Saturday, October 15, 2011
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Canadian Desert
The frozen north with a pocket of dry west. Ashcroft British Columbia is a small town in a Canadian desert.
I last wrote of a need to earn money. I don't have money and I don't worry about it but I do what I need to do to participate in the vague notion of our current economy. As luck would have it I was hired by Brazilians to location manage a TV show in British Columbia. If you have followed this blog you may have wondered how I travel with no visible means of support. I am not a trustafarian. I organize film production and show off the Canadian landscape for movie making. I am a location manager. It was once a pretty good gig. In the new economy, I am adjusting. Today I am thankful for Brazil.
The good fortune of this illusion of a job is that occasionally I am paid to travel. The best part of this travel arrives in the form of relationships I often develop with people I would not have otherwise known. If the script has a dentist I will learn about dentists, if it is logging then loggers I will meet. So the Brazilians rented a Ford Iraq Invasion and sent me to the Canadian desert.
In Ashcroft I found the kitty litter mine. Really they mine kitty litter. As a Canadian this is endlessly amusing. The cour de bois head to the yukon, fighting cold and wild animals to pan for ...kitty litter.
Actually I suspect they may have had kitten scouts fed dangerous levels of fluids. On leash they roamed the desert in search of the ideal material to lay their scent. The miners with picks and shovels ever ready to exploit the absorbent earth.
The desert has never treated me well. I suspect that is why they call it a desert. Dry and barren. People tell me it has a beauty. To me the desert is a place that makes it clear it will not make your visit easy. You need water? Look elsewhere. You need shade, shelter, comfort...not here. Yet cultures thrive in deserts. Sadly the Bedouins would probably give Ashcrcoft a pass. This is a working class town without work. There are many towns in British Columbia like this. The mine is dry, perhaps too absobrant, but heck there is a town here, maybe the mine will reopen, my house is here, I guess I'll wait it out. Sadly that waiting out can last a generation or two.
As I have a job here I meet with the local people of authority. This is a small town area with very wealthy ranching interests. Cattle are burgers and we all want them. The folks who own the land here do well. There is a large first nations presence. They do not do as well. I did have the pleasure of working on native land. As always happens I was welcomed and got to spend a day with an elder of the Kamloops band. We drove the back roads and he taught me the ways of bighorn sheep and we talked of the youth of the band. The band provide the opportunity to see the original way but there is no pressure. "They come to it when they see it". We also went to a house the band owns that had white renters. All was not well but I was very impressed with the way the situation was handled. A kind of cordiality bankers don't offer.
Another great trip. I am amazed by what I don't know.
I last wrote of a need to earn money. I don't have money and I don't worry about it but I do what I need to do to participate in the vague notion of our current economy. As luck would have it I was hired by Brazilians to location manage a TV show in British Columbia. If you have followed this blog you may have wondered how I travel with no visible means of support. I am not a trustafarian. I organize film production and show off the Canadian landscape for movie making. I am a location manager. It was once a pretty good gig. In the new economy, I am adjusting. Today I am thankful for Brazil.
The good fortune of this illusion of a job is that occasionally I am paid to travel. The best part of this travel arrives in the form of relationships I often develop with people I would not have otherwise known. If the script has a dentist I will learn about dentists, if it is logging then loggers I will meet. So the Brazilians rented a Ford Iraq Invasion and sent me to the Canadian desert.
In Ashcroft I found the kitty litter mine. Really they mine kitty litter. As a Canadian this is endlessly amusing. The cour de bois head to the yukon, fighting cold and wild animals to pan for ...kitty litter.
Actually I suspect they may have had kitten scouts fed dangerous levels of fluids. On leash they roamed the desert in search of the ideal material to lay their scent. The miners with picks and shovels ever ready to exploit the absorbent earth.
The desert has never treated me well. I suspect that is why they call it a desert. Dry and barren. People tell me it has a beauty. To me the desert is a place that makes it clear it will not make your visit easy. You need water? Look elsewhere. You need shade, shelter, comfort...not here. Yet cultures thrive in deserts. Sadly the Bedouins would probably give Ashcrcoft a pass. This is a working class town without work. There are many towns in British Columbia like this. The mine is dry, perhaps too absobrant, but heck there is a town here, maybe the mine will reopen, my house is here, I guess I'll wait it out. Sadly that waiting out can last a generation or two.
As I have a job here I meet with the local people of authority. This is a small town area with very wealthy ranching interests. Cattle are burgers and we all want them. The folks who own the land here do well. There is a large first nations presence. They do not do as well. I did have the pleasure of working on native land. As always happens I was welcomed and got to spend a day with an elder of the Kamloops band. We drove the back roads and he taught me the ways of bighorn sheep and we talked of the youth of the band. The band provide the opportunity to see the original way but there is no pressure. "They come to it when they see it". We also went to a house the band owns that had white renters. All was not well but I was very impressed with the way the situation was handled. A kind of cordiality bankers don't offer.
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