Video of where we live – Hornby Island
We came across this video by someone who recently visited Hornby Island. I think he captured it very beautifully and elegantly.
130 Seconds of Hornby Island B.C from Grant Baldwin Videography on Vimeo.
Back to the future with a view to the past
In preparing the site we’ll be building on, we’ve had to take many trees down both for the house site itself but also to garner a little view to Lambert Channel and Denman and Vancouver Islands to the West. We are not on the waterfront, but just across a lane from waterfront properties.
The good news is, the waterfront property in front of us is my family’s who have owned it since 1965 and is the house we’re living in until our’s is finished. Back then, it was an open field with just a few tall firs and some smaller cedars, firs, maples and arbutus near the shore.
Over the last 45 years, did things ever change. The photo below is different angle but you get the idea.
My parent’s built a small cabin in 1966 with a view looking west. We could see most of the beach and then out to the water and islands in the distance. Slowly—or not so slowly—trees started to grow and the view over the years gradually disappeared until one time in the mid 1990s there was no view at all.
Dan Hamilton at work
Various attempts have been made to fight back the brush, but it’s costly and/or a lot of work to deal with all the mess that ensues. Carrying branches to the beach to burn or sawing up the fallen trees takes a lot of time. In most cases this was done largely by my dad, George.
I think he may love the trees that block the view so much partly because he knows the work and expense in removing them and it’s usually been him dealing with it so maybe, just maybe, he’d rather just leave them standing than deal with them. Can’t really blame him.
All these years have passed and it was time to clear so that the million-dollar view and the taxes paid for it, really was a million-dollar view and not to one of a tree farm.
Enter Dan Hamilton and his crew from Whiskey Jack Tree Service. Dan is a faller but also an arborist so he knows about trees and their health. We’ve learned a lot about the health of trees and what causes problems as well as marvelling at the tree climbing and falling.
The view, I’m happy to say, has come back. I feel like a six year old kid again standing on the deck of the cabin looking at the spectacular vista. With just a couple more trees to go, they will be finished on the waterfront lot and will then complete the house site work.
We’re looking forward and back today.
You can see a more complete set of images from this whole process on Flickr.
Reviewing the house site and talking dirty sewage
L-R: Darren Bond, Ron McMurtrie, Dave Colley, Michael McNamara, Tim Wyndham
Ok, sewage talk isn’t very interesting, but it’s sure important.
In the following video you can see the area that has been cleared so far and where a culvert will be installed to bring vehicles into the lot to work on excavation and other clearing.
The architect (Michael McNamara), builder (Tim Wyndham) showed up to discuss the house placement and septic/sewage issues with the environmental engineer (Ron McMurtrie) and Dave Colley who will be installing the system and field as well as the driveway.
To see some photos on Flickr, click here.
See this post for the most recent tentative house plan.
If you can’t see the video below, click here to view it directly on YouTube.
Let the clearing begin
Dan Hamilton and Nick from Whiskey Jack Tree Service showed up to start taking down the trees on the lot. The first job was to take some out so a culvert could be put through as well as begin the process of clearing a “view” to the ocean.
You can see a series of photos on Flickr but the video below (click here if you can’t see it) shows some of the trees they strategically brought down in a ditch and on the front part of the lot. Next week, the portions that were bucked up into sizes suitable for milling will be stacked and the rest dealt with.
After that, more clearing will be done on the actual location of the house. Finally, a number of trees on the family waterfront lot will be cleared creating a view corridor to Lamber Channel, Denman and Vancouver Islands to the West.
Welcome to Hornby, of a sort
We’ve actually moved here. It was a few weeks ago already. Tranquil? Not yet. Not by a long shot.
First Night on Hornby
The first few days were calm: getting settled in to the “summer place” (living here while our house is built over the next fifteen months). Then, going for our first bike rides on our new bikes. Getting full grocery loads at the Co-op. Checking out the dry goods section. Ordering wine and liquor from a three-ring binder and giving your slip to the “girl.” A bit of jogging. All good.
Ordering Liquor at Co-op
Our first weekend morning – a tranquil Sunday morning – we were doing our first load of laundry with the new “portable” washing machine and doing various bits of internet work. Suddenly, the lights flickered a bit and then there was a kind of shaking and a bang. “Was that an earthquake?” The lights went out.
It turned out that, by some fluke, our power lines – as they connect to the main system at the pole at the back of the lot – snapped off. The lines were lying across the back yard. Hmmm, what to do. Wait! Are the wires hot? No, they’re disconnected. So, that’s good, I guess. Now what?
John called BC Hydro – the electricity provider hereabouts – and they were very accommodating. However, they couldn’t make it over to the island that very afternoon because they were tied up at a house fire – good excuse – but would come over on the first ferry Monday morning.
In the meantime, being early spring, we knew it would be a chilly house in short order, so it was time to get the fire going and warm things up as much as possible before jumping under the duvet and getting the extra woollen blanket from the top of the closet. Kindling – always in demand – was a bit too much to tackle when there were lots of dry branches and twigs around the road from the windy winter. Soon enough, a cheery fire was laid in the fireplace. Kepler kept close.
We thought they might show up around 9:00 or 10:00 or 11:00am but, sure enough, we heard the beeping sound of the big truck backing down our little lane at 8:00 sharp. Yay!
They had a couple of guys and their little hydraulic bucket was quickly raised and the one guy had things reconnected within fifteen minutes. There was also an old pole that was supposed to have been taken away a year ago by TELUS but he graciously got out his chainsaw and had it down in seconds. Great service!
With the power on, everything fell back into pattern. All our problems were over. Until Tuesday.
One of the nice features of our new bikes is the “grocery bag” that attaches to the bike. Perfect. We went to the Co-op – I was getting confident riding again after forty-odd years – and picked up some items. Now, perhaps the load was a bit heavy for each of us. And maybe this was a bit of foreshadowing.
Returning home along the road – so sunny and pleasant that I neglected to put on my cycling gloves – all was well. Until my memory goes blank.
I think I must have a hit a patch of gravel on a down-hill curve and lost my balance and control. The next thing I recall, the ambulance crew was looking down at me. John was a bit ahead and noticed that I wasn’t behind him. He came back and found me in a heap on the road and flagged down a car to call 911.
It was all a bit of a procedure to transport me from ambulance to ambulance to ambulance (they can’t leave their respective island territories) to hospital in Comox. However, the speed, care and attention was phenomenal.
Darren in St. Joseph's Hospital in Comox
It was the oddest kind of “welcome wagon” I had ever experienced! But, in the end, it was a great experience, too. My few days in the hospital (mainly because of a damaged kidney) were fine, even being kept in an emergency room overflow area… John collected me and brought me home.
Again, I was able to experience first-hand the local medical care by going in to the local clinic to have my dressings changed (not pretty). As it turns out, I was one of the last in the existing clinic. They have just taken possession of a brand new building, and so the next time one of us is in need of immediate care, we can trust our local facility.
Now, having returned from a four-day conference in Vancouver, and another week under our belt, let us now hope that the “living out beyond” can begin. However, perhaps that has already happened, just in a slightly different format than we imagined.
Late Light on Arbutus
Isn’t that always the way?
Welcome gift of flowers from neighbours
Memories of Shingle Spit Resort
Though it’s now called Hornby Island Resort, in my mind it will always be Shingle Spit Resort. It’s the place my family stayed the first year we came to Hornby Island in 1962.
Here is one side of a brochure for the resort from about 1966. Click on the thumbnail for a larger view:
This video below shows a little walk-around of the current facility where the store, restaurant and pub are/were. It’s changed a little over the years but not a whole lot. There are plans underway to redevelop this complex. In a weird sort of way, I’ll be kind of sad to see it go only because it holds a place in my childhood memories.
The evening this was shot, it was almost dark with grey skies and a bit of a south-easterly blowing. I was the only person around.
Retirement: What a Stupid Word
Well, it’s been quite awhile since I’ve done a post here. That will change, I think. Back in November I worked my last day for TELUS, my employer for over thirty years. Wow.
Because I started right out of university at age 21, I was able to take advantage of a situation where they needed to downsize and offered “packages” for “early” retirement. So, while I am now retired, it has gone from a being a theoretical concept to reality. And now that it’s here, I see that it’s a stupid word.
I am setting up a consulting practice – so much for retirement – focusing on some fundamental business administration areas including: strategic planning, balanced scorecards for performance management and pay-for-performance compensation. It’s called Outburst Performance.
I have an initial client and am also preparing a two-hour workshop to be delivered at a performing arts conference, Pacific Contact, in March.
There are a couple of major changes being triggered by this retirement business:
- we’re moving to Hornby Island full time in March rather than another eighteen months (living in the family cabin during construction of our house)!
- setting up my business while living out beyond is now something I need to bring to the front-burner to figure out how to make it work.
I have been spending quite a bit of time saturating myself with social media – Twitter, FaceBook, LinkedIn, Flickr – and getting a feel for it. Part of it is pure fun – reconnecting with cousins I haven’t talked to in decades – and part of it is business. I even attended a little book club on Friday set up by John to discuss a book on the topic. Online triggers offline activities…
So, last year was an unexpectedly a year of major change triggered by my employment situation. This year will be the same, or possibly even more so, with our physical move out of the city after thirty years (fifty for John). With my retirement gift from work, we’ve bought bicycles for the island. I haven’t ridden one in over 40 years (25-second video of big event).
To use some business-y “suit talk”: we have the core competencies to embrace ambiguity. It will come with challenges but should be fun. If not now, when?
Letting the Living Out Beyond begin
To borrow TELUS’s tag line: the future is friendly. Let the “living out beyond” begin.
It Has Always Felt “Right” To Do This
By John McLachlan
In my post Ten Romantic Reasons For Living Out Beyond the tenth reason I gave was that it has always just felt right to do.
I have always felt a connection to Hornby Island. I’ve been going there for 48 years and that past does have a hold on me which I wrote about in my song “There is a Star.” This sums it up:
I hear a voice calling
I see my spirit falling
Through time and space endlesslyI feel my soul revealing
I taste this hidden feeling
Oh Hornby you got your hold again on me
This reason is totally romantic and irrational, but if you are at all into “listening to your gut” then if I listen to mine, it’s saying loud and clear that it’s a good idea to start living out beyond.
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Image above is of John McLachlan in about 1971 near Phipps Point on Hornby Island, British Columbia.
I Want To Have More Silence In My Life
By John McLachlan
In my post Ten Romantic Reasons For Living Out Beyond the ninth reason I gave was that I’d like more silence in my life.
Perhaps it’s not silence I crave, but rather quietness. I’m not sure.
I’ve had very few experiences with silence in my life to know what it’s really like. Silence brings me face-to-face with myself and I suspect that’s why people often avoid silence at all costs, even if they don’t know they are avoiding it. It’s probably why we turn to music, TVs and radios to avoid being alone with ourselves.
I like the climate of Vancouver’s summer except for one aspect of it: noise. Because windows need to be left open, the sound from the street is very obvious and prevalent on summer afternoons and evenings. These sounds include general traffic, sirens, loud truck engines, motorcycles (of which I truly wish could be eliminated from the face of the planet for their incredible noise) and just the general din of the city. It’s fine for a while, but after a day of it, I find it exhausts me.
I wonder about what constant noise does to our brains. It’s almost as if we need “noise screen” like we need “sun screen.” There’s the obvious issue of hearing damage but it’s more than just that. It’s the toll it takes on our nerves. No wonder everyone got in a fight in Spike Lee’s movie Do The Right Thing.
Is silence just absence of noise?
To think about silence, I would suggest that it first needs to be looked at in relation to noise. I think of silence as falling into two categories.
Small Silence (in that there isn’t much of it).
This is the whole environment that includes both audible noise which comes from the obvious things (sounds you hear) and, for lack of a better term, “non-audible” noise.
That non-audible noise could be thought of as the “energy” of a place such as an active city. It’s a place with lots of stimulation. Most cities would fall into this category. A city such as New York is a good example. It’s noisy to the ears, but it’s also noisy from the frenetic energy that exists from all the people, ideas, activities and tension.
Big Silence.
In the audible sense, it would be places that have few sounds and the sounds that do exist are not loud. This would include nature or a quiet building that has little or no mechanical devices running (fridge, washing machine, dish washer, coffee maker, kettle). In the non-audible sense, it would include places that have a feeling of being silent. Ever stood in a forest on a windless day, stared at the stars on a calm night or sat in an abandoned building? That’s Big Silence!
In these places, some of what makes them seem so silent is what meaning we bring to them but whatever the reason, the feeling can be quite overbearing and significant and depending on our outlook or emotional state, can affect us deeply.
Many people can’t stand to be in this kind of silence. It scares them. I think it may be because we come face to face with ourselves and that’s something we rarely do in the din of a city or with our two ears stuffed with little speakers blaring into our brains.
Silence can scare me. When I’ve spent time on my own at my family’s summer house on Hornby Island, I’ve had some very soul-searching experiences because of the silence. The silence doesn’t let you fool yourself or divert from the thoughts in your head. As scary as this was, I’m very glad that I’ve had these experiences because they’ve moved me along and helped me see things differently.
Building silence in.
One of the requirements for me in the house that we build is that it be well-insulated to ensure it can be a very quiet environment when we want it to be. I suspect having a green roof will help in this respect (especially with rain) and I know our architect also designs houses with roofs that have curves and different shapes to them versus blocky square corners that get hit by wind and react noisily.
I know one thing, there will be a lot more silence living out beyond.
Hornby Island Overview
By Darren Bond
Here’s a little snapshot of Hornby Island. People have asked.
Until you’ve been here, you might think it’s smaller and more remote than it actually is. Well, it does take a bit of time to get here from Vancouver. It’s about five to six hours end-to-end, but not because of the distance.
You first take the BC Ferry from Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver over to Nanaimo, which is on the mid-island section of Vancouver Island. Then, you drive just under an hour up the eastern side of Vancouver Island to just south of Courtenay. From there, you take a smaller ferry to Denman Island and proceed across the island (ten minutes or so) and catch a smaller ferry (a couple of dozen cars) to Hornby. From there, we’re about a half-kilometer up the hill and down a side road.
As of the 2006 census, there were just under 1,100 people, which was a rise of about 11% from the 960 people in 2001. (It will be interesting to see how it has changed since then.) There were 545 private dwellings at an average price of about $480,000 compared to the BC average of $420,000.
Size-wise, it’s 30 square kilometers. More meaningfully, from our side of the island to the main intersection where the “Co-op” (general store, shops, gas station) is is about 4 miles. Then, it’s another few miles to the other tip of the island where sits the gorgeous Helliwell provincial park. From here to there is about a twenty minute drive.
Demographically, it’s older and poorer (financially) than BC on average but with a greater number of post-secondary people. The average before-tax household income was $42,000 versus $68,000 for BC as a whole. The biggest employment category – again, from the census in 2006 – is “arts, culture, recreation and sport.”
Politically, as you might expect, it’s pretty much NDP (New Democratic Party; Canada’s left-wing party) territory around here. In the last federal election, while the Vancouver Island North riding gave the winning NDP candidate 42% of the vote, here on Hornby she received 71%. It seems to be politically active (or else it’s easy to vote): the turn-out percentage of voters was 71% versus the provincial result of 64%.
From a services perspective, you need to go into Courtenay for major medical, legal needs, etc., but from a creature comforts point-of-view, there is quite a bit here. Even in the medical department, there is a small clinic and a dental office (dentist and two hygienists) that operates out of a converted school bus that travels around!
There are a few restaurants, from fish-and-chips to curry buffet at the Seabreeze Lodge. There are a couple of coffee houses with top-notch yuppie selections. The Cardboard House bakery makes fantastic baked goods and doubles as the pizza take-out place a couple of nights per week. (This morning we walked over and had a fresh-from-the-oven raisin cinnamon bun and Americano coffee under the apple tree in their orchard.) A couple of stores have liquor available, including a mini-BC liquor store at the Co-op basement. The Thatch Pub down by the ferry has jazz on Friday evenings.
You can also get all kinds of wonderful organic vegetables and eggs directly from a farm. I think I saw locally-grown organic beef once, so I’ll need to check that out, too.
Overall, the island is infused with artisans who do pottery, fibre art, paintings, stained glass, soap, you name it. There are a couple of plant nurseries, a vineyard (Carbrea), and a recently-opened distillery (Phrog). Not just because it’s from here, we love the Phrog gin – it’s got great flavor that is a lot stronger than the normal Bombays and Tanquerays.
People visiting either camp at one of a few campgrounds but there are numerous B&Bs. People into diving seem to be captivated by the rich waters.
There’s really quite a bit going on and in fact there are quite distinct areas of the island geographically. You’ve really got to see it to appreciate it. Which is to say, you’ll really have to plan on visiting us when we’re moved in.
