Charity and local Politics


            ‘What do think about the ferry ploughing into the dock last Tuesday,’ I asked my friend Camp who was no friend of the ferry system. He has over the years bitched about many unpleasant incidents with the ferry as most of us coasters have. Like constant delays, the ongoing game of chicken trying to wiggle and slalom into the left lane from the parking lot across three lanes of oncoming traffic or being cut off at the ticket booth while the boat was still loading.

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For a better Future


            Unseasonal warm, August like temperatures, have banished old man winter for another year it seems. The skies are blue, the coastal mountains frosted with snow and Vancouver’s beaches are crowed with sun seekers.

‘Hey Camp, know what day it is today?’ I asked as soon as took my seat at our table with the view of the harbour.

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Myth and Culture


At least it’s light now when I walk along the shore to our weekly chin-wag, I stopped by our storm damaged wharf which is getting fixed, thanks to a strong local community which came forward with cash, art and music. In fact there is a ‘Raise the Wharf’ fundraiser on Saturday, 16th March at the Gibsons Public Market.

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Headlines and Leaders


“We live in a fantastic and immediate world,” I said to Campbell, Camp as we all know him, when I saw him fold the newspaper he was reading.

“Yes, it is so instant that today’s headline has a half-life of 24 hours before it decays into opinions and then further into non-sequiturs,” Camp said.

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Carnival Queens


I saw her the first time at Cuddy’s rum shop on the corner of Mainstreet. She wore a red and yellow plaid dress, a Redsox ball cap and large, golden hoop earrings. Her shoulder length hair was frizzy and stiff and twisted into dreadlocks. On her feet she wore plastic sandals that had seen better days. Her hands were like roots and her face was like Sonny Liston after his fight against Cassius Clay, with amber teeth and a flat nose. Her charcoal eyes looked into the distance and her head nodded to the incessant beat of the jab-jab trucks rolling slowly up and down Mainstreet, followed by gyrating partiers dressed in colourful carnival costumes.

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Animal World


It’s been another wintry week but today the sun broke through, the air is cold and crisp and the blue sky looks freshly washed and clear. The days are getting longer and I can feel spring just around the corner. Camp, my cohort and weekly sparring partner over a couple of pints, was already in place at our usual table. Obviously business was slow at the bookstore.

“Did you know that Insects are dying at a catastrophically and unprecedented  rate,” he said as soon as I sat down.

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