My perspective on Winnipeg has recently changed.  After a quick weekend spent in my home town, I reailzed the challenge of a short time frame.  You find yourself wanting to make the most of your precious time.  Seeing the family and friends you love so dearly.  Thank you Joe Koch-Schulte for hosting a lovely back yard fire.  There is nothing better in life than enjoying a good fire and conversation with your friends.  That was friday night and then a bonding Saturday spent with my fantastic sisters getting our hair and nails did.  In the evening I enjoyed a cousinly wedding.  Congratulations Chris and Lara!  What a gorgeous event.  I wish my cousins much love in their marriage and hope they're having a great time in aruba!  Also it was nice to visit with family.  Always nice to see the clan...

Sunday was perfect.  Went to church, got our asses whooped by the pastor in a shit or get off the pot style sermon!  Are you decent or a disciple?  This guy asks the tough questions.  I don't know how to answer that.  But thank you for making me ask the question Pastor Todd.  I once read a book called the Peaceful Warrior and I wonder if my discipleship doesn't look something like that....

Mom, Laura, Christine and I spent the afternoon wandering around birds hill park.  A perfectly sunny day.  Its nice to be reminded what a Manitoba fall looks like.  Nice to see you Schulz clan.  Kayla I love how Crazy you are!  You are absolutely awesome. 

I'm back in rainy Masset.  Fall is setting in here.  The air has changed, and I think the ocean waves are going in another direction.  Everything looks different than it did in July. Coastal life, it moves so differently than the praries.  It feels like you move with the tides...so active.  Next post I'll upload some new pictures! 

Fare thee well good friends.

-Caroline

RENNEL SOUND

Today the weather is offically starting to turn.  We've been blessed with lots of rain this summer...now the wind starts to pick up.  So after aclimatizing yourself to tide charts and rain gear the wind starts to blow.  We shall see what the fall brings.  I have never been so in tune with the outdoors before.  One's activities are planned with one look out the window.  Even if conditions are not ideal for your chosen activity one must find the courage to venture out into the climate, as it is.

We just returned from a camping trip out in Rennel Sound.  Another inlet further inland.  The road there is littered with pot holes and the debris of fallen trees from the logging industry.  There were no other souls to be found on this road...its a long weekend who doesn't go camping into one of God's finest masterpieces?  Its a two hour drive into Rennel from Queen Charlotte city.  Once you arrive you head out to Bonanza beach, a five minute hike down a winding path leads you out to the beach.  Nothing but the sound of waves breaking on the shore.  The day is misty like most others here and the scene is filled with cedars and spruce.  This is a younger forest so there is dense low growing Salal bushes everywhere.  Camp is set up and the challenge is to find a way to make a fire out of wet kindling...I am quite proud of my mad fire making skills.
Thank you Camps with Meaning. 

The evening is enjoyed around my awesome fire, stories are shared, a few laughs are had.  John's addition of the disco ball added a nice ambience, small lights littering our fire pit!  Nothing like a bit of disco in the secluded forest.  The night was spent restlessly as I have a constant fear of the bear like peril!  Once again I have survived.  Thank you to the universe for another safe and glorious journey.  Onward to many more I hope!  

A kayaking adventure a couple of weeks ago took Lisa, Beth and I 11.3 nautical miles (approx 21km) up the Masset inlet.  Destination Nadu Road...Beth's cabin.  The road ends in an old Warf that is overgown with moss and trees.  A reminder that time is fleeting here.  If the water and trees could only tell us their secrets...The day was cloudy but not rainy and we had beautiful views of trees along the shore and mountains along the horizon.  I have to say this body of water that looks so innocent and mild its actually full of potential dangers.  I'm grasping more than ever the importance of being prepared for your adventures. 

Its pretty straight forward go up the inlet you eventually make it to port clemens/juskatla just beyond that.  On the way though you may find yourself pulled back by a tide heading back to sea.  Knowing how to read a tide chart comes in handy here.  Kayaking with the tide is much less tedious.  Also you go super fast, which is pretty cool.  So needless to say go with the tide.  This does not account for potential rain/wind storms.  So go with the tide and if you're lucky with the wind as well.  But as the inlet winds its way toward nadu wind conditions change constantly.  At times you're getting quite a bit of water over the kayak.  Perfect conditions rarely exist on the ocean, the weather can change quickly here.  Masset also seems to live in a cloud bank, it rains a lot here!  So that covers wind/rain/tides...

If that is not enough our adventure was over all a relatively quiet one but one must always keep in mind the fact that orca's, sealions, and seals visit these waters regularly.  You're always on the look out for the changes in the ripples of the water...wondering what is swimming beneath the surface, praying to God that you'll only meet friendly sea creatures if at all.  If you meet some danger in the water running to shore is not necessarily your ally...black bears meander through the woods.  Who brings bear mace Kayaking?!  I do! 

There is an old Haida belief that when the Orca's enter the inlet they come to take away the souls of those who have recently died.  During our reports at work people will often mention whether or not they've seen orca pass by recently to indicate the potential for deaths in the community or to validate recent passings.  Don't worry the orca's came to transport their souls to the afterlife.  We have a perfect view of the inlet from the hospital.   

Being aware of what to expect whilst exploring the great outdoors is vital.  Although no one is immune to a potential run in with the wilderness.  I think the most important thing I take away from my most recent week in Masset is to always have your wits about you.  Keep your head on straight...the minute you look down you're lost. 


-Caroline's ongoing musings

A spouting brackish whale!

THIS IS WHAT MY BRACKISH WHALE MAY LOOK LIKE!

NO SURPRISES HERE LISA CAN'T RESIST A VERY CUTE LITTLE KITTEN!

HAIDA CANOE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE FOREST.  LEFT BEHIND...NEVER MADE IT TO SEA.

Life certainly takes on a pace of its own in this place.  My days are full.  As a city dweller I know Its full of what seems like nothing.  No errands, No shopping, No movies, Minimal Socializing just wandering around in nature.  Its wonderful and fabulous for the soul.  I think the city might shock me when I go back!  Lisa and I spent the day walking around in a very old forest on a trail called the Golden Spruce Trail.  I will post the story of the golden spruce once I hear it properly...its interesting.  Its got to do with a man and an axe... 

This trail was not unfamiliar to me as I attempted to walk it a couple of days ago on my own.  All was well...it was just before dusk and I couldn't help but feel the eerie age of the trees looming over me.  The moss hanging in spidery tendrils from the ancient branches...the absence of sound.  You can only imagine my trepidation.  Also there are bears in these forests.  So I meandered down the winding trail, not at a slow pace thinking that it would be safer to walk quickly, until I heard a sound~ 

The sound that made my bones jump out of my skin.  I can only describe it as a brackish water foul monster loudly gasping for air!  I ran back to the car.  I did not get any photographs that day, but my shorts needed changing when I got home.  The next day I was discussing my adventure with our young housekeeper at the hospital and he regalled me with a very similar tale!

He was in a kayak though, in open water near the mouth of a river and heard a sound very similar to the one I described...again brackish water.  (For those of you unfamiliar with Brackish: a mix of salt/fresh water) almost tipped his kayak.  Both of us teetering on the edge of continence thinking the worst when he discovered the source of the sound...an otter.  Just as the rational part of my mind suspected, but seriously I was alone in a forest!  I wasn't taking any chances!

Lisa and I returned to the trail today and had a blissful day of wandering among the old trees.  We collected some mint, which I have transformed into a mint/lemonade that we are currently sipping at her seaside hacienda.  Wonderful day...tomorrow we scale sleeping beauty and camp out in Queen Charlotte city.  All is well in Masset. 

Until the Tide meets the Praries...

-Caroline Derksen

A couple pics of my new digs. Enjoy



Waiting for the Ferry in Prince Rupert!  I was an hour early.





A baby deer living on Lisa's friend's land.  It licked my hand!!  Bambi is so cute!




A local bakery approximately 13 kms out of town.  Makes delicious cinnamon buns and of course coffee.
Its a local delight.





The hospital and the view from the emergency entrance.  Its too picturesque to qualify as a hospital setting.
This is the inlet where whales can be spotted!  I can't wait to see one.




The resus room...




My digs for the next two months.  I have been place in a PMQ (privat military quarters).  I'm living in the reminiscent housing of the military base that used to be active on this island....apparently there is still a submarine listening station on the island...have to check it out!




Tow Hill hike.  Tow hill is an old volcano that errupted a long time ago and these are the trees living on it.  The picture of the blow hole rocks are old lava formations I think.



Crabs I ate!  Yum Yum...

Rock formations at the Blow Hole...at the base of Tow Hill.  The sound of the ocean is amazing here!

Lisa cleaning the jeep after crabbing in the ocean...Salt water is bad for cars.  Its fun driving on the beach in a jeep.  Its pretty cool!

Working in Haida

Tomorrow I will have been here one week.  I have spent most of that time working.  Having 13 beds at our disposal I find they are rarely filled.  I work in a glorified Minor Treatment area with the occasional abdo pain and the transient ill patient who is promptly transferred to a better equiped facility.  This facility simply cannot manage long term high acuity because the lab can only process certain results, no CT scan services, etc...Its different.  I keep looking out at the forest that is just behind the building and expect a yetti to jump out with a gunshot wound or something!  Give me something to do!  Could you imagine a yetti in Emerg!  Or maybe the enchanted car from Harry Potter with massive arachnids chasing it!  On that note I had quite the large spider hangin out with me in the shower yesterday.  I figure because I have such a serious aversion to mice I have to be ok with spiders.  Needless to say the spider met a watery end. 

I am in a continuous state of awe each time I leave my government issued accomodations.  The ocean the sun the rain.  Its glorious.  The world is a clean place here.  This is a place for healing.  Your soul's frayed edges can mend themselves here.  There is something in the air...its mystical.   

Getting a demonstration in Cambodia on how to properly eat locusts!  Mmmm...