). I got up early in the morning and drove out with three other VOC guys into the mist and rain we were kind of hoping wouldn't be there.

The hike began easily enough but soon became an upwards ridge climb through high stands of cedar, fir, and mountain hemlock enshrouded in morning mist and fog. It was relentlessly uphill without respite and I found myself falling behind the group (to my chagrin). I took some photos but the light was bad, so any of the photos you see on this post are thanks to the internet. After what seemed like quite a while, light could be seen emerging at the top of the darkened woods and we emerged into Elk mountain meadows. We were above the clouds and afforded beautiful views of the Chilliwack river snaking its course through the valley far bellow and snowy mountains across the valley (when the sun chose to break through the clouds).

We continued along the ridge and climbed another 4 kilometers or so until we finally came to a large cairn that marked the summit of Thurston. The meadows were filled with the early signs of flowers and were skirted with rocky cliffs. Occaisionally we crossed snowpack. It made for good photography. We ate more food before it began to rain hard and even hailed for a few minutes (which we took as a divine sign to head down). I had a much easier time on the downclimb and we made good time through the meadows (running at times) before finding our way back into the forest and back to the car at about 3:30 (we'd started at about 10). In total, 15 kilometers round trip and over 1000 meters vertical gain.

We got food in Chilliwack before plodding through the traffice back into Vancouver.

Saturday was a day of recuperation, walking around downtown with moderate muscle pains.

Today, I was picked up early in the morning and Sandra, Scott, and three other VOCers headed past Chilliwack to a forestry service road near Hope. The hike was to Eaton Lake and starting off wasn't too bad, I lead early on before dropping back. It was only 4 kilometers up, but it was straight up (about 900 meters vertical gain over 4 km). The forest was a lush combination of towering trees covered in Old Man's Beard moss with a mossy floor. Eaton river surged down the slope and we crossed it several times.

As I began to drop back from the crowd and experience serious muscle pain in my quads (not quite recovered from Elk Thurston) I gave serious though to just what it was that draws me to this activity while friends like Jason wouldn't touch it with a nine-foot pole and Cliff isn't interested in it. What was the primordial appeal? A good deal of it is sensual and aesthetic I think, the feeling when you breach the forest and make it to the alpine meadows is always nice. Walking across tenous bridges while surveying the mad rush and roil of the river below gives you a strong sense of your tenancy on this planet. The sheer force of the surroundings, sometimes only in the steepness grading of the path is more than enough to humble you.

We climbed up through fog and cloud and eventually made it to the lake. It was raining and the surrounding mountains were fogged in. A whiskey jack did eat bread out of my hand several times, a sort of communing with the vessels of nature that picked up my spirits.

When the rain picked up, we started down and again I had an easier time at it, even leading near the bottom. The ride home smelled of musty hikers (probably just me).

All and all a few good days of exercise and a sort of contentedness mixed with severe muscle pains that is hard to describe unless you've felt it for yourself. I suppose, to sum it up I'd need only quote the title of this page - it is a certain freedom in those hills.


Signing off...

Here's a link to the photos Jordan took of the Elk Thurston hike:
http://jordan.mpages.org/elk/

Hiking photos as promised...

A misty Cowichan Valley as seen on the way up Mount Tzhouhalem.
More Tzhouhalem views on the way up to the summit. The view from the second summit looking south is centre. Blair Fairweather, my hiking partner of the day is right.














A couple of photos from on top of Grouse Mountain when Dave and I trekked around there...














Some mountain scenery on the right taken from the summit of Little Goat Mountain. The right photo shows the summit of Big Goat Mountain on the right and Crown Mountain on the left.

Dave has a bite to eat and surveys Big Goat Mountain on the left. The sunburned trekker in front of Crown on the right, and the summit of Crown at centre with the "Camel" visible on the right (one of my climbing goals).

More mountain scenery from the top of Little Goat, with the aid of the long angle lens.

The Stawamus Chief on the left taken during my trad course. The windswept and rainy granite coming back from the summit of the first peak of the Chief.

On the way down from the first summit of the Chief, in desperate need of dry clothing and warm food...