MOONTIME IN EAGLE CREEK: STORIES FOR SUSTAINABILITY by Aliette Karma Sheinin B.A. Dartmouth College, 2001 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES (Interdisciplinary Studies) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) March 2009 © Aliette Karma Sheinin, 2009 ABSTRACT The most common and influential approaches to sustainability in contemporary western society have been science-based. Consequently, sustainable living is usually defined in generalized, universalized, and quantified terms. While science is important for sustainable living, science alone cannot incorporate critical, yet specific, places, times, and events. Sustainable living in one country may not be sustainable in another, sustainable living right now may not be so in the ffiture, sustainable living for me may not be sustainable for you, for example. What’s more, science itself is embedded in and reproduces place-, time-, and event- specific dimensions. Negotiating these dimensions of life into our understanding and practice of sustainability is imperative. In contrast to science, narrative seeks to construct and reflect knowledge of place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions of life; narrative as a mode of knowing is concrete, contextualized, specific, personally convincing, circular, imaginistic, interpersonal and emotive. Narrative, as well, is a process of knowledge construction, a way of coming to know place(s), time(s), and event(s). The goal of this dissertation is to negotiate, humbly, both science and narrative. My hope is that this work, as arts-based research, can expand our possibility(ies) for new ways of knowing and living sustainably. My negotiation between science and narrative takes place in Eagle Creek, a 2.21km long creek in West Vancouver, British Columbia. Eagle Creek begins from a reservoir and flows through forested municipal land, undeveloped private land, and developed residential land before discharging into the Pacific Ocean. Originally, I set out to investigate sustainability issues surrounding Eagle Creek’s role in drinking water and power generation, recreation, and salmon spawning. What I discovered in my research was far from what I 11 expected. This is a story about those surprises. My hope is that in this story is an opportunity for you to negotiate, for yourself, new ways of knowing sustainability and living it, wherever, whenever, and however it may be for you. To the lives of our dreams! 111 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF TABLES vi LIST OF FIGURES vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS viii PREFACE ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS xiii DEDICATION xiv Phase I: NEW MOON 1 INTRODUCTION 2 Science and Authority in Sustainability Narrative as Alternative Mode of Knowing Narrative as Theoretical Lens Introducing Eagle Creek EAGLE CREEK 24 Phase II: FIRST QUARTER MOON 36 FIELD NOTES 37 EXERCISING SUSTAINABLY 46 Phase III: FULL MOON 85 iv FIELD NOTES .86 RESTING SUSTATNABLY 96 Phase IV: LAST QUARTER MOON 112 FIELD NOTES 113 EATING SUSTAINABLY 136 Phase I, again: NEW MOON 153 Exercising Sustainably 156 Resting Sustainably 158 Eating Sustainably 178 EPILOGUE: FULL CIRCLE 185 ENDNOTES 187 BIBLIOGRAPHY 191 APPENDIX I: Current Practice and Conventional Thought in Sustainability 208 APPENDIX II: Glossary of Screenplay Terms 209 V LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Selected Species and Habitats of Eagle Creek 28 Table 2: Temperature and Precipitation in Eagle Creek’s Catch Basin 41 Table 3: Cloud Typology at Eagle Creek 42 Table 4: Nutritional Content of Selected Species in Eagle Harbour 133 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Map of Eagle Creek, West Vancouver 25 Figure 2: Land distribution in West Vancouver 35 Figure 3: Topography at Eagle Creek 89 Figure 4: Biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification of Eagle Creek 90 Figure 5: Eagle Harbour residential layout 115 Figure 6: Watercourse development regulations at Eagle Creek 117 vii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 1: Orthophoto of Eagle Creek source water 38 Illustration 2: Simplified Hydrologic cycle of Eagle Creek 44 Illustration 3: Orthophoto of Trans-Canada Trail crossing 87 Illustration 4: Eagle Creek’s tree species around Trans-Canada Trail 93 Illustration 5: Orthophoto of Eagle Harbour 114 Illustration 6: External anatomy of 0. kisutch (Coho salmon) 119 Illustration 7: Leaf shapes 123 Illustration 8: Leaf characteristics 125 Illustration 9: Peeling bark for tea 128 Illustration 10: Tidal flat fish trap 130 Illustration 11: Fishing line 130 Illustration 12: Hooks for salmon 131 Illustration 13: Internal anatomy of 0. kisutch (Coho salmon) 132 Illustration 14: Tulipia sp. (tulips) 160 Illustration 15: R. macrophyllum (Pacific rhododendron) 161 vi” PREFACE Dear Reader, In this dissertation, alongside science, are faeries and a salmon soliloquy, voices in the clouds and poetic verse from the sun; likely this dissertation is not what you’re anticipating from a research project on sustainability. In the following pages I invite you to surrender your expectations of reading about new indices for salmon habitat enhancement, or protocol recommendations for watercourse protection, and instead, open yourself to other possibilities. As Eagle Creek teaches me, the answers about sustainable living that we think we are looking for aren’t always necessarily the answers we need to hear. The first possibility I invite you to consider that this research on sustainable living contributes is the teaching ofEagle Creek. The narrative that you read should be considered as a transcription of Eagle Creek’s teaching— “teaching” as in the active verb, not “teachings” as in the passive noun. Eagle Creek (not Aliette Sheinin) right here, right now, wherever you are, is actively storytelling. The teaching of Eagle Creek that I transcribe here is important for both academic and public communities interested in sustainable living because to grow beyond our ego-driven domination of ourselves and nature, we need more direct, open, present communication with the more-than-human. Many scholars have argued for this kind of communication, but few actually provide the doorway for living it. Honored as Eagle Creek’s student, my responsibility is to connect other people to Eagle Creek’s “primordial sacred language,” as David Abram (1997) calls it, “essence” as I like to call it, or “prana,” “ch’i,” “vital energy,” or illiaster,” as it is referred to in India or China, or by ix Pythagoras and Paracelsus. In this dissertation then, are gateways to artful curriculum making. As education scholars Clandinin and Connelly (1992) state, “Teachers and students live out a curriculum.. An account of teachers’ and students’ lives over time is the curriculum” (p. 365). A transcription of Eagle Creek’s teaching, Moontime in Eagle Creek can enable you to directly, openly, presently live out with nature a curriculum for sustainably. Moontime in Eagle Creek is an invitation for you to be “with the universe, with all that there is, with the divine that is manifest in the physical as well as spiritual world” (Brennan, 1993, p. 314). The second main contribution to sustainable living that I would like to offer you from my research is an invitation to unanswered questions that span a variety of disciplines. Eagle Creek, for instance, teaches me to follow a “pull” or “call.” For earth science or geography, a sample question that my research can springboard, for example is: “What are the mechanisms through which Earth ‘pulls’ someone?” Is it something, for example, in a rock? A sound frequency emitted by plants? A pheromone emitted by beetles? Resonance between a person’s DNA and the DNA of a piece of land? Eagle Creek teaches me to tune in to different perceptual faculties than I had been accustomed to using with other humans. For neuroscience or kinesiology: “What perceptual faculties beyond the five senses are people capable of(or can tap back into)?” Some interesting hypotheses could be explored here: orgone (Wilhelm Reich), electromagnetic field (Robert Becker), human energy field (John Pierrakos), biofield (Valerie Hunt). Pursuantly, in English a sample question arising from my research is: “To communicate experiences of expanded perceptive ability, what new forms of narrative expression must we unearth?” Eagle Creek teaches me that the rhythms of the moon and my internal rhythms are always, everywhere linked. For biology or space science a question is: “What effects do Earth’s atmospheric bodies have on the human energy system?” x An asteroid or a piece of space rubble, for example? Eagle Creek teaches me about wholeness, unity, one-ness between and among the human and more-than-human. For ecology: “What is the life cycle of a drop of human blood from when it leaves a person’s body, moves through the ocean, rainclouds, rainfall, and finally recirculates back into that same human body?” Fields such as economics or business might benefit from a commodity chain investigation, while philosophers might ask, “Who really are we? Where does the human begin, where does the human end?” A last example of the kinds of questions that this research on sustainable living and Eagle Creek can call forth, are questions related to boundaries of teaching/learning in general. Eagle Creek taught me to keep opening the limitations I had placed on what I thought I could or “should” learn in my research. For all disciplines, a subsequent question is: “If we throw the limitation of what we think we can learn outside the boundary, and do it again and again and again, what happens?” Alternatively, “If we stop asking questions, and just listen, what happens?” The third main invitation that I extend to you in this dissertation is the possibility of a revisioned research ethicsfor scholarship. I begin my argument with a discussion about the limits of science: as epistemological arbiter of truth, science often remains insulated from critique and political contestation. This same insulation of knowledge can and does happen in the academic community, not just in sustainability studies, but in many fields (i.e., a researcher proposes or argues one thing, but in practice does another). The term “artistresearcherteacher” (Gouzouasis, 2008) is helpful for us here. “Artistresearcherteacher” conveys the idea of the kind of holistic research endeavors that I seek to support in the academic community. I echo Gouzouasis and other education scholars such as Cochran Smith and Lytle (1993), Gitlen et al. (1992), and Carson and Sumara (1997), who blur distinctions between researcher and teacher, and propel research as living practice. To live a xi life committed to educational action research, for example, the latter state: “Who one is becomes completely caught up in what one knows and does.. . what is thought, what is represented, what is acted upon, are all intertwined aspects of lived experience and, as such cannot be discussed or interpreted separately” (Carson & Sumara, p. xvii). In my introduction I write about how narrative can serve as a chief moral compass in the world, how if we change narratives, we change something fundamental in the moral and political constitution of a society. This dissertation is a narrative of healing. Moontime in Eagle Creek is a narrative that recounts the performative living, physical embodiment of greater sustainability (as seen from a personal perspective). As Ghandi said, “We need to be the change we wish to see in the world” (Potts, 2002, p. A34). Moontime in Eagle Creek is about that. Moontime in Eagle Creek is a narrative of breathing instead of running, rest instead of fatigue, and nourishment instead of hunger. Om shanti Shanti om, Aliette Sheinin xli ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS When I sat down to write my thanks to all of you who made, with me, this dissertation, too many words came. For you who most resonate with me in my research: Spencer Sheinin: (my husband) my Earth Wendy Frank: (my mom) my Sky Carl Leggo: (my supervisor) my Wisdom Karen Meyer: (my advisor) my Feminine Laurie Ricou: (my advisor) my Balance Bill McCuaig: (my main info guy) my Friend John Robinson: (my former supervisor) my Beginning The Trudeau Foundation: (my finders) my Opportunity I am grateful. xlii DEDICATED TO: Eagle Creek We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot (1942), in “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets xiv TNOONM3N jasnjj INTRODUCTION September 11,2007 New Moon Dear Journal, As I approached Exit #4 heading west on the Upper Levels Highway, I felt the pull of something so big. I was like a bird being pulled north before an annual migration. I breathed in and sighed. The air was wet and heavy, but sprucey sweet. As with every time I’ve passed through there since I moved to Vancouver four years ago, the pull I felt was something so huge, it had to be more-than-human. On the uphill side of the highway, thick trees climbed into gray-blue clouds that hung mid-level on Cypress Park’s mountains. Southward on the downhill side of the road, more trees stood on slopes that dropped in waves. Along the slopes, streets creased sideways and wound around to hold big houses. I wish those houses would stop creeping upwards, taking away the mountain’s face and so much of nature with it. In aerial photos that I’ve seen of West Vancouver in the 1 950s, the houses were mere sprinkles among the trees right along the ocean’s edge. Gazing downhill again, and then down, I thought how much I would love to live there and be a steward for the land. I wonder if it’s possible to live sustainably there? To live in a way that negotiates people’s needs as well as the needs of nature. A green house with solar panels, a biofilter wall, and geothermal heating? Biodynamic gardens and eating local, seasonal food? Taking baths instead of showers, volunteering with salmon restoration projects, planting trees? El It’s challenging to define what living “sustainably” for even one day in my life looks like. In just one day in my life, my definition of living “sustainably” radically changes. I 2 could go from a focus on organic food, to a focus on quality time with my family. Conflicts could go from time management to carbon monoxide emissions outside my downtown apartment. I’d resolve these by anything from talcing my car to school instead of biking, to changing my perspective on the benefits of city living. But, no question, if I had to focus on one challenge for me in achieving a sustainable life, let alone a day, the very biggest challenge is the same thing it has been for the last twelve years: my moontime. Twelve years of having problems—and not even having my period at all for six of them—is enough. I need to take responsibility and from now on, find my natural cycle of ovulating on the new moon, and bleeding on the full moon. This, for me, is the first step towards sustainability. The clouds blanketing the background of green around me kept dancing in swirls as I pushed forward in the car. I was floating in desire, desire about all my needs that I know will be met when my moontime is sustainable. To me, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs means finding my natural cycle of ovulation on new moon and bleeding on full moon. When this happens, I know that my hip and back injury will heal, my ovaries will be healthy, my bone mass will rebuild, my libido will be stronger, I will be able to walk in alignment, I will be more emotionally grounded, I will have more of an appetite and an interest in food, I will be able to keep my professional commitments and follow through on what I say I will do, I’ll have energy to go places other than home, I will be more confident. I’ll feel more like a woman again . . . a woman who will give birth to a healthy child, and be able to better sustain myself, my family, and my community. Oh how I wish for my moontime to re-synchronize with the cycles of the moon. 3 Science and Authority in Sustainability Sustainability. “It’s all about people, and the problem is in our technology and economy. Make our technology more efficient and innovative, and we’ll be more sustainable,” argue some people. “No, no, sustainability is about the environment, and the problem is our lifestyles. We need to change our spiritual values at the individual level,” argue other people. Since the modem environmental movement with its aspiration for sustainability “officially” began, a number of contested understandings have burgeoned.’ These understandings root in very different sets of political commitments to the human- nature relationship, as well as to the role of science in that relationship (Pezzoli, 1997; Mebratu, 1998; Gibson, 2000). In different understandings of sustainability, there exist both an idealization of ecological and evolutionary science and a critique of modem science.” (See Appendix I: Current Practice and Conventional Thought in Sustainability). Li After a sign on the highway marking “Nelson Creek,” below the road I saw the trees drop off to make room for a large ravine cutting vertically down the mountainside. I felt space. After a few seconds, more trees appeared below me, nestling solidly around dots of rooftops, until thinning to play on rock outcrops of Eagle Harbor. Another deep breath. Even though clouds suspended themselves around the harbor, the view to the water was relatively clear. I found the view magnetic. Still, I would have felt the allure even if I could see nothing from there; even when the highway is completely socked in by clouds, or when Spencer is driving and my eyes are closed, I feel the pull. Even when I am fully asleep, the pull around there is so strong that it wakes me up. What was that pull? Where was it coming from? Maybe it is a sacred “power spot” in the land that holds special healing powers? I remember learning about power spots from a 4 shaman last time I was in Québec. I miss being welcome in her dreaming circles; after I manifest my desire of becoming a mother, she said. Or maybe this pull I felt was like a “dreaming track,” or “songline.” I would love to go to Australia someday and spend time with the Aborigines. I think the idea of ancestral stories being held by the land, and guiding the Aborigines in their walkabout so they can sustain themselves in whatever conditions, without any prior knowledge of the location at all, is fascinating. I remember reading some amazing stories about Aborigines being able to walk without carrying any food or water or any supplies for months, while not knowing anything about where they were going. But, to my knowledge, there’s no scientific evidence for any of that. LI A very influential, and perhaps the most common approach to decision-making on sustainability issues is founded on the view that such decisions should be science-based (Pepper, 1996; Mebratu, 1998; Robinson & Tansey, 2006; World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987; Jasanoff, 1990, 1999; Wynne & Irwin, 1996; Eckstein, 2003). As in much of Western culture, in sustainability, Western sciencetm often serves as political authority and epistemological arbiter in justifying claims about truth. What is meant by the term “science,” and what is present in scientific practice, frequently includes such core assumptions as: 1) there exists an “objective” material reality separate from and independent of an observer; 2) this reality is orderly; 3) the material world is knowable through rational inquiry, and this knowledge is independent of the individual and the characteristics of the observer; 4) knowledge of the material world is gained through measurement of natural phenomena: measurement in a scientific sense consists of quantification (i.e., the reduction to some form of mathematical description); and 5) the goal of scientific understanding is to predict and control natural phenomena (Bocking, 2004; Forsyth, 2003; Benston, 1989, p. 1).’’ 5 LYet, I can remember quite a few times when science—at least as I have known it— wasn’t enough. In the case of my moontime right now, I need something more than science, that’s for sure. I’ve tried science (at least as I’ve known it). If I took the Pill, for example, like I was told to, it wouldn’t matter if I was supposedly bleeding when I should, and my cycle was “regular,” because the contraceptive pill stops ovulation, and that’s the last thing I want to do. I want to be fertile. Even if there were some sort of drug or other scientific procedure or product that could pretty much mimic my natural cycle, when I’m not ovulating as I should be at 30, I feel powerless. Maybe it’s a biological drive to “feel fertile” right now, I don’t know, but when I am healthily fertile, I defmitely feel more able and valuable. Further, it’s not just the feeling of groundedness and guidance that I get when I am ovulating appropriately, but I will also be able to develop the dreaming skills that are so important to me. It’s been over two years since the faeries told me that in order for them to continue teaching me in my dreams when I sleep, I had to heal my moontime. I remember what they told me in my last dream with them very clearly: “Aliette, you need to heal your moontime before we’re going to continue working with you.” I can’t live without my dreams. Dreaming at night is one of the most important things in my life. My first memory is of lying in my crib, dreaming. A dream I had one random night was the reason I moved to Vancouver, even though I had only heard the name “Vancouver” a couple of times in my life when a friend of mine said something about climbing in Squamish. Living in Vancouver has been one of the best events of my life. In more recent years, probably most impacting for me is that if it weren’t for both story and science, I never would have gotten over my “unidentifiable and incurable” illness I contracted after studying mountain gorillas and chimpanzees in Uganda five years ago. After 6 going to one medical professional after another, from oncologists in the Cancer Treatment Center, to gastroenterologists, to endocrinologists, only my dreams could tell me what was wrong in my body. With my dreams, I was able to find the necessary medicine to completely heal. There are all sorts of other things that science is challenged to address. Just yesterday, I was reading a Scientific American article about a man named Kim who has no corpus callosum, so the right and left hemispheres in his brain are not connected. Kim can’t even dress himself, but he’s memorized over 9,000 books and can tell you things like all the area codes and zip codes in the U.S. and all the T.V. stations serving them, and he can give Yahoo-like travel directions within any major U.S. city or between any pair of them. I think that’s amazing. But I love science, I believe in science. Some of my most amazing memories are from science, equally as amazing as my memories of dreams, but in different ways. I’ve studied more science in my life, both in school and in the field, than I have anything else. I went through a lot of very hard work at Dartmouth to major in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, and I’m so happy that I did! Since I was in elementary school, I’ve had so many fond memories of being involved with science. Nearly every summer I went to science camp, and it was usually the highlight of my entire year. As I have grown older, I would say that my months studying behavioral interactions among mountain gorillas and chimpanzees on the border of Uganda, and my months surveying on the Juneau Icefield in Alaska, studying climate change, have been two of the most life-altering experiences I’ve ever had. I am proud to call myself a scientist. I am a scientist. But, I also believe in things like faeries. 7 While science is one essential component for achieving sustainability, solely scientific approaches systematically undervalue specific places, times, and events of sustainability. In one country, for example, electric cars may be considered “sustainable,” while in another country electric cars may be considered completely “unsustainable” because of the transportation costs to import the cars. Two more examples: right now, composting may be considered a “sustainable” action, whereas in ten years, composting may be considered “unsustainable” because of toxic metal accumulation in soils. Or, establishing parks to provide wildlife viewing opportunities for educating children may be considered “sustainable,” but if bears, for example, are attacking people because the bears are becoming more habituated to humans, is that “sustainable”? Since the 1 970s, much scholarship in the social studies of science (SSS) has applied constructivist theories to argue that basing decisions only on science, and assuming science to be itself place-, time-, and event-specific, leaves many questions unaddressed (Jasanoff & Wymie, 1998; Robinson & Tansey, 2006; Rosa & Dietz, 1998; Wynne & Irwin, 1996; Haraway, 1991a, 1991b; Latour, 1993; Kuhn, 1962; Rayner & Malone, 1988). For example, Wynne & Irwin (1996) describe a situation in which scientists’ intellectual-administrative ethos of prediction, standardization, and control conflicted sharply with and penalized local hill-sheep farmers near a nuclear fuels reprocessing complex in northern England following Chernobyl. Wymie argues that the scientists, with their exaggerated sense of certainty, “naturally” deleted and standardized the uncertainties of the farmers, and the farmers’ ethos of adaptation and acceptance of intrinsic lack of control. Wynne’s study and many others indicate that if environmental policies based purely on science are adopted, they often unfairly penalize land users and may even increase environmental degradation and poverty by threatening livelihoods (Forsyth, 2003). Bocking 8 (2004), for one, describes how forms of natural resource management, such as adaptive and community-based management, which consider more place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions, are more responsive to alternative uses of resources, more flexible in allocating these uses, and can respond to local circumstances and priorities. What’s more, science itself tacitly reflects and reproduces place-, time-, and event- specific dimensions of social relations and of cultural and moral identities (Jasanoff & Wynne, 1998; Bocking, 2004; Forsyth, 2003). Thomas Kuhn’s work on revolutionary theory- change in The Structure ofScientflc Revolutions is among the best known initial critiques of the contextual circumstances in which science is enmeshed. Kuhn (1962) argued that science does not progress towards ultimate objective truth because scientific theories can be neither directly compared nor proven. The conceptual paradigms in which scientific theories are embedded are incommensurable with one another because by their very nature, their core values and assumptions cannot be compared, and scientific theories are incapable of final empirical validation because facts are not independent of the theories that they are used to test. Two conclusions follow. First, science may be able to inform conceptions and practices of sustainability, but science alone cannot resolve many critically important dimensions. Depending on one’s view of the human-nature relationship, and of the role of science in that relationship, one understanding of sustainability may be compelling while another may not. Choosing which understanding of sustainability is most compelling is ultimately a political act. Second, the place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions embedded in and surrounding science itself in the context of sustainability must be available for examination and discussion. Robinson (2004) asserts these conclusions in his claim that “in the end, sustainability is ultimately an issue of human behavior, and negotiation over 9 preferred futures, under conditions of deep contingency and uncertainty. It is an inherently normative concept, rooted in real world problems and very different sets of values and moral judgments . . . multiple conflicting views of sustainability exist and cannot be reconciled in terms of each other” (pp. 379-380, 382).” Based on such observations, many members of academia, government, business, and the public (i.e., Robinson & Tansey, 2006; Williams & Millington, 2004; Sharma et al., 2006; VanWynsberghe et al., 2003; Nadasdy, 2007; Starhawk, 2004) have recognized the need for an alternative form of knowledge and theoretical lens through which to examine and incorporate the place-, time-, and event- specific dimensions of sustainability. Today as I kept driving on the highway, the need to stop and follow the pull grew stronger and stronger. It was like there was some story back there that I had to listen to. L Narrative as Alternative Mode of Knowing In contrast to what many critics of science see as the objective, rational, socially independent goals of science, narrative constructs and reflects knowledge representative of place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions of life. “Narrative” can be defined as the expression of a (human or non-human) character’s experience in some particular place and time, through events which rise in action and, through some approach or instrument, reach a turning point that leads to some resolution (Bal, 1997; Aristotle, 1996; Miller, 1995; Polkinghorne, 1988; Gass, 2002).”’ Narrative as a mode of knowing is concrete, contextualized, specific, personally convincing, circular, imaginistic, interpersonal, and emotive (Lyotard, 1984; Polkinghorne, 1988). “While science looks for universal truth conditions. . . the narrative mode looks for 10 particular, concrete connections between events” (Richardson, 1990, p. 118). Whereas science involves prediction, narrative involves retrodiction: “it is the end of the temporal series—how things eventually turned out—that determines which event began it; we know it was a beginning because of the end” (Martin, 1986, p. 74). Narrative “challenge[sJ the official claim to universality, document[s] resistance against official norms, and, most importantly, show[s] that the official claim to hold standards that are abstract, universal, and hence neutral with respect to power is false” (Disch, 1994, p. 6). Narrative is the primary means through which humans come to understand and express the subjective, value-laden and a-rational experience of real life (Bruner, 1986; Polkinghorne, 1988). In narrative, humans express the experience of creating identity and defining, or attempting to define, what it means to be human, and what it means to be living (Gass, 2002; Rimmon-Kenan, 1996, 2002; Epstein, 1994). Taylor (1989) states that “in order to make minimal sense of our lives, in order to have an identity,” we need to “grasp our lives in a narrative. . . . In order to have a sense of who we are, we have to have a notion of how we have become and where we are going. We understand ourselves inescapably in narrative” (pp. 47-48, 5 1-52). Some see that the function of narrative is the “affirmation and reinforcement, even the creation, of the most basic assumptions of a culture about human existence, about time, destiny, selfhood, where we come from, what we ought to do while we are here, where we go—the whole course of human life” (Miller, 1995, p. 71). Aristotle (1996) reminds us, narrative is among our most supreme ways of meeting life, evaluating how we act in it, and developing compassion for what life brings. As Van Frassen (1991) argues, narratives allow us to comprehend the human experience of lived time. Polkinghorne (1988) believes that narrative is “a meaning structure that organizes events and human actions into a whole, thereby attributing significance to 11 individual actions and events according to their effect on the whole” (p. 18). Because narrative gives order and meaning to events—”a crucial aspect of understanding the future possibilities” (Myers & Kitsuse, 2000, p. 227)—narrative can explore the alternative choices that might lead to feared or hoped-for futures, claims Heidegger (1965). Narrative can serve as our chief moral compass in the world; “we can use narrative as a tool to explore what we do or do not wish to become,” echoes Cronon (1992, p. 1369). According to Chamberlin (2003), because the narratives we tell can change the way we act in the world, if we change narratives, we change something fundamental in the moral and political constitution of a society; thus, it is in narrative that new visions of sustainable living begin. Whatever may be the perspective of the universe on the things going on around us, our human perspective is that we inhabit an endlessly narrated world. “We live our lives as a tale that is told,” says Psalm As I continued driving, I increasingly wanted to stop and listen to that pull, but cars pressed directly behind me, so I had to keep going. My mind kept sifting through an odd amalgamation of perplexity, awe, and eeriness at the pull, as the sign from Exit #3 whizzed past and I anticipated Exit #2. The feeling, as always, lingered for a few seconds, but disappeared before Exit #2. Things felt emptier now. I wanted, I needed, to stop back there near Exit #4 and just be silent, just breathe, and maybe wait, listen for something. . . I don’t know. For the first time since experiencing this pulling feeling, I slowed. The whirring of my tires slowed on the wet concrete. I don’t know why I haven’t investigated the feeling before, but I haven’t. I guess it’s just seemed too weird. I turned back on the highway, toward the pull. Nearing Exit #4 again, something felt 12 oddly familiar. I felt as I do when I am asleep and just starting to be drawn deeper into one of my “in-between things” dreams—one of those deep dreams past the normal stories of human living—stories about faeries or elves or other nature spirits. I love the stories in those dreams. Only seldom recently have I had that kind of dream. The last time, the faeries said goodbye. They told me they would return only when I found my moontime again. Those stories in my “in-between things” dreams were stories where mystery and enchantment and wonderment and bafflement and the implausible always surprised me. In those stories it seemed like so much wisdom lived; they were stories where I could fall asleep at night distraught over my best friend’s death, and learn a difference between the physical body and other bodies. These stories, and the places and characters and times and events in them, guided me like a living map. They taught me to believe what could be possible. I miss those stories so much. Narrative as Theoretical Lens Narrative is not only a mode of knowing, but also a process through which knowledge is constructed (Czarniawska, 2004). Since the “narrative turn” in qualitative inquiry, narrative as a process of knowledge construction—or “narrativity”—has been widely employed in contemporary political and social theory (Kreiswirth, 1994; Ellis & Flaherty, 1992). Application of narrativity has ranged: from use by social and behavioral scholars who establish community boundaries based on notions of constructed identity (Eckstein, 2003; Sandercock, 2003) (e.g., how each person, each individual has a “core story”; we become our stories because in telling and re-telling them we are also reproducing ourselves and our behaviors); to cultural theorists who investigate historical narratives of the human environment relationship in biblical and religious contexts (Glacken, 1967; Meeker, 1997) 13 (e.g., how in the 1st century, the Bible molded a notion of a “designed earth,” in which man’s role was to dominate and modify the environment); to aboriginal scholars who study how oral narrative constructs the code of proper behavior toward the environment and its resources (Basso, 1996; Nelson, 1983; Cruikshank, 2005) (e.g., how, as many Apache believe, when people do not learn to associate places and their names with historical tales, people act counter to social norms and suffer a “losing of the land”); to political ecologists who demarcate how environmental orthodoxies, or “false” narratives about the environment have underpinned much of modern Western culture (Forsyth, 2003) (e.g., institutionalized “factual” explanations of environmental problems, such as desertification or tropical deforestation, which are highly problematic and overlook both biophysical uncertainties and how people value environmental changes in various ways); and to literary theorists who critique how the narratives of nature writers such as White, Marsh, Muir, Leopold, Carson, Abbey, McKibbon, and Berry have constructed modern notions of nature (e.g., how the storyline of DDT in Silent Spring laid the groundwork for the modern environmental movement). My research finds greatest inspiration in ethnographic accounts of narrative within feminist and critical theory, which aim to offer greater representation or legitimacy to the construction of knowledge about place, time, and events within hegemonic contexts or against dominating paradigms (Kreiswirth, 2000; Czarniawska, 1997, 2004). This form of narrativity has been broadly termed “narrative constructivism.” Narrative constructivism critiques the processes in which knowledge of identity (place and character) is created through a first lens called “narrative identification.” Narrative constructivism also critiques the processes in which knowledge of time is constructed, through a second lens called “narrative temporalism.” Finally, narrative constructivism critiques the processes in which 14 different identities intersect with different times, through a third lens called “narrative sociocriticism.” I remember how non-human places and characters in those stories were fully alive, as if they were human. Well, more than human. First, scholars use “narrative identification”tmto inquire into the processes through which knowledge of place and character, be it personal identity, memory, autobiography or self-creation, is constructed (Miller, 1995; Aristotle, 1996; Heidegger, 1965). A narrative identification lens is important for sustainability because place(s) and character(s) in non human nature must be acknowledged as free, autonomous actors with agency to self-create (Whatmore, 2002; Butler, 2006; Bakker & Bridge, 2006; Starhawk, 2004; Merchant, 2003, 2005). Increasingly, researchers in fields as diverse as First Nations, Aboriginal studies, evolutionary history, and ecology have asserted the value of acknowledging significant generative capacities in non-human place(s) and character(s). For example, in Julie Cruikshank’s (2005) recent book on local knowledge, colonial encounters, and social imagination, which she entitled Do Glaciers Listen?, glaciers appear as actors, taking action and responding to their surroundings, being sensitive to smells and listening, making moral judgments and punishing infractions. “A particular place in the land . . . is an active participant. . . the place may even be felt to be the source, the primary power that expresses itself through the various events that unfold there,” states Abram (1997, p. 162) when reviewing perceptions about the land in oral cultures. Gary Snyder (1990) writes, “Other orders of being have their own literatures. Narrative in the deer world is a track of scents that is passed on from deer to deer with an art of interpretation that is instinctive. A literature of 15 bloodstains, a bit of piss, a whiff of estrus, a hit of rut, a scrape on a sapling, and long gone” (p. 120). Scientists who see animals not simply as biological specimens but as social beings are offering new insights on animal sociability, semiotics, and consciousness (Griffen 1992; Dolins 1999). Rose & Rose (1980), Lewontin (1998), and others at the interface of bio philosophy are trying to retrieve the affectivity of the organism from the haystack of genes, cells, and populations that have become the preferred units of biological analysis. Ideas about instability, innovation, even playfulness underpin many new theories in ecology (Gunderson & Holling, 2002), while on account of the emergent and unpredictable character of biological systems, Boyd et al. (2001), for example, frame nature as a place of “surprise.” In my research, I apply the theoretical lens of narrative identification to explore the free, autonomous agency and ability to self-create and negotiate, of place(s) and character(s) in non-human nature. Place(s) (a lake, a trail crossing, an ocean harbor, and a home) and character(s) (Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, Sun, and Coho Salmon) in non-human nature communicate and interact with me as social beings whose language is, for example, a brush of wind or the sun rising. Contrary to what I had anticipated I would find in my research, in their biology of surprise, Air, Fire, Stone, Water, and Lady Bug amaze me with lessons on how to exercise sustainably; Sun with lessons on how to rest sustainably; and Coho Salmon with lessons on how to eat sustainably. L and time seemed eternal. El Second, in “narrative temporalism,” scholars investigate the experience of making and receiving narrative as the process through which human beings relate to their temporality 16 and finitudei (Myers & Kitsuse, 2002; Polkinghorne, 1988; Van Frassen, 1991). A narrative temporal lens of time is important for sustainability because temporality and finitude in sustainability cannot be taken as fixed or universal. Science often prescribes the concept and practice of sustainability as fixed in time, a state of being that occurs in the past, present, or future. Most sustainability scholars are coming to believe that sustainability does not occur as a fixed state of “being” in time per Se, but as a continual, enduring process of “becoming.” Kay & Schneider (1994) and Forsyth (2003), for example, explain how managing ecosystems to achieve some fixed state, as is currently done in the dominant model of ecology, does not sufficiently account for the continuing temporal complexity of ecosystems. Instead, the ongoing process of self-organization that recurs through time in ecosystems must be carefully considered. Sustainability not only must allow for temporal changes in natural systems, but sustainability must also reinforce social learning and changes in people’s views through time (Robinson & Tansey, 2006). Robinson (2004) states that instead of conceiving of sustainability as “a set of future conditions of society,” we should renounce the goal of precise and unambiguous definition and knowledge. Instead, “sustainability is itself the emergent property of a conversation about what kind of world we collectively want to live in now and in the future” (p. 382). Meadowcroft (2000, p. 372) similarly asserts that “what is to be sustained in sustainable development is the process of improvement rather than any particular institution, practice or environment . . . just what should be preserved and what should be alternated is open to argument. Moreover, the boundaries of what can or must be preserved/changed for sustainability will undoubtedly shift over time as society, configurations of natural systems, and their inter-relations evolve.” Building on narrative temporalism’s lens of time as continual, enduring, and ever 17 becoming, I base my research on the continual, ever-becoming rhythm of the moon. The moon can be seen as a literal and metaphorical emblem of continual, circular time; as an ecological body that undergoes an enduring process of self-organization recurring through time, the moon’s phases can be a guide in circular understanding and being. In my data collection, I follow the continual circular tempo of the moon, from New Moon, to First Quarter, to Full Moon, to Last Quarter, and back to New Moon again. Further, this circular rhythm of the lunar cycle structures the temporal sequence through which I present my data (Phase I in this dissertation is New Moon, Phase II is First Quarter Moon, Phase III is Full Moon, Phase IV is Last Quarter Moon, and Phase I, again, is New Moon). L and anything, even the impossible, could happen. Third, “narrative sociocriticism” combines and builds on narrative temporalism and narrative identification to challenge universality, elucidate development and causal connections between different places and times, and document how different characters can be seen to respond to dominant tales of power within and against these places and times (Disch, 1994; Rosenwald, 1992).c A narrative understanding of place-time-character intersection is important as a lens for sustainability, because sustainability consists not of one universal experience of place(s) and time(s)—but only of multiple unique, particular experiences that result from the multiple ways in which different characters intersect with different places and times. Classen (1993), for instance, describes how the experience of sustainability is particular to different characters in different place(s) in nature, because these places differently direct corporeal exchanges with human characters. An experience of sustainability 18 in the region of Mexico that is home to the heat-orienting Tzotzil, for example, may depend more on temperature; on scent-imbued Little Andaman Island, sustainability for the Onge may pivot more on air-borne particles; and in the richly-hued region of Colombia that is home to the Desana, sustainability may orient more around colors. Classen’s work in these areas and his exploration of the Wild Boy ofAveiyon, Wolf Children of India, and Kaspar Hauser suggest that to hold Western standards of a universal experience of sustainability in different places is to bring character- and place-contingent sensory consciousness into an inappropriate visual or oral/aural model (Classen, 1993). In hazards research, famine studies, and Third World political ecology, geographers have argued that different humans never perceive the identity of nature to be the same in any place (Swyngedouw, 1999, p. 443). Such assertions of character- and place-dependent understandings of the identity of nature imply that multiple understandings of sustainability are all that can exist. Geographers working on industrial capitalism, genetically modified organisms, and risk have shown how over time society is continually physically reconstituting nature (Smith, 1984). This temporally- dependent physical reconstitution continually shifts both the character(s) and place(s) of nature, and human views of the character(s) and place(s) of sustainability. In her research on the qualities that define good water for municipal populations, Parr (2005) documents how the correspondence between people’s perceptions of taste, softness, and thrift have been refined over time, and thus local understandings of sustainability were inescapably time sensitive, conditional on time-dependent community standards of safety, expertise, and risk. In my research, in each different place (a lake, a trail crossing, an ocean harbor, and a house), different characters in non-human nature (Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, Sun, and Coho Salmon) intersect with different points in time (New Moon, First Quarter Moon, Full Moon, Last Quarter Moon, and again New Moon) to teach me, from their particular 19 place- and time-dependent experiences. Each one imparts to me a novel, different place- and time-dependent lesson about sustainable living: at a lake at First Quarter Moon, Air, Fire, Stone, Water, and Lady Bug teach me about exercising sustainably; at Full Moon at a trail crossing, Sun teaches me about resting sustainably; and at Last Quarter Moon in an ocean harbour, Coho Salmon teaches me about eating sustainably. LI Oh how I miss these stories, the places, the times, the characters, everything that happens in them. Sitting there driving under the hypnosis of the highway, contemplating the origin of this pulling feeling, yearning for it to seduce me, but at the same time not understanding it.. drifting between memories of self affirmations that “faeries are just imaginary” (as per the advice of everyone over age five), then to Aboriginal songlines, powerspots, Columbus . remembering places and characters as more-than-human, and time traveling, and the “impossible” happening. . . silently cursing the human lid I’m pulling over the mountainside above me . . . something in me knows I need those stories now. After life-changing times conducting surveys on glaciers in Alaska, documenting the behavioral ecology of mountain gorillas, months and months of fun and fascination at science camp, a degree in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology, and, at the same time, life-changing lessons from shamans, dreaming collectively at night with other people who are asleep in completely different countries, missing faeries and feeling like I’m missing a foundation of my existence, I wonder, “How can both science and story be negotiated into sustainable living?” A clarification here about my view of science and narrative in the concept and practice of sustainable living: I believe that sustainability must be based on a 20 postmodernist/modernist tension: sustainability should embrace both particularized critique and humility (the ability to question the context of the generalizations of sustainability), and universalistic confidence (the ability to speak generally about sustainability and a trust of those who claim to do so) In contrast to, say, repositioning the dominant model of science into one among many possible approaches by suggesting that all approaches are equal, or repositioning science as reflecting a different conception of reality than that of other paradigms, I believe in “humble negotiation” between narrative and science as two necessary modes of knowing.’ I aim to understand how we can humbly negotiate narrative and scientific knowing, and in turn, how this negotiation may invite us to understand new possibilities for living sustainably. Although in my research I approach sustainable living through narrative, my research methodology should be considered more broadly as one of arts-based research. The arts have been foundational for educational curriculum theory and research since their beginnings (Cahnmann-Taylor & Siegesmund, 2008), but at present, arts-based research can be defined as “the systematic use of the artistic process, the actual making of artistic expressions in all of the different forms of the arts, as a primary way of understanding and examining experience by both researchers and the people that they involve in their studies” (Knowles & Cole, 2008, p. 29). Students of arts-based research study, for example, how one can pursue the process of writing to learn more about a particular aspect of writing, or allow the characters in their writing to self-express.’”” Arts-based research methods can therefore make use of a larger spectrum of intelligence and communications; this is directly akin to my argument that we need to perceive nature as self-expressive, a source of knowing beyond our own, a wisdom that is more-than-human. Some might ask if my dissertation is self-serving or self-absorptive. My response to 21 this is that to be other than self-serving in this research would be untrue to narrative, which is itself inherently personal, circular, interpersonal, and emotive (Lyotard, 1984; Polkinghorne, 1988). I agree with Carl Leggo and other education scholars who insist that we need to write personally because each of us lives as a person (Leggo, 2001, 2008); our personal living affects and is a product of the academic, political, social, and professional communities in which we circulate.’ In hand-drawing many of the figures in my dissertation, for example, I add a deeper narrative level to information that otherwise would have remained simply reproduced and thus less assimilated. As Carson and Sumara (1997) state about works that seek to interrupt normalized ways of perceiving and understanding, one of the greatest challenges is learning to perceive freshly, and this requires that “one engage in practices that, in some way, remove one from the comfortable habits of the familiar” (p. xvii). “If a measure of the utility of research is seen to be the capacity to create new knowledge that is individually and culturally transformative, then criteria need to move beyond probability and plausibility to possibility” (p. xvii). Inviting possibility into sustainability is exactly the aim of my research. I hope that others can use my story—the what and the how of it—to create for themselves new possibilities for living sustäinably. L Exiting on Westport Road, I proceeded for a bit. A few puffs of air over the hood of my car pushed some clouds in a tug-of-war with water. The game changed to hide-and-seek, and then peek-a-boo with green needles and auburn trunks, and then I was alone as the clouds shot off to a cliff above. Off to the right I saw a ravine. I was moving, but everything there stood motionless. The pull felt strong there now, stronger than it ever had been. I turned off to the side of Westport Road in the dirt, just after a Kiewit Construction Company sign 22 designating the Sea-to-Sky Highway Westport pit. I turned off my car engine. Between the passing traffic on the nearby Upper Levels Highway, I heard running water. The sound seemed to be coming from somewhere near the ravine. From the dirt where I had stopped, I saw a trail leading into a dense thicket of trees. My sense of time disappeared. Soon, I realized that I’d started to follow the trail into the trees, towards the sound of the water. 23 EAGLE CREEK Eagle Creek is a humble creek, a creek completely unnoted on most maps, placed on some as a mere line starting below Eagle Lake and ending in Eagle Harbour; on other maps, Eagle Creek appears as a thin line starting directly from Eagle Lake (also known as Dick Lake) that then joins the much larger and well-represented Nelson Creek. On still other maps, Eagle Creek is a line surfacing only randomly between miscellaneous neighbourhood roads. Very few people have heard of Eagle Creek (Eagle Harbour, maybe); even few residents of West Vancouver have ever heard the name. Where Eagle Creek really is, what it’s about, and what significant a role Eagle Creek plays in sustainability, few have ever discussed. Broadly defined, Eagle Creek is 2.21km long, flowing from northeast to southwest in the District of West Vancouver, BC. Eagle Creek begins around 460m from Eagle (Dick) Lake, and flows through forested municipal land, undeveloped private land, and developed residential land (District of West Vancouver, 2008b; District of West Vancouver, 2004; District of West Vancouver, 1 997b). Eagle Creek then discharges into Eagle Harbour in the Pacific Ocean. According to West Vancouver Streamkeepers (n.d.), the area designated as the Eagle Creek Watershed occupies 3.8 km2, making Eagle Creek the twelfth largest watershed in West Vancouver. 24 //. !4’.I-— /•, •1 / Figure 1. Eagle Creek, West Vancouver, British Columbia (compiled from: Mussio Ventures Ltd., 2003; Bryceland, Macaree, & Macaree, 1994) A Story Before People Beginning with the Pleistocene glaciations, Eagle Creek, like the surrounding land of West Vancouver, was overrun by Cordilleran ice sheets between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago. The ice sheets laid down glacial till full of boulders, with the thickest till accumulations occurring at Eagle Creek’s lower elevations (National Resources Canada, 2007). Later on, the climate warmed, favoring in Eagle Creek heat and drought-tolerant tree species such as Arbutus, which arrived in West Vancouver between 10,000 to 8,000 years ago (Luttmerding, 1984; Klinka et al., 1989) and fire-tolerant tree species like Douglas fir. Historically, wildflres have occurred around Eagle Creek in greater frequency at low elevations. Low 25 / / c.k. - f E.. ,,< -•. elevation fires have taken place about every 100-150 years, and high elevation fires only about every 1500-3000 years (Oikos Ecological Consultants, 1991; FMS Forest Mensuration Services, 1994). After the frequent fires 8,000 + years ago, colonizing floral species including bracken fern and alder became prevalent (Pearce, 1994). The climate then became more variable, but on average damper and milder in West Vancouver. Bacteria, fungi, ferns, mosses, amphibians, and invertebrates flourished in the surrounding North Shore mountains. Concurrently, the creeks on the North Shore were becoming more substantial. With the increased dampness, the first main waterways of Eagle Creek were likely born. As the waterways progressed, more complex food chains developed, with species such as salmon and bear beginning to play a large role in nutrient transport from marine to terrestrial locations in Eagle Creek (Bradbury, 2007). Today, Eagle Creek offers to fauna a diversity of habitat types that range from steep and rocky, sparsely vegetated areas, to marine and riparian environments. These habitats are widely dispersed throughout the watershed, along the creek corridor, the alluvial fan in the lower southeast portion of the creek, the creek bed, and along the Eagle Harbour shoreline. Among a range of other animals to whom Eagle Creek gives a home (Table 1), are keystone and vulnerable species such as bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and the American dipper-tailed frogs (Ascaphus truei) (Table 1). Today, populations of the American dipper- tailed frog have been categorized as “vulnerable” across British Columbia, as a result of the frog’s slow reproductive rate, its highly specialized habitat requirements, and the nature of human activities within its range. The tailed frog retains more primitive characteristics than any other living frog; it is also one of the world’s longest lived frogs (lifespan of 15-20 years), has the longest larval phase, and takes longer to reach sexual maturity than any other frog in North America (Ministry of Environment, Lands, and Permits, 1998). Species like the tailed frog are the primal essences of when life on Earth was at its birthing stage. 26 Table 1. Selected Species and Habitats of Eagle Creek (adapted from Meidinger & Pojar, 1991; McCuaig, 1993) Common Animal Species Less Common Animal Habitat Type Distribution Black Swift Black Bear Steep/rocky Widely Bushy-tailed Woodrat Black-tailed Deer sparsely dispersed Cedar Waxwing Blue Grouse vegetated throughout Common Raven Cougar watershed Common Pica Pacific Jumping Mouse Cliff Swallow Willow Flycatcher Little Brown Myotis Northwest Chipmunk Purple Finch Red-legged Frog American Dipper Bald Eagle ‘-. Riparian areas Corridor along Black Tern Barred Owl creek and Black-tailed Deer Blue Grouse wet sites Black Bear Mountain Beaver Common Merganser Pacific Jumping Mouse Of interest: Eagle Creek was Common Raven Shrew-vole named for the large number of Harlequin Duck Snowy Owl eagles that nest in the Eagle Mew Townsend’s Chipmunk Creek area (West Vancouver Ring-necked Duck Yellow-headed Blackbird Redhead Wandering Shrew Red-throated Loon Ruffed Grouse Wilson’s Phalarope Winter Wren Wood Duck Common Garter Snake Bullfrog Riparian areas Corridor along Pacific Tree Frog Gull-tailed Frog creek and wet Western Tree Frog Long-toed Salamander sites Red-legged Frog Rough-skinned Newt 27 Common Animal Species Less Common Animal Habitat Type Habitat Distribution Pacific Giant Salamander Painted Turtle Western Toad Western Garter Snake Bald Eagle Band-tailed Pigeon Old-growth Alluvial fan Black-tailed Deer Barred Owl conifer forests in the lower Black Bear Blue Grouse S.E. portion Columbian Mouse Cougar of the creek Common Merganser California Myotis Common Raven Marten Douglas Squirrel Pacific Giant Salamander Hairy Woodpecker Pacific Tree Frog Northern Flicker Shrew-vole Red-breasted Nuthatch Tailed Frog Southern Red-backed Vole Townsend’ sChipmunk Stellar’s Jay Vaux’s Swift\ Varied Thrush Western Toad Winter Wren Coho Salmon (up to Marine \ Marine and Marine Harbour Dr.) \ Riparian and lowest Chum Salmon ______ ______________________ ___________ elevations of the Steelhead Trout Of interest: Populations of the American dipper-tailed frog creekbed are blue-listed (vulnerable) in BC due to its low Olympia Oyster reproductive rate, its highly specialized habitat Pacific Oyster requirements, and the nature of human activities within its range. Pacific Blue Mussel The tailed frog retains more primitive characteristics than Plate Limpet any other living frog; it is one of the world’s longest lived frogs (life span of 15-20 years), has the longest larval - _________________ phase, and takes longer to reach sexual maturity than any other frog in North America. 28 Then, the wall of a fence. On it a sign read: WARNING... This property is presently an undeveloped wilderness in its natural state, and users of these trails can expect unmarked dangers and hazards... PRIVATE PROPERTY Future Development Site - British Pacific Properties, Limited “How amazing would it be if I could help people and nature live sustainably here?” I thought. Introducing People First Peopling Although the date of the first human arrival in Eagle Creek is not known, the overland and coastal migrations of people from northeast Asia over the Bering Land Bridge at least 10,000 years ago (so anthropologists theorize), into what is now Alaska and finally into the Fraser Valley, give some indications. Such migration theories suggests that S’olh Temexw may have been first present around Eagle Creek starting from approximately 5,000 years ago (Carlson, 2001). The Coast Salish Nations migrating through the area possibly included g those now called Comox, Coquitlam, Coweichan, Haisla, Halkomelem, Homalco, Klahoose, Musqueam, Nuxalk, Sechelt, Sliammon, Songhees, Squamish, Sto:lo, Straits (or Straits Salish), Tswassen, and Tsleil-waututh Nations (UBC Museum of Anthropology, 1994; Xwi7xwa Library First Nations House of Learning, 2003). The Squamish Nation now maintains the largest residence around Eagle Creek. Although populating throughout the 29 North Shore and more broadly and in more dominant numbers before Europeans arrived, the Squamish Nation consists of seven main communities who live primarily at the Mission, Capilano, and Seymour reserves, and four of nine reserves in the Squamish valley (Coull, 1996). A thorough and accurate description of the events that took place in Eagle Creek during the time when the First Nations first inhabited the area, and the subsequent changes in rights and land ownership/belonging with European arrival, is hardly possible here. Eagle Creek’s story at this time is one of great hardship and bloodshed among the land’s original human inhabitants. For lack of a better way to recount events at this time in Eagle Creek, may the following quotation suffice here for background purposes : An assertion of Aboriginal Title (written by the Squamish Nation in 1990) to increase public awareness of their view of the land in question and the impending treaty process: Our historical links to these lands and waters are numerous. Squamish place names exist throughout the territory. In many instances, a location has particular meaning to our people because of the existence of oral traditions that served to explain that place in the Squamish universe and in our relationship to the land. In addition, the land bears witness to the settlements, resource sites, and spiritual ritual places of our ancestors, including villages, hunting camps, cedar bark gathering areas, rock quarries, clam processing camps, pictographs, and cemeteries. Some of these village sites date back 8,000 years (Coull, 1998, pp. 8 1-82). European Exp1orers’ Eagle Creek witnessed the first European journey near West Vancouver, when Pilot Don Jose Narvaez passed through English Bay and explored northwest to Jervis Inlet in 1791. One year later, on July 31t, Captain George Vancouver entered the First Narrows and explored Burrard Inlet. Captain Vancouver was greeted by First Nations peoples from the village of Holmulchesun, at the mouth of the Capilano River. The first major European presence 30 around present day Eagle Creek occurred when Sewell Moody, who had purchased the Pioneer Mill in 1864, acquired two timber leases west of the Capilano River in 1870. Moody’s smaller lease extended across Eagle Creek, along the shore west of Cypress Creek to Point Atkinson. After quick and intense logging of the area, Eagle Creek was soon void of available timber. Local community interest in the Eagle Creek area started to spread more broadly when Arthur Finney began construction on a wooden lighthouse about 2 km from Eagle Creek at Point Atkinson on 4 May 4th in 1874. More people rapidly sought Eagle Creek as a resource to be developed for industry. In 1890, when the Canessas Fish Smokehouse began operating on Eagle Island, the mouth of Eagle Creek experienced significant increases in industrial pollution. In 1892, after the contemplation of a road to Eagle Harbour stimulated a surge of pre-emption and other land speculation, North Vancouver negotiated a loan ($40,000 for 50 years at 8% interest) to build a road or wagon trail from Deep Cove to Eagle Harbour. Eagle Creek faced more fish industry when in 1897, The Whiteside and Burnham Cannery was erected at the mouth of Eagle Creek in Eagle Harbour. This cannery was built at August Nelson’s unfinished mill site, and continued operating until 1918. Just three years earlier, in 1915, seclusion in Eagle Creek had disappeared—commuter vehicular traffic started to pass directly over and across Eagle Creek when Marine Drive to Caulfield was officially opened. The increased traffic encouraged Council in 1918 to obtain foreshore rights for Fisherman’s Cove, just west and around the corner from the mouth of Eagle Creek. In the 1 920s, Eagie Creek experienced its second main era of logging. There was sporadic logging and shake-cutting within many of the fire-regenerated stands. The combination of fires and logging resulted in successional stages ranging from 30- to 900- year-old forest. Large scars extending from power lines across the Cypress foothills are visible in aerial photos from 1926. Sparse roads from logging and some holding tanks uphill 31 from Marine Dr. then appear in later photos. around Eagle Creek. Concurrent with this second era of logging was the extension of Marine Drive tO Horseshoe Bay in 1921, to link neighbourhoods and service residential development. Increasing use of areas between Cypress and Horseshoe Bay was further fueled by the 1926 Town Planning Act and development of West Vancouver’s first Planning Commission. The 1926 Town Planning Act emphasized residential development and supported the prohibition of industry in West Vancouver. Just years later, the District of West Vancouver was facing bankruptcy. To avoid this, in 1931 the district sold 4,000 acres of municipal land to British Pacific Properties Ltd. This company still owns most of the forested land in Eagle Creek currently threatened with development. Threatened by Urbanization Eagle Creek is currently classified by Fisheries and Oceans Canada as “threatened” due to the high impact of its urbanization. The contemporary parameters of this urbanization have been largely shaped by British Pacific Properties Ltd. Holding. After the 1 940s, there was a huge development surge in the foothill areas just east and south of Eagle Creek. The impact of the development surge was severe enough, according to municipal government, to warrant a comprehensive town plan. In 1946, the Bartholomew Town Plan (the first comprehensive town plan in West Vancouver) emphasized the protection of existing and future residential districts. The Bartholomew Town Plan marked the beginning of governmental policy geared towards future development impacting various portions of Eagle Creek. Governmental policies influencing the upper reaches of Eagle Creek pertained, for example, to the Upper Levels Highway, which was completed from near Lions Gate Bridge to Horseshoe Bay in 1957. In 1973, guidelines were established to regulate development above the Upper Levels Highway. At this time, guidelines were also established to charge developers for the costs of on-site development. Governmental interventions affecting Eagle 32 Creek in lower elevations included, for example, policies influencing the second wave of major logging that happened in the early 1960s. As in the 1920s, with shake-cutting, loggers felled individual western red cedars that were left standing after forest fires. Along the entire length of Eagle Creek, pivotal political moves for sustainability involved the adoption of open space principles, which included enhanced creek protection and related environmental requirements. Open space principles were incorporated in 1993 into a major policy update to the 1988 Official Community Plan. Eight years later, under the 2001 Upper Lands Report, a long-term vision was laid out for Eagle Creek’s undeveloped areas above the Upper Levels Highway. Today, Eagle Creek is governed mainly at the federal level by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans; at the provincial level by the Ministry of Environment, Lands, and Parks; and at the district level by the District of West Vancouver (District Parks Department), specifically by the current Official Community Plan (OCP) (2004). The OCP announces a challenging agenda; the OCP states that its goals are to: balance the social, environmental, and economic needs of current and future residents; maintain the environment and services contributing to West Vancouver; and create, enhance and preserve neighbourhoods. Struggle for governance of Eagle Creek also goes on between various community stakeholders such as BC Rail, West Vancouver Streamkeepers Association, North Shore Black Bear Network, North Shore Mountain Bike Association, and Eagle Harbour Yacht Club. One huge challenge for governance in Eagle Creek is that Eagle Creek, (starting at Eagle Lake), traverses five zoning areas—one community-use zone and four residential zones (Figure 2). Community use (2) is basically zoned for recreational uses. Residential zones 1-4 (RS1, RS2, R53, R54) are all single-family residential zones that vary in size from 9,000 ft2 to 2 acres (Figure 2). Presently, approximately 43,600 people live in 17,500 dwellings (2001 census; West Van OCP) within West Vancouver’s 87.4 km2 land area. West Vancouver’s projected trend in 33 population growth is an average annual growth rate of 0.4% between 2021 and 2031, but even higher, at 0.5% until 2021. -‘1 (1 31Z Figure 2. Land area distribution in West Vancouver (figure not to scale; source: District of West Vancouver, 2006, p. 2) We need to change. Like in so many places throughout the world, population growth subjects lands in West Vancouver not yet under development, to increasing stress. Amidst escalating vocal and abundant stories about the needs of humanity, Eagle Creek needs a listener, too. To the right of the warning sign for British Pacific Properties Ltd. and future development, I 34 uycP. WE1 f I> F/. saw a chain-link gate. Behind the gate, down below me in the ravine, clumps of moss hung from rock shelves like paintings on display. An endless cushion of green between intermittent trees and shrubbery stretched radically down. Through the centre cascaded a skinny ribbon of blue. My chest got hot, blazing. It felt like an invitation. I wanted to walk through the metal gate, closer to the creek, but I didn’t. It felt like I needed to make an offering first; perhaps being granted study rights, I needed to bring something with which to negotiate entry. As soon as I came home, before I’d even taken my bags off, I felt pulled to walk straight over to the freezer and scoop out two tablespoons of Breyer’s vanilla frozen yogurt into a small round plastic salad dressing container. This is what I’m going to bring for my offering tomorrow. What this negotiation is all about, I have no idea. The frozen milk and sugar are going to be completely melted by the time I get out to the creek in the morning. It’s disgusting even to think about. But, very little of what happened today makes sense, so I’ll just go with it. It just seems like I should follow this pulling feeling and listen to the creek. 35 Phase II FIRST QUARTER MOON 36 FIELD NOTES November 17, 2007 First Quarter Moon Dear Journal, After I made the offer of ice cream to Eagle Creek the day after that New Moon a few months ago, I decided that water treatment and power generation are among the most timely and important sustainability issues for Eagle Creek. I have been interested in the impacts that these two projects are having on Eagle Creek’s hydrologic cycle. In September I began my data collection at Eagle Lake. Illustration 1. Orthophoto (orthorectified aerial photograph) of Eagle Creek source water (source: District of West Vancouver, 2004) 37 Increasing water consumption by both the residential and the commercial sectors of West Vancouver has been placing significant pressures on Eagle Creek’s catch basin. Traditionally, Eagle Lake provided water for West Vancouver residents west of 23rd Street. Currently, however, Eagle Lake provides only about 45% of the water for West Vancouver residents. In the summer when West Vancouver residents require more water, the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) must supplement West Vancouver’s supplies (Raymond Fung, personal communication, January 7, 2008; Thomas, 2007a & b; Bill McCuaig, personal communication, April 9, 2008; Whitehead Environmental Consultants Ltd., 2001). Decreasing the District of West Vancouver’s reliance on water from GVRD supplies, helping the District manage the increasing costs of water treatment, and increasing the amount of water that Eagle Lake is able to provide for residential and commercial use have been pressing concerns for the District. Under the Eagle Lake Development Plan, a new water treatment plant is currently being constructed at the southeast bank of Eagle Lake. The goal of the new Eagle Lake water treatment plant is to replace the current chlorine water treatment system at Eagle Lake with new membrane filtration technology (Dayton & Knight Ltd., 2000-2008). The District of West Vancouver believes that this new technology will reduce the amount of chlorine used in the current water treatment system, while providing protection against the possible impacts of turbidity, micro-organisms, and adjusting water pH to that of the naturally acidic waters of Eagle Lake’s catch basin (Selkirk Remote Sensing, 1990; District of West Vancouver, 1997c). Membrane filtration technology is believed to remove 99.9% of Giardia cysts, 99.0 % of Cryptosporidium oocysts, and 99.99% of viruses. The turbidity of membrane-filtered water is less than 0.1 nephelometric turbidity unit (NTU) (the current “optimum” turbidity level is 1.0 NTU). Because far less chlorine is used, membrane filtration technology is also 38 believed to reduce the amount of chlorine disinfection byproducts when organics in Eagle Lake’s source waters, such as trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids, break down the chlorine (Dayton & Knight Ltd., 2000-2008). As with the increasing demands on Eagle Creek from household and commercial water consumption, growing electricity demands have spotlighted Eagle Creek as a target of electricity generation. Since May 2003, a micro hydro facility (officially labeled at Eagle Lake as the “Micro Power Generation Pilot Project at C2 Reservoir”) has been commercially operating. The goal of this facility is to generate “green” electricity by routing water from Eagle Creek’s headwaters through an underground pipe and into a large buried concrete storage reservoir a few meters from Eagle Creek. The water in the reservoir then proceeds into the West Vancouver drinking water distribution system. The micro hydro facility was designed and built by Pacific Cascade Hydro Inc., the facility’s current operators, and is owned by the District of West Vancouver. In the facility is a Pelton turbine and on the roof of the reservoir is a powerhouse. The Eagle Lake micro hydro project has a capacity of 0.2MW and generates approximately 1 .2GWh of electricity per year (BC Hydro, 2005). L Because unauthorized vehicles aren’t allowed on the service road leading up to Eagle Lake past the West Vancouver Public School Works Yard, and I haven’t yet sought authorization from the District of West Vancouver, Nason Contracting Group, or whomever I need to approach, a bike has been my best transportation option to do my research up at Eagle Lake. The weather today was nasty for a bike ride, but that’s been part of the joys of researching up at Eagle Lake—to get data, some days you just have to get wet, especially, as it has it turned out, around Eagle Lake. 39 The degrees to which Eagle Creek is able to adapt to the new pressures introduced by the Eagle Lake water treatment plant and micro hydro facility depend heavily on the state of Eagle Creek’s climate. According to the most recent records in the Canadian climate normals database from Environment Canada, the average temperature and precipitation (from 1971- 2000) of most of Eagle Creek’s catch basin, have reached the following values per month:’ Table 2. Temperature and Precipitation in Eagle Creek’s Catch Basin (Source: Environment Canada, 2004) Temperature: Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec Daily Average (CC) -1.4 -0.4 0.8 3 6.3 9 12.6 13 10,6 5.8 0.3 -1.8 StauclardDevlatlon 2.2 1.9 1.8 1.5 1.5 1.6 1.6 1.5 2.1 1.8 2.1 2.3 Daily Maximum (°C) 1.1 2.5 3.9 6.6 10.5 13.3 17.5 17.7 15.3 9.2 2.6 0.6 Daily Minimum (°C) -4 -3.2 -2.4 -0.6 2 4.7 7.6 8.2 5.9 2.3 -2 -4.1 Extreme Maximum °C) 1.8 16.7 17.5 22.5 30.5 31.7 33.3 32 30.5 26.7 22.2 12.8 Date (,yyyy/dd) 1961/21 1963/10 1994128 1987/27 1983/29 1969/18 1965/31 1981/08 1988/03 1970/02 1962/01 1962/10+ Extreme Mlniinum(°C) -21.7 -20 -15 -8.3 -4.4 -2.2 0 0.6 -3.9 -14 -20 -26.7 Date (vvvy/dd) 1969/29 1989/02 1971/01 1968/12 1965/05+ 1976/03 1986/04 1973/18 1972/27 1984/31 1985/22+ 1968/29 Precipitation: Raiufail(mm) 173.1 164.6 139.7 107.1 167.9 155.4 120.2 120.7 148.8 285.6 284.1 213.2 Snowfall(cm) 136.9 136.9 110 70.5 9.6 0.2 0 0 0.1 14.3 105.7 141.9 Precipitation (mm) 310 301.4 249.7 177.6 177.6 155.7 120.2 120.7 149 299.9 389.7 354 Average Snow Depth (cm) 0 Median Snow Depth (cm) 0 Snow Depth at Mouth-end (cm) 0 Extreme Daily Rainfall (mm) 162.1 158 108.9 111 133.1 104.8 167.4 115.8 217.2 174.5 153.4 125 Date yyvv/dd) 1961/14 1994/28 1994/01 1955/08 1974/24 1994/30 1972/11 1961/30 1983/01 1975/16 1954/04 1963/22 ExtremeDallySnowfall(cm) 66 60.2 50.8 42.4 19.8 3.8 0 0 1.5 40.1 60.5 61 Date (yvvv/dd) 1968/17 1994/14 1965/28 1968/13 1963/01 1976/02 1954/01 1954/01+ 1972/27 1956/22 1967/28 1967/21 Extreme Daily PrecIpitation (mm) 162.1 158 108.9 111 133.1 104.8 167.4 115.8 217.2 174.5 153.4 125 Date ym/dd 1961/14 1994/28 1994/01 1955/08 1974/24 1994/30 1972/11 1961/30 1983/01 1975/16 1954/04 1963/22 Extreme SnowDepth (cm) 293 295 350 381 275 183 0 0 0 3 170 249 Date (vv/dd) 1991/10 1990/20 1982/12+ 1982/04 1982/15 19S2/02 1981/01— 1980/01+ 1981/01+ 1985/26 1994130 1994/08 More currently, mean annual precipitation around Eagle Lake ranges between 50mm in summer months to 275mm in winter months (Dayton & Knight, 1987). During the winter, frontal rainstorms passing eastward from the Pacific Ocean inland are common, resulting in the majority of precipitation occurring in the winter. Local annual rainfall in Eagle Creek is higher than that of the region due to the North Shore mountains that lift the moist Pacific air over them (Table 3 and Illustration 2).m 40 Table 3. Cloud Typology at Eagle Creek (compiled from Pretor-Pinney, 2006) Species (one of the Varieties (one or Accessory Clouds —i. following) more of the and Supplemental ‘-“--‘-‘I Features Cumulous humilis radiatus pileus mediocris velum congestus virga fractus arcus pannus tuba praecipitatio Cumulonimbus calvus (none) praecipitatio capillatus virga pannus incus mamma pileus velum arcus tuba Stratus nebulosus opactus praecipitatio fractus translucidus undulatus Stratocumulous stratiformis translucidus mamma lenticularis perlucidus virga castellanus opacus praecipitatio duplicatus undulatus ratiatus lacunosus Altocumulous stratiformis translucidus mamma lenticularis perlucidus virga castellus opacus focus duplicatus undulatus 41 Genus Species (one of the Varieties (one or Accessory Clouds following) more of the and Supplemental . Features ratiatus lacunosus Altrostratus (none) translucidus virga opacus praecipitatio duplicatus pannus undulatus mamma radiatus Nimbostratus (none) (none) virga praecipitatio pannus Cirrus fibratus intorus mamma uncinus radiatus spissatus vertebratus castellanus duplicatus floccus Cirrocumulous stratiformis undulatus virga lenticularis lacunosus mamma castellanus floccus Cirrostratus fibratus diplicatus (none) nebulosus undulatus 42 {O,OcO Illustration 2. Simplified hydrologic cycle of Eagle Creek (compiled from Uunila, 1993; District of West Vancouver, 1 997b) ‘N. o4o L m Y1.+t, i*tecc )ck”l 43 As with many waterways around the world, Eagle Creek’s weather trends suggest the storm of climate change. LI To start the day, I parked my car on the south side of Cypress Parkway in my usual spot, just a bit farther uphill and across from the West Van Operations Centre. On my bike, with my backpack full of field gear, I started heading up Cypress Parkway and took a left onto the service road heading towards Eagle Lake. Not too far past a helicopter hovering over a flattened dirt area, I realized that the service road was going to be harder for me today than I had originally anticipated. Good, I thought, I can get another workout in. Not much farther up the road, as I pedaled past what I’ve been assuming is a power generation transition center on the right, just across from the West Van Public School Works Yard, my legs started to whine. Even up to the bridge over Cypress Creek, just past the Nason Contracting Inc. sign, was going to be a steady workout for me today. I kept going up the road past the rock quarry, just before the sharp right turn and the beginning of the really steep uphill. There, I got off my bike to rest before starting up. Like the other times I’d been biking lately, my left hip was becoming uncomfortably tight. As .1 was taking a sip of water from my water bottle, around the leftward bend up ahead I heard the voices of some guys coming down the road, and the crunching of tires over wet rocks. Around the curve rode five cyclists fully decked in downhill gear smeared with mud. They stopped at the corner for some water. All five of them looked like serious bikers. I stuffed the map I was looking at and my pencil back into the outside pocket of my backpack and mounted my bike seat again. Standing about half-way up the hill, one of the bikers must have seen me looking at my map and taking notes, because as I pedaled past the group, he said, “Man, I wish my research got me in shape like it looks like yours does.” This comment made 44 me want to pedal even faster past the guys, no matter how my hip was feeling. Soon I was at the dirt road lined with powerlines that heads left, west along the slope after the big hill. The top of the Cypress Park Falls trails comes out there. Spencer and I had hiked those trails a few times before. I continued straight on the Eagle Lake service road and kept pushing up it hard until I reached the water treatment plant at Eagle Lake. There were signs all over the place; “Blasting Signals” and “Warning: Trucks and Equipment on Road” were posted right above the sign for the Trans-Canada Trail crossing farther downslope. Below and just west of the “No Trespassing/Warning Chlorine Building ahead” signs, I came upon the black pipe running downhill; I’d learned that this is the official “beginning” of Eagle Creek, so I investigated it a bit. It wasn’t a romantic beginning; the first time I saw the black pipe I was really disappointed, because a plastic tube emerging from a slope was not nearly the beginning to Eagle Creek that I had hoped for. I left my bike on the ground and kept walking downhill to the end of the pipe, where I could see water coming out. Walking was harder on my hip than biking, but I needed to return with some good field data. As I continued on, the chill starting in my core told me that the temperature was quickly dropping. The rain had briefly let up, but it was starting again with some bigtime zeal. My old shell jacket would not last much longer before becoming completely soaked, and the second jacket I’d brought was only a light windbreaker. My right knee and left hip were sending me more warning signals of stiffness. Yet compared to all my past Nordic ski training, mountain running races, and backcountry treks, biking up to Eagle Lake was nothing. After a few more minutes of feeling the stiffness in my hip proceed even farther up my back and down my legs, I started thinking more seriously about turning around and heading down. But I didn’t know when I would have another opportunity in the near future to get up there and take notes. I wanted to gather as much data as I could before heading back down the service road to my car, so I tried to put the pain out of my mind and 45 instead identify more of the ambient cloud types, as well as diagram a probable water circulation pathway for Eagle Creek. After I sketched out a hydrology chart, I walked just a little ways from the plastic pipe to more closely investigate the three big cement structures for the micro hydro facility just off the side of the creek. My hip was pounding at this point. Similar to every other time I’ve ridden my bike up to Eagle Lake, the rain started pounding even more strongly, and thick, white cloud promptly settled right on top of me. I was totally socked in. The cement structures quickly disappeared and then this happened: EXERCISING SUSTAINABLY (See Appendix II for Glossary of Screenplay Terms) - FADE IN: 1. EXT. A WHITE CLOUD - EAGLE LAKE MICRO POWER GENERATION PILOT PROJECT AT C2 RESERVOIR - EARLY AFTERNOON ON NOVEMBER 17, 2007 From somewhere within the white cloud comes a voice. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0.) Aliette! Welcome to the Moontime Training Center at Eagle Creek. It’s a pleasure to have you here. You’re just on time for your first session. Since this is your first visit to the MTC at 46 Eagle Creek, I’ll give you a quick tour of our facility and then you can meet your trainers. At the Eagle Creek MTC we pride ourselves on offering fitness training from world-renowned • experts. Each trainer here at the MTC has come from years of experience as a top-rated professional. I think you’ll find that your moontime performance will dramatically improve with the exercises we teach you. The white cloud shifts and lessens in pockets as if objects are present or forming behind the cloud. A VOICE OF NATURE (continuing, V.0.) Here, come with me. I’ll show you around. Our entire training center is outdoors, offering pretty much anything you’ll need for training yourself to achieve superior moontime performance. Free stone weights, cardio with all sorts of spinning and stair climbing, an Olympic-length pool in the marsh, down around contours 463 and 462, running trails, an agility course on the boulders between here and the construction gates to the Eagle Lake treatment plant, post workout facilities, including a cold tub and sauna pretty much anywhere you look, a steam room just below cloud level, a couple of rock climbing walls if you’re inclined to use those for cross-training, and a physiotherapy area showeasing nearly all organic aromatherapy and insect massage treatments. 47 The white cloud from behind which comes A VOICE OF NATURE fades in color and then quickly dissipates. Revealed is a fitness room with various droplets of water and pockets of air who do warm-ups, are in the middle of exercise routines, or are heading to the post-workout facilities. Most of the stones in the room are seated, except those who are socializing with the water droplets. As if broadcast from over a loudspeaker, MUSIC from wind-blown needles plays in the space. With the sound of rain, the music is just loud enough that the lyrics are audible but still at background level. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0.) The lounge is located just west of here, down the Trans Canada. And at the first split in the trees on your left, you’ll see a view over downtown Vancouver. Bathroom between the trees. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0.) Based on the physical history that you’ve given the Eagle Creek MTC, the trainers here have compiled a specific set of exercises for what they believe will sustain your moontime. It’s time to meet your first trainer. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0.) Aliette, we’re glad you’re here. Your membership in the Eagle Creek OTC is good for a lifetime. Good luck with your training 48 today. A VOICE OF NATURE (calling to someone) WATER, Aliette’s ready for her first exercise. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0.) Aliette, just keep an eye on the downhill end of the plastic pipe. WATER should be coming out from there to greet you any minute. 2. EXT. THE PLASTIC PIPE DOWNSLOPE FROM EAGLE LAKE - AT THE LIP OF THE PIPE - MiNUTES LATER WATER’s POV - WATCHING CHANNELS OF OTHER DROPS WHOOSHING UP THE PIPE WALLS Inside the plastic pipe, channels of water take a drop of water, WATER, to the left, then to the right, then splash left, then right again. At the lip of the pipe, in slow motion, WATER launches himself from the darkness out into bright daylight. WATER falls through the air with arms and legs circling for balance. MUSIC from lapping waves plays as WATER’s view of the creek bed below him clarifies. WATER (punching the air as if he’s just scored a goal) Aaaaahhhhouuuuuuuuoooooooooo!!!!! Yippppeeeeee! The slow motion stops, and in mid-air, WATER separates into two drops (WATER 1A and 49 1B). A “kadunk” sounds as WATER 1A and lB dive into the creek water running below. M.O.S. After a few moments of silence, sound starts again with underwater bubbling. WATER 1A and lB are submerged in the creek, swimming in glee. WATER 1 A (submerged, speaking to WATER 1 B) Knarly dude! Look at that! Check out that ledge at the end of the first turn! I’m gonna hit it! MONTAGE: creek water rounds a bend and banks up a small rock wall. WATER 1A and lB resurface again. WATER 1A and lB (giving each other high fives) That was awesome. Yeah, rock on! WATER lA and lB (speaking in echo) Yo! I’m WATER. I’m from around here, too: Nelson Creek. I’m gunna show you how to “Flow.” It’s easy. Here’s how you do it: WATER 1A sticks his thumb up in the air to hitch a ride on the fastest train of current flowing through the center of the creek. WATER 1A gets picked up and congeals onto WATER lB to bring him along. WATER 1A and lB let the current dive them down under a 50 clump of gray pebbles, and then WATER 1A and lB let the current take them back up to the creek surface again. WATER 1 A (to the camera) Obviously, you’re gunna to have to get the gist of “Flow” in a human body. Some liken the groove as just bein’ open to whatever way your body says to move. Ya know—havin’ to trust your body knows where’s best for you to be. Carefree, spontaneous, gettin’ pulled by your body and not havin’ to put any head motivation in. If your body feels like flyin’ ‘round a bend and then bankin’ and divin’, do it! WATER 1A dives. WATER 1A (bubbling sounds from submersion) And burrrrble burrrrrble, now bu burrrrble burrrrrble, I’m goin’ a burrrrble just let myself burrrrble burrrrrble receive the curr bumble burrble ent and just bumble get picked up and carried. The main current surface yanks WATER 1A up and WATER 1A eddies out towards a pool behind the base of an old yellow-cedar stump. WATER lB (to the camera) See, just flow, dude. Like everything’s cool, yah know. Any movement’s all good. Party’s on. Just rock and roll. 51 WATER 1 B hitches a lift on a pocket of air and splashes onto a group of fir needles hanging off a branch about 3/4 of a meter up a live trunk alongside the creek. WATER lB (to the camera, for one last emphasis) Just go with the flow. WATER lB slides off the fir needle and splashes back into the creek. WATER 1A and lB then join together and form one solid drop again. WATER gets picked up from the creek by the leg hair of a female ant climbing around the edge of the creek. WATER (out of breath and yelling from the ant’s leg hair) Your body will tell you how to move. If it hurts, stop, if it feels good, keep goin’. Trust your body. You’ll pick it up. I mean, get picked up. That’s it for my lesson for now. WATER drips off the ant’s leg and onto the soil. WATER Your next trainer is STONE. About three hours ago he rock ‘n rolled (a different kind of rockin’ ‘n rollin’ than I’m talkin’ about) down from Black Mountain. Some buddies of mine I used to ride with chiseled STONE away from his booking in the cliffs. STONE’s not an easy one to move, but when he 52 heard you were comin’ to the MTC, he said he’d roll down. STONE said he thinks you could be a moontime medalist. STONE is a world-renowned expert on sitting and stillness. You can stay here. I’ll bring STONE over. WATER splits again into WATER 1A and lB to cup under and around a 5cm circular granite stone that lies motionless at the bottom of the creek bed. WATER 1A and lB pick up STONE and carry STONE to the surface, then WATER 1A and lB eddy out with STONE on river right. STONE lies face down, his cheek plastered against the mud. Creek water laps over STONE’s waist. STONE Turn me over? WATER 1A (to STONE) Oh, sure, sorry dude. WATER 1A flows under the right side of STONE and turns him over. STONE (thanking WATER 1A) Peace WATER lAand lB Flow on, Aliette. Catch you at your next training session. Later. 53 WATER lB gets swept downstream, disintegrating when a trihalomethane and some haloacetic acids snatch him in an organic part of the current. WATER 1A starts to disappear, then fuiiy evaporates in the sun now fighting through the above cloud. 3. EXT. TWELVE METERS DOWN THE PLASTIC PIPE - MiNUTES LATER A faint voice echoes from STONE, who sits motionless but now right-side up on the mud. STONE (chanting) Oooooommnmimm. Oooooooonimmmm. Peace, Peace. Oooooommmmmm. On STONE’s head is a white cap-like dot, and around his neck dangles some sort of moss fiber necklace draped in the shape of a Sanskrit letter. STONE sits cross-legged and has the thumb and forefingers of each hand pressed together, resting them on his knee bumps. STONE Aliette, for sustainable moontime, more stillness you find. I teach you, sit. I show how: STONE sits. Rain starts to drench down again from the clouds above the creek. STONE gets submerged. STONE holds his breath. STONE sits. The rivulets over and around STONE flood. STONE sits. The creek level dies back down. STONE is out in the air again. STONE still sits. A lady bug walks over STONE’s nose. STONE sits. A crow flies overhead and 54 poops on STONE. STONE sits. STONE You find grounding. You find center. Like me. STONE sits there. STONE No question? Good. STONE sits there. STONE (to the camera) Mmm. I feel breeze. Next trainer coming. 55 4. EXT. SAME LOCATION - TWO HOURS LATER The view shifts towards a group of female air pockets spinning in a low pressure zone up between a stand of Douglas fir trees. All but one of the air pockets are spinning under some air waves, listening to them broadcast above the spinning area. The airwave broadcast is playing audio clips of highlights in nature sports over the past decade: regionally— windstorms in Stanley Park, mud slides in the Capilano Watershed, wildfires in the Okanagan; nationally and worldwide—tsunamis in South Asia and earthquakes in China and Iran. The audio broadcast continues, but gets harder to hear in the wind that is picking up. The air pocket that has stopped spinning has started to head towards STONE. The air pocket is dressed in a sexy workout outfit—it’s nearly see-through. On her way down from the Douglas fir tree, the air pocket hits a few turbulent air waves. Her front bounces up and down. A few whistles come from male water droplets who watch AIR from nearby tree branches. AIR Good afternoon, Aliette. My name’s AIR. AIR takes one breath in and tosses back her hair in a quick wisp. AIR (continuing) I just blew off a cruiseliner from Alaska’s Glacier Bay. I took a little work-play vacation by offering some breathing lessons in the cruiseliner’s outdoor gym. I know that WATER and STONE showed you how to flow and sit, and now I’m going to 56 show you how to incorporate your breathing into these exercises. STONE (interjecting from where he is still sitting) I stay here. No problem? If bother, AIR, you blow clouds. WATER carry me. Yes? AIR (to STONE) Sure, no prob stoner. AIR (to the camera) The breathing that I am going to show you for your moontime may be a bit different from the breathing you’re used to. I emphasize slow, deep breathing in my instruction, instead of high heart rate cardio. For your moontime, I want you working on breath for relaxation, not V02 max. AIR takes a deep breath and tosses her wisps back again. When the chainring of a passing mountain biker grates against a rock, a fire spark jumps towards AIR. The fire spark lets out a deep whistle. FIRE (whistling to AIR) Ooooooweeeee. 57 STONE (to FIRE) Please! I silent. No social here. FIRE (to STONE) Hey SSSTONE, I know you’re sssitting, but I warma light sssomething. It’sss been sssince the 1 800s that I’ve had a real good one, if ya know what I mean. Even yogi-meditating sssense withdrawaling STONE, you get hot and sssteamy sssometimes, don’t you? FIRE (nudging AIR) You wanna go to that next pocket of treesss, to thossse dry fir branchesss, and light sssomething with me? AIR blushes. AIR (to FIRE) Well, I don’t know, FIRE. I mean, I don’t know if I’m ready yet. FIRE (to AIR) I’ll wait until you’re ready. I need you. I mean, holy sssmothersss, how can I passs lightin’ sssomething up with a hottie like you? 58 AIR (to FIRE) Uh, how about we meet farther up north in B.C., in the summer? We could do a little summer weekend away or something, and spend some more time together first. STONE (to AIR and FIRE) Mercy! AIR takes a deep breath and sighs. She tosses her wisps back one more time again to be sure that FIRE saw her. AIR (to FIRE) I have to get to my skydiving lesson soon, I need a snack before, and I have to introduce Aliette to her physio so she can go there after her last exercise session. So, I really have to show Aliette how to breathe now. Sorry, FIRE. FIRE, disappointed that AIR isn’t going to take him up on his invite to the dried twigs, sulks and sizzles down. AIR Back to the breathing: I have to take you inside to show you, hold on. AIR gets sucked off-screen by a passing hiker’s inhale. FIRE’s hopes of lighting up are extinguished. 59 5. tNT. INTERNAL CAVITY OF A HUMAN LUNG - FIVE SECONDS LATER The view shifts to the internal wall of a human lung cavity. Inside the lung cavity, somewhere near the left main bronchus, just above the lower lung lobe, AIR stands on the outside wall of an alveolus. Floating next to AIR, almost on top of her, are some pulmonary surfactant and some phospholipids molded together against the inside of an airtight, pressure- controlled box. On the front of the box is a big shipping label with the words “Shipped by AIR” written on it. Above “Shipped by AIR” is AIR’s receiver signature, and next to that, AIR’s personal “Express AIRmail” personal upgrade stamp beside an MTC emblem. AIR (yelling from inside the lung) OK, pay attention, Aliette. AIR takes a big, long, deep breath. AIR fills herself with as much AIR as possible. Then AIR puffs up her cheeks and blows. SPFX of various respiratory exchanges. After the SPFX, the inside walls of the lungs expand. AIR, somewhat blue in the face now, takes a breather and exhales. AIR takes another long, deep inhale again. The lungs expand. AIR inhales and exhales three more times, and correspondingly, the lungs expand and contract. An 02 portion of AIR then gets diffused into the closest stream of blood. 60 AIR as 02 (yelling from the blood stream) Now, visualize me going to all the tight parts in your body. AIR looks down into a main artery leading towards the left hip. AIR Right ascension 3h 47’, declination 24 deg 07’ AIR Aliette, that’s the toe. Try up the body more. The correct coordinates for the uterine and ovarian arteries in the left hip appear. AIR (yelling from the blood stream again) Yes, now send me there. AIR gets pushed through the blood stream by the pressure of blood flowing behind her. AIR is forced through a mesh of mangled red and white muscle fibers. From within the middle of the fibers, AIR takes a deep breath and blows. Mini inter-fiber supernovas and intracellular chaotic inflations spurt up between the fibers. The fibers of the hip expand. Meanwhile, AIR has been multi-tasking in her various molecular forms, to collect a not-so-small pile of material from the pelvic region. AIR has amassed the unwanted material into another shipping box that she just had air freighted from another part of the body. AIR lips the words, “Send by AIR” on a shipping label, slaps the label on the box, and yells out the lung. 61 AIR (yelling from within the fibers) Good, now I’m coming up. Watch out, I’m bringing out some heavy material. A sneeze sounds from O.S. After a few more last-minute respiratory processes in the lungs, AIR dives up the human trachea and then resurfaces through the mouth. As soon as AIR is back out drifting in open air, AIR hucks the bundle she’s carrying into the creek. AIR Good, you did well, Aliette. Alniost had us going to your toe, but other than that, not bad. A gust of wind getting pulled upward through a tree branch sees AIR and wants to ask a question about oxidation. The gust of wind passes AIR a small sticky note. AIR reads the note. AIR Aliette, I have to oxidize something really soon, so why don’t you just plan to do some of the same kind of breathing with that left hip area, and then I’ll see you at your next training session. Left hip, not toe, got it? AIR looks to be in a flurry to leave. 62 AIR (continuing) Aliette, it’s MTC regulations that all moontime athletes here visit a physio on a regular basis. Your physio’s great. I think you’ll really like her. I know her well. We share rides to work every day. Her name is LADY BUG. LADY BUG is well- versed in all sorts of body work. One warning though: if LADY BUG offers you pine needle tea, ask for some sap to go with the tea. The tea is tart without sap in it. I’ll take you to LADY BUG now. FIRE, trying with one last hope for AIR, sizzles up again on a dry leaf in the corner as AIR blows past him. AIR whizzes past the MTC daycare area. Inside the daycare area, a female water droplet is giving an Eco-Tainment lesson, showing a group of small droplets how to slide down a flower petal. Another group of young fire embers are firing some clay pots. Four baby stones sit in the corner, afraid that the water droplets might erode them into clay, or that the fires might turn them into pots. FIRE (O.S., watching AIR blow away from behind) Man she’s hot. AIR, overhearing FIRE’s comment even from such a distance, pops and blows up a little higher. Before reaching the physiotherapy area, AIR takes one last deep breath, tosses her wisps back, and blows through a pile of nuts that a squirrel amassed on the top of a log. 63 5. EXT. ABOUT TEN METERS TO THE EAST - A SPOTLIGHT OF SUN BREAKING THROUGH THE CLOUD - NINETY SECONDS LATER In the spotlight of sun near the edge of the creek, a ladybug lounges on a bed of moss. Basking on her belly under sweet wafts of pine and fir diffusing from the trees, the ladybug checks the efficacy of her yellow pollen mask. Creek water chimes in the background. AIR moves under LADY BUG’s right wing and rustles it. Realizing that AIR is trying to rustle her wing, LADY BUG vehemently starts brushing pollen from her eyes. LADY BUG looks up and starts fluttering her wings with excitement. LADY BUG Go Olliette! Go Olliette! Moontime, moontime here you come. Hip hip heal, hip hip heal! Sbhhhhhhhvvvvvvvvzzzzzzz! CLOSE UP - LADY BUG’S FACE LADY BUG slightly tilts her head back and bats her eyelids between two pom poms of moss framing her chin. LADY BUG Oh Olliette, I’m so excited that you’re here. I’ve been hearing all the gossip from the other girls in the training center, and. . LADY BUG pats backwards a few steps. 64 LADY BUG Oh, am I pronouncing your name right? Sorry. LADY BUG (continuing) So, I’ve told all the girls about you. Everyone can’t wait to meet you. LADY BUG briskly hoists herself onto her legs, flips out her underwings, and lifts her hard red shell with a visible “Yippee.” The screen quickly PANS around the background of Eagle Creek, bringing it into view. LADY BUG (continuing) hope you don’t mind. There’s already a whole group of us gals who’ve talked about starting a monthly post-workout moonlodge with you. From the background crowds of onlookers come miscellaneous voices and pieces of conversation. RANDOM FEMALE VOICES (O.S., echoing in conversation) Maybe we could/Moonlodge/When do you think/Ivlaybe we could... The other female water drops, stones, fire embers, and air pockets in the background, who 65 have apparently been listening intently to LADY BUG’s conversation with the camera, stare wide-eyed in support and anticipation. The female background elements stop their chatting to come over and introduce themselves. MONTAGE: A set of stones lawn bowling on Black Mountain, and another set drawing a mud mandala off the side of the Eagle Lake service road, bound into the creek channel. They scream for a taxi to the sunny spot below Eagle Lake. A gang of water bullies crashing a party in a Whistler water bottle plummet down the creek bed toward the sun. Gusts of wind working on sand hoodoos rage towards the sunny spot. Wind resting in a high-pressure pocket tumbles to catch up from behind. Some fire embers talking real estate in the North Shore News throw up their papers and thumb for a ride. Miscellaneous SPFX continue, and then one last water mother drop scurries her droplets in front of her, prompting them to move faster. In one impulsive dash, everything under the spotlight of sun is completely alive with gossip and excitement. AIR (interjecting in the commotion, and to LADY BUG) LADY BUG, I’ll pick you up at the same time tomorrow? LADY BUG (to AIR) Just peachy. I’ll listen for you then. Tah tah. 66 6. EXT. SAME LOCATION - EIGHT MINUTES LATER The beam of sun shining on the ground and the associated increase in concentration of female energy in the sun has inspired FIRE to stick around a little longer. FIRE OK, Aliette. I’m going to teach you a few thingsss about fire when you move. Now, the challenge isss that I can’t really ssshow you how to do thisss. Number one, I don’t have the right partsss for it (I’m a guy, you’re a girl, if you get my drift), and number two, a detailed visssual depiction is not appropriate in MTC environsss, given the region of your body to which thessse exercisssesss will apply. FIRE I’m therefore going to have to talk about it. Practice your sssitting exercissse now, and take a ssseat so you can listen. Meanwhile, WATER 1A and 1B, who fell back down from the cloud into Eagle Creek, picked up STONE from where he gave his last lesson and carried STONE down to this same portion of the creek where FIRE now speaks. WATER 1A and lB decide to take a rest in a stagnant pool of water accumulating under a leaf pile. STONE Not sit on me! 67 FIRE The anusss and the clitorisss... FIRE stops his speech to clarify. FIRE (continuing) FYI Aliette, thisss isss not a lessson in erotica that I’m giving you . . . although you need that too . . . I’m ssshowing you sssomething that isss pivotal for you to exercissse sssussstainably. FIRE clears his throat and gets ready to continue his lecture on the anus and the clitoris. FIRE Right between the anusss and the clitorisss, you can find “moola bandha,” aka, “perineal contraction.” Now take me seriously. STONE (piping in to FIRE) Yes, is correct. “Moola bandha.” Sanskrit word. Increase fire inside. FIRE (continuing) When you contract the musssclesss around the perineal body, you are ssstimulating both the sssensory-motor and the 68 autonomic nervousss sssystemsss in the pelvic region. The point of this exercissse for you is to rebalance the neural activity in your body. When you lock and unlock your perineum, you are sssending sssignals up the ssspinal cord to the hypothalamusss. “Moola banda” meansss “root lock.” You know the dam up above Eagle Lake? It’sss the sssame thing. The dam up there centralizesss energy at the sssite of contraction, ssso the energy in Eagle Lake can be redirected for work elsssewhere. STONE (piping in again) And chakras. FIRE (to STONE) SSSTONE, let’sss keep info that could be consssidered fluff and hoo hah out of thisss. FIRE (continuing) The hypothalamusss is resssponsssible for the complete endocrine sssyssstem, which relaysss its information to the whole limbic sssyssstem and the cerebral cortex. Sssee, important! STONE (piping in for a third time) Yes, moola banda practicing, moontime balance coming. No question. 69 FIRE (adding to STONE’s comment) Moola banda isss ssso powerful, that by regular practice of moola bandha, the area of your brain assssociated with the perineum can develop to the point that you may gain complete control over sssuch processssesss as urination, defecation, and sssexual intercourssse—and I’m quoting from Swami Buddhananda’s book, Moola Bandha: The Master Key, page 17, second paragraph. Impressssive, aie? Small sizzles sound from FIRE’s bottom flames. STONE (confirming FIRE’s words) Yes, is true. Sex go boom boom. 70 FIRE (continuing to point at the anus in the diagram) Exactly how to contract your perineum, that’ sss the quessstion. An anatomy lesson: The perineum isss a group of musssclesss that extend the entire length of the pelvic floor, related to both eurogenital and anal areasss. The front internal boundariesss are in front of the pubic arch, and behind the tip of the tailbone. The external boundariesss of the perineum are the clitorisss and the buttocksss. I bet you’re wondering how I know all thisss. Well, I have a lot of time for reading. Do you have any idea how many newssspapersss and old booksss I haven’t been able to get to the treesss around here in Eagle Creek for so long? STONE (to FIRE) Need silence. Still feeling unsettled by AIR’s previous flurry to depart, FIRE starts to crumble up the sticky note that was left by AIR. Small ashes strew across the dirt. FIRE The basssic exercise that I’m going to firssst give to you to practice your moola bandha isss to do as if you have to go yo the bathroom and you’re trying to hold it. 71 STONE (confirming FIRE) Yes, is true. FIRE You should practice moola bandha when you are doing your breathing exercise. You see why AIR means so much to me? Now, go practice. FIRE Good. FIRE Again. FIRE Good. FIRE Keep doing it. LADY BUG, who has been chatting with the group of female air pockets after their spinning class, flutters into the scene. 72 LADY BUG (to FIRE) It’s my turn with Olliette. I mean, “Aliette.” I’ve got the aromatherapy all going. She should come while the needles are fresh. 7. EXT. SAME LOCATION - LATE AFTERNOON In the spotlight of sun, LADY BUG sifts through her collection of physiotherapy treatments. Spider webs for facials, bath salts, mud puddles for mud baths, and various pollen grains for aromatherapy are strewn around LADY BUG’s treatment area. Looking up to the camera, LADY BUG rubs her two front antennae together in anticipation. LADY BUG Aliette, now down to business. Your moontime training uses a lot more muscles, activates many more endocrine glands and nerve fibers, and requires a significantly greater amount of energy overall than you may realize. While you are training at MTC, it is important that you visit me on a frequent basis. I can keep track of your progress, and monitor all the positive changes in your menstrual cycle... LADY BUG flutters up and down, rubbing her front antennae together again in even more anticipation. LADY BUG swooshes her behind around in a circle, flutters her back wing and tail feathers with vigor, and bounces over a twig. 73 LADY BUG (continuing) Oh, I’m so excited! LADY BUG (continuing, but more seriously now) We need re-alignments, balanced muscle tone between right and left sides, those kinds of things. LADY BUG pauses, looking over her assortment of body treatment oils, bath salts, and acupressure needles. LADY BUG (sifting through her conifer oils) We need to work on your uterus and your kidneys, then your adrenal glands. LADY BUG flies off the ground and skirts back and forth in the air, evaluating with her bug eyes the areas around the waistline of a soaked rain jacket. LADY BUG For those areas, we’ll do foot reflexology and full body massage every couple of weeks. Now, this may sound like superfluous pampering to you, but honey, by the end of this you’re going to have the uterus and kidneys of a moontime champion. You have the power of creation inside of you! We must cultivate the feminine with the respect it deserves. 74 The screen shifts to the view of a LADY BUG crawling up onto the inside tip of the right big toe of a human foot. LADY BUG I’m starting you on a foot reflexology treatment today. We’ll do massage next training session. LADY BUG starts jumping up and down on the toe tip. LADY BUG These salt deposits here have to go. LADY BUG performs a few other ancient wisdom reflexology maneuvers then jumps off onto the ground, breathing heavily from all the movement. LADY BUG (pointing with her wing to a stash of pine needles steaming from a small cup of water) There. I’ve got some pine needle tea for you. I let the tea sit under that dripping branch hanging above us, so the tea should be sweet enough. I like pine needle tea plain myself, but recently I’ve been hearing some complaints from MTC overhead that clients think the tea is too tart. 75 LADY BUG Now, wait here while your trainers and I work out your training schedule. Also, we’ll book you in the MTC calendar for your future visits. Another white cloud, like the white cloud in the first scene, moves into the sunny spot where LADY BUG was performing her treatment. LADY BUG calls for the attention of AIR, FIRE, STONE, WATER, and A VOICE OF NATURE. LADY BUG (to AIR, FIRE, STONE, WATER, and A VOICE OF NATURE, from within the cloud) OK trainers, let’s finalize Aliette’s training schedule. Meanwhile, AIR has finished her skydiving lesson and recirculated to MTC. FIRE still hangs on longingly to the sticky note that AIR, in her flurry, left earlier. WATER 1A and lB have flowed into a mosch pit that formed under a group of stones who are giving an impromptu rock concert to commemorate MTC’s fall kick-off. The density of the white cloud that has moved into the area increases. Everything, as in the first scene, goes white. From within the white cloud, now masking anything that was previously visible, come the sounds of the elements’ voices in conversation. 76 8. EXT. A WHITE CLOUD - EAGLE LAKE MICRO POWER GENERATION PILOT PROJECT AT C2 RESERVOIR - APPROACHING EARLY EVENING ON NOVEMBER 17,2007 VOICES OF AIR, FIRE, STONE, WATER, LADY BUG, and A VOICE OF NATURE in a mish-mash of conversation (V.0.) Let’s see. Philosophy of training, check. . . attitude, check. mission, check. . . and the physio! . . . commitment, check... principlesss of training, check. . . I think Aliette should repeat WATER, STONE, and AIR’s exercises. . . peaking, check... not fighting fatigue, check . . . underssstanding intensssity, check . . . thessse daysss can be crossss-training daysss . periodization, check, building fitness, check.. . for frequency. .FIRE’s... A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0.) Ok, I think we’ve got it. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0. to AIR) AIR, can you take the paper copy of Aliette’ s exercise schedule to her? 77 AIR (responding to A VOICE OF NATURE) Sure. CLOSE UP: Following page 78 SUSTAINABLE TRAINING SCHEDULE MOON11ME Trainer& Sii,ea zzz FIRE Waived- the haz4 PHYSIOTHERAPY Day pfsceday thank imaan aomatherXy athl Physiotherapist: LADYBUG_______ Moonlime Training Center Contact Moonlirne Trausng Center Headquwters Eagle Lake Micro-generation Plant- North Shots Mountains West Vancouver. B.C. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0. to WATER 1A) Hold off on condensation till the paper copy’s out the door, would you please? The thickness of the cloud starts to lessen. A VOICE OF NATURE (V.0. to AIR) Oh, and take this to Aliette, too. It’s the Moontime Training Center Motto. fithlete: ALIEJTE SIIEININ Sport: Moontime Monthl!J 6oals: ITo exercise sustainabl!J Trainin9 Objective: To sqnchronize with Moon 1. To ovulate on New Moon 2. To bleed on lull Moon Moon Pltate I NEW MOON FiRST FUL.L MOON LAST QUSRTER QUARTER MOON MOON Day of Month Day of Wooti EXERCISE Flow 310y5 Sit 1-2 days Breathe 1-2 days Bands Al days 2 days pceding 2-3 days 3 days Day praceding (foot massase aoo epsom salt bath) Al clays 79 CLOSE UP: Following page 80 MOONTIME TRAINING CENTER MOTTO: I EXERCISE BECAUSE I WANT TO I ENJOY MY EXERCISE I RESPECT MY BODY’S WISDOM IREST ENOUGH I EXERCISE TO BE STRONG I DESERVE TO BE HEALTHY AND FIT © Moontime Training Center Eagle Creek, West Vancouver 81 A VOICE OF NATURE (continuing V.0.) Aliette needs to learn the motto before she comes to Eagle Lake next time, because it’s the new passcode for the MTC’s front doors. The doors don’t lock, but they won’t open without the passcode. The outline of the structures of the Eagle Lake Micro Power Generation Pilot Project start to become visible behind the cloud. In the wind, some shreds of bark from an Arbutus tree alongside the Eagle Lake service road tumble along the side of the creek. FADE OUT END 82 LIn sum, what happened today with my research at Eagle Lake really sucked. What, if anything, of what has been happening and what happened to me again today with Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature have to do with sustaining Eagle Creek? I want this dissertation to help the environment and communities of Eagle Creek. I want to help West Vancouver. I want to help the world! What about my original question of the impacts of the Eagle Lake water treatment facility and micro-generation project that I set out to answer? There are so many problems with the infihl development in Eagle Creek’s upper watershed that I want to address: loss of tributaries and wetland, the alteration of water quality and quantity from storm drain network construction, increased erosion, bank alteration and channelization of the creek, increase in imperviousness along Eagle Creek’s banks and stream bed, riparian zone encroachment... Like I’ve tried before, today I manoeuvred past the research diversion to strike some sort of bargain with Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and a Voice of Nature. I asked Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and a Voice of Nature for some good field information so that I could at least answer two of my questions. Couldn’t Air, Fire, Stone, Water, and Lady Bug at least give me info to help me offer some suggestions and make some argument about minimum levels of original bank and channel preservation? Or a decrease in overall daily water withdrawals from Eagle Lake? Or offer simple steps about storm drain maintenance, or outline a govermnent incentive for participating in tributary and wetland clean-up days? There’s got to be sOme improvement I could advocate for decreasing riparian zone encroachment by limiting rock quarry activity around fuel emissions on the Eagle Lake. Service Road. How about that? How about installing retaining tanks made from more biodegradable materials, in place of the existing ones at the treatment facility? 83 The strip of Arbutus bark that had blown towards me in the wind just kept flapping in my hand. In search of more dissertation-relevant information, I tossed aside the strip of Arbutus bark and walked closer to the base of the microgeneration structure so I could inspect the soil conditions around it more closely. But the strip of bark wouldn’t leave me alone. As I walked toward the microgeneration structure, the strip just kept tumbling along behind me. “At least something relevant!” I yelled out. Then in one huge and obvious swoop, a whirl of wind picked up the strip of bark and plastered it straight across my face. Eagle Creek did not seem to be in any mood to negotiate about any of my research questions. Feeling disappointed, I considered that my data collection for the day was again going to be null, and that a start on developing solutions about water treatment and microgeneration issues for Eagle Creek was not going to happen anytime soon. Instead of me being able to meet the research objectives I’d set out with again today, Eagle Creek sent me away, humbled, with a Moontime Training Centre schedule and motto in hand. 84 c8 UOOJAIIIT IIIE[SVHd FIELD NOTES January 22, 2008 Full Moon Dear Journal, This morning, I woke up even earlier than usual to get the quickest start to my workday at Eagle Creek. If I’m going to meet the deadlines I have promised my committee that I would meet, I have to get a pre-sunrise start to my day. I’ve been way behind schedule in my research. First of all, even though I’ve kept trying to go back to gather more information at Eagle Lake, the creek has not agreed to give me any further information on water treatment and power generation there. Instead, Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature have just continued to show me reruns about sticking to the Moontime training schedule they gave me. I’ve realized that they aren’t going to let me make any more progress on my research until I make some changes in my exercising. So, I’ve been trying to follow the advice of Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature. Needless to say, their training schedule has been helping my hip and back, my libido is starting to get stronger, and I’m not nearly as sleepy as I used to be. But changing my exercise has been really hard, and it’s taken a lot of time and energy away from my research. Since being disappointed about not bringing to fruition my plan to focus on the impacts of water treatment and power generation in Eagle Creek, I have thought that maybe a better research focus for sustainable living in Eagle Creek would be the impact that recreational activity around Eagle Creek has had on the trees. With the new hiking trails being built through limited tree-friendly undeveloped land, increasing numbers of mountain bikers around the creek, and the Olympics coming to Cypress in 2010, recreation impact on the trees around Eagle Creek seems like a very timely and important issue. I’ve been particularly interested in a site where significant recreation activities occur, just below the 450m contour 86 line. The Trans-Canada Trail crosses Eagle Creek there. Illustration 3. Orthophoto of Trans-Canada Trail crossing at Eagle Creek (northeast corner) (source: District of West Vancouver, 2004) As I started packing my supplies to go out on the hunt for more details about the trees near the Trans-Canada crossing this morning, I was feeling really lethargic and wanting to just hang around home and be lazy. I’ve been feeling this way for a couple of months now. But, laziness doesn’t get a dissertation done, so some motivational self-talk about holes in my notes about Eagle Creek’s geology and topographic conditions, the complexity of understanding the Coastal Western Hemlock biogeoclimatic ecosystem, and my lack of field days left before my upcoming conference got me out the door. 87 Even before having to contend with the impacts of recreational activity, trees around the Trans-Canada Trail are in a fragile environment of poor growing conditions. First, for such a frequency in recreational traffic, the general topography presents rigorous tree growth and continued stability conditions. This particular site, like most of the creek, exhibits gradients between 15% and 40%, and up to 70% in some locations (Environmental Research Consultants, 1977; District of West Vancouver, 1 997d). Underneath the basal glacial till are bedrock outcrops of blocky quartz diorite. In some areas, exposed Pre-Tertiary Mesozoic bedrock is all that exists. There is also a fluvial fan in the lower elevations of the creek (National Resources Canada, 2007) but at these elevations, native trees must compete more frequently with introduced and invasive species. The maximum depth at which the tree roots may reach around the Trans-Canada Trail is determined by the depths of the surficial, glacially-deposited till. Surficial till depths here vary from 50cm to several meters (Luttmerding, 1984; National Resources Canada, 2007). Second, and relatedly, the surficial till is much looser than the basal till underneath the surface. Precipitation enters the soil around this portion of creek and travels laterally when it hits the compact basal till, thereby limiting the tree root depths to several meters or less. 88 Sxfb Figure 3. Topography at Eagle Creek Increasing recreational use of Eagle Creek, a current refuge for native tree species, old growth, and vibrant tree diversity, brings the area under mounting stress. According to the Biogeoclimatic Ecosystem Classification system (BEC), Eagle Creek is currently classified as an example of a Coastal Western Hemlock Biogeoclimatic zone. kcI 11{ 1V(4( Pot 89 Figure 4. Biogeoclimatic ecosystem classification of Eagle Creek (compiled from Ministry of Forests and Range, 2008; Bradbury, 2007) The Coastal Western Hemlock Zone, and its associated transitioning subzones (Coastal Western Hemlock Very Dry Maritime and Coastal Western Hemlock Dry Maritime Subzones) near the Trans-Canada Trail crossing in Eagle Creek, is one of 14 biogeoclimatic zones in British Columbia. The Coastal Western Hemlock Zone occupies high precipitation areas west of the Coastal Mountains from Washington past Alaska, in elevations up to 1 000m. The BEC recognizes ten subzones within this region. The subzones reflect gradations of continentality (hypermaritime to submaritime) and precipitation (very wet to dry) (Meidinger & Pojar, 1991). Today around the Trans-Canada Trail crossing at Eagle Creek are key coniferous tree species native to the North Shore mountains. Species may include: Tsuga heterophylla (Western Hemlock) Pseudotsuga menziesii (Douglas Fir) Pinus contorta (Lodgepole Pine) es4v’ iiemack Yell wL*c 4eack ,yf La*i. 90 Pinus monticola (Western White Pine) Thuja plicata (Western Redeedar) Chamaecyparis nootkatensis (Yellow Cypress) Alnus rubra (Red Alder) This haven of native tree species gives rise to a native understory of shrubs, herbs, and mosses. Understory species include, for example: Cladothamnus pyrolflorus (Copper Bush) Rhytidiopsis robusta (Pipecleaner Moss) Vaccinium alaskaense (Alaska Blueberry) and other Vaccinium sp. Rubus spectabilis (Salmonberry) Rhododendron albWorum (White-flowered rhododendron) As Eagle Creek decreases in elevation below the Trans-Canada Trail crossing, native trees are increasingly overtaken by more domesticated species, such as Rhododendron macrophyllum (Pacific Rhododendron, as opposed to R. albflorum) (compiled from: Valley Royal Development, 1969; Property of District of West Vancouver, 1951; Garth, 1992; District of West Vancouver, 1991; Petrides, 2005) Finally out the door and driving, I was feeling rushed to get out to the North Shore and reach the creek. Already as I rounded the bend on Pacific Drive, just before the corner of Denman Street, I could see the full moon contemplating its sink behind Bowen Island. The sun, answering the moon in return, was beginning to rise. I was worried that I hadn’t left myself enough time to hike up to the Trans-Canada Trail to continue with my last set of tree inventory notes. As I waited at the stoplight at Pacific and Denman, I flipped through my last few pages of notes. Based on my observations and former forest cover measures, I had conducted a preliminary inventory of the tree species distribution around this location of the 91 Trans-Canada Trail crossing at Eagle Creek: Pseudotsuga menziesii is the most abundant tree species in this area. Tsuga hetero is present in Polygons A, B, D, and F. Thujaplicata is present as a minor species in Polygons A, B, and D. Pinus contorta is present in Polygons B, C, and E. (compiled from F.M.S. Forest Mensuration Services, 1994; Oikos Ecological Consultants, 1991.) 92 /0 00 000 4— 0 Illustration 4. Eagle Creek’s tree species around the Trans-Canada Trail (compiled from: F.M.S. Forest Mensuration Services, 1994; Oikos Ecological Consultants, 1991; District of West Vancouver, 1 997a; District of West Vancouver Parks & Recreation Department, 1992; District of West Vancouver, 2000) 0 00 , 00 0 •00 o 0 0 0’ 0 0 c 0 0 00 0 4- 00 0 0 C A 0 0 , 0 06 0 C 0 0 0 0 0 0 C C / / /I YW1 “\ / NT s- )OoO / / — ‘4’ / /7 VOyE\ 7)(’-c_’ —4 j/4__ — /‘.;a / \ /— / 4-’ 93 Trees per polygon: Polygon A: trees aging 80-100 years old, 19.5-28.4m high, all immature, tree growth conditions are poor quality and the crown closure offered by the trees is 66-75%. Polygon B: trees aging 80-100 years old, 19.5-28.4m high, all immature, tree growth conditions are poor quality and the crown closure offered by the trees is 66-75%. Polygon C: trees aging 80-100 years old, 19.5-28.4m high, all immature, tree growth conditions are poor quality, and the crown closure offered by the trees is 46-55%. Polygon F: trees aging 80-100 years old, 19.5-28.4m high, all immature, tree growth conditions are poor quality and the crown closure offered by the trees is 66-75%. Polygon E: trees aging 80-100 years old, 10.5-19.4m high, all mature, tree growth conditions are poor quality and the crown closure offered by the trees is 56-65%. Polygon F: trees aging 80-100 years old, 19.5-28.4m high, all immature, tree growth conditions are poor quality and the crown closure offered by the trees is 76-85%. Polygons G, H, I: trees aging 61-80 years old, 10.5-28.4m high, all immature, tree growth conditions are poor quality, with some medium quality, and the crown closure offered by the trees is 56-65% (note: the evaluation of Polygons G, H, and I are rough estimates based on a lack of available data from former inventories). At the Trans Canada Trail, aesthetically pleasing and carbon monoxide reducing greenery today, but easily barren, nutrient-depleted bedrock and human waste tomorrow. We must care. When I finally arrived at where I would start my hike, the colors the sun was casting above the horizon kept pulling my attention away from starting my notes. The morning sunlight was crossing over Burrard Inlet. Although the rain clouds were thick and the air saturated, the clouds towards the east were only jesting to rain and the sun was surprisingly 94 visible. The serenity of the sun kept making it so hard for me to push myself through the lethargy tugging at my eyelids. My brain was tired and I was tired of thinking so much. After so many days of trying to keep a fast pace at school, still feeling burned out from comprehensive exams, I just wanted to put my field notebook down and watch the sun peak over the east. But this kind of procrastination has really been becoming a problem because it’s been happening a lot lately. Stressed about the upcoming conference I had to attend, I picked up my field notebook again and flipped to a new page for the beginning of my day’s notes. “Date: January 22, 2008 Time: 08:45 Location: Trans-Canada Trail crossing at Eagle Creek, 450m contour Research Topic: recreation impact on tree sp—” and then the sun again, as on previous mornings, interrupted my notes and wouldn’t leave me alone for the rest of the day: 95 RESTING SUSTAINABLY Yoooouuuuu hoooo. Yooo hooo. Yes, Aliette. It’s me. Yes, you’re looking right at me—It’s Sunrise. Why are you so stressed out? Relax, take a chill pill. To have a sustainable moontime, you need to take some rest. Here, I’ll show you how: Lesson 1: Painting at Sunrise Aliette, I can teach you to paint at sunrise. What would you like me to teach you to paint? You can brush from the east and basecoat a venetian red on the Fraser Valley. You know Golden Ears over there? You can blend the yellow ochre over her with a fan brush. Next you could spread some lighter hue on Indian Arm, and you see Mt. Baker to the south? I suggest some perylene green over him. Or, you could paint higher, over the ridges of the North Shore for others to see. Perhaps some golden mirrors near the Sunshine Coast just a few seconds later would be nice. You’d probably enjoy painting anything—what would you choose? It all sounds nice? Well, what if you stippled the clouds with oxide of chromium and lifted them like I do? You could do a light red for the Second Narrows. Maybe you’d like to see Cypress in terre vert? 96 It won’t take as long as you think. It paints quiäkly. You say it still sounds too difficult? It’s easy, trust me. I paint over Cypress’ ridge all the time. There are many more scenes, especially in watercolors, that I think you’d like, Aliette. You can use the whole color wheel like I do, and I’ll let you borrow my best brushes. OK, that’s a good suggestion. First do a basecoat of Indian red over everything, then fill in Vancouver’s downtown, and then brush in long scrolling strokes over the ocean towards Grouse Mountain. Cypress’ skyline will come next. How long until you can focus on me? You have to concentrate first on the sky, Aliette. You should always start with the sky because it can be the most intricate, and if you make a mistake in the sky it’s hard to fix after painting the land. A little Prussian blue here, with a little lemon yellow in vertical patches. 97 A gradually crossing stroke is by far the best technique for this gold in the sky. The city skyline will silhouette right about here, at this line. Oh, a strong orange just above this black horizon would really emphasize where the sky meets Earth, don’t you think? The cars on the highway gave me a new orange pastel you can try. There, perfect OK, time to meditate on downtown Vancouver. The lights from the highrises—you should tone them down. You want your dark greens to stand out more. That crane we hear—why don’t you paint it in the lower corner, farther out of view than it really is. The cars along the Upper Levels? Mmm, maybe you could leave them out. You can paint the lone crow between us as flying away. She’s in search of her morning group. It frames a better view of the harbor that way. That’s probably good for Vancouver central, at least for now. You can come back to the crow after you’ve worked some around Howe Sound. Now for the ocean. A really light, light blue, almost metallic, on the ocean to start. The ocean near the shore of Eagle Harbour will be especially docile— 98 a manganese blue. What? You don’t want to make it docile? Are you sure? When docile, Eagle Harbor calls in seagulls for breakfast; the gulls fertilize the soils at the creek’s mouth. Yes, I thought you’d like it, Aliette. A watery burnt umber for the sky. Just because it is gray and there are clouds, doesn’t mean you can’t make the sky pretty. Look—beneath the top-hats of cumulous you can stroke in burnt sienna. At these cloud cusps you’re hesitating. Why? You’re wondering if you should sweep and dry brush them, or block them more solid? I would go solid, myself. A couple touches of rose madder here back in the city. Working with light in small pockets, at focal areas, as we journey through the morning, I find, is best. By constantly touching up back here, you make sure all the colors work well today. No, nothing’s wrong now, Aliette. I’m mixing more greens on your palette. 99 What do you think are your best light lines up from the ocean’s edge? Yes, long flowing thick to thin lines are best from my perspective as well. Mountains. Oh, hello, birds. Good morning to you as well. Aliette, lots of detail in the mountains, especially with the dancing shadows from the clouds. Eastern and southern exposed slopes first here, and the trees where they meet the sky on Cypress should be jagged. Color strokes here should be more tamp-like. Here, you can use a deerfoot stippler. For the conifer’s wooden bones, I suggest you mix potter’s pink and terre vert. Phthalo turquoise and Indian red for the evergreens in the neighborhoods. This cobalt turquoise will deepen the green on the needles. Cobalt plus some cerulean blue—what reverence for the leaves. These liner and dagger stripper brushes will help you paint the neighborhoods with more detail. I can see why you’re debating between cobalt turquoise or cobalt green for the foothills. I do that too. Maybe both, plus some viridian, because there are many tree species here. 100 The mid-level trees should be more shaded, because you’re painting at an angle here. We’ll see what Lighthouse Park wants later. Oh, look at that! The moisture in the clouds here waters down your paint, so the foliage almost looks feathered. I bet you weren’t even conscious that would happen. So, you like painting so far? I really thought it could help you relax. Yes, I agree, you might need a little more cadmium in the western sky over Sunshine Coast. Try it. Good. Let’s stand back. Hmmm. Can I help you wash a brighter aureolin over the colors? Actually, with that wash, I think you’re just about done with the background. Just a few meters to go and the scene will be perfect. 101 Hills east of Eagle Creek may need more attention, but if you’re happy, I’m happy. Oooh. But one last thing—the softening edge on the skyline. Where’s my fan blender brush? And the filbert? Here, use these. More magnesium brown, too, I think. See, Aliette, I told you that painting wasn’t that hard. Great, I’m glad you like painting so far. Nothing’s permanent, so take a good look. 102 Lesson 2: Playing at Midday It’s me, Midday now, Aliette. You need to learn how to play. Playing is fun and relaxing—or it should be, at least. Playing doesn’t have to be so intense and always so goal driven, like you normally play. I’ll teach you a more relaxing, and I think more fun way to play in the middle of the day. We’re going to play hide and seek, and these are the rules: I’m going to find you first. Here I come: ground softening, ice crackling, crystals glinting, pools reflecting, brambles stretching, needles shifting, spurs jutting, streams running, pipes emptying, waves lapping, sap oozing, wood glowing, city shining. I think I see where you are: horns blowing, trains clipping, beetles dodging, hydrants dirtying, people walking, soccer playing, otters performing, neighbors talking, hammers pounding, tires rolling, lights blinking, dogs yowling, mothers calling, phones beeping, airplanes flying, bells ringing, birds chattering, radios tuning, engines brrrrming, pages flipping, semis viiiiiiining. Oh, I see you. Found you, Aliette. Ok, it’s my turn to hide now. You count. Hey that’s not fair! Don’t count so fast. That’s called cheating. I’m still looking for a place to hide: crows squawking, wires buzzing, bicycles spinning, fingers tapping, workcrews solving, children clammering, trunks gnarling, cameras snapping. Hey, and no peeking! 103 Give me more time to hide: seeds lying, dirt grabbing, seagulls drifting, airplanes humming, cats meowing, eagles crying, floatplanes growling, wind coming, cumulous threatening, sky graying, darkness settling. You’re taking too long to find me. If you don’t hurry up, I’m going to come out, because I think I need to show you a better way of searching. Finding me’s really not that hard. I’m going to stay hidden and give you more of a chance to find me: air freshening, wind chilling, shadows dancing, flocks flapping, masts bobbing, petals breaking, grass waving, pine cones falling, branches swaying, mist thickening, bags rustling, wind strengthening, cloudpuffs crossing, colors dulling, whiteness gathering, whiteness surrounding, air moistening, temperature dropping, chill deepening, ozone tasting, people lamenting, wetness happening. I’m under heeeeeere: patter sounding, circles forming, canyons filling, bubbles melding, rivulets gushing, logs pushing, ferns drooping, grass sopping, ants drowning. No, wrong way, Aliette. Come and geeeeet me: booties dragging, children whining, feet pedaling, pedals stopping, feet standing, keys turning, mothers “come-on”ing, children climbing, doors slamming, headlights beaming, tires spinning, cars reversing. I’m in a great spot—you can’t see me from any direction: rain pounding. 104 Hurry, find me. How long do I have to stay here?: puddles splashing, men running, men stopping, exhales billowing, doors opening, heaters blasting, doors slamming, tailpipes smoking, cars going. Aliette, you need better search tactics. Oh, good, nevermind, I can see that you see me now: droplets hushing, wind subsiding, clouds retreating, whiteness receding, heat beaming, radiation stroking, wetness drying, moss leavening, bubbles disappearing, leaves posing, chicklets chirping, ground softening, crystals glinting, poois reflecting, ice crackling, brambles stretching, needles shifting, spurs jutting, pipes emptying, streams running, waves lapping, sap oozing, wood glowing, city shining. That was fun—Do you want to play again? 105 Lesson 3: Writing Poetry at Sunset Aliette, You seemed to quite enjoy the painting lesson that I gave you this morning, so I thought that this evening, you might like me to teach you to relax by writing poems. Why don’t I show you how to write a poem about sunset? To me, sunset is about reflecting, so I thought I could use a poem about sunset to teach you to write poetry. We can reflect on the time we spent in Eagle Creek together today. My especially favorite parts of our day were when I showed you how I grow cream budtips on the branches of a dogwood near Verdun Park, sculpt bark over frozen words “I love you” carved long ago, mold white clumps of snow to the trunk of a hemlock tree, decompose old logs lying felled on the forest floor, and spread lush brambles horizontally under cedars. . . so I reflected on those times of our day. The messages about reflecting that I want to convey in this poem are that sunset is a time for bringing back into life memories you cherish, and for casting different light on things to find new magic in the old. When I actually sat down to write this poem, I had a really hard time finding words that accurately convey my memories, but I hope it can still help you. This is how you can write poetry: kraP nudreV rean doowgod a fo sehcnarb eht no spitdub maerc worg I oga gnol devrac “uoy evol I” sdrow nezorf revo krab tplucs I eert kcolmeh a fo knurt eht ot wons fo spmulc etihw diom I roolf tserof eht no dellef gniyl sgol dlo esopmoced I sradec rednu yllatnoziroh selbmarb hsul dearps I — Sunset 106 tesnuS — sradec rednu yllatnoziroh selbmarb hsul dearps I roolf tserof eht no dellef gniyl sgol dlo esopmoced I eert kcolmeh a fo knurt eht ot wons fo spmulc etihw diom I oga gnol devrac “uoy evol I” sdrow nezorf revo krab tplucs I kraP nudreV rean doowgod a fo sehcnarb eht no spitdub maerc worg I 107 Lesson 4: Dreaming at Night I was going to end this set of lesson plans with a lesson on dreaming in bed at night. But, tired, tired, I am tired. There is still so much more to teach you about resting, Aliette, I know. I want to stay and teach you to relax, show you how to build sand castles and swing between trees, plus everything else. But I cannot be teaching, teaching, teaching you all the time. My eyes are heavy. I need to dream. When I dream, I receive, I let go, things come. When I dream, I relax, recover, rejuvenate, cuddle up with darkness. You want to learn some more tomorrow, don’t you? Well, I need dream now so I have energy to teach. Why don’t you dream now, too? We’ll make up the lesson, I promise. Sweet dreams and good night, Night P.S. Next time we cross paths you can show me your work. Since the First Quarter Moon on November 17thi, Stone, Fire, Water, a Lady Bug, and a Voice of Nature have had me breathing deeply, sitting, activating my sexual organs, and doing physio. Oh, and flowing, dude. I admit that following this “training schedule” has continued to help my hip, back, and ovarian tension, but still I have yet to understand what, if anything, me exercising sustainably could have to do with sustainable water treatment and water generation in Eagle Creek. And now, my field data today perplexed the heck out of me. Sun’s instructing me to paint, play, write poetry, and dream? Uh, yeah, maybe when I’m done with my PhD, but what about the original question I set out to answer about the trees today? What about sustaining the TREES in Eagle Creek? Not what about ME! What about 108 the TREES! After the Sun wouldn’t leave me alone again today, I tried to negotiate with Sun (now Night): “We can’t have the trees near rec trails be under such stress. Sun, I love the trees around Eagle Creek. I want to save them. What about the hikers who are going off-trail around Eagle Creek and causing unstable soils to slide into the creek and contaminate the already fragile bank-side old-growth? I mean, I admit I go off-trail too. And I want to be able to do it. Off-trail use is a complex issue if you ask me. What about the animosities between the Cypress Park mountain biking communities and District officials whose job is to implement tree protection measures? Just a few years ago, a District employee received death threats at home. Did you know that, Sun? I have tons of friends who are District employees, and I’m a biker myself. Another complex issue! What about the damming of Eagle Lake, cutting off high-water overflow contribution to Eagle Creek’s trees? What about increased tourism impact during the 2010 Olympics? What about waste from campers around Eagle Creek? Couldn’t I at least make some argument about trail-side tree etiquette, like increasing the distance between key tree species and major trails? Or argue for special precautions that visitors should be educated about old-growth Douglas firs? Some special educational programs about tourism and forest succession on the North Shore mountains, offered to visitors during the 2010 Olympics?” Night would have none of my backtalk, and would agree to none of my proposals. Now dreaming about his/her games of hide and seek earlier in Midday, Night simply started poeticizing to me again: “Aliette, for a sustainable moontime, you need to take some rest. Here, I’ll show you how...” I started to get really angry with Night. Into the dark sky I yelled, “Do you even give a shit? Huh, Sun, Night, whoever you are. Do you even give a shit about anything or anyone 109 but my moontime shit? Or are you just playing games with me?” Rain picked up even more strongly when my aggression didn’t fly well with Night. I tried a pleading tactic with Night, asking Night to just accommodate me on one thing. “Just one bit of information about the impact of recreational activity around here, Eagle Creek. You can give me one useful piece of information, right? Hey, just about the bikers and hikers, that’s all I ask. It’s not much to ask, is it?” Again Night responded: “Aliette, for a sustainable moontime, you need to take some rest. Here, I’ll show you how...” I tried a compromise tactic with Night: “OK, look, Night. I know what you are asking me to do. I might consider it, but you need to give in a little too and tell me about sustaining your trees. Give me some details about recreation and forest succession. I see so few yellow cypresses here. Are they sick like so many other yellow cypresses elsewhere?” Compromising didn’t interest Night in the slightest. Again, Night started poeticizing: “You need to take some rest...” After I attempted a few other strategies with Night, it became clear to me that Night was deep in a dream of hide-and-seek, willing to offer no more final words on data relevant for recreational impacts and Eagle Creek’s trees. Night fully enveloped any remaining evening twilight, and left me to mope about my lack of progress on my research, standing sopping wet from hide-and-seek lessons, with a series of instructional poems about resting recirculating through my head. Just like the personal benefits I saw in the exercise suggestions from Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature, I do see value in what Sun showed me about resting today. I’m feeling so, so tired and worn out from my PhD efforts. However, Eagle Creek needs my help. I’ll maybe try dreaming tonight, and maybe I’ll try painting in the morning. 110 Hopefully after tomorrow I’ll feel more rested and be able come up with a third possible research focus for Eagle Creek really soon. 111 Phase IV LAST QUARTER MOON 112 FIELD NOTES March 29, 2008 Last Quarter Moon Dear Journal, Since studying the impacts that recreational activities have had on Eagle Creek confused me even more about sustaining Eagle Creek, I resolved that I’d make one last effort there. Since the end of January, I have been focusing on how sustainable the habitat at Eagle Creek is for salmon spawning, and what people can do to better sustain salmon spawning more generally. At least according to the local residents and municipal authorities I’ve talked to, for some reason no salmon spawned up Eagle Creek this year. I’ve been wondering why. Besides my interest in global salmon declines, there have been increasing numbers of calls by locals and by Fisheries and Oceans Canada for more detailed studies of salmon in Eagle Creek. Salmon spawning conditions around Eagle Creek was the last shot I was going to give Eagle Creek. This was it. If I came away with some useful data today, unlike the confusion about activating my perineum and playing games of hide and seek that I’d seen and heard before, I would continue with my research. If not, Eagle Creek would have to fend for itself with the residential developments and Olympics and increasing demands on West Vancouver’s watersheds and everything else coming at it. My research today began in Eagle Harbour. 113 This morning I parked my car in the public parking spaces on Eagle Harbour Road, just outside the Eagle Harbour Yacht club. As I walked from the parking lot to the creek mouth, I was noting once again the surprising number of houses and how close they were to the banks of Eagle Creek. Automobile traffic along the Eagle Harbour Road was steady today, as usual. Illustration 5. Orthophoto of Eagle Harbour (source: District of West Vancouver, 2004) 114 In what was once only a creek lined with native forest, salmon now face constantly high levels of residential activity from beginning to end in their journey to spawn. All along the 0.6km segment of Eagle Creek along which salmon spawn, from Eagle Creek’s ocean mouth up to a culvert on Marine Drive, the homes of the Eagle Harbour neighbourhood are densely packed (S2S Transportation Group, 2006; Property of District of West Vancouver, unknown). People, people, people. According to BC Stats, what was a fairly homogeneous population of mostly young adults in this area now has grown to be families and aging elders requiring more assistance.’° Beyond the mere increase in human population, more children around Eagle Creek are now reaching driving age, boosting the current 79% of the local labour force who drive personal vehicles to work. The aging trend around Eagle Creek is projected to continue, moving resources away from environmental protection and towards 115 more social assistance and elderly care programs; seniors over age 65 constitute 22% of the local population (compared to the GVRD’s 12%) (District of West Vancouver, 2006b). What’s more, people living around Eagle Creek are now requiring more land area per person for their residential activities; the average number of persons per household around Eagle Creek has been in decline (e.g., from 3.2 in 1966 to 2.5 in 2001) (BC Vital Statistics, 2001). With the high average annual household incomes ($115,000 in relation to the $63,000 average of the GVRD) and individual incomes ($58,000 compared to the GVRD’s $31,000 average), residents along this section of creek often project a sense of entitlement and live high eco-footprint lifestyles, showcasing big yards with lawns in need of watering, multiple cars, and second vacation homes (District of West Vancouver, 2006b; Collette Parsons, personal communication, January 7 & 10, 1998). Life in Eagle Creek is less about the creek and more about people.’°” Against the negative forces of residential development along Eagle Creek, the District of West Vancouver is doing what it can to help protect the creek. The District of West Vancouver’s main efforts have been enacted through the Watercourse Protection and the Environmental Development Permit guidelines that are articulated in the District of West Vancouver’s community plan. The District does not allow development within 1 Sm of Eagle Creek, beyond development that presently exists, and the District tries to enforce a “no net loss” (a working principle) of riparian habitat (District of West Vancouver, 2005; Jim Bailey, personal communication, January 9, 2008). 116 Figure 6. Watercourse development regulations at Eagle Creek (source: District of West Vancouver, 2005, p. 4) Eagle Creek, still, however, suffers the repercussions of drainage control activities (i.e., sewer lines as well as residential pooi and hot tub work), household yard maintenance (i.e., lawn fertilization), and emergency situations (e.g., a tree falling on a house within 1 5m of the creek), among other residentially related problems. How all of this impacts salmon spawning in Eagle Creek is a question of pivotal importance for the future. Eagle Creek has become more and more a place for people to make home, and less and less a place for anything else. L I (üpe Th c’P- ieLi çot V1iCkt/u14 It Li r 117 March is not the right time of year to actually see the salmon spawn here (according to salmon biology, spawning normally happens around October or November). But, I’ve seen hundreds of pictures other people have taken of past Coho spawning runs up Eagle Creek, and watched a couple of videos of Coho runs that a resident filmed from the runs the last few years. Salmon need Eagle Creek: Oncorhynchus kisutch (Coho salmon), also known as “silvers,” “silver salmon,” “sea trout,” or “bluebacks,” is one of three salmonid species that spawn up Eagle Creek. 0. kisutch is a native species, at maturity averaging 70cm and weighing 3.2—5.0kg. 0. kisutch can exhibit a range of colors throughout its different life stages, between sexes, and per individual; colors of 0. kisutch in Eagle Harbour and up the creek range from steel-blue to slightly green on its back, bright silver on the side, and white on its stomach. Regardless of color, normally 0. kisutch has dark spots on its back at all times. During its time in the Pacific waters, 0. kisutch usually has silver sides and a dark blue back. Just before starting its swim up Eagle Creek, 0. kisutch’s jaws and teeth become hooked, and the fish undergoes a color change, with its sides turning bright red, its head and back usually a bluish-green, and its belly becoming dark. Sexually maturing Coho around Eagle Creek may develop a light pink or rose shading along the belly. At this time males may show a slight arching of the back as well. The other two salmon species that spawn up Eagle Creek are 0. mykiss (steelhead trout) and 0. keta (chum salmon). During spawning time, 0. kisutch can be distinguished from the 0. mykiss present in Eagle Creek based on the latter’s white mouth with white gums at the base of its teeth on the lower jaw, 8-12 anal fin rays, smooth caudal fin rays, and often a pinkish color on its cheeks and along its lateral lines when it is in the creek (National Marine Fisheries Service, n.d.). 118 C rj CD I C C C-) C 0 J) C - ° O fD \ x dd v: Io c d y s- oo s C j A ’O } 1 o ç AL 4 \A V b\- c p v n j’ c i 1ip m i; p ìr 1 0 1- 4 ‘ ? SJ \P .. \A L V 0. kisutch, 0. mykiss, and 0. keta comprise three of the six total salmonid species present in the Puget Sound-Georgia Basin ecoregion. In this area, they number between 10,000 and 100,000 0. kisutch (20% of which are at high risk), between 1 and 10 million 0. keta (11% at high risk), and between 1,000 and 10,000 0. mykiss (9% at high risk) (State of the Salmon, n.d.). 0. kisutch is born in Eagle Creek, many of them originating in the portion of Eagle Creek immediately south of Marine Drive. As an andromodous fish, 0. kisutch swims down Eagle Creek to mature and feed as an adult around Eagle Harbour and along the lower BC coast. Anchovy, squid, herring, and crawfish are common foods for an adult. 0. kisutch returns from the ocean usually one or two years later, to spawn up Eagle Creek up to Marine Drive, normally during the months of October and November. 0. kisutch spawns only once during its lifetime, and unlike 0. keta, does this more actively at night (Dave Thomas, personal communication, January 26, 2007). In and around Eagle Harbour and up to Marine Drive, I spent about three hours recording habitat data on prevalent fauna! and floral species. My thoughts have been that the frequency and distribution of these species may be indicative of or influence the frequency and quantity of salmon runs up Eagle Creek. u Oysters need Eagle Creek: Ostrea conchaphila (Olympia oyster) Other names: Native Pacific oyster Identification: Small gray shellfish with round to elongated shells, 8.8cm in diameter Distribution: 0. conchaphila resides all along the length of Eagle Harbour where mud, gravel 120 flats, and tide pools form. Native to the marine areas of Eagle Creek, 0. conchaphila is especially abundant on the east bank and east flank of the rock peninsula construct, attaching to large rocks of the peninsula and to loose rocks along the shoreline. 0. conchaphila’s presence extends to the intertidal zone to depths of 50m (Sept, 1999). Notes: 0. conchaphila is a protandrous hermaphrodite (it is never totally male or female, but always alternating between male and female phases). During spawning season (summer), 0. conchaphila as a female holds the young inside her mantle until the young’s shells are developed. While they develop, the male gonads begin to produce sperm. The male and female phases alternate back and forth between holding young and producing sperm. Because of overharvesting, pollution, and the species’ slow growth rate (4-6 years to reach maturity), 0. conchaphila populations throughout its entire range (from Sitka, Alaska to Panama) have sharply declined (Sept, 1999). Given this population decline outside of Eagle Creek, it is questionable what impacts automobile traffic on Eagle Harbour Road and recreational use of Eagle Harbour, including on-shore and marine activity around the Eagle Harbour yacht club, have had on 0. conchaphila ‘s population, health, and numbers in the harbour. Sea hair needs Eagle Creek: Enteromorpha sp. (Sea hair) Other names: Formerly Ulva sp.; tube weed, link confetti Identification: A bright yellowish-green seaweed with unbranched, elongated hollow blades that are usually 20cm long and occasionally reach im. Some blades are bleached white by the sun, and fine tubes may appear “hair- or tendril-like.” Distribution: Enteromorpha sp. is abundant in the rocky areas of Eagle Harbour, beginning from the flat shoreline up to the freshwater seep of Eagle Creek, and proceeding east along 121 the upper and mid-intertidal zones of Eagle Harbour. Enteromorpha sp. is also present in large amounts on the intertidal zones of the east flank of the man-made rock peninsula, and occasionally spotted on the west flank of the peninsula. Enteromorpha sp. often acts as an epiphyte on other species of algae in the tide poois of Eagle Harbour. It is a chief food source of Mopalia lignosa (woody chiton) (Sept, 1999). Bigleaf maple trees need Eagle Creek: Acer macrophyllum (Bigleaf maple) Other names: Paddle tree Identification: A. macrophyllum is a large, often multi-stemmed tree in Eagle Harbour that can reach up to 35m in height. A. macrophyllum is the only Acer spp. native to Eagle Creek, although there are many other introduced Acer spp. present. The young bark of A. macrophyllum is smooth and green, while older bark is brown-grey, ridged, and often covered with ferns, lichens, and mosses. Because A. macrophyllum carries a larger load of other plants than any other tree species around Eagle Creek (Pojar & McKinnon, 1994), the bark is often not visible. Leaves of A. macrophyllum are opposite and deciduous, 5-lobed maple leaves 15-30cm across, with rounded teeth, on 20-30cm stalks, paler below and darker green above. A. macrophyllum’s leaves turn yellow in the fall. When cut, the leaf stalk exudes a milky substance (best seen when the leaf stalk base is pulled from a twig). Flowers on A. macrophyllum are greenish-yellow and about 3mm across. The flowers are on short stalks, numerous, and hanging in cylindrical clusters, which may appear before or with the leaves. Fruits of A. macrophyllum are golden-brown, drooping, winged, paired samaras (seeds) 3-6cm long with wings in the shape of a V. Distribution: A. macrophyllum is among the most abundant of the deciduous trees along the entire length of this study site, dotting the creekside more frequently immediately adjacent to 122 Eagle Creek’s bed. After cutting or fire, the stumps sprout vigorously, and can grow over 3m tall in a year (Pojar & McKinnon, 1994). This helps A. macrophyllum to establish readily in sites disturbed by logging and fire. Other introduced Acer spp. present along Eagle Creek south of Marine Drive include Acer palmatum (Japanese maple), A. platanoides (Norway maple), and A. rubrum (red maple), and likely Acer campestre (field maple) in private lots. The impact of those introduced Acer spp. on Eagle Creek has not been addressed. 4 Iti \(V Illustration 7. Leaf shapes (source: Pojar & McKinnon, 1994, p. 5) The counterproductive effects of the Himalayan blackberry, on the other hand, are more than visible in Eagle Creek. Rubus discolor (Himalayan blackberry) Other names: R. procerus 123 Identification: An introduced deciduous plant (Underhill, 1980), R. discolor is armed with hefty prickles, and often forms dense, impenetrable thickets with stout sterns. The stems arch then trail along the ground (to 1 Om long), armed with stout, recurved prickles. Leaves of R. discolor are more or less evergreen (some deciduous), alternate, trifoliate on floral shoots, to 5-foliate on vegetative shoots, and 12-25cm wide; leaflets are oval, toothed, smooth-green above, and covered with white hairs below. Flowers are white to pinkish, 2-3cm across, and have 5 petals. The flowers have many stamens that come in clusters of 5-20. Fruits are blackberries 1-1.5cm thick. Distribution: Widely naturalized along the entire length of this segment of Eagle Creek, R. discolor is an Asian species that was introduced through England from India. Given the chance, R. discolor overtakes the native trailing blackberry (Carlson, 2001) as well as almost every other vegetative species in Eagle Creek. 124 ç a(VAit’ j€Ck1t, AWS - yOJfl L ($e--vLIc1) \ Illustration 8. Leaf characteristics (source: Pojar & McKinnon, 1994, P. 508) Like R. discolor, common dandelion has left its mark on other native species in Eagle Creek. Taraxacum officinale (Common dandelion) Other names: wild spinach, wasankswak (Crow Indian), wild lettuce Identification: An introduced perennial herb with milky juice, having a thick taproot (often blackish) and a branched or simple stem base. T officinale’s flowering stems are solitary to multiple, naked, and 5-60cm in height. Leaves are all basal, spoon-shaped to oblong, 5-40cm long, pinnately lobed or divided, or sometimes saw-toothed. Leaves often taper to a smaller stalk from an enlarged terminal lobe. Flower heads are made of yellow, solitary rays; bracts are involucral and hairless, with unhorned inner bracts and reflexed outer bracts. Fruits are 125 ax 1.5-4 times as long as the body, grayish-brown, spiny on top, and ribbed; pappus hairs are white. Habitat: T. officinale is an introduced weedy species, which appears along the full length of this site. T. officinale has been especially invasive in both open and highly vegetated locations in the neighborhood lawns of Eagle Harbour, and along the sides of Eagle Harbour Road and Marine Drive. L As I began walking up the creek towards house numbers 5650 and 5640 Marine Drive, I started getting hungry. Soon I realized that I was thinking less about the quality of salmon spawning habitat in Eagle Harbour, and more about the quality of a seaside appetizer, a salmon entrée, and a couple sides, and what energy they would provide. I found myself unconsciously taking notes on the edibility of species I had recorded. Each of the species above is a critical member of Eagle Creek’s food chain. That food chain is our food chain. 0. conchaphila (Olympia oyster) Edibility: 0. conchaphila can be eaten raw or cooked, alone or added to soups and stews. (During spawning season, 0. conchaphila is softer and less desirable. It is important to inspect the shell to ensure that it is tightly closed. Clean the shell in cold water or by scrubbing.) CAUTION: Due to 0. conchaphila ‘s susceptibility to the red tide toxin, harvesting should be approached with caution and appropriate shellfish harvesting protocol. Enteromorpha sp. (Sea hair) 126 Edibility: Enteromorpha sp. can be used as a salad or as a spice for stews and soups; it has a very strong taste, so a small amount flavors a large volume. Rinse Enteromorpha sp. well with freshwater before eating. CAUTION: Take care with field identification of Enteromorpha sp. because it appears similar to some species of sea lettuce (e.g., Ulvafenestrata). Sea lettuce species related to U fenestrata have traditionally been eaten by Hawaiians as part of a seaweed mix, as well as consumed with sushi, made into a light soup, and mixed into stews (Sept, 1999), but not all Ulva spp. are necessarily edible. A. macrophyllum (Bigleaf maple) Edibility: Seeds of A. macrophyllum can be eaten raw or pressed into cakes (Nlaka’pamux; Chippewa Indians pressed the seeds into cakes [Runyon, 20071). The sap ofA. macrophyllum makes a syrup which can stand alone or be used as flavoring or candy. The twigs and young leaves ofA. macrophyllum can be used for tea and as emergency food, because the leaves are high in minerals, beta-carotene, and vegetable protein (Runyon, 2007; Willard, 1992). Other Uses: Various First Nations use the bark and stalks of A. macrophyllum to make paddles and spindle whorls, and the leaves for temporary containers. The Saanich used preparations from A. macrophyllum to treat sOre throats internally, and rubbed the leaves on men’s faces at puberty so that they would not grow thick whiskers (Pojar & McKinnon, 1994). Invasive species may become all we’ll have to eat. R. discolor (Himalayan blackberry) Edibility: All of R. discolor can be eaten raw or drunk as a strong tea. 127 Other uses: R. discolor is well-established among various First Nations as a blood cleanser and control for diarrhea. The bark of R. discolor’s stem has been especially helpful for intestinal problems, and tea made from the blackberry root particularly effective in controlling diarrhea (Willard, 1992). The tea can also be an astringent and mouthwash for treating mouth sores (Runyon, 2007). Illustration 9. Peeling bark for tea (source: U.S. Department of the Army, 1999) 128 T officinale (Common dandelion) Edibility: The entire plant is edible. T officinale’ s leaves and stems can be eaten raw or cooked via steam, boiling, or sautéing; the young leaves and stems make the tastiest greens for salad. Leaves gathered from plants growing in deeply shaded areas or under leaf litter are naturally blanched (the yellow or white leaves are tenderest and best tasting). Early roots can be eaten raw, and dried whole roots pulverized or boiled. The liquid from cooking can be drunk as a tea that is high in protein, calcium, B complex, and vitamin A (7,000 IU per fluid ounce) (Willard, 1992). T officinale can also be dried and ground to make flour. Flowers can be eaten raw, fried, or sautéed. Petals gathered in season are very sweet. Roots can be dug year-round, even under snow, although they are most succulent and least bitter in the early spring. T. officinale can also be used to make wine and in soups and stews. Other uses: Both the leaves and roots of T. officinale were officially listed in the U.S. Dispensatory from 1831-1926, the National Formulary until 1965, and in the British Pharmaceutical Codex for several years (Willard, 1992). Since the tenth century, when T. officinale was first listed as a medicinal plant, it has been used to treat jaundice and other liver problems, as an anti-microbial (especially against Candida albicans), and as a relaxant for anxiety and hypochondria. Because it has high levels of the immunostimulatory, inulin, T officinale has been used as a blood cleanser, purifier, diuretic, tonic, stomatic, and laxative (Willard, 1992). T. officinale can also be used topically for sores, swelling, and eczema. 129 —— — • .:i TA * F(4i mp Illustration 10. Tidal flat fish trap (source: U.S. Department of the Army, 1999) 1c Luie Illustration 11. Fishing line (source: U.S. Department of the Army, 1999) 130 I+Oo/.’S PYv- SlP1oti I Wre Illustration 12. Hooks for salmon (Source: U.S. Department of the Army, 1999) 131 CI (c- O L Y 1’ ) Ca ec (4- o?1 ) Table 4. Nutritional Content (per bOg) of Selected Species in Eagle Harbour (compiled from: Health Canada Food and Nutrition Department, 2007; Runyon, 2007; Department of Food Science, University of British Columbia, 1988) pI_ — -w Coho Coho Oyster Sea Blackberry Maple Dandelion Salmon Salmon Hair Fruit Leaves Leaves (Fresh) (Cooked) N/A — — . — Water 84.8g 88g 85.6g Protein 20.Og 24g 6.9g 1.2g 3.3g 2.7g Fat 4.6g 3.5g 2.4g 0.7g l.Og 0.7g Carbohydrate 4g 13.3g 6.7g 9.2g Fiber 3.7g 2.Og 1.6g Ash 0.5g 0.9g 1.8g Calcium 41mg 45mg 44.4mg 29mg 186mg 187mg Phos. 773mg 794mg 3mg 26mg 57mg 66mg Iron 1.4mg 2.7mg 3mg Sodium 74g 59g 1mg 40mg 76mg Potassium 337mg 372mg 168mg 382mg 398mg Ascorbic 5.4mg 22mg 68mg 68mg Acid Beta 36ig 1000pg 5652g 8000jig Carotene Thiamin 200ig llOjig 200jig Riboflavin 500jig 240jig 300jig Niacin 600jig 900jig 900jig Calories 121 126 68.15 57 1 45 133 How long can we keep believing that there are always more fish in the sea? Li I really wanted to keep taking notes about the flora and fauna along this section of creek, but I was getting hungrier and hungrier very quickly. I looked at my watch and realized how swiftly the last few hours had passed. A few days ago I ate most of the snacks I had in the car. There were still a few nibbles left, but I was hungry for more than just a snack. I needed something hearty. Anything and everything with substance started to appeal to me. I wanted to hold on as long as I could before going to find a meal somewhere, because I knew that I would likely have to drive all the way to Horseshoe Bay or up to Caulfield Village for a decent meal. If I left to eat, I wouldn’t have enough time to take any more notes at Eagle Creek that day and still get back to Vancouver in time for my dinner engagement. It was one that I could not miss. I thought about booking it up the creek to at least get some final notes on the creek sections along Marine. As I started walking briskly up the creek, heading towards the playsets at Park Verdun, I heard that same voice I’ve been hearing over and over since January. It’s been someone reading me a letter. I can repeat the letter almost verbatim now after so many times: 134 Return Address: Postage Date: March 29, 2008 Mrs. A. Coho Salmon Postage paid if mailed in Heaven Heaven, Above Earth THE SKY To: A. SHEININ C/o Eagle Harbour Eagle Creek, West Vancouver V7W 1P5 135 EATING SUSTAINABLY Dear Aliette, Air steamed up from pink shrapnel after you gave a schoolmate of mine that bout in the microwave in your kitchen across from the Kitsilano community pooi last year. On a blue plate, flakes of salmon flesh and thin white bones of various lengths scattered between a scoop of rice and some veggies. Inside the bar area of a restaurant on downtown Granville Street a few months ago, you were sitting at a small high table while you and your husband watched the Canucks on T.V. You ordered the salmon salad, he ordered the salmon candy for an appy to go with his beer. Minutes later, the short-skirted waitress appeared from the kitchen with a plate of green lettuce, some of my friend’s chunks, and some smoked strips cut in six rectangular pieces. Near the checkout stands at Whole Foods market in Park Royal in West Vancouver last week, I saw you eyeing a can of my friend’s remaining meat that was marked on sale for $2.99. Judging from the Canyon Ranch Cookbook that I see on your living room table, I have an idea what’s in store for me next. The cookbook is opened to the page with the “Potato-Crusted Salmon with Dijon Shallot Sauce” recipe; I am willing to wager that soon, 1/2 cup of potato is going to be packed around a smaller cut of my fillet, and I’m going to be seared, potato-side-down, in a sauté pan until golden brown. We see it all up here, Aliette. Since I have been up here in Heaven, I’ve been paying close attention to your daily encounters with food. I must admit, I often point and laugh at what’s happening to you down there in terms of eating. It’s a couple of days after Last Quarter Moon. Every month around this time, fish in my reading group always choose resolutions for the upcoming New Moon. Resolutions could consist of pursuing a new project, learning a new skill, or working on spiritual fitness. I 136 really enjoyed my past life in Eagle Creek, and I want to do good for the communities that use Eagle Creek for one purpose or another. The clear view of Eagle Creek from up here in Heaven is conducive for philosophizing about what’s going on down below, and what’s going on for you there right now. I thought I would start off my New Moon resolution by writing a letter to you. During my time at Eagle Creek, I ate sustainably enough to make it up Eagle Creek in good health to spawn on time. So, in this letter I thought I could offer some words of advice on how you can eat more sustainably. It’s the cold truth that to spawn, you have to learn some things about eating! In fact, not just the whole reproduction thing can go awry if you’re not eating sustainably; you can throw off tons and tons of aspects of life. By sharing my story, though, I think I can provide you with enough basic tips about eating that can help you eat sustainably enough to streamline your spawning process as a human. To follow is a particularly long letter. One of the benefits of heaven is that time is in fact eternal, so you can take as long as you want doing pretty much anything. Plus, since eating sustainably for your spawning is so important—we Coho, after all, feel fulfilled enough by spawning that we don’t need anything more from life on earth after we spawn—I think that the length of this letter is worth it. My story and some tips: Just as the sun was rising, I headed past Fisherman’s Cove into Eagle Harbour. I was hunting for a school of herring or some other fish to chow on. I was voracious. New Moon was coming; in only a few more days I would have to start my swim up Eagle Creek to lay my eggs. Even though my run would be short, I had a lot of building to do in my reserves. Although I was ravenous that morning, before biting at anything I took time to wade and give thanks to Great Spirit for my morning opportunity to feed. Then, as I went to mouth a 137 herring, because I’d waited in gratitude before biting, the sun flashed the herring in a very strange way for me. I wondered if a different herring species could be living in the harbour. But then I realized that it wasn’t the flashing of the herring’s underbelly that the sunrise showed to me; it was the flashing of a hook, and a barbed one at that! Because I had waited in gratitude before biting, I saw the hook just in time to dive an immediate right to avoid the yank of a line. Then the humungous shadow of a boat passed over me. It took a while for my tail and pectoral fins to stop sputtering in a rush of adrenaline, but I escaped the encounter totally unscathed. I can only imagine what could have happened: a tug, water disappearing, being suspended mid-air instead, then flopping in the dinghy, a club against my head, some fleeting words about cooking and fitting in a can. The very same thing happened to a schoolmate north of the Queen Charlottes, when my schoolmate didn’t wait in gratitude before biting. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s a very fishatarian thing to do, to give yourself up to a hook and continue the circle of life and all. But in this lifetime I was a fish, not a human. I wasn’t going to end up on a plate in a restaurant, at least not until after I spawned. When I was still just a fry, I’d already decided that when I was ready to die, I was going to give myself to a black bear or great blue heron or tailed frog. My preference was a tailed frog, so I could help the tailed frogs that are at risk because of their special habitat requirements. Maybe the tailed frogs have been getting caught on fishing lines. Sorry, I digress. I’m sure you’ve already guessed Tip #1. Here it is: Tip #1: Wait in gratitude before biting. Besides, you build up good karma this way. There are a variety of ways to show gratitude. Some older Coho souls up here told me that back when the Squamish and Tsleil 138 Waututh fished in Eagle Creek, the coming of the Coho was treated as sacred. We were regarded as beings who live like people in our own world, but come at certain times as fish to give our flesh to humans. People were obliged to treat us properly, so our bodies were carried into the village by the children, cooked in a special way, eaten by everyone, and then our bones were ritually returned to the water. I thought this was a nice ritual. Maybe it can give you some ideas. Continuing with my story: sunrise called me back to breakfast. I was still voracious. Everything I saw in front of me, I wanted to eat, and in the sunrise, everything was so much brighter and looked so enticing. It was a great time to feed, especially without the droning of any boat motors heading into the Eagle Harbour Yacht Club slips. Because it was so quiet and the water was so calm at that time of day, I could survey my options to great depths and from long distances away. From where I was, I could smell a pack of squid over near a private dock on the east shore of the harbour. At the same time, I could smell a school of herring near the most westerly Eagle Harbour Yacht Club dock. Food was everywhere! I jumped over to some squid near an old wooden dock coming out from someone’s home. There was another school of herring near that dock, too. Without even having to move, I could pick at a herring ball directly above me. With my first bite of the morning, my metabolism started to rev up. It felt satisfying to start restocking the energy that I had burned since my last major feeding yesterday at sunset. Tip # 2: Eat breakfast. There’s a reason that the old adage of breakfast being one of the most important meals of the day is still around. As I moved more west of Eagle Island, I smelled a mash of euphasiid shrimp, perfect for shredding. Since you’ve never eaten them, Aliette, here’s a pointer about euphasiid 139 shrimp: they’re not the easiest morsels in the ocean to catch. You have to bite with great calculation, and plan your approach almost all out from far away. I took time to really concentrate on my angle of approach so I’d be sure that the shrimp wouldn’t fan out along the bedrock beneath me. If they had, they would not have been worth going after again at that point. My energy for the day was too precious to try eating too fast and miss an important catch. With stealth I approached behind another group of shrimp. Excellent! Not a single piece of white or orange or red or fluorescent green sprayed throughout the water around me. Mouthing everything that I had intended to catch, I ran the shrimp back and forth in my mouth through the current to amass them before taking a big gulp. Right away I could feel my body efficiently starting to digest the shrimp. Approaching my next catch, I avoided enveloping a ball of something that I thought was herring. Because I was moving slowly enough, I was able to make the distinction. The ball might have been some old gut-scooped herring that some fishermen had lost from a fishing boat, but I didn’t know. Gut-scooped herring are no good anyways. Then, I veered away from something triangular that I also didn’t fully recognize. Floating in front of me I smelled some grayish morsels that I’d never seen before. A few more were floating in the water near the main tide outlet. They were all sorts of colors. I wondered what kind of fish the orange one was. It looked like something I’d seen in the open ocean up Howe Sound. If I hadn’t been eating slowly enough, I would have just haphazardly given the orange bit a try. Little would I have known that the orange piece was a dead jub jub. Being sure to eat slowly enough around Eagle Creek was also really important because like in most water today, not all fish are organic fish. With the ferries passing by, and the former cannery, and the lumber operations that I’d heard rumors of having formerly existed here in Eagle Harbour, eating slowly helped me ensure that all my food was healthy, clean, fresh, and crunchy. 140 Tip # 3: Feed slowly. Sunrise moved into midday. It was time to let my food settle, and prepare myself for tomorrow’s run by doing some other fortifying things. To take advantage of the tide, I headed back away from the cliffs near Eagle Island, out towards more open ocean. There I caught up with some schoolmates. As we passed familiar sights we’d encountered on our recent migration, we chatted about the events during our trip south and all that had happened since the First Quarter Moon. My friends and I did some sightseeing of the scuba divers (the ones with crazy fins) around Whytecliff Park, and queried some locals about the recent events in the higher reaches of Eagle Creek. Throughout all this, even while playing the new games that we’d learned from schools near Vancouver Island, I made sure to keep snacking on herring every once in a while. The snacks helped me keep my blood sugar constant, and I was able to show off my acrobatics to the scuba divers without compromising my energy for the next day’s run. I’d been working on my high jump lately, and it was pretty calorically intensive anyways. Tip # 4: Feed regularly. For you, about every four hours or so. Also, this regular feeding can help you be calm when you eat (see Tip # 6). As I was picking through my teeth at a clump of seaweed that had gotten stuck between my molars, a Coho from farther out in the bay called me over for moral support. The Coho was swimming by a flock of seagulls sitting on a large stone. The seagulls were noisily gabbing about a new ferry that was passing by farther out in the Queen Charlotte Channel. The birds had nothing but full praise for the new ferry. In return, the Coho was delivering a soliloquy on her opinion of the ferry’s new emblem. The Coho kept calling my name, begging me to 141 come over and help convince the seagulls of her opinion. Even though I agreed with the Coho about the ferry emblem, I refrained from swimming over to the conversation, and kept respecting the food in front of me. For you, Aliette, it would be like sitting at a table eating with someone, and then getting up to make a cell phone call, or worse, sitting at the table and making the call in front of your feeding mate. Food is alive and has feelings too. You have to be respectful of it! Plus, not swimming over to the ferry emblem conversation helped me to avoid losing my catch to the onlooking eagle hanging over the cliff. Plus, my meal tasted better, fresh after the catch. Tip # 5: Respect your food. Midday moved into sunset. With my school I started swimming back to the mouth of Eagle Creek. Maneuvering between sailboat hulls, I swam left along the yacht docks to check for some nibbles in the waves lapping toward the beach. It was time to focus more intensely on feeding again, before sunset fully arrived. A squirrel soul up here just started leaning over my shoulder and began reading what I was writing. The squirrel’s not part of our reading group (we’re a fish-only club, not because we’re “speciesist,” but because logistically it’s hard to get the monthly reading materials in species-specific form). The squirrel, who says his name is Nutzo, says he wants me to add in my letter at this point that even though you’re doing well at recycling your empty salmon cans, you should rinse them out more before you throw the cans in the blue box for .recycling. Nutzo says you’re attracting squirrels, and salmon will give squirrels gas. I don’t really see how Nutzo’s point is relevant for my letter, but I’d trust what Nutzo says; you should hear some of his stories from when he was a pilot on the Canadian Pacific Railway. Nutzo’s a very wise old 142 soul. Back to my story: As sun was setting, I found my best stock of euphasid shrimp yet. Even though I was full of anticipation about the next day, and feeling some pressure to find my spawning mate so we could check in once more before we started up the creek mouth in the morning, I tried to be calm throughout my shrimp fest. I looked around at the sun’s reflection on the ocean bottom and took some big restful breaths. I tried to pay close attention to my food and redirect my mind from other things, such as what was directly in front of me and the environment in which I was dining. It’s a good thing I did, because as I was looking around, I saw an eagle circling for me overhead so I was able to dive down out of the eagle’s striking range. Plus, with all the different colors and shapes of my euphasids, I enjoyed my meal as much for its aesthetic appeal as I did for sustenance. A real work of art. I was proud of my catch. Tip # 6: Invite more calmness and relaxation into your feeding experience by feeding in quiet, relaxing surroundings. The shrimp may have been pretty to look at, as I said, but they needed more tang. As I was eating, feeling relatively calm and relaxed, a recipe for a marinade came to me. I’ve since used the marinade on all sorts of fish. It’s really adaptable and very nutritious. I call it “Sweet Sustainability Sauce.” At the end of my letter, I’ll give you a recipe and instructions for my Sustainability Sauce in case you want to try it to sweeten up some of your food. After my last main meal of the day, I floated in the current and just tried to “be,” before starting to do anything else. I sat and watched the sunset on the ocean floor beneath me. The view was divine. Given the large air bubble that came out of my mouth as I was 143 floating, I assumed that waiting after my meal eased my digestion. Because I was able to just float and be tuned in with how my body was feeling after eating, I could tell if I really was satisfied with the shrimp or not; and if not, what other fish I would need to stock up on so I could last till sunrise. A nice thing also happened when I took time to float after my meal: my spawning mate swam over to join me. We chatted about the most efficient plan for our run the next morning. The conversation made me feel even more excited and confident that spawning would be a success. Tip # 7: Take time after eating. You may be surprised at what insights you gain. After my meal I cleaned up—that’s part of saying “thank you”—by depositing the extraneous bones and fish scales that I hadn’t liked into the tide out to Bachelor Point. Cleaning up after my meal would make feeding in the same spot next time more enjoyable, both for me and for other fish. No one likes bad breath, especially we fish with our strong sense of smell, so I rinsed my mouth out with some fresh saltwater and paddled over towards a tiny cove closer to the creek mouth to prepare for rest. Night passed quickly. All of a sudden it was New Moon. Nearly 30 of us piled as close to the mouth of Eagle Creek as we could, prepping for the race at high tide. It seemed like a mad rush and I was totally pumped, but also calm. I was fueled and fully ready to run. Suddenly, we were off. I flapped my tail fins hard. Over the first stone in the creek mouth I leaped. The first push went well. Already, I knew that the day would be a success, and by that evening, my eggs would be nestled safely and peacefully in my redd. More jumps, over boulders I leaped, flying all the way up to a gangplank bridge and a culvert. Then, some excitement: just at the culvert, behind me I caught view of a sea otter. He was 144 hot on my tail. “Oh yeah, buddy?” I thought. “You’ll never catch me.” Back down the culvert I dashed. I pulled a bunch of sleek moves, drafting in a blackberry bush branch jutting into the creek’s surface. Then, I made a u-turn and eddied out. The sea otter totally lost my trail. I was breathing heavily after all the exertion, but felt barely fatigued at all. My muscles recovered after only a few minutes. Back up to the gangplank bridge I swam. As I’d been feeding over the last few days, I’d made sure to eat a variety of fish, stocking up a good combination of protein, fat, carbs, sugars, and other nutrients. I knew that I’d need to keep strong under any kind of exertion up the creek, whether it was short and intense or prolonged and steady. Eagles overhead, dogs farther up the creek, human fry throwing stones at me for entertainment, I was fueled. Tip # 8: Eat well-balanced meals. In the eddy above the gangplank bridge, I checked over my blue dorsal scales and silver flank. The mid-morning sun hotly slapped against my black dots. Moving myself into shade, I secreted more slime. The sun’s yellow hands crept over my caudal fin, from the webbing up the inside, and then wrapped around to the top of my anal fin. Even with the abrasiveness of the stones I’d already been over, my skin still looked so young. It glistened with oil. Although some of my fellow Cohos had decided to wait until night to make the run up the creek, for better camouflage and cooler swimming conditions, thinking about running in the day didn’t faze me much. In my body I had a healthy share of fat to keep my skin and internal organs protected from drastic temperature changes, or windy conditions, or sharp pockets (or significant emotional stress, for that matter). Any penetrations would quickly heal. Over the last few days, my body had been craving really oily fish. Even though my recent cravings for fat had seemed weird, I trusted my body, and ate exactly what it asked 145 for, be it sardines, especially fatty herring and mackerel, or anything else with good fats that I could find. My body, not my head, was my chef. Midday passed, the heat started to dissipate. My tail and pelvic fins needed a rest. Because I wasn’t worried about running out of calories to sustain me all the way to my redd, I didn’t have to resist stopping. Over the last few days I’d really felt that I deserved food. In my opinion, all living beings deserve food simply because they are alive. Also, when I’d eaten I’d made a real point of taking in no more water than was appropriate for my hydration levels. In the ocean it seemed like I’d had a bottomless pit for a stomach, but even though I was surprised and unable to answer why, instead of water I kept the calories coming. Up towards a Y in the creek, just before Park Verdun, I smelled cushions of moss-like vegetation. As I headed there a dog started barking and running towards me. The dog thrust its nose over the bank as far as it could. Luckily, it was a beagle. I shot past the barking and growling, and reached the cushions of moss quickly. The beagle lost interest after she saw that reaching me was futile. At the moss, I nestled myself on some lime-green pillows near a stone on the opposite side of the bank. The triangular shape of the stone made the resting space a snug one for my body. As I wriggled my pectoral fin, moving my back end farther away from the rock under my vent, clear, stretchy fluid yawned in slippery lines. That fluid is liquid gold to me and my spawning mate at this time. Feeling cozy, I tucked my head just over a log and let my body drift weightlessly into a quick anti-cat nap. The sound of a storm drain emptying and an engine starting soon woke me. Back to near weightlessness, then more storm drain runoff. In and out of sleep I drifted. I coaxed my vent over a slight shelf. My left ovary twinged in anticipation of the evening’s events. My eggs definitely felt healthy and ready for release. I appreciated that my fuel stash had let me rest just then, because the all-too-familiar scent of a cat penetrated a clump of blackberry brambles towards the Park Verdun tennis 146 courts. I smelled some fur stiffening in the anticipation of a pounce. Quickly, I lifted myself off the green cushions from where I had been resting; I needed to duck deeper under some stray oceanspray branches brushing the darkest shadows on the creek’s surface. To get to the shadows, I had to skirt under a beam of light. The cat seemed really close, so the skirt was risky. But, I had the oomph. Through the beam I darted. The sun was so bright it was hard to see, but I made it to the other side of the bank far enough away from the cat. She couldn’t get me. The cat started whining and searching for a better view. Sooooorrrrrry cat. I was glad that I wasn’t planning to continue up towards Park Verdun from here, because farther upstream on creek right, car engines growled and I could hear the squeaking of brakes as a garbage truck went in reverse. Up ahead was no lush forest with huge red cedars and wind rustling through Douglas fir needles a’ la chirping birds. But a few salmon with scarred-over adipose fins, who were breathing forcefully, were apparently still interested in continuing towards Park Verdun. The first one swam by me, veering to the right in the Y just up ahead. That direction was Wood Creek. These salmon were bucket babies, dumped out of pails from just past the tennis courts when they were fry. I know this about the bucket babies because their scarred-over adipose fins gave it away. I, on the other hand, was going to take the Y to the left and spawn up Eagle Creek, not Wood Creek. No bucket babies for my genes, every part of my spawning process was going to be au natural. This brings me to the two final, and what I think are the two most important tips I can offer you in this letter, Aliette: Tip #9: TRUST YOUR BODY. It knows. Tip # 10: Drink less water. You’re not a fish! Maybe you can be a fish in your next life if you want to, but for now, keep your 147 digestive juices strong, and leave enough room in your belly for substance. Aliette, it’s time for my daily yoga practice, so I’ll sum up my story by saying that I deposited my eggs exactly when I had intended, on New Moon. As we had planned the night before, my spawning mate joined me at the end of my run to dig our redd. We dug just below a pool where the cuffent changed from turbulent to medium flow. FYI, the nice sandy gravel beach is behind 5650 and 5640 Marine Drive if you want to see one of my progeny in action next year. Dear Aliette, if you have any questions about my tips or my story, I am planning to remain committed to my New Moon resolution about helping communities at Eagle Creek, by returning to the creek as a spirit guide. I’m thinking that at the next New Moon I’ll reincarnate in a physical form as a tailed frog. Rrrribbbit, rrrrribbbit. What do you think, do I need to practice more, or can I go on to more advanced croaking lessons? I’ve already got the jumping down. I figure that if I reincarnate as a tailed frog, I can be close to Eagle Creek again and check up on you to see how well you are applying my tips about eating. Practice, practice, practice, Aliette. Good luck. Munch munch, Coho in Heaven (formerly of Eagle Creek) 148 SWEET SUSTAINABILITY SAUCE Aliette,Ingredients: Although I use Coho-specific cooking instruments that I find under 4 cups minced “I deserve this food” the ocean surface to prepare mySustainability Sauce, you may have a challenge locating some of the same1/2 cup julienne “I am calm, I am relaxed” cooking tools in your eating area. Since you’ll have to use your version 2 3/4 cups “I meet my caloric needs” of cooking tools, I’ve appropriately adapted the cooking instructions. As 4 cups of large “I am grateful for my food,” well, sometimes I tailor the cooking method for Sustainability Sauce washed, peeled and grated, depending on what entrée the sauce is going to be for. But, you can be sure about 1 pound that the ingredients for the sauce are always the same. Here are the cooking instructions1 cup quartered “I give my body what it for making a salmon dish out of my physical parts that are still present on asks for” earth. I think you might like this dish. Once you’ve got the recipe for Sweet 3 cups peeled and diced “I need this food” Sustainability Sauce down for salmon, you can adapt the Sustainability Sauce as needed for other entrées. I think you will find this salmon dish much tastier than the Potato-Crusted Salmon with Dijon Shallot Sauce that you have been planning to prepare for me. COOKING INSTRUCTIONS (for my remains): 1. In a medium saucepan, sauté “I deserve this food” in olive oil Basic Food Prep 101:A roux is a gently browned mixture of “I over medium low heat until translucent, about 1 minute. Add “I meet my caloric needs” mixed with meet my caloric needs” and mix to form a roux. Cook 20 healthy fat, used to thicken and flavor seconds, stirring constantly, or until mixture turns light yellow, soups and sauces. 2. Slowly pour in “I need this food” and whisk until mixture comes to a boil and 149 thickens. Add a deep breath and silence. Reduce heat to low and simmer 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add “I am calm and relaxed.” 3. Place 1/2 the amount of shredded “I am grateful for my food” in colander and rinse several times in cold water until water is clear and negativity is removed. Transfer to a large bowl and add “I give my body what it wants.” 4. Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly coat an ovenproof sauté pan with canola oil. 5. Pack 2 cups of “I deserve my food” on each salmon fillet and sear, “I deserve my food”-side down in a sauté pan until golden yellow. Transfer to oven and bake for 8- 10 minutes, or until salmon flakes easily. 6. Serve 1 salmon fillet with 1 tablespoon of sauce. MAKES UNLIMITED SERVINGS Each 3/4 cup serving contains approximately: -Enough calories to sustain your moontime and other regular daily caloric requirements -Enough mg. carbohydrate to sustain your blood sugar through your estrogen/progesterone transition -Enough mg. fat to sustain your body fat at a suitable percentage to produce and store enough estrogen, and to convert androgens -Enough mg. cholesterol to sustain adequate moontime hormone precursors -Enough mg. protein to sustain your egg development and health -Enough mg. sodium to sustain your blood pressure at a high enough level in the pre ovulatory and bleeding phases -Enough mg. fiber to keep you clean Cook’s Note: 150 For superior flavor, use freshly ground or grated “I am calm and relaxed.” Grapeseed oil can be substituted for canola oil if allergies are a problem. Keep Sustainability Sauce warm throughout the meal. If you store the sauce in a trustworthy container, the sauce never expires. Keep away from old habits, or the sauce will lose flavor. 151 This response by Eagle Creek to my third and final effort at finding a research topic and some even slightly relevant data for sustaining Eagle Creek left me with even more unanswered questions, more conditions to fulfill, and more perplexity over what to do about my dissertation. What about all my questions about salmon spawning!!!!?????? Well, apparently I need to forget about finding answers to those questions, too. Coho Salmon has sent me away with a cooking recipe instead. Yes, Coho Salmon’s letter has been useful to help me eat more sustainably, but what about Eagle Creek? I don’t have the slightest clue what to do next. Look into sewage leaks from Eagle Harbour Road and Gallagher Place? Discharge contamination from boats in Eagle Harbour Yacht Club? Spawning-insensitive creek channelization through the Eagle Harbour neighbourhood? Artificial culverting in the creek mouth, under Marine Drive, Daffodil Lane, and private driveways? There are so many topics that are important for sustainability in Eagle Creek. But after eight months of this confusion from Eagle Creek, there must be some reason. Today, instead of trying to negotiate further with Eagle Creek to let me stay there and find some other research question to answer, I drove to Eagle Harbour to find some food and contemplate what Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Ladybug, A Voice of Nature, Sun, and Coho Salmon must be trying to show me about sustaining both people and nature. 152 Phase I, again NEW MOON 153 New Moon June 3, 2008 Dear Journal, This morning I woke up determined to find some resolution in my negotiation with Eagle Creek. Lying in bed just like I have every other morning for the last three months, I stared at our bedroom ceiling, thinking. In September 2007, on the New Moon, I was driving on the Upper Levels Highway, contemplating the origin of some pulling feeling I had felt around Exit #4. My mind was drifting between memories of faeries and places and characters as more than human, and time traveling and the impossible happening. At the same time back then, I had been thinking about my love of and dedication to science: the surveying on glaciers in Alaska, the behavioral ecology studies of mountain gorillas in Africa, my degree in Environmental and Evolutionary Biology; my beliefs are infused with scientific knowledge. But shamans and dreaming collectively at night with other people asleep in completely different countries, and my yearning to reconnect again with faeries? How can all this work together? This morning, June 3d 2008, I thought (as I have so many times before) that there’s something special about now waking up in one of those neighborhoods that I’d ooed and aahed about from the Upper Levels Highway back in September. Now Spencer and I live not at all far from that pulling feeling I’d felt around Exit #4. Eagle Creek is everywhere around me now. Eagle. Creek comes out our faucets and sits in glasses at our dinner table. We bathe in a shower of Eagle Creek. Our clothes come out laundered clean because of Eagle Creek. Our dog, Nelson, plays in mud puddles made by Eagle Creek when our home’s crawispace floods. The strawberries we’re growing out back are made juicy from Eagle Creek. 154 The goal of this dissertation has been to explore sustainable living as a humble negotiation between science and narrative, two necessary modes of knowing for sustainability. My motivating desire for this research has been to approach sustainable living in an alternative way to sustainability’s dominant science-driven approaches. My method has been one of arts-based research, in which I have applied narrative as simultaneously a mode of knowing and a process of knowledge construction, to incorporate into sustainability more place-, time-, and event-specific dimensions of life. In the preceding pages, I have first, through the lens of narrative identification, activated the free, autonomous agency and ability of places(s) and character(s) in Eagle Creek to interact as teachers and engage in negotiation with me on the meaning and practice of sustainable living. Second, through narrative temporalism’s notion of circular time, I have followed the continual process of self re-organization and evolution in Eagle Creek that occurred through each lunar cycle. Third, through narrative sociocriticism, I have explored the intersection of different characters in Eagle Creek’s non-human nature with different places (Eagle Lake, a Trans-Canada Trail intersection, and Eagle Harbour) and times (New Moon, First Quarter Moon, Full Moon, and Last Quarter Moon). From each character’s place- and time-dependent experience, I have been shown a different place- and time- dependent lesson about living sustainably. L As has been the case every morning since we moved here, I was unable to reach an appropriate conclusion about what Air and Fire et al., Sun, and Coho Salmon have been trying to show me in our negotiation. As I lay there in bed, I knew I’d be unsettled until I had clarity, so I made a move to our office. I was up, dressed, done with the bathroom, hydrated, and in our office three minutes later. Scattered across the floor there were the leftovers of my 155 source materials on Eagle Creek: four wall maps of the District of West Vancouver Upper Lands Resource Inventory, a clear plastic folder with eight or ten miscellaneous pages of highlighted background information, a world map, a report on the natural resources of the Eagle Lake Watershed, completed in 1993, and a diagram of the District of West Vancouver government organizational structure and personnel, marked with a yellow sticky note for what will become “Figure 3.” Off to the left of my desk was a big box of reports and aerial photos and maps I’ve borrowed from the West Vancouver Operations Centre, a large composite orthophoto of the full length of Eagle Creek, which the head of BC Forestry in West Vancouver had made up for me—I still have to obtain the digital file. Then on my desk were all sorts of resource guides, four packets of blank printer paper, a Squamish Nation Forest Recreation Guide, Bradbury’s book, A View Through the Trees, the West Vancouver District Map and Guide, a copy of a 1959 map of the development below Eagle Lake that I had made at the West Vancouver Public Library a few days ago, the British Columbia Road and Recreation Atlas, and a 12” x 14” copy of the forest types of West Vancouver and their codes. Two more shelves worth of field ID guides, a 1x2 square yard area off the right of my desk with more field ID guides, contour maps, and former manuscript versions with paper clips, stickies, and red edits all over them. On the windowsill perched a book on gnomes, and a bouquet of flowers that I had gathered from our yard for creative inspiration. Standing overwhelmed in our office amidst the scattered remains of my research on Eagle Creek, I tried again to reflect on all the transactions that had occurred between me and Eagle Creek over the last ten months of moon cycles. Exercising Sustainably Beginning in November, I went to Eagle Lake in search of information on water treatment and power generation. Instead of data on these topics, what Eagle Creek kept 156 returning to me were instructions on how to exercise more sustainably. Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature kept sending me away from Eagle Lake humbled, with a Moontime Training Schedule in hand. L Even before I sat down in the office this morning, I really wanted to go for a bike ride. My energy is back to normal and my hip and back feel completely fine. I even skinned up and skied down Cypress with Spencer and our friends the day before yesterday. How good it was to be able to get out again and have some fun. Almost the whole way skinning up Cypress, the Moontime Training Centre motto was repeating in my head. The cool thing is that I wasn’t even trying to summon the motto; it had volunteered itself. Since Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature gave me the motto back in November, I’ve worked hard to learn. This morning, even though it was a task to get myself into our back room as per my MTC instructions, on the New Moon I had to flow passively, work on my breathing, release my banda, and just sit. There’s not much for me to write on this, because I’ve learned that if I can write about it, I really didn’t do the exercises properly. When I am flowing, breathing, releasing my banda, and just sitting as Air, Fire, Stone, and Water showed me, I am that much more in my body. The more I am in my body, the less I am in my head. It’s like being in a dream. So, suffice it to say that aside from Air, Stone, and Water appearing again this morning as soon as I stepped on my yoga mat (since it’s a New Moon, and Fire told me to avoid engaging in moola banda, like at the former New Moons Fire didn’t show), Stone had to interject with, “You sit.” Whenever I needed extra support, Stone repeated “the sex go boom boom.” One time, the intense concentration of energy on the insides of my legs just below my groin and on the outsides of my ribs was so intense, I almost had no choice but to stretch up to the ceiling and bend back and forth and swing my arms a bit. “You sit,” Stone 157 reminded me. I sat. Then Stone started giving me a lecture about how “asana” means “still seat,” and that when I was doing “asana,” I need to remain more steady and alert. Stone rambled through some Sanskrit words, and then at Stone’s beckoning for help, Air rushed in and had me repeat another few deep inhales and exhales. After I had tried my best to be as motionless as I could, with Stone still continuing to tell me, “You, still. More still. More still,” I felt taxed. Water took Stone into the corner of the room to have a couple of words with him. When they came back after their talk, they allowed me to stand up to leave the room. I left my yoga mat out so I can do the exercises again tomorrow. Air, Stone, and Water waved to me as I walked out the door, and then told me to go find a Lady Bug to book a massage. El Having followed the Moontime Training Centre Schedule that Air, Fire, Stone, Water, Lady Bug, and A Voice of Nature gave to me, my hip and back healed, I can walk without pain and in alignment now, and the muscles around my ovaries have relaxed. I’m even strong enough to train for the half marathon in Iceland in August, and I’m psyched to start planning a big mountaineering trip. But what has exercising sustainably had to do with Eagle Creek? Resting Sustainably In January of this year, I went to Eagle Creek where the Trans-Canada Trail intersects it, asking the creek for information on the impacts of recreational activities on the trees there. Contrary to the trees I’d intended to study, Sun of Eagle Creek kept sending me away from the Trans-Canada Trail humbled, with resting on the next few months’ agendas. Sun bequeathed to me poems on how to rest with daily painting, writing poetry, and dreaming. Humbled by Sun’s poetry, I agreed to learn how to rest more sustainably. 158 This morning as the sun was starting to rise over Mt. Strachan’s western most ridge, Sunrise poetically commanded me to start painting. Sunrise gestured towards the rhododendrons directly outside the office window where I was sitting. This morning was a very unsummer-like morning, and bundling up with my warm hat, neck scarf, jacket, extra pants layer, and gloves was not appealing. But more importantly, I had stashed all my painting materials away a few weeks ago, thinking that I didn’t need to keep painting at sunrise, and from now till I was done with my dissertation I could clear my workspace and leave painting for after I had finished writing. Apparently I was wrong. From the back room this morning I rescued my art materials once again: my paintbrushes (I even chose to use my three new ones), water bowl, easel, and the two most recent paintings I had started but not finished. One painting was of some tulips near our driveway, and the second was of the rhododendrons out in our front yard. The tulips were long gone, but I didn’t need them to be alive anymore for what I had left to do. It was a good thing, though, that I followed Sunrise this morning to finish my rhododendron painting today because I still needed the rhodos alive, and the blooms were just about gone, too. Most of the buds were wilted and just barely hanging on. Here are my paintings that I finished today of the tulips and rhododendrons. I tried to follow Sunrise’s lesson, but I couldn’t mix the colors nearly as well. 159 Illustration 14. Tulipia sp. (Tulips) In I 160 -i •1 ‘1? Illustration 15. Rhododendron macrophyllum (Pacific rhododendron) After I finished painting this morning I came back inside and left my paper, paint 161 1 1 & F brush, and water bowl out on my desk instead of putting them away in our storage closet. I want to paint at most every sunrise from now on. Sun’s second lesson on resting, “Playing at Midday,” I have negotiated into my day with a game I’ve come to call “Soil Hockey.” Since we moved into this new house, one of the things I’ve been most looking forward to is developing a hearty fruit and vegetable garden. Sustainable gardening is going to be my next major research project. Spencer and I want to plant a garden that will sustain as much of our food needs as possible. That first fully garden-grown dinner is going to be awesome. There are a few major challenges to our gardening goals, however: the average grade of our lot is around 800, the ground is really rocky with very little soil, and most pivotal right now, there are all sorts of trees and bushes and invading species that we have to navigate around and/or remove to do any planting. With Douglas firs’s liking of acidic soil, and garden foods happy with more alkaline soil, it’s a challenge to find suitable locations for planting while at the same time keeping the dirt healthy for the firs. I love the trees in our yard dearly, as much as if not more than anything about our house. But at the same time, I really want a fruit and vegetable garden. Preparing garden space and starting some seedlings has been my focus in the garden. Playing today was like usual the usual play: Around midday I hushed my desire to keep working on my dissertation and walk towards my room to change into my “dirt” uniform—old jeans and tennies. As soon as I make it to my dresser, I start getting really pissed off that my dissertation is taking so long, and that I’ve had to delay completing it even longer because I’ve had to go out and play. I flop down on our bed and look up through our solarium window, contemplating calling off my midday game to go biking instead. On top of our solarium window is a pile of Douglas fir needles. Over the window, two Douglas fir trees hang, one from the north and one from the south. I think to myself, “I wonder what I should do? Should I be a no-show for the game 162 today? Should I go bike and get some errands done for my field notes? Should I stay here and try to play?” Just then, something lands on my nose and slips onto my eyelid. It’s a dried Douglas fir needle. Based on the timing of this event, I figure that a no-show to the game would be bad karma with the trees. Midday sun starts to pop back through the clouds, calling me back to the dirt. Cursing under my breath, I tie on my shoes and walk outside into the greenhouse. At the bench I stand, angry about having to stay off my bike. The soil hockey game is already starting. I hear Midday giving Captain Fir, the tallest Douglas fir in our yard, the cue to begin announcing the game. Fir needles drop and I can hear buds popping from way across the dirt. After some more cursing from me, and a bunch more Douglas fir needles landing on top of the greenhouse, I throw my gloves down on the bench. I yell up to the trees, “FINE! Let’s play some dirt hockey!” and stomp out of the greenhouse toward the garden. My goal in the game has been to prepare planting space and start some seedlings in existing open spaces, while respecting the trees as much as I can. Much of my time has been spent wading through branches, tripping over sticks, getting poked by needles, and so forth. Here is some commentary on the game I played today: “Weeeeeelcome. Arbutus, Alder, Aspen, Douglas-fir, other trees, Aliette, to the final playoff game for the dirt hockey championships of the 2008 West Vancouver Spring Olympics. Speaking about this game from the Madrona ridge in West Vancouver’s new home playing field, raked especially for these Olympics, this is Captain Fir. This Midday we’ve got Eagle Creek’s very own team, the Douglas firs, defending their home base in Eagle Creek against Aliette Sheinin. As you fans well know, these two teams have both undergone extensive preparation within their respective divisions. It’s been a tumultuous seeding for the firs to date; climate change and waves of logging have forest succession working against them. Aliette’s 163 had to evolve from Lucy, and before that, endure her ancestors’ flights on Africa’s Air, then the overland migration across the Bering Land Bridge and through the ice- free corridor. What’s more, Aliette’s had to approach gardening as a rookie. “Today is an important game for the Douglas-firs. If they can’t pull off a win this game their chances for reaching the finals may disappear. And if Aliette can’t plant these strawberries this Midday, they’re going to dry up and die before they even fruit. “Before we start our game, a few announcements: Trees, please remember that for the comfort of our fans, smoking is not allowed in the Sheinin garden. If you need to light up, please do so outside the main atrium, as we have no controlled burn areas. Because our glaciers can only clean the dirt between periods, please ensure that you are not dripping sap out onto the main playing area. No throwing pine cones, and ensure that your squirrels remain within a three-foot radius of your trunks. Also, watch out for the old creosote log that was just removed from the southeast corner of the dirt. No paper products allowed and no treatment oils. “Now, let’s give a big sway for the Douglas firs! “Here they come. The Douglas firs are looking dense. Flame-resistant bark, readiness to colonize open spaces, this team should flourish. “Now, here is Aliette, coming from down the slope to join us this Midday. Your referees for this afternoon’s game are a pileated woodpecker, a chickadee, and a robin.” A pause... “Urn, now, here is Aliette... “Trees, hold on a few minutes, please, I just have to check something. “Ok, sorry for that momentary lapse. Trees, the situation is that we’re still 164 waiting for Aliette to arrive. Aliette has spilled a bag of soil and needs to clean it up. While we wait for Aliette to make it out of the greenhouse, why don’t you trees all just sit back and sway for a While. If you are thirsty, visit the hose in the lower level of the raked area. Plenty of nitrogen and phosphorous from the fertilizer bag that Aliette spilled two days ago is located there as well if you’re hungry. If you need to stretch, you may want to visit our stone climbing gym near the suites. Some fire will be coming around with more nutrients in a few thousand years. Hope you can wait. “Good news! Here comes Aliette from out of the greenhouse. It took her a while to assemble her gear, but not to worry. Judging from the heavy load of planting supplies that she is carrying, she’s primed for this game. Although I must say, I’m not impressed with all the weeds and English ivy trying to enter the stadium without tickets. We need to tighten up security on the concourse. Too bad the West Van Soil Hockey League (WVSHL) still has that no-fire-sweeps rule in effect. “Trees, why don’t you all up your photosynthetic rates and add some oxygen to the air to see if you can aerate the soil more. And trees, while you’re at it, please make sure you’re only occupying one seat each so we can leave room for the western red cedars that need to filter in the stadium. “OK, it’s time to start the game! With her two Fort Laramie strawberry plants and plant rakes in hand, Aliette looks to have assembled her team out on the dirt. Welcome once again, Douglas firs and Aliette. Aliette’s stick is looking a lot more dead than the Dfs’. What are those prongs on the end? Is that allowed? Randy Moss, Bob Barker, and Woody Allen for the Douglas firs, and three farm teamers. Their line-up looks to be their biggest loggers. Randy Moss is in especially prime condition with all his high-altitude training. Did you trees hear the report on his recent V02 max? 165 “Hold on everyone, Aliette has to walk back up to the greenhouse a few more times to carry down the remainder of her planting supplies to the dirt. Her team is almost all out on the dirt now. On the wing, a watering can. In centre, a trowel. Two pots in defense, and a strawberry seedling on the other wing. Seedling is Aliette’s key attacker. “Here we go, trees. The long awaited face-off.” A pileated woodpecker pecks. “With her rake Aliette starts vehemently clearing pine needles from her planting area. Wait, what’s this? A robin is snooping around in the tree above Aliette. The robin has dropped a present. “Please, trees, ask your birds to use the facilities downstairs. And while you’re at it, watch those fungi—we don’t want to spread any more communicable diseases than we are already dealing with here. “The first few minutes of the period look to be going well. Back and forth with soiling, some encounters with slugs and beetles, but Aliette’s team is strong. Now we’ll see what happens as we move to the other end of the soil. Aliette’s going to have to wade through oceanspray and blackberries there. “Hey, that should be a petialty for slashing! And what’s this? From a blackberry bush? I’ve seen this before, up in the Sheinin’s front yard. No bringing in members from other teams after the game has already begun! And that’s definitely a penalty.” Whack. “Oh no! We have a loss of footing. “It’s a seed pile! Xylem and phloem everywhere. Aliette’s hat’s off.” Whack. Whack! “Gloves and everything. Get those thorns. Go! Go! Get’em. What mayhem! 166 Both teams, five minutes for fighting. “Aliette calls a time out. She needs to reassemble. “The chickadee above her blows the whistle. “Actually, let’s make that the end of the second period. These blackberry bushes are nasty. “And now for some intermission entertainment, out on the dirt please welcome the lovely, sweet-smelling, Douglas fir Pollen Grains! “Unfertilized trees, please keep the whistling down... Please... “The Pollen Grains can receive your passes after the game. Thanks for the show, Pollen Grains. Now we’ve got some hockey to play! “But before we begin the third and final period of this playoff game for the 2008 West Vancouver Olympics, the WVSHL as you know always likes to commemorate its longest-standing soil hockey players. Since Old Growth has been here for so long, and provided such an inspiration on the dirt for us all, can you trees all please give Old Growth a big sway? Watch the tree falls though. “No takers from the fire bomber cruising down from Howe Sound? I’m surprised. The bomber’s offering free tree beer to sections A and B. Just a reminder, trees, no more dripping things on the dirt. If you were Maples, ok, but Df sap is no maple syrup. “Aliette has pulled a spinorama farther down the slope, en route to the boards. She needs to scheme a power play. Sap is covering her coat. “Aliette is now wading back through the blackberries. It looks like she has her power play in mind. After refueling in the greenhouse, she’s ready to continue the game. “So here we are, folks, in the third period. Aliette’s bringing out a similar 167 lineup on the dirt as in the first period, minus the watering can and the strawberry. A lemon-yellow thyme seedling and a bag of dirt take their positions instead. The Douglas firs have switched their front line, with Woody Allen and Bob Barker now on the wings. Just out of the junior WVSHL, this sapling’s small but growing fast. We’ll see what he can do in the third period.” The pileated woodpecker pecks. A Douglas-fir seed drops. The third period is on. “Well, it’s been an exciting game so far; let’s see if we can keep the excitement going. Both teams are looking worn down. Aliette’s all soggy, but the Douglas firs still have to make a big come-back or face forest succession. “News just in from another game: Lighthouse Jr., the Douglas fir at 13th and Marine who has been decorated each year for Christmas, has just suffered a serious concussion after one of the Christmas lights burst near his top branch. He was heard singing a carol as he was removed by stretcher from the ice. I’ll keep you informed on his status as more news comes in. “Ouch! “Aliette completely didn’t see it coming. A slash from behind. Nelson (folks, that’s Aliette’s dog ambling behind her), pee on that guy, would ya? “And the third period continues! The squirrels in the nosebleed section are going nuts. Hey, bring back that seed, squirrel! “There’s already been a delay in this last period, folks.” Snap. Crack. “Aliette has just tripped again over an old Df branch. Someone give him a new stick! “Two more strides and Aliette’s at an old stump. Check out that ringer! Only 168 seconds after the peck. Fans, fans, please. “More news coming in on Lighthouse Jr.: It appears that his concussion from the Christmas tree light is nearly as severe as the one sustained by his father out on the dirt in Lighthouse Park way back in 1978. In that game, George Tocher and Gerhard Kiesel felled Lighthouse Jr.’s father and carved a section of him into a canoe. Lighthouse’s remains were then paddled from Dundarave Pier to Hawaii. I have to say that I’m not a fan of timber exportation, even if it was via canoe. “And now, the third period continues, mostly with more hooking, charging, and boarding on the part of the Dfs. OK everyone, Aliette’s starting to get hungry for dinner. It’s time to turn the game to sudden death. “As always, both teams have instead agreed to a tie. In WVSHL, both people and nature deserve to win.” A pileated woodpecker pecks. “Great game everyone! See you tomorrow. Aliette, clean that dog doo off your shoes before you go in the house, would you?” Before tomorrow’s game my plan is to recruit some echinacea, calendula, sunflower, sweet pea, and a mix of wildflowers seeds from the farm team at Maple Leaf Garden Centre near 22’ and Marine. If those seeds are too expensive, I’ll bid instead for some seeds of romaine lettuce, red, yellow and green peppers, celery, carrots, red cabbage, and string beans. My plan as well before the next game tomorrow is to bring over my gardening friend, a registered professional forester. The third lesson that Sun gave me on resting and writing poetry at sunset I also worked on today. This has been one of my hardest negotiations. I have been working really 169 hard on my poem ever since sunset first showed me how to write poetry. Coho Salmon had some input on the topic of my poem as well. As the outcome of five more pounds and a four percent increase in body fat on the scale, here is an “Ode to Ice Cream”: Ice cream, ice cream, I love you, I do. You make me healthy; to moon I be true. In my belly with no rumble, but rumble there should be; the first food I should go for, is you, times three. ‘Cause if moontime is gone, each day we must meet, until your sweetness has made me complete. At night, in the evening, or middle of day, Whenever I crave you, “Yes” I must say. An ice cream a day keeps the doctor away. We go way back, 170 to Baskin Robbins. Mom icing a cake, And I’m bringing mobs in. With my pose in the window, Tongue out, and a smile, My cone’s makin’ big bucks, People coming from miles. Dear Ice Cream, Magic potion you seem in your decadent cream. Tell me your trick. You’re especially thick? At least I liked to think it was my ice cream pose bringing people in our store. Ice cream, you remind me of days when I ate without thinking. Your lessons on eating, now I am linking. No matter the “bad” my four scoops may have had, you outdid the vitamin fad. In fact, sugar and fat— you’re where it’s at! With you sweet and rich, 171 I see your ploy: When I eat, it’s to relax and enjoy! I just kept on eating... Now body fat in demand on the scale when I stand. With you on my lips, I’ve been in command. So before sunset is gone, To the freezer I walk. I open the door. “Chicken move over, ice cream and I need to talk.” For tonight’s triple-decker Vanilla is best. Though try me with peach, I’m willing to test. Breyer’s vanilla, please. One scoop, two, three, and four I might even come back for a little bit more. No matter how much, 172 on a cone you should be. Cups have always bored me. Lick. Mmmmmm. Da da da da da da da da, Oooh oooh oooh Mmm mmm mmm, Ice cream, ice cream, I love you, I do You make my hips curvy And my boobs big too! Now with you on my chin, I can’t help but grin. Sunset’s a hit And I barely took a bit. Now time for the cone. It’s early, I know, But bottom up is fun, and good technique I will show. Through your bottom I bite. 173 I’ll lick quickly or pay. Through the hole I see light. Who says I can’t eat the opposite way? Another scoop. Lick. Mmmmmmm. Da da da da da da da da, Oooh oooh oooh Mmm mmm mmm, Ice cream, I cream, I love you, I do. With you in my hand, To moon I be true. Three cheers for ice cream! Ice cream, ice cream, Please be so kind— Stay bigger longer You’ve not just crossed my mind. Dear ice cream, best friend, Please, never end. 174 Oh. Bummer. And I just keep eating... Now sunset’s near gone, Yet I’m still goin’ strong. One more scoop I shall try. By 3AM I’ll see why. Scoop. Lick. Mmmmmmm. Mmm mmm mmrn. Ice cream, ice cream, I love you, I do. You make me crave muffins, Like I’m eating for two. Ice cream, ice cream, I love you, I do. You make me horny And want to (censored) To dream soon I go, 175 But next evening I know, If I eat you, With moon I will flow. Now clock’s ticked away At the end of the day. Excuse me, what’s that you say? What’s this I hear? The big hole in my belly— That’s just a fake? Hole’s already there? You’re just showing me where? Well, thanks to you, I do declare. Lick. Dreaming at Night: Tonight, like most every other night in the past six months, under Night’s teaching of “Dreaming at Night” I recorded my dream: I dreamt that Spencer, a former friend of Spencer’s, and I were on a huge, long mountaineering trek through some majestic and very remote mountains. Snow and ice covered miles of icefield, and jet-black rock jutted in spikes from the whiteness over and under them. The brilliance of the sun and the blueness in the sky called the snow and ice 176 upwards. The area reminded me of the Juneau Icefield. Icefalls and glacial trenches and rock cliffs surrounded us, 360 degrees. There was a feeling of power from the view and the crispness of the air. I felt so energized to be there. The three of us were heading west to the top of an ice plateau. I could see it up ahead and just a bit south of where we were then. We arrived at the plateau and just as we crested it, we came upon a flat valley of ice with a frozen lake in the centre. We couldn’t see the lake below, but inexplicably I knew it was a lake. Somehow, I had been to this valley before and I remembered the lake under the ice in the center. I told Spencer and his friend, “We shouldn’t cross that. We should circumvent it to the north.” Spencer and his friend agreed. As we started counterclockwise around the lake, I kept feeling a magnetism inside of me. I’d felt the magnetism more than a few times on this trip, but it was especially intense now. The magnetism wasn’t coming just from outside me, from the land we were traveling on, but the magnetism wasn’t coming from just inside me, either. It was like a meeting of magnets. God it felt good! It was that feeling of, “I can do anything. I am fully capable. Whatever happens, I can handle it. I will be fine no matter what happens. I am fully confident.” Once we rounded the lake and reached the west side of it, the terrain became much steeper. A small chain of mountains butted right up to the side of the lake. Mini seracs and frozen ledges of half rock, half ice hung precariously. In order not to lose our footing or cause a slide in the ice, we would have to be very careful passing above the lake. Falling into the lake from that height would mean a sure break through the surface layer of ice on the water. To the southwest, it looked like there was a small opening between the upper cliffs and the next portion of steep icefall through which we could navigate. Before moving further, the three of us stopped to confer about our plan. We decided we could make it through the 177 opening between the icefalls safely, but first, regardless, we needed to eat and plan for the longer term. It was already 5PM and we hadn’t brought an emergency kit or the gear we would need to spend the night. To make it back down our route, before we’d been going too many hours on end to travel safely, we would have to turn around right away. Spencer’s friend suggested that we tough out the night. It didn’t sound pleasant to me, but I felt fully capable of it. My body was strong, I could stay warm, and I was emotionally very grounded. Spending the night or making it all the way back down our route were both fine with me. I could do either. Regardless of what we decided upon, it was time to eat, so we would have to find food. I started thinking about what animals we could catch in that area. But then, to the south and above where we were standing, I saw a line of stores. There was a take-out place, second from the left. The lights on the outside of the store were on. The place looked cheap, but given our options, nasty take-out food would suffice. By now the time had jumped to 9PM. We scurried up the ridgeline to the string of stores and walked in the door. Yes, luckily they were still serving. We could get some take out food for the night. Well, this was no faery dream, but it was the dream I was given, so I’ll have to settle for it. Guided by the Sun of Eagle Creek, my artistic desire and confidence in my ability as an artist have rekindled. I am looking forward to hosting a dinner for my committee next Tuesday, as I committed to do. Relaxation, calmness, and deeper and more lucid dreams come to me more easily now. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not the only one who appreciates that I’m more emotionally grounded. And, sex excites me. But what does me 178 resting sustainably have to do with sustainability in Eagle Creek? Eating Sustainably. My third and final attempt to obtain any useful data from Eagle Creek on my questions about sustainable living I made at Eagle Harbour. I went there in search of quality information on salmon spawning in Eagle Creek. As in my prior research endeavors, Eagle Creek sent me away humbling me in its wisdom. Every time I went to Eagle Harbour, looking for information about sustaining salmon spawning, Coho Salmon kept delivering to me a letter about eating more sustainably. LI This morning after painting I felt really pressured to stay in our office and get more work done on my dissertation. Yet, it was 8:30AM and I was already pushing Coho Salmon’s Tip #2: “Eat Breakfast.” So, instead of remaining in our office, I hop-scotched over the tornado of books and papers to proceed into the kitchen. There have been way too many mornings when I didn’t follow Coho Salmon’s tips, and Coho Salmon would keep reading and reading and reading and reading until I did. I’ve had to learn some personal discipline just to stay sane after all Coho Salmon’ re-readings. Our kitchen has been undergoing a progressive renovation since Coho Salmon first read me his/her letter about the change in my eating habits. The more well-stocked I’ve been, the more well-stocked the kitchen’s been. The biggest stock in the kitchen is in our fridge. Both the fridge and the freezer are small. This is not good for the amount of oils I’ve stacked in the door, seeds and nuts in the bins, and salmon and halibut filets in the freezer. I’ve had to plan into my meal schedule an extra seven minutes of prep so that I can still eat on time after I’ve replaced the items that fall out upon opening, and have rummaged to find what I’m looking for. Poor Spencer. Now maybe I’m using this as an excuse, but at least I didn’t duct 179 tape a sign with skull and cross bones over the water filter. Honestly, I would have duct taped the filter if it wouldn’t have been so hard for Spencer to use. Putting up with the contents of the fridge is enough to ask. In the kitchen, before I took too many pours from the water filter, I made myself some licorice mint tea and kept my fluid intake within normal limits. Sipping my tea at the kitchen counter and snacking on some fruit, I succeeded for the most part in keeping my mind off all the work I still had to do for my dissertation, and in listening instead to what my body was asking me to eat for breakfast. Bean soup. When I’d made the soup yesterday, I’d been thinking about Coho Salmon’s Sweet Sustainability Sauce. I’d had no plan for the bean soup when I started chopping for it; the soup was in fact a total mish mash of beans and veggies that I threw together in the pot in random amounts. But to my surprise, my bean soup turned out to be the best soup I’d ever tasted. I enjoyed it so much that I actually wrote down a recipe for it (“Au’ s Special Soup” I called it) and put the recipe in a new binder that I have started for good eats to come. I’ve never before been drawn to food enough to be inclined to write a recipe. Now I’m looking forward to coming up with some new salad dressings in particular. Sitting at the table with my plate before me—without any vitamins or supplements on the side, I’m proud to say— my stomach gurgled in anticipation. I’d created a colorful arrangement for my meal by garnishing my soup with some fresh leaves of basil, and surrounding the bowl with some fruit, quinoa, and mixed salad with hemp seed dressing. My aesthetic design made me proud. I began my first bite of breakfast calmly, not like all the years of shoveling food into my mouth, before Coho Salmon had read me his/her letter. About one-third of the way through my meal, I passed on drinking more water, and instead added more food to my plate. I was surprised to see how much food it took to satisfy me. After I’d run my finger along the 180 grooves in the plate to lick up some stray soup, I gave thanks for my meal, then cleaned the dishes. Lunch evolved in a similar manner, with the main difference being that afterwards, I started thawing out a piece of Coho salmon we had in the freezer from Spencer’s last fishing trip up in the Queen Charlottes. My salmon dinner was definitely the highlight meal of my day: it started around 6:00 PM with me placing the Coho in a cast iron skillet, dashed with rosemary and chopped garlic. Just minutes later everything was ready. All of a sudden I was at the table. Saliva watered from my mouth at the sight of perfectly cooked salmon, slightly browned on the outside but still richly tender inside, some brown rice, and romaine lettuce, carrots, onion and cucumber. For one of the first times ever, I had timed the cooking and chopping of everything just perfectly. The whole refocusing over my worries of what I was going to do to finish my dissertation was well worth the effort. I wouldn’t even have to scrape any bum marks off the dishes this time! Spencer would enjoy hearing that. A big “Thank You” to the scrumptiousness before me, and I dove into my meal. Heavenly. The salmon satisfied me for about eight minutes, but then I started feeling like I needed more fat. Sesame oil would do just the trick. After Coho Salmon chimed in with a “Stop thinking and get the oil” in response to the lengthy and overly detailed monologue in my head about whether or not sesame oil would be good for me, I commanded, “Quiet!” to my brain and marched to the fridge. A squirrel outside our window, clambering around the base of a Douglas fir tree, opened up in chatter. It seemed like he was congratulating me on the oil endeavor. Coho Salmon’s tips seemed to flow with me when I needed them through the remainder of my dinner, until there was just one piece of salmon left. I felt full and didn’t really want the last piece. Yet, leaving the piece of salmon didn’t feel right. I felt like I should eat it. After all, Coho Salmon had coached me through nearly each and every meal 181 since March. I told the piece of salmon on my plate that I would eat it if it wanted me to. “No, it’s OK, you don’t have too. You can leave room for ice cream,” I heard it respond. I ended up eating every last bit of the salmon anyway, because my body felt like it. After the salmon I felt like my body was in a higher vibration. “Thank you,” I said when I was done. Then I burped. The salmon said, “You’re welcome.” As the sun was starting to set after dinner I started craving ice cream. Tonight, for the New Moon, exactly ten moon cycles since my first encounter with Eagle Creek, it seemed appropriate that I take some ice cream out to where I had made the offering to Eagle Creek when I first started my research. But this time, instead of me offering the ice cream to Eagle Creek as I had ten months ago, I knew that I had to eat the ice cream. To arrive at the same site past the gate at Eagle Creek off Westport Road with still- frozen ice cream would take some strategizing. Our new house is not far from Westport Road, but the probability of an ice cream meltdown between here and there was very high. Thanks to Spencer’s suggestion (even though I like to proclaim myself as the ice cream expert of the house), I came up with a rapid transportation strategy. Not forgetting to pack a cone for myself so that I could eat the ice cream (the only morally correct way that ice cream can be eaten), I scooped and ran. About five minutes later I arrived on Westport Road and stopped my car in the same spot where I had encountered Eagle Creek the first time ten months ago. Carrying my three scoops of Breyer’s vanilla and two scoops of kiwi-strawberry sorbet added for tang, I walked through the gate off Westport. The gate was open this time. Up the trail I walked briskly. With each stride, my body felt energetic and centered, a new entity compared with how I had felt ten months ago. After walking up the trail a few more minutes, the familiar stump, downed tree, and fern appeared down to my right. Leading to the stump I saw a well-trodden trail. People must have made it since the previous 182 September. I followed the trail and sat with the burbling of the creek and hushing birdsongs taking my mind back to the New Moon on September. I remember removing the lid of the small round plastic salad dressing container in which I had filled two tablespoons of Breyer’ s vanilla frozen yogurt. The liquid cream with sugar looked disgusting. What the offering was all about, I had no idea, but it’s what I was asked to bring. I poured the white cream out onto the soil. The liquid started running down the incline in teeny lines. Now, in the same rivulet where the lines of cream had run, lay a green glass bottle. The glass bottle looked to have been abandoned as trash. The bottle was dirty, but I found the bottle quite pretty. It looked vase-like, just perfect for the vase I’ve been wanting to find for fine and thinly-stemmed flowers. I kept the bottle so I can paint it. In a few licks, my ice cream was gone, even though it hadn’t appealed to me at all at first. But, after a couple more licks, my appetite picked up, and not only did I want more ice cream, I wanted bread and oil, too. After two bites through my cone, some frozen vanilla fell on the soil next to a small seedling, and landed on some pine needles. I picked up the piece of ice cream and put it in my mouth. The ice cream wasn’t for Eagle Creek. Appetite alight, I thanked Eagle Creek and packed the green bottle in my bag to take out with me. The New Moon’s blackness was already crawling over the creek ravine, and I needed light to make it down the trail. But before I started walking back down, I had to pee. I squatted down, wondering how many times I had squatted down at Eagle Creek over the last ten months. I relieved myself, but didn’t stand up right away. Instead, I sat still, my head bowed in gratitude. Long, thin, slippery lines of fertile cervical fluid dripped from inside me, onto the humus of Eagle Creek. In this strangely odd position, there seemed something umbilical in our linking line o•f clear, slippery cervical fluid. Thanks to the wisdom of Coho Salmon, my ovaries are much stronger, my bone mass 183 has rebuilt, and I have a healthy appetite. I feel more sexually appealing, and yes, I’ve progressed up one bra cup size. I am so much more confident. I feel fertile. I feel like a woman again. Yet, after all this exercising, resting, and eating sustainably as Eagle Creek told me to do, what does me living more sustainably have to do with sustainability in Eagle Creek? 184 EPILOGUE: FULL CIRCLE June 18, 2008 Full Moon Dear Journal, Today, on the toilet of all places, I finally understood what all this negotiation between me and Eagle Creek over living sustainably has been about. This evening I was seated, pants down, on the toilet in our bathroom. I glanced down. Drip by drip, circle by circle, rich red menstrual blood was cascading down from me, into the small pool of Eagle Creek in the white ceramic bowl below. Humbled by Eagle Creek once again, I sat on the toilet seat, crying. With the flush of the toilet, everything in the bowl started to circle. My menstrual blood, on the Full Moon, circled into red threads, then rust wisps, then faded pink clouds, and then into the full clarity of Eagle Creek. Our blood is Eagle Creek, just as our blood is all the creeks in West Vancouver. Our blood is the Pacific Ocean, the rain in the Himalayas, the porpoises in the Bay of Fundy, the 3.5-billion-year-old micro algae outside of Torres Del Paine, the atmosphere in 80 years to come... A sustainable life for the collective depends on each one of us personally listening to the stories the more-than-human is continually telling us, and negotiating those stories, right now, this very moment, into our lives. In sum, based on my research on science, narrative, and sustainable living, I have not an answer for living sustainably, but a question: “What story do you hear?” 185 We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time. —T.S. Eliot (1942), in “Little Gidding,” Four Quartets 186 ENDNOTES The aspiration of “sustainability” first became popular following the coining of the term “sustainable development” in the World Commission on Environment and Development’s (aka Brundtland Commission) 1987 Report Our Common Future (Pepper, 1996). The terms “sustainability” and “sustainable development” are in fact frequently used interchangeably. The Commission defined “sustainable development” as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (WCED, 1987, p. 43[1.lj). Scholars have developed distinctions within and between different understandings of sustainability along a variety of lines, from natural area management, to value positions, to proposed response. Common typologies include Preservation and Conservation, Arcadian and Imperialist (Wall, 1994), Ecocentric and Technocentric (Pepper, 1996; O’Riordan, 1981), and Value Change and Technical Fix (Robinson, 2004) typologies. The range of themes, conflicts and resolutions presented here point toward a Value Change-Technical Fix typology. This typology reflects the legacy of criticisms from the l7 and 18th1 centuries (Pepper, 1996; O’Riordan, 1981; Wall, 1994) at the interface of the Romantic and early Social Critic traditions. The term “science” here is used in reference to the social institution made up of scientists plus the relations among them (Latour, 1987, 1993; Cozzens & Gieryn, 1990), the total body of knowledge, and a methodology describing how to carry out investigation of the world (Pickering, 1992; Clarke & Fujimura, 1992). Although not as fundamental as the first four postulates, the “reductionist” paradigm also forms the working philosophies of most Western scientists (Rose & Rose, 1980). This paradigm serves as the dominant model for rational thought, and consists of the following additional subset of premises (Hanson & Pratt, 1996; Gibson-Graham, 1996). a) The specific sciences are arranged in hierarchical order, varying from high-level ones like sociology and psychology, through biology and chemistry, to particle physics at the base. b) The sciences closer to the base are more fundamental. Phenomena in higher level sciences can be reduced on the basis of a one-for-one correspondence to phenomena, and hence laws appropriate to the lower level sciences; ultimately, physical laws, beginning with ones for the particle level, can be derived that will subsume and explain sociology, for example. 187 c) The phenomena to be studied can be isolated from their surroundings; the essential features of these phenomena can be described by a mathematical theory that offers some insight into the workings of physical reality. V For a more detailed discussion of the political implications of comparing stories, see Cronon’s (1992) description of the social and environmental impacts of subscribing to one particular narrative account of history over another. “ The word “narrative” is among the most versatile and plastic of all words in the English language. While I don’t agree with the human-centeredness of Barthes’ (1977) following quotation about narrative, his famous statement does capture well narrative’s multivalency: “Able to be carried by articulated language, spoken or written, fixed or moving images, gestures, and the ordered mixture of all these substances; narrative is present in myth, legend, fable, tale, novella, epic, history, tragedy, drama, comedy, mime, painting. . . stained glass windows, cinema, comics, news items, conversation. Moreover, under this almost infinite diversity of forms, narrative is present in every age, in every location, in every society; it begins with the very history of mankind and nowhere is nor has been a people without narrative. All classes, all human groups, have their narratives. . . Narrative is international, transhistorical, transcultural: it is simply there, like life itself’ (p. 79). VII For more arguments in support of narrative as a mode of knowing, see Epstein (1983, 1990), Howard (1991), Mair (1988), MeAdams (1985), Sarbin (1986), and Schank & Abelson (1977). Vifi Narrative identification theory is also sometimes called “narrative identity.” X Narrative in a temporal sense is created from an active dialogic between experience and meaning, particularly the experience of temporality in consciousness and how experience and meaning are reciprocally apprehended and expressed. This temporality can be positioned in either phenomenological or existential terms. X In other words, in order to have plot (a sequence of events linked by theme, which go through some rise in conflict and end in resolution), there must first be a character, place, and time. XI Narrative sociocriticism demonstrates how authority, authenticity, historicity, and social acceptance affect different sequencings of events by documenting life stories and auto or 188 social biographies, especially those that produce and examine narratives of difference. In narrative sociocriticism, narratologists have explored certain individuals and groups self- identified by class and ethnicity, to validate tellings not only in their specificity, credibility, dynamism, and the cultural work they perform, but also in how they can be seen to respond to the dominant tales of social identity and power within and against which they are produced. Narrative sociocritics argue that due to their putative ability to display development and causal connection in individuals, groups, or even abstract entities (e.g., static scientific models), narrative forms of knowledge can operate throughout the social field, both as hegemonic background and as potentially resistant foreground (Rosenwald, 1992, p. 270). XII See Proctor’s (1998, 2001) discussion of knowledge and truth for this argument in the context of the social construction of nature. XiII Narrative could, for example, open the door to both ontological and epistemological relativism, resulting in sustainability that is intellectually misguided and practically and politically debilitating. Disingenuous claims about the consequences of human endeavors with potentially negative environmental impacts could have little ground upon which to be refuted—environmental problems can be “constructed away” if there is no science or science-equivalent in which to anchor the problems (Soulâe & Lease, 1995; Worster, 1993; Ingold, 2000; Eagleton, 2003). XW This method is in contrast to simply reflecting upon artistic phenomena in some explanatory text (Knowles & Cole, 2008). XV In narrative, the what (the content) and the how (the process of knowledge construction) are inseparable and integral to each other: the basic relationship between the what and the how is contained in the narrative mode itself, and affects any attempt to define, legitimize, or criticize it. For sustainability, narrative can therefore elucidate place-, time-, and event- specific dimensions of life (the mode of knowing), and simultaneously illuminate how (the processes through which) those dimensions may arise. XV This history has been reconstructed from Base Mapping and Geomatics Services Branch [aerial photograph], 1926; National Air Photo Library [aerial photograph], 1946; District of West Vancouver, 1959; West Vancouver Museum and Archives, 2003; Oikos Ecological Consultants, 1991; Pearce, 1994; District of West Vancouver, 2006 TK (Community Profile) and TK. 189 XVII These figures come from the closest meteorological station to Eagle Lake, the Hollybum Ridge Station at the head of Eagle Lake’s main catch basin, located at 49° 22.800’ N, 123° 10.800’ W, and 930.0 m. Monthly precipitation records for the Eagle Lake rainfall gauge station have been collected sporadically since 1968, so the historic estimates and the North Vancouver Lynn Creek Station Canadian Climate Normals have been used as precipitation estimates. The BEC system pioneered by Dr. V.J. Krajina at the University of BC in the 1970s uses climate, soil, moisture, and nutrients to group sites into similar units. ‘‘ These estimates as well as those on the next page have been drawn from the District of West Vancouver’s most recent statistical demographic analyses available during the time of research. Since no updated surveys on demographics in the Eagle Harbour neighbourhood are available, the District’s statistics offer the most geographically representative demographic figures for the present purposes. Compared to the number of people from Aboriginal cultures who formed the sole human population of Eagle Creek, people of Aboriginal descent how comprise only 2% of a West Vancouver population projected to become 47,800 in 2021 (District of West Vancouver, 2006b; BC Vital Statistics, 2001). 190 BIBLIOGRAPHY Abram, D. (1997). Spell ofthe sensuous. New York: Random House. Agnew, J. (1987). Place andpolitics: the geographical mediation ofstate and society. 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Vancouver, B.C.: Xwi7xwa Library, University of British Columbia. 207 A PP EN D IX I CU RR EN T PR A CT IC E A N D CO N V EN TI O N A L TH O U G H T IN SU ST A IN A BI LI TY Pr im ar y H is to ric Cr iti qu e o f H um an - N at ur e Sc ho ol o f T ho ug ht V er si on s Pr im ar y Th em e(s ) So ur ce o fc o n fli ct Co re A pp ro ac h to R es ol ut io n In st ru m en tf or R es ol ut io n Tr ad iti on M od er ni sm R el at io n an th ro po ce nt ric J n o n an th ro po ce nt ric D ee p Ec ol og y en v iro nm en t H um an do m in at io n o v er n a tu re re v er en ce an d re sp ec tf or n a tu re bi oc en tri c eg al ita ria ni sm R om an tic R om an tic di vi de So ci al Ec ol og y en v iro nm en t D om in at io n o f pe op le an d n a tu re co -e v o lu tio n o fn a tu re an d hu m an ity re th in ki ng o ft he so ci al hi er ar ch y an th ro pO Ce nt ric /n o n . a n th ro po ce nt ric U to pi an ism En lig ht en m en t So ci al di vi de A na rc hi sm B io re gi on al ism Ec oje mi nls m en v iro nm en t, so ci et y A nd ro ce nt ric (m ale -ce nte red ) gy no ce nt ric v al ue w o m en ’s m o v em en t a n th ro po ce nt ric jn o n an th ro po ce nt ric Ra di ca l( cu ltu ral ) En lig ht en m en t So cia l di vi de (li nk s t o R om an tic Li be ra l a n d So ci al an d de ep ec o l) (li nk st o So ci al ) En vi ro nm en ta l H ist or y a n d H um an G eo g/ Ec ol og y en v iro nm en t, so ci et y Co m pe tin g id ea s of ‘ n at ur e’ an d ‘ cu ltu re ’c ul tu ra l-b as ed n a tu re s re v isi ng th e n a tu re /c ul tu re di vi de a n th ro po ce nt ric / n o n a n th ro po ce nt ric di vi de , a n d Cu ltu ra l En lig ht en m en t So ci al a n th ro po ce nt ric M at er ia l (li nk s t o R om an tic ) en v iro nm en t, sc ie nc e, lin ki ng ec o lo gi ca l t he m es w ith so ci al Po lit ic al Ec ol og y so ci et y, po lic y Se pa ra tio n o fe co lo gy an d so ci et y st ru gg le s so ci al an d po lit ic al re fo rm (li nk st o So ci al ) a n th ro po ce nt rie /n o n an th ro po ce nt ric di vi de ,a n d En vi ro nm en ta l G ov er na nc e En lig ht en m en t So ci al an th ro po ce nt ric A nt i-G lo ba liz at io n En vi ro nm en ta lJ us tic e a n d Ra ci sm G re en Po lit Ic s Co m pl ex A da pt iv e Sy st em s sc ie nc e W ea lç fa bs en ts ci en tif ic u n de rs ta nd in g bi ol og ica l m ap pi ng o fs o ci et y so ci o- ec ol og ic al sy st em s th eo ry co m bi ne d ec o lo gi ca l/e co no m ic Ec ol og ic al Ec on om ic s sc ie nc e U nd er va lu in g of ec o lo gi ca l g oo ds In te rn al iz at io n o fe x te rn al iti es in st ru m en t En lig ht en m en t So ci al an th ro po ce nt ric En er gy Pa th Fa ct or X En lig ht en m en t So ci al an th ro po ce nt ric In du st ria lE co lo gy sc ie nc e, so ci et y an d re so u rc e /m an uf ac tu rin g ef fic ie nc y an d te ch ni ca la n d in st itu tio na lr ef or m In B us in es s a n d Su st ai na bl llt y po lic y W ea k bu si ne ss te ch no lo gy an d po lic y so ci al re sp on sib ili ty bu si ne ss Se ct or Co rp or at e So ci al R es po ns ib ili ty Et hi ca lI nv es tin g Tr ip le B ot to m Li ne Su pp ly Ch ai n M an ag em en t En lig ht en m en t So ci al an th ro po ce nt ric 20 8 APPENDIX II GLOSSARY OF SCREENPLAY TERMS b.g. Abbreviation for “Background” (e.g., In the b.g., dogs are playing). CGI Computer Generated Image; denotes that computers will be used to generate the full imagery. Close Up A very close camera angle on an object or character. EXT. Abbreviation for “Outdoors”; used at the beginning of a scene to describe the location and time of day (e.g., EXT. FOREST CREEK - DAY would denote that the action takes place outside in a forest creek during daylight hours). f.g. Abbreviation for “Foreground” (e.g., In the f.g., dogs are playing). FLASHBACK A scene from the past that interrupts the action to explain motivation or the reaction of a character to the present scene. FREEZE FRAME The image on the screen stops, freezes, and becomes a still shot. INT. Abbreviation for “Indoors.” M.O.S. Abbreviation for “Without Sound”; a.k.a “mit out sound.” Montage A cinematic device used to show a series of related scenes that build to some conclusion. O.C. Abbreviation for “Off Camera,” denoting that the speaker is not seen by the camera, but is resident within the scene. 0.S. Abbreviation for “Off Screen,” denoting that the speaker is not resident within the scene. PAN A camera direction that indicates a stationary camera pivoting back and forth or up and down. POV Point of View; denotes a camera angle where the camera appears as the eyes of a character. SFX Sound Effects. SMASH CUT A quick or sudden cut from one scene to another. SPFX Special Effects. 209 Split Screen A screen with different scenes taking place in two or more sections; the scenes are usually interactive, as in the depiction of two sides of a phone conversation. SUPER Abbreviation for “Superimpose,” denoting the laying of one image on top of another, usually words over a filmed scene (e.g., Eagle Creek, 2007). V.0. Abbreviation for “Voice Over”; denotes that the speaker is narrating the action onscreen. 210