Friday September 6 2013

Lots to tell, so won’t get through it all tonight.

Helped Ev—turns out Evolene wants to be called Ev—put her stuff into the back of my pickup, and drove her to the cabin that’s going to be her Midden Harbour home.

Several things about the information needed to set a context for that last sentence.

First, Ev’s “stuff” consisted of a very large backpack, a rolled up sleeping bag, a collapsible tent, and…wait for it…a bicycle.  Yes, a bicycle!  The reason our budding reporter showed up two days late, and failed to answer any of the messages left on her cell phone is that she had been riding her bike over the last ridge of the coast mountains.  Needless to say, she had underestimated the difficulty and time of her route, and didn’t discover until it was too late that it had no cell phone coverage either.  When I tried to get some details out of her about the experience, she responded with an exasperated look that let me know it was not a good time to ask. 

But I’m not going to let it go.  Have had this brilliant idea: Going to make her first assignment for The Shoreline a recounting of her adventure in getting here.  Matter of fact, I think that story—with its young heroine, wilderness dangers, and folly of youth—has enough substance to make a series out of it.  

Only trick will be to convince Ev to share the details with our readership, who are, not inconsequentially, her new neighbours.  She may be more than a little reluctant to tell the world how foolish she’s been.  I’ll work on it.

The second bit of context I need to provide here is about Ev’s new home, her cabin.  The small, log three room structure was built over 100 years ago as a temporary shelter by the homesteading Snow family.  The family, which initially was comprised of  John and Emma Snow and John’s brother, expanded quickly with the regular addition of a child every year.  Once the Snow’s proper home was constructed—after the barn and outbuildings, of course—the cabin served a number of purposes, everything from a tool shed to a winter home for pigs.  The building was rehabilitated decades ago when the youngest member of the Snow clan, Jason, decided he would rather live there than under the same roof as his parents.

Jason is long gone, university education and a job in the city, with the result that his mother, Dorothy, was alone on the family property.  With Dorothy getting on in years, and even more problematic, having been recently diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, it was less than idea for her to be alone in a house that was over a mile from town.  So when I had to find a place for Evolene to live, it seemed an obvious solution to two problems to have her move into the Snow cabin.  Dorothy was thrilled with the idea.

That’s where Ev is now.  She had said she’d be back to the office—No, she didn’t need to be picked up, she’d ride her bike—in a couple of hours.  Didn’t happen.  Suspect she had her shower and collapsed into bed.  She’ll show up in the morning.  What’s one more day when she’s already missed two?