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Improvements to the Balfour Ferry Landing

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Other

Published: 22 September 2022

Hits: 605

 

Building Infrastructure for a tomorrow that will never come...

(Or: Pave Paradise and Put Up A Parking Lot) 

Now that the $5 Million worth of improvements are done I'll offer a quick recap. 

The "upgrades" removed the narrow strip of park -  a variety of trees including 60 & 80 year old black maples, picnic tables, a break area, and the only vestiges of shade for a 150 Meters, all completely eradicated in favour of the stark sidewalk and parking for the Ferry. A wire fence now captures the litter.

The wheel well, a fenced curiosity salvaged from an old Ferry, is gone. Other than the signage promoting the hot-springs route and wildlife there's nothing here of interest. 

A new washroom, months in construction, 2 gender neutral stalls that double lock - the first door and the second - while the old washrooms had capacity to serve 4 people at a time (at least 2 stalls in each - lady's & men's) they now can only serve 2 people at a time.

They didn't think this through. 

That and the fact that they have now have a wheelchair accessible "Porta-Potty" outside suggests they didn't make the new 2 stalls wheelchair accessible, underlining the clusterfuck of government spending. 

One would think that an increase in capacity for ferry traffic would naturally imply an increase in services, not a decrease. A piss-wall would have been an improvement, allowing the majority of bathroom breakers quick relief, now, wait outside the one of 2 stalls, the first door locks, enter the bathroom - large, spacious, with a single stall that has - that's right - another lock, so you can double lock yourself into the bathroom for added privacy.

This Ferry Landing, always an eyesore with it's rundown shops and housing, has been made substantially worse by the "improvements", resembling now nothing so much as a Wal Mart Parking Lot, without the convenience of the Wal Mart. $5 Million dollars would have been better spent leaving it alone, not "improving" it, but such is progress. 

Dine and Dash

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 19 September 2022

Hits: 536

Friday, busy enough for 1. Not too busy, not too slow.

A single girl, mid 30's, pretty-ish, ballcap, tall, slim, sitting on her own eating a burger and side salad and playing "Candy Crush" on her computer. Draft beer. 

She seems normal enough, which should be a flag, given the area....

I have a table of Chinese tourists, they're asking me questions about the map, where the ferry goes, etc, etc. And I'm explaining it to them and I look up and she's gone, laptop, sweater, everything. 

Go outside - she's running away towards the ferry traffic - I yell out after her if she's going to pay - she turns back hastily and says "I'm coming back...."

She isn't and I'm pissed. It's not like I can run after or tackle her, I have other tables, this annoys me greatly.

Needless to say she doesn't come back. Bill, $35.00, I get to pay. 

One of the local homeless people comes in to give me her plate # - "In case she doesn't come back", he saw me running after her. It pays to be on good terms with the locals. 

Anyways, what can you do? The cops don't care. I saw this in Vancouver, where the homeless and junkies were perpetually popping into corner shops, cafe's, helping themselves to whatever they could lay their hands on. Only the grocery stores, with private security and more guards than clerks, had any chance of stopping it.

It used to be that the police were there to prevent crime. Any crime. Now, now it's just the high-end boutiques, the rest of the shops - despite paying their taxes, are on their own. Raise prices. Hire security. Deal with it. The social contract, your tax dollars at work, doing nothing.

SO this pisses me off on a number of levels, you have the who (license plate), she's not homeless or a junkie, merely exploiting the Crown's unwillingness to prosecute 'trivial' crimes. 

But I'm in luck. Well, as in luck as you can get in these fucked-up dystopian times. 

Sunday, at the spoken word event in Lakeside Park, I get a text from work...

"What did you say her license plate number was...?"

I send it on. I get a picture of the plate in return. She's in the restaurant, playing "Candy Crush". And sure enough, she does a runner. Only this time they've boxed her in with their cars while they call the police. She's done it here, she's done it elsewhere...

The police show up, after 3 hours, reluctantly take her info, talk to her. "She's down on her luck..." they tell the restaurant, despite her having a full pack of smokes, new Ford Focus, I-Phone, they've logged her details, no charges, just a talking to. 

This is bullshit. She's made her way from the coast to here on this entire business model, that small crimes aren't worth pursuing, and were you to suggest perhaps lowering her tires, leaving a "Kootenay Welcome" on her windshield, why, you'd be a criminal! Yet she's allowed to commit a hundred, thousand or more such "minor" offenses, 99.9% of which will go unreported, in her travels across BC/Canada. 

She's a pretty girl, down on her luck...

And justice, now, in Canada, it's all self-serve. Don't trust or rely on the police, they are there for the rich, for those with a lawyer, don't waste your time. If you see a cop, shoot first and ask questions later. 

So it begins.

 

Jeep 2022

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Written by: Rod Boyle

Category: Blog

Published: 19 September 2022

Hits: 497

Sunday, September 11th

Finish work, and I'm off, I'm off, I'm off to Crystal Mountain.

I set my Odometer, driving, night, music playing as my phone charges, past Kaslo, past the Meadows, onto the gravel, past Poplar Creek, to the Gerard bridge, check your odometer. This is how you find the road, it's X Km past the bridge, there are a lot of false roads that go nowhere up here and I want to make sure I'm on the right one. 

Time passes, the road up here, around the lake, it's full of hairpin turns, loose gravel and washboard, there's no speeding or making time. Then onto the logging road, it's rough, unmaintained, up, up, up 6KM until I reach the hairpin turn where it's time to go into 4WD. 

I'm almost there, it's midnight, time for a quick swig before the final assault. 

Tomorrow, tomorrow I'll wake up parked right in front of the digs, a full day of digging to get to the new ground, but what treasures I'll find...

Put it into 4WD, this last bit, that last 6 KM, they're the worst, nerves of steel and all that, trees down across the road, hardscrabble cobbles angling 30, 45 degrees up and pitched 20, 30 degrees to cliff-side.

Put it into 4WD and discover that you - all of a sudden have no gears whatsoever, every gear is neutral...

Futility. This, the raging against the machine. Switch gears, 4W-HI, 4W-LO, 2 WD, 2nd, 3rd, Reverse, Park, they're all the same, neutral. Angle the wheel, drift a few meters until the jeep stops.

Meh. Time for another swig.

THE GREAT VODKA SHORTAGE

Time to mention now the great Vodka shortage which saw all the liquor stores of BC run out anything worth drinking, and this bottle of Vodka, from Invermere, a full 750 ml, beautiful bottle, premium, $45.00, far above my budget and - really, it's shit. Sweet, and tasting somewhat of butterscotch, this is not to my liking at all but I'm a man of great focus and determination and sheer will and after a few shots have resigned my prejudices in service of finishing this lousy bottle...

Monday morning on the mountain, start the jeep, switch gears, nada. I'm going nowhere. The situation is much the same as the night before, only now I'm out of Vodka.

This, of course, is a trivial thing. Probably - upon slight consideration - a good thing.

There is the long hike down the mountain now to be considered - and postponed, I have food, supplies, I came here on a mission and I'm going to get something done...

So while the sun's high I get out and set out to explore the mountain. There are a few spurs up the mountain I've not explored, I set out to find their ends. One, an old cart track that I thought might lead to a mine, merely peters out into a clearing about 3 KM up. Back down. Up the main road and detour onto another old mining spur, arrive eventually in a moonscape of surface mining, black-baked greenstone schists, quartz, holes tunneled into the mountain, old timbers and shafts, an interesting view but the day, too grey and filled with smoke to warrant any good photos. 

As the sun is going down arrive back at the jeep, what to do? What to do?

I read Henry Miller's "Wisdom of the Heart", trim my nails, cut my hair. Run the jeep to charge my phone. And while running the jeep there comes down from the mountain a new white F150, a couple of other prospectors from on high are returning and I'm blocking the road...

Turn the wheel, get out of the way, they pass and when they've gone I'm going down the mountain, reversing, there is no park, turning the wheel has unlocked gravity and it's rolling, rolling, rolling until finally I hit a level spot and it stops.

Now this could be a good thing or a bad thing, I'm not certain, rolling all the way down the mountain in reverse wouldn't be any fun, but it would curtail some certain imminent off-road recovery costs. And it would save me the 6 KM hike out. But - now at the level spot I can't seem to budge it, trying as I may to push it over a small hummock, I should have went easier on the brake, committed to getting out of here, but I'd also had the idea that Tuesday I'd hike up to the Crystal Digs and see what I could turn up. 

So my lack of commitment to getting the hell out of here has cost me dear...

Tuesday morning, pack up what I can take with me, 100lbs of gear, clothes, sleeping bag, my computer, my work knapsack which I stupidly packed from work because it had my cell-phone charger in it which I thought I might need, 100 pounds of necessary shit, leaving behind another 300 pounds of unnecessary clothes, sleeping bags, picks, shovels, rosaries, The Glowing Virgin Mary, Maps, etc.

Down, down, down. It's a long walk. It takes about an hour and a half to get to the highway, the dirt road running around Trout Lake, set down my bags and wait.

After an hour and not a single car passing I realize that I'd better keep walking. So, at a guess about 10 or 12 KM from the hamlet of Trout Lake and I begin, counting down the KM marked beside the road. A logging truck passes. And probably I should have had my thumb out, but - logging trucks and I, we have a thing, and I'd rather walk. 

About 7KM I'm passed by a little convoy of Alberta Plates. Thumb out, none stop. 

Keep walking the dusty road. 

By noon I'm coming into the town, 2 KM of outskirts for 1 square block of rural township, stop at the gas station - it looks long abandoned, but I've been here before, it isn't - wasn't - there's a bunch of fading and peeling signs up in the window, "Hours: 1:00-5:00", "Out of Gas", etc.

Walk the block past the (forestry station? Lumbermill? Construction Yard?) to the edge of town  - and settle down to wait for a ride.

I'm exhausted. I've now done about 15 KM with 100 pounds of shit slung over my shoulders.

Every now and then a car leaves from one of the houses and drives to the gas station to - presumably - check to see if they have any gas. 

None leave town. 

The day is leisurely. About 1:30 I leave my bags beside the road and walk down to the gas station, they're open now, grab a coffee, some candy, they have vodka, but only 26's and 40's, too big, my desire for a drink is offset by the knowledge I'll have to carry it with me. 

Wait. More cars coming up from the side-streets to check whether they have gas, then drive back home. None leaving town. 

By 2:30 I'm seriously considering starting the walk towards the main highway. I work Thursday, at this rate I might not make it. I could do it but I'm already exhausted, shoulders are blistered and aching and I can feel muscles I never knew I had in my ass and thighs. 

Somebody pulls over, offers me a ride, "Brian" from Trout Lake/Nakusp, and I'm saved, fucking bloody hell I'm saved...

From here things proceed quickly. Nakusp, grab a coffee at the service station, sit outside on the picnic basket and call the BCAA. A (relatively) short wait and I'm speaking to a representative. 

BCAA

He's a little confused about the location of the Jeep. I explain it to him in precise detail, in KM from the Gerard Bridge, in KM from Trout Lake, but he can't find it on his map. I explain it's a logging road, approximately 5 KM up, and still he can't find it on his map. He doubts me. 

And then he asks why I'm not with the vehicle. I should have stayed with the vehicle.

And I explain that the vehicle, my Jeep, it's 100 KM out of cell range, that I had to walk 15 KM into Trout Lake to catch a ride to Nakusp where I could get cell reception and as soon as I had cell reception I called them to let them know. Should I now hitchhike back to Trout Lake and walk  back the 15 KM to wait with my vehicle?

...well, no, probably not, but - but....I should have stayed with the vehicle. 

I don't know what to say in the face of such futile bureaucracy.

Somewhere, from the conversation I'm guessing Saskatchewan, there's a BCAA call agent that's looking out a window thinking that he should be able to see my vehicle, that there must be a clear line of sight to it for it to be recovered...

Thumb out on the highway, about 15 minutes before I'm picked up by an RCMP car that gives me a ride to New Denver, from New Denver to Silverton in another 10 minutes, then after about 40 minutes from Silverton to Passmore. And here I'm close enough that I can arrange a pick up and spend the night in Nelson eating Tacos.

Wednesday afternoon I get the call from Kaslo. They left the night before, 4:00, spent 7 hours out there, couldn't find the jeep. And I'm asking if they got the directions, they were precise, and he begins with "well, you know, those calls, they go to Kathmandu and then get forwarded to the Philippines before .... we get them" and I know, know damn well they didn't go search for the jeep, they want to pass on the job to an "expert", no one around here knows 4WD, can even do an oil-change, truthfully, between you and me, so really, I wouldn't mind if they referred this to so-and-so out of Nakusp, he's a wizard, does this stuff all the time, a real pro, 4WD, he can change oil too....

I get it. No one from Kaslo wants to go and get my jeep. 

The call is referred to Nakusp. And the next day I'm talking to a very different tow truck driver who understands clear and precise directions and retrieves my jeep.

Friday evening, Jeep in Kaslo, call from Mechanic, fixed, temporarily, sort of, probably the best they can do, and so - come Monday I'll be recovering it.

Thus concludes last weeks adventures.