Oh, Canada, eh!

Canada Day falls on July 1st so it was a bit like the Fourth of July without excessive drunkenness and multitudinous fireworks. 

Here in Canmore we were treated to an annual parade which is quite large and well attended for such a small town. The Calgary Stampede is the week after and several bands, floats, and participants of that debaucherous week of hats and boots start out by participating in the Canmore Canada Day Parade to get in some practice and get their horses used to crowds. 

They don't have a one dollar bill here. It's a gold coin with a bird that looks like a duck on it. The bird is a loon and the coin is know as the "Loony" which is as family friendly and totally dorky as the rest of Canada but it TOTALLY eclipsed by the two dollar coin which has Polar Bears on it. Is it called the "Polary" or the "Bear coin" you might ask and I would say no. It's called a "Twonie." RETARDED. So, anyway, about  a week ago I had ventured into the Dollar Store (not called the Loonie Store as it should be) where few things are a dollar/Loonie but where one can find lots of irresistible crap. I personally fell in love with their large collection of temporary tattoos of the Canadian Flag which I purchased while telling myself they were for my goddaughter Braxton who LOVES temporary tattoos. 

Thank goodness I did buy those lovely little flag tattoos because Canada Day nearly demanded that I get a little festive. I met up with Elizabeth and Alicia, my sexy neighbors down the lane,and we promptly applied maple leaf flags to our selves and were off (sorry Braxton.)  We rode our bikes into town and met up with the ever-amazing Pinta/Snakebite/Dr. Cynthia Lane Ph.D/International Plant Guru. Owen 

closed the museum for an hour during the parade (shhh. that's a secret) and come to meet up with us.

Snakebite and I were pretending it was an unofficial Gay Pride. My b

ubble was burst however when a blue Volkswagen  Beetle full of drag queens drove by and it was full of 

actual women! Gross. Later I 

was complaining about the absence of fags in the Bow Valley and Snakebite offered

 some advice to me. All the women here are broad shouldered, athletic, and slightly masculine. She said if I was trying to tell if they were gay or not then I just had to remember one thing: "They aren't gay. They are straight. They are all straight straight straight." The entire valley is full of decoys! (It reminds me of the Karney, NB ladies basketball team when my sister was in college.) 

After the sunny and warm parade we adjourned to the Century Park where the marching bands were giving an exposition/recital. My favorite band was the Calgary Stampede Marching band. They sounded great, had killer red capes, and we all agreed they had the hottest conductor. They did let me down a little when they played in the park by standing instead of marching in tight little choreographed  patters like the other bands but their sound was extraordinary and they had a timpani. 

All in all Canada day was a success. Yeah there were friends, sunshine, Shriners in little airplanes, marching bands and the smell of barbeque, but truth be known, it's hard to have a bad day when you're wearing temporary tattoos that look like maple leaf flags.

Wapiti

Wapiti (Cervus elaphus) is the second largest (After the Moose) and most highly evolved of the Old World Deer. It is also known as the American elk but here in Canada it's called a Wapiti--Shawnee for "white rump." Wapiti came to North America at the end of the last ice age and expanded their range and population only after the extinction of the American mega fauna about 11,000 years ago.

Owen and I had just hiked up the Spray Lakes and we split up for the last leg, as we biked home. I wanted to ride along the dike that forms the bottom lake and Owen wanted to take the highway--his road bike just can't handle the off-road adventures like my trusty green hill-bombing machine.

As I neared the rendezvous point I saw several Wapiti going to down to get a drink. I slowed down and got my trusty black D2X out. They were a little far away but with the mountains in the background everything looks pretty photo-worthy.

Just then the crazy Wapiti opted for a swim instead of a drink. I was amazed to see them wade into the reservoir and start swimming. They don't look particularly buoyant but they swam quite quickly. I was snapping intermittently until they scooted out and over the dike and trotted down the valley.

Frankly, I was disappointed when I moved to Canmore that there was no movie theater. I wondered if they just went out with buckets of popcorn and stared at the snow capped bluffs. Lately however I've been thinking about my new library card and the aquatic Wapiti and deciding that maybe I've got plenty of entertainment, I'll just have to venture out to find it. There just might be a evening soon when the neighbors will be asking one another what that American kid is doing with a bowl of popcorn standing out in his yard.

Planned Burns

There is an epidemic of Pine Beetles in the forests of Eastern British Columbia and Western Alberta. It is a naturally occurring pest that has had the unwitting assistance of humans to help it along. Normally forests periodically burn. It's actually very good for them as long as it's not too often and they come back healthier then before. Modern times however have seen us prevent forest fires that were long overdue and we have forests full of trees that are too old to defend themselves from the beetles. A healthy tree can produce enough sap that when the beetles attack it repels them. An older treee however, basically over 80 or so, can't produce much sap and it becomes a breeding ground until it's dead. Once the beetle populations get immense they can even take down healthy young trees and then you have a real epidemic like the one we have now. To slow the spread they are burning parts of the forest this spring.

Even if it is a controlled burn you are still in awe when the smoke plume crests the mountains' ridges. This smoke appeared as we biked away from the house and I took these photos less then 20 minutes later. If it wasn't a planned burn I think I would have been scared witless and headed straight for the river.

Canmore Mountain Treat

Last week wasn't going particularly well. I was homeless, my credit card was pirated, I got a sunburn and Owen called me an asshole. In addition to these fun facts I had hiked to a park to call HEC Montreal for my grad-school interview and just before I dialed three mowers started mowing the park. By the time I got to the second park I missed my call in time. AUH..Siick!

When I had stopped in at the library to check my bank balance earlier and found that my credit card had been pirated and had to call UMB in Kansas City. The first call to UMB was a complete success and Mr. Latourneau was extremely helpful. Unfortunately I didn't have an address as of yet and had to hang up and call back with an address that didn't entirely have as my own and didn't know at all. That's when UMB turned back into the bank I was more familiar with and told me that no card could be replaced to an address out of the country. After many unsuccessful attempts to explain that this was unacceptable I pointed out that Crosby Kemper and the rest of the Kemper clan traveled extensively. What if Mr. Kemper lost his card? Do you you tell them to stay domestic? It's Canada for the sake of Maple leaves and Hockey...not some war torn fraudulent country with shady postal systems and warlords wielding machetes! (PS. Fox news and their fraudulent propaganda can please stop referring to the Canadians as socialists. They're capitalists.)

The week seemed to have been heading down the path a truly crappy week when miracle of miracles we got to move into our apartment early!!!!! Yippee!! I went to the campsite and loaded up the car and had everything (including the bikes) moved-in in under and hour. I put everything in a line down the middle of the apartment and by the time Owen arrived home from work there were no boxes left and everything was unpacked and put away. The kind of joy I felt can only be compared to one of those crazy wives on Exteme Home Makeover who see their new house and, in spite of their obesity and fact that everyone in America is watching, they start jumping up and down. Yeah, I was that kind of happy.

Today I woke up all excited and went mountain biking on Powerline Trail and I BLEW a tire several miles from the house. I didn't even know that was possible on a bike. I had to walk it home. It felt shameful. Every spandex laden weekender from Calgary must have rode past thinking, "what's that homo in the 'Where the Wild Things Are' t-shirt doing out here?"

Defeated, but not exhausted, I packed up the computers and hiked to Canmore. I took Owen his lunch at the Museum and helped move Bud the American Bison (more on Bud later).

As I was leaving a lady named Debbie, who works with Owen, put a treat in my hat. There is a Belgian Chocolatier here in Canmore. I thought I would just have a bite. I then thought I would just have one more. Then one block later, as I entered the library, I put the last piece in my mouth. I started to write about my crappy week but it just didn't seem that crappy anymore.

To recap: yesterday I moved into an apartment at 15 Shellian Lane and had a fantastic interview with HEC Montreal. Today I had a short but energetic bike ride, learned to change a bicycle tire, enjoyed a picnic in the park with Owen, spent several relaxing hours at the library, met a North American Bison named Bud and I ate one of the biggest and most delicious bars of chocolate I've ever had in my life. Whew.


Chocolate makes everything better.

Where do you live?

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Owen and I rushed across north America, from Montreal to Canmore, to make it to an all-staff meeting at his new job. I being the most curious person ever to ask all the wrong questions did not realize that getting here on Monday the 25th would mean that even if we immediately found an apartment we probably would not be able to move in until the 1st of June.

"Holy crap," I thought to myself, "where the hell are we going to live until then?"

For Owen there was an easy answer to this question: We would live in a tent in a campground.

For me there was an answer which was equally as simple: We were going to be homeless.

Camping and homelessness share many qualities but the main difference is that when you are camping you have a cook stove or firewood and all of your possessions are not filling a Subaru Forester like a 3-D Jenga game. We looked like gypsies. The car was full to the gills and there were two bikes heaped on the roof. If we slammed on the breaks, or were in an accident, we would be buried in an avalanche and it would take some equivalent of the jaws of life to liberate us. Maybe my sister's husband Byron could just stand on the pile of wreckage and have an auction. It would look like a garage-sale got hit by bomb.

Homelessness has always been one of those things that while being a reality is what happens to other people. Poor people. Drug addicts and old hookers. We were pretty and young (well Owen is young, I'm youngish.) How did I suddenly find myself with no address?

I went swimming at the hot spring on Sulphur Mountain yesterday (after climbing Sulphur Mountain). There was this little boy I dubbed Splasher. He was shy and kind of nerdy but he we hit it off. When Owen and I were changing I was walking around the locker room looking for a swimsuit spinner. Splasher was walking out with his dad and the little man asked me where I lived. Hell. How to answer that? Could I say KC, MO? It might sound sound foreign and sort of cool but I definitely didn't live there anymore. Should I say Montreal where a lot of my stuff is but where I've only ever spent about 4 or 5 weeks? Should I say Canmore where my socks and underwear are but where I literally live in a tent by the river and have no address, no shower and running water?

Where do I live? Such a simple question--until I thought about it. When you're having an adventure where do you live? Where do you live when you're out living?

For the last 8 years I have known where I lived. I lived in Kansas City. I knew that. I wasn't particularly happy and was desperate for an adventure but I knew exactly where I lived. Then I moved to Montreal and for a few days I lived there. I could prove it. I had possession there and an address and a few friends who could vouch for me. Then I got in the car with a bright-eyed art-lover who radiates with youth and freedom and I drove across North America to a beautiful mountain town where I have no visa, no job and no address other then, "the green tent beside the Bow River."

So standing there wearing only a green towel I had not felt particularly exposed until a wee man in a stripped oxford and tiny little khaki pants asked me where I lived. Clayton? Auckland? Lawrence? San Diego? Kansas City? Montreal?

"I live in Canmore, Alberta," I said.

"Oh, that's where I'm staying. I have to be there at 9, that's when I go to bed."

Genius, little boy, genius. When did the verb 'to live' get an address? This might be why so many of us are unhappy...why I was unhappy...Confined...Boxed in.

We don't need to be addressed and localized. People are nomadic to their very core historically and maybe genetically. We need to start asking, "where do you stay?" When the droll exposition of conversation with new friends starts we should say where we stay and then tell them how we live.

Since I left Kansas City I've stayed on Lake Huron, Lake Superior, Indian Wells and Canmore in the Rockies. Since I left Kansas City I've really felt like I'm living and I since I met Splasher I don't feel homeless anymore.

I stay in Canmore. It's kind of odd and counter intuitive but I don't have an address and I absolutely feel like I'm at home.

Greetings from Canmore.

I woke up early this morning. Actually I woke up very early. I still had my cellphone on Montreal time and forgot to change it. Owen had to get up at 8:30AM and I wanted to get up and start apartment hunting and exploring Canmore. When the alarm went off I got up, dressed, and was making coffee when Owen asked...

Do you know what time it is?
Um...8:30?
No...6:30.
6:30...not pretty.

Later, like two hours later, I re-got-up and looked out the window of our room and took the above photo. There are basically majestic mountain peaks in all directions. The three peaks on the left are called Three Sisters and are the easiest to recognize. I wonder if they have their own names? As a twin I can say that they should each have their own names and be treated as individuals or they will probably get quite aggressive and competitive.

The town claims to have 12,000 residents but it seems smaller. I mean it falls somewhere between Norton, KS and Westport, MO for size comparisons. There are few streets and not many buildings over two stories. I walked around and checked out the trail along the river and the downtown area. It's all that rocky-mountain-beautiful you get in Colorado without all the jackass Republicans and California transplants. In addition it's all impeccably well maintained. I'm surprised that it isn't more expensive.

Owen and I have found apartments listed for under $1000 and if you're willing to have roommates you can pay as little as 400 to 600 to share a house. I wish I had know about Canmore when I was going to UMKC I would have abandoned KC every summer! We're going to look at a place this evening that we both hope we like since the landlord seems like she wants us to rent it she works in the same building that Owen's gallery is in. The only problem is that it's not available until the 1st and that would mean six more days of living in a tent...."Egh, sick," according to Steven the Navajo Tranny.

Victoria Day!

When asking around Montreal I was basically only informed that Victoria Day was, "a holiday." In French it is Fête de la Reine. I did a little Wikipedia and found that it is a Canadian public holiday celebrated on the last Monday before or on 24 May, in honor of both Queen Victoria's birthday and the current reigning Canadian sovereign's official birthday, ie. The Queen of England. It is considered an informal mark of the beginning of the summer season much like Memorial Day in the USA.

It turned out to be quite sunny and warm today (70F) and the parks and cafes were busy. We picked up our friend Katya and headed for Mountain Equipment Coop so I could get the requesit (sp) sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and hiking shoes for our summer adventure to Alberta. Along the way I looked out the window and this lady is in rapt coconversation at a cafe and her breast is literally dangling out there. I was like, "what the fuck?" Then she sort of half-hazardously raised this baby up and it starts to suckle as she and her two friends keep yapping. You would have thought she was giving a first person testimonial of the birth of Jesus?

I'm all about the right to nurse in public. It's natural, and as mammals we have all either done it or are nail-bitters. There is a fine line however between nursing your baby and plain old "getting your tits out." It was a nice cafe. We were in the middle lane of Rue Park (aka Park St.) and I did not get a photo of the situation that really shows the bravado/exhibitionism of the mom/wet nurse but I think you get the idea. She kind of makes curb-side prostitutes seems shy.