Interesting insights into dating vs courtship culture. Grandma knows best

Just got this article from a friend about dating and courtship. I have very little interaction with people who are deeply religious, so this article was interesting on a number of fronts, especially the conclusion of the author that courtship is fundamentally flawed.

Euphemistic Cures for the Housework Blues

My Auntie Val just told me a story of a friend of hers who came up with a valuable way of thinking about housework. Rather than thinking of yourself as slaving away do as her friend did and think of yourself as "honouring Hestia, Goddess of the hearth". Here is some great info all about Hestia. Another useful euphemism she taught me is "hydro therapy" for washing dishes. Thinking of it as such really does make it more fun.

My New Favourite Podcast "Death, Sex, Money" (Who'da Thunk It???)

Check this out. http://www.wnyc.org/shows/deathsexmoney/

Sweet spots to visit on Haida Gwaii

The days are long and the light is big. I have taken to sleeping with my sleep mask on in order to get more that 4 hours...

You know what this means. It's visitor time. I notice them starting to appear, walking along the sides of the road with their eyes twinkling and backpacks bulging, standing around and taking pictures of the eagles we all take for granted. They are full of wonder and it reminds me of all that is here, all there is to explore in these endless days of summer. 

I have been finding myself coming up with lists of things to do for those planning visits, so I thought I'd put it up here, so that anyone interested could take a look. This, like so many of my posts will be a work in progress and I will work to better explain how to find these places and what is so special about them as time goes on.

Things to do (by community)

Sandspit: 

-The Dover trail is a great little hike. It meanders along through there rich rainforest along a river. For the more adventurous there is a beautiful waterfall that can be found about 45 minutes in, or if you prefer to stick to the easy path it's still a great place to soak in the green. To find it, look for the trail head on the right side of the road just before you cross the last little bridge as you are coming into sandpit from the ferry. Here's a pic of me and my Auntie Val with my friend Lauren when we stopped to dip our toes in the stream. 

Another great one if you don't have much time is the Onward Point whale viewing site, Whales usually start turning up here in May but this is a cute spot to visit any time of year. Look for the pullout near the ferry terminal. Here's a pic with me and the sign that shows you where the trail starts. It only takes about 20 minutes to walk the whole thing, but you may want to stop in the cute gazebo for a picnic of just hang out on the lovely beach there for a bit. 

-Also in Sandpit if you have some time to kill while waiting for the plane you can walk out around the spit, it's a loop that takes about an hour, a nice leg stretch before the plane ride, plus the trail ends in a field of lupins which were out in force yesterday, the 3rd of June when I walked it. 

-Depending on how tough your car is, there are some great beaches like Grey Bay and Secret Cove (which I still haven't explored). The bumpy dirt road leads to Copper Bay, the unfortunately named Mosquito Lake (actually named for the Mosquito fighter planes that were made from the Spruce trees felled in from the lakes shores and not for actual insects),
and Skidegate Lake, mostly frequented by mushroom pickers in the fall. 

Queen Charlotte: 

Flowers at the alpine lake on top of Sleeping Beauty

View from the top of Sleeping Beauty

-On a warm clear day Sleeping Beauty is an amazing hike. It takes about 6 or 7 hours and is very steep, but if you're up for it it's well worth the climb. It's at the far end of town past the cemetery and camp ground. There is signage and the trail itself is well marked, though it can be tricky to find the trailhead which is over a little wooden bridge. There are two ways to go up, either straight up the sleeping beauty trail, or via the connector loop, which takes a little longer but is nice because you don't end up going up and down the same way and there is less vertical going up. Here is a panorama from one of the peaks on the connector trail

Panorama showing the 2 peaks of sleeping Beauty 

You also get to have views of other peaks like "nipple mountain" and the islands. 

-The Gore Brook trail is nice trail in behind town, pretty easy if a little overgrown.

-Queen B's cafe is great place for breakfast, lunch or coffee and to meet locals and check out posters for local events. 
-If your car can take a little beating, check out the Yakoun Lake, about a half hour drive out the logging roads. Make sure you know if the logging trucks are running before you head out, to bring a radio. Sundays tend to be a pretty safe bet, and the roads have been pretty good lately as there has been more logging in the area.

-Sun Studio is a yoga studio located in Charlotte (just down the hill from my place! We are super lucky to have this great spot. They offer a variety of yoga classes including Kundulini, Yin and Hatha. They are closed for August though so if you are a yoga fiend, plan accordingly :). For a schedule check the website at http://www.sunstudiohaidagwaii.com/

-There is a great little rope swing just next to the campground near the end of town where you can have a little bonfire and roast some weenies while you wait (and wait) for the sunset. 

Skidegate:

-The Haida Heritage Center or Kay Center (Kay means Sea lion in Haida and this place is called Sea lion Town) has a nice collection of Haida artifacts. Nice place to spend a rainy day and the Bistro there is the best place to eat lunch. There is also a great gift shop.

-Spirit Lake is a lovely trail, mostly flat and well maintained. A great walk in any weather. Access it just off the main highway across from the George Brown Rec Centre. 

-Look out trail This trail head is a little more overgrown, or you can access it from Spirit lake trail. It's steeper but gives you some great views as the name suggests.The trail head starts in the gravel parking lot near the Kay centre, but across on the other side of rat highway. 

-Coffee at Jags - this is one of the best coffee shops on the island, a great spot for a rest between sights. 

-The Longhouse Giftshop has a nice selection of artwork and souvenirs. 

-All About U Gallery - I worked here with my friend Ben Davidson (Son of Robert) for a couple of years helping him get it going. It's a great place to see larger works and often you can catch Ben and his apprentices at work on a pole or mask. This gallery is more high end, but one of the only places on the island where you can find larger and high quality work. 

-Good to stock up on gas in Skidegate as it's the cheapest and there are not many gas stations on island. The next one is in Port with random hours, and then in Masset. 

Lawn Hill (halfway to Tlell)

-Jungle Beach is on the way to Tlell, you will see a black bear chainsaw carving on the oceanside of the road, you can pull in there and there is a covered area good for picnicking. The beach itself is very nice too. 

Tlell

-As you drive North there are some great places to check out in Tlell- the main sign that you have reached Tlell is the Crow's nest, a little store and restaurant on the side of the highway. A great place to find tasty food and goodies. 

-Farmers market happens on Sunday next to the Fire Hall, a great place to meet the lovely farming locals.

-The Anvil trail is a nice one, pretty flat, meandering through the woods. 

A panorama of the Pesuda shipwreck the East coast of Haida Gwaii

-The Pesuta Trail is my favourite in Tlell, it starts off in the woods and then heads out onto the beach ending at it's namesake, a shipwreck. If it's a windy day this beach can be a bit trying, and try to go when the tide is lower, but all in all a great walk. Takes about 4-6 hours round trip depending on how long you picnic and climb on the shipwreck for. The Pesuta came to Haida Gwaii to carry off logs but the Hecate straight had other plans. The boat was wrecked on it's maiden voyage becoming a tourist attraction instead of a way to extract resources. 

-The Haida House at Tlell (take the turnoff at Beitush rd just before the bridge) is the classiest restaurant on Haida Gwaii. 

Port Clements

-The golden Spruce trail is definitely worth checking out, as is the book of the same name. http://www.amazon.ca/The-Golden-Spruce-Story-Madness/dp/0676976468 which was written by Vancouver based Author John Vaillant (I used to babysit for him :) it's a great read and gives you some context for lots of things on Haida Gwaii. For a shorter history here's the wikipedia entry. The trail was recently redone and now includes a path to a giant red cedar that is hollow so you can actually crawl inside!! Here is a pic of my dad crawling out. 

The new signage on the path was done by Ben Davidson and really classes up the trail. For the truly adventurous have a Grant Hadwin moment and swim across the river to see the Golden stump. 

-On the main drag Port also has a nice grocery store and the best pub on island, next to a long red dock.

-As far as places to stay I recommend Smilie's B&B the owners are the loveliest.

Masset

-If you are planning to stay in Masset do yourself a favour and book in at the Copper Beech House. It's a haven of culture and art and the food is great too. Owned and operated by Canadian poet Susan Musgrave and her lovely Australian assistant Julia. 

Tow Hill

-As you are driving out to Tow Hill you will notice a little kiosk on one side of the road. if you stop there and take the trail in you will find the strawberry fields forever. Around early July these fields are filled with wonderful strawberries as far as the eye can see. If you keep going the beach itself is a great walk and you can often find agates. 

-If you would rather stay close to the beach I recommend the Alaska View Inn. They have hot tubs!

-There is a little trail into the woods just across from the Alaska view that will take you down along the Sangan River. A beautiful little walk. 

-Tow Hill is a very well maintained boardwalk, you don't even need boots for this one! There is a loop you can do, I usually start with hiking up to the top to warm up, Here's the view from the top. 

then down towards the blowhole, returning along the flat boardwalk. The blow hole only usually blows on a rising tide, so if you can time it all the better. 

-White Creek trail is a little known gem that is also on this part of the road. You will see the little sign for White creek as you drive over it, park in the pull out and head in away from the ocean between the cement barriers. You will see a sign that says something about no ATV's. Though the start of the trail is not well marked it opens up and it quite easy to follow. This trail will take you up into the big savannah like bog, an ecosystem few actually experience even though it makes up much of Haida Gwaii's landmass. Bring your rubber boots! In the bog you can find many interesting plants like Labrador tea, mini rhododendrons and sun dew carnivorous plants! I only discovered this trail in the last year and have been delighted to share it with others. 

Old Masset: Great to take a drive through Old Masset and explore there. Sarah's gift shop is a nice place to do some shopping and Sarah is friendly and will give you the lay of the land. Sarah was married to Claud Davidson, father of Robert and Reg, and the giftshop was Florence Davidson's house. Her tea set remains in the back room. 

-There are lots of beautiful poles in Old Massett too and check out the playground at Chief Matthews School, they have been doing great stuff there.

Game of Thrones fan art by Mike Wrobel

Don't know if you know this about me but I am a pretty huge Game of Thrones nerd. I  started reading the books about 10 years ago and am now listening to them all again for the 2nd time on audiobook.
Evil Patrick Shannon has this great John Snow T-shirt and I just finally looked up the artist who did the illustration for it and a series of other characters, depicting them as might have appeared in the 80's/90's. See them all here. His name is Mike Wrobel. He has a great website with tons of this kind of stuff. 

the Science and languages of my favourite four letter word

Continuing from the Crushes post, here is one about Love.

I listened a while ago to this great Radiolab episode all about Love and how it works, at least in as much as we even CAN understand it. I also wanted to share this fantastic video about a love competition that takes brain imaging of people to try to test their various experiences of love. It's super interesting and made me feel really happy and think about the importance of meditation and sending out those good loving vibes, not just to our romantic partners, but to all kinds of folks. It also shows how good this is for the person doing the loving. I feel like I may have posted this video before but it's worth a re-post as it kind of touches on the idea of loving kindness meditation, which I have been trying to get back into since the fall. My aunt gave me a great book a while back called "Awake in the Wild" and in it one of the meditations is a guided loving kinds meditation. The idea is to think about the plants and animals and progressively the people and send them the following thoughts:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be happy.
May you live with ease.

I have been trying to remember to do this.

I was in a Kindergarten class in a month or so ago and I was buoyed by the lesson I learnt there about love. The teacher asked the children "can you tell Alicia about the different kinds of hearts that we have?" The children politely answered "We have a muscle heart and a feeling heart" then they went on to tell me about how in their class they also talked a lot about all the different kinds of love that there are. For example, there was friend love, teacher love, parent love, brother or sister love, love for a pet etc etc etc. I was so impressed. The English language is hard on love, we have just one word and it isn't enough, not nearly enough to capture the spectrum of feelings that could easily fall under this kaleidoscopic umbrella. Yet it's all we have. This didn't deter this magical kindergarten teacher and her students. More power to them.

Soon after I read a post from a friend called "I Love you NBD. (No Big Deal)". It also made me think about how bound many of us are by what we think love means and the inherent attachments and stress on doing wrong to each other with our feelings. I also recently read a book called "the ethical slut" which I would highly recommend as it gives a very nuanced and insightful look into open and honest communication which is of value in any and all relationships. It really helped me think about jealousy and possessiveness in ways that have been hugely helpful.

On a separate but related note, in my very limited forays into learning about the Haida language I have noticed that in the SHIP glossary, there are multiple words for different kinds of k'uuga or love. Baby talk love guuga, so in love you can't sit still ling.xaal, and many more that I can't actually spell using this keyboard. Makes me very curious into this language and more importantly the culture behind it. I think we have so much to learn from the Haida and other world views that are not founded so much on resource extraction, efficiencies and industrialism.

A Serious Study of Crushes

During my image searches for my puberty lesson today I came upon this fantastic site. A Serious Study of Crushes. I love the illustrations and the concept. Check it out.

How I wish I could teach sex ed.

Best Cunnilingus lesson ever.

http://www.upworthy.com/too-many-women-don-t-have-fun-in-bed-maybe-it-s-because-their-partners-never-took-this-class-re2-6b-2?g=3

a film about gendered society to make you think (in french no less)

A friend just sent me this great short film. definitely worth a watch, I also like the song at the beginning "come un garçons" by Stereo Total.

Enjoy.

The Bechdel test - a reality check about the state of popular culture's gender bias and the invisibility of women's selves

I learnt about the Bechdel test a little while back. It asks whether a work of fiction (movie, book etc):

1) Has at least 2 women in it
2) The women talk to each other
3) The women talk to each other about something besides a man

That's it.

Despite this being a seemingly low bar to clear less than half of films do so, and many that do, do so marginally and talk instead about marriage or babies.

I recommend reading the wikipedia entry about this as it contains a lot of good info and surprising details, which I am just glossing over here.

Ugh.

Here is a list of 10 films from 2013 that passed the test. I'm interested in is the one staring Cate Blanchett directed by Woody Allen called Blue Jasmin, because Cate Blanchett has been "on fire" ever since.

Actually a bunch of them look pretty good. Maybe there is hope.

Oh and yes, the Hunger Games made it in too, hence the pic. I am a bit conflicted about this one. I like the concept of the Hunger Games, but it seems that as the series is progresses, at least in the books, the focus drifts more and more away from Katniss' own self preservation and towards Katniss' obsession with her love interest, which I found disappointing, along with the writing. Nuff said.

Good Men

One of my many privileges is the men in my life. I have grown up surrounded by solid amazing supportive men. Men who taught me to play sports, fix bicycles, use power tools, run motor boats, drive tractors, and do anything else I wanted to. Men who listened when I spoke, respected my ideas and feelings and told me theirs. This has helped shape who I am.

I am realizing more and more just how lucky I have been. When I look to the popular media (which albeit I do avoid pretty staunchly) I start to notice that the men we see there are not like the men I know. For the most part the men I see in the popular media are alien to me. At best they usually portray only one dimension of masculinity, which is no surprise given that the popular media is inherently superficial, but sill. I wonder, do men often feel the same about the women they see?

In preparation for some workshops I am helping to prepare about violence prevention I have started a hunt to find more representations of men like the ones I know. Fortunately, since I know so many great men they are helping lead me to just what I'm after.

The first is a link from my friend Daniel whom I met during my training at Opt. As the token male in our class he often shouldered the burden of speaking for his entire gender. Sorry about that Daniel and thanks for doing such an amazing job at it. Here are some other great guys who are speaking up for men, and humans in general.

http://changefromwithin.org/2013/11/21/please-be-that-guy-7-men-who-are-transforming-masculinity/

I also just heard a podcast from this American life on the subject of "Good Guys". Parts of it (Mike Birbiglia) left me laughing hysterically over my sink full of dishes and then, as often happens with This American life, it got dark, and especially the last story left me a bit shaken. Have a listen and let me know your thoughts.

I recognize the glaring hetero-normativity latent in this whole post. I am talking about the popular media, which so often completely ignores anything that falls outside the binary of male/female. I guess that is what I'm after in fact are authentic portrayals and discussion of human beings of all genders. This is just one small step along that path.

On that note here is a link to a handy chart I found on the "Good Men Project" that I thought was funny and also is helpful in reminding us to, as the author says, "Human up and be folks". Nicely put.

Hermit Crab

I was listening to some program the other day where they were interviewing James Gulliver Hancock, an Australian artist living in New York who has a project called All the Buildings in New York (That I've drawn so far). Such a great title and as I've been wanting to draw more, an inspiring aspiration. It got me to thinking about all the houses I've lived in here on Haida Gwaii. I would love to draw them, but right now I can't even remember them all, so I am going to start working backwards and see if I can piece it together. This will be a work in progress, but gotta start somewhere.

In the last 3 and a half years I've been jumping from one house sit to another like a lucky little hermit crab at a cabin buffet. Unlike a hermit crab however my trajectory has not always taken me to bigger spaces, in fact, often the inverse. Doug and I were pretty seriously considering building a tiny house and as such gravitated towards the smaller and humbler variety of houses, at least until recently. Along the way I have befriended cats, dogs, plants, chickens and many houses. There have been occasional rentals too, but overall just an amazing myriad of houses and with them, ways of living. 

I'm updating this now as I have moved into a new house here in Queen Charlotte which I am quite in love with. I have also been staying in more noteworthy cabins and as such must ad them to the list. 

Two weeks ago I stayed with some friends at Richards little cabin on Limberlost. It's so magical and I have photos from way back that I never put up here. These two little cabins are built into the side of the dune and believe to or not, they are actually on Air B&B now so open for rentals! There is no running water but various little systems for getting around that. 

Before coming here I was at Nate, Charley and Skonun's spectacular sand castle on North beach. 

I was there since mid December after my separation from Doug. This house was 6 years in the making. Masa did a great blog  as part of his Radx project where he interviewed them about the process. Here's the link to that video. Here are a couple of pics I took of the house. The first is a pic from the beach. They are as close to North Beach as you can get, which allows me to run out for the odd early morning polar bear swim and then run back to the house and be in a hot shower in under 2 minutes. Pretty fantastic. They also have this big round window, where I can hang out with their cats and do yoga as I make my leisurely way into the day.

Before this I was living with Doug at South Beach Dunes as caretaker there. It was the most apartment-like place I've lived since coming here, though it still had a fireplace, the main source of heat. The living space was probably the least impressive thing about the property which is otherwise pretty fantastic. There we were in charge of 3 greenhouses, 100 chickens, 2 turkeys, 1000 rainbow trout, and an elderly  apple head siamese cat.

Before that I was living at Toby and Shauna's beautiful bird house beside the Chown River. This place is uniquely built with love on display in every corner. Toby's style is unique and his handiwork is evident in many beautiful cabins all over the islands. Though the footprint of this house is small, the use of space is genius with little nooks and shelves built in every corner. I lived there for a year and a half or so. The cat Minnow is a hulking cream puff who once killed 2 squirrels in the space of 3 hours to prove his love for me. Le sigh. I still have one of their tails thanks to my friend Stu who showed me how to get the bones out. 

Prior to Toby and Shauna's we stayed at the Coho, another historied building on the Chown. This place was actually built on a different property that was owned by some off islanders. When relations between the cabin builders and the land owners turned sour a gang of Tow Hillbillies moved the cabin in the middle of the night to where it now sits, on the Trout House property gazing out over the Chown. It has since had some additions as well as a rotating cast of inhabitants. This whole property has some of the best water I've ever drunk. Though the wind whips through this place and there is no shower or hot water for that matter, it's substantial charm makes up it. 

Before this we were at Neal and Elna's, the Eagle house where I lean red about glorious heat pumps. 

Before that, Sheila Karrow's little studio on the water. I named it the Beach House, since I was listening to a lot of them at the time and the beach there was a big part of our day to day with morning swims most days. This place makes amazing use of passive solar, and has a composting toilet and water collection to boot. Many of these innovations are due to it's cliffside location and thus inability to hook up to sewer and water off the main grid, but still, nice things to learn about. 

Before the beach house there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between the north and south ends of Haida Gwaii, between my all islands job and Doug's farmer friends needing help. I was living at a house my then roommate and I Jaime named "Retro Gran" because the woman who had lived there Winny had apparently been a lovely old grandmotherly lady who died in the house. It had a decidedly 70's feel with wooden walls made from fire killed cedar and an old lamp that remains there now as a centrepiece. Jaime and I managed to cook up furniture using bookshelves, pieces of plywood, old spools from electrical cable and a gymnastics foamie donated by Ben Davidson which we carved up with a bread knife to fashion this L couch spewing tiny bits of foam all over the show in the process.  

Here are some of the places that Doug lived and house sat/lived at. 

Kynan's cabin was one of the first few abodes we shared. I think I referred to this one as just "the beach" because it was often sunny and how in the little clearing where it stands and all around it was sand, except for a patch of green lawn which appeared to be the most resily available peeing spot. I put a lot of effort to make a silk purse out of this sow's ear to little avail, but still it was liveable. There was no running water, but it did have electricity, in the form of an extension cord running to the house which allowed us a couple of electric lights, a charge for the computer and a fridge. Luxurious. The toilet was still a hole in the woods. I think Doug had to pay rent for this baby.

This little cabin is at the end of the Sangan drive and right beside the river that is the drive's namesake. This cabin was built by Johnny Ebbs largely by hand and has dealt with bears, hippies, children and neglect. This is the first cabin that Doug lived in and later the place where I proposed to Doug and the two of us spent a lot of time here, meandering through the old growth and dipping into the river for a morning splash. Photo credit goes to Auntie Val, who did the tour of duty visiting and even staying in many of the shacks I had called home. 

…more to come. 

Chris and Elin's

Susan Musgrave's

Bonnie KC and Kaya's cabin

Dom's

The Trout House (house)

David and Sandra Begg's cycle palace

Tlell. When the time came for me to move away from Fantasy island I decided to move to Tlell. This was based on a chance hitch hike with a french Canadian Tlellian who took a liking to me and my friend and decided to take us home to his house, treat us to a deluxe lunch of imported cheeses and probably some wine and then orchestrated for me to move in a few doors down by corralling the owner of the house who was going to be leaving town.  I recruited Jaime to the islands soon after and she moved in here with me in November. 

The very first House I lived in when I came here in 2009. The Tai Chi Cabin on Fantasy island. Here is is awash with gorse flowers that smell like coconut. 

Things Organized Neatly

I heard about this website a while back but I forgot how eerily calming it is to look at. In all the chaos of our lives to gaze at items lovingly placed together in a beautiful or clever order quiets the nerves. Enjoy.

http://thingsorganizedneatly.tumblr.com/

Tough Guise

A friend just told me about this great video from Media Education Foundation

It relates to the safe teen training I participated in in October.

opening montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mmy2IHYq_y8

7 min video summarizing the film
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3exzMPT4nGI

The Difference Between Porn & Real Sex Explained with Food

pretty clever little vid.

some great (sex) resolutions/advice for 2014

Ah the new year. I'm staying away from making a bunch of resolutions, but have been seeing some great recommendations...Just read a fantastic article on Vice about how to have better sex in 2014. Some of the more down to earth ad-Vice I've ever seen form them.

http://www.vice.com/en_ca/read/how-to-have-better-sex-in-2014 

Also, a great little diddy from Laci Green.