Aug 30, 20218 min read

Co in Caribooland - 11th month

Last month, I ended up the article talking about the smoke episodes we were going through in BC, it is then on the same subject that I will resume these adventures of August. Should I take you along ?! let's go !

SMOKE AND MICRO-ADVENTURES

I told you about it last month, the fires that ravaged British Columbia this year brought me a bit of blues and some anxiety waves that I had a hard time controlling. The air was so polluted that even stepping outside was like destroying our health... It was hard to be lockdown at home again, even though it was 30°C outside.

At the beginning, I must admit that I was so depressed that I didn't do much with my free time. I would sometimes go out for a drink with friends, but I couldn't do any physical activities or even sit on the beach for a long time. It took me almost three weeks of smoke to decide not to let my entire August slip away. Mental health or physical health, I had to choose! So I slowly resumed the adventures and learned to ignore, or perhaps accept, the situation I was living in.

One morning, my need for nature was stronger than anything else... I had to go on an adventure or I would end up exploding for lack of space to breathe. So here I am, on my own, discovering the local landscapes in a sometimes wintry, sometimes apocalyptic setting. Copine (my car ;)) is the perfect adventure sidekick for this, although sometimes it smells like burnt too. These gravel roads are full of obstacles, which is far from making expeditions of this kind gentle on its tyres and suspensions. And that's without taking into account the rather steep slope that had to be climbed... The advantage however, is that the air filter allowed me to breathe a much less polluted air than outside the car. Yikes.

It was very strange to be up there, almost as if lost in the middle of nowhere.

What day was it? What season? What time of the day? Looking back at the photos, it is almost impossible to tell. One loses one's bearings to be outside, in 30°C, in the middle of these landscapes full of wild flowers, these shades of pinks and greens that disappear in smoke like a thick autumn or winter fog. Despite the whistles of marmots and squirrels alerting each other in the distance, the landscape was so silent that the world seemed to stand still.

A few days later, I went climbing with my roommate one evening after work and the gases polluting the sky were so strong, that they accentuated all the colours of the sunset, offering some shade of oranges, yellows and reds all around us. Strange to know that an air so bad for us, can transform the landscape into something so beautiful to see...

A bit later in the month, I started mountain biking again, with John who has recently taken a liking to it. It's a great way to get back to this winter feeling of riding down a mountain slope, but on my two-wheeler this time. One thing for sure around here : don't trust the grading. When they announce a green slope, expect a blue slope, sometimes even a red one. But what a pleasure and what a feeling of freedom in this particular context.

Finally, the month of August was also filled with a few walks in the forest, to try to breathe a more oxygenated air, a few drinks by the lake and a second adventure on the Slocan river, on a Sunday when we could, finally, see a little bit of blue in the sky. I'll let you imagine the general euphoria when it's been several days or even weeks since the days are grey or yellowish outside and suddenly, summer returns...

SHAMBHALA 2021

Complete different adventure this month: I participated for the first time in Shambhala, a very well known and usually very crowded local festival. This year, due to Covid regulations, they decided not to hold the event over 4 consecutive days, but to split the different stages into four unique nights, spread over a month and a half. Although I have tickets for 2022 (which were originally for 2020) I had absolutely no plans to go this summer. It was because John had his weekend free at the last minute and got us tickets only two days before the event, that I was motivated to try this special adventure.

I have to admit that I was a little afraid of being overwhelmed by what was going on around me. Between the sound effects, the visual effects, the sometimes very extravagant people walking around, or the substances of all kinds that the participants were ingesting, everything was a little bit combined to trigger anxiety and panic for the hypersensitive person that I am... To be honest, I often feel like I've come from another planet when I attend this kind of event...

But with John by my side to guide me through the crowd, I eventually let go, stopped thinking and had a great time. The music wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but I was so happy to be there and to live almost as freely as possible for a few hours, that I didn't care.

The festival is located in a farmhouse, lost in the middle of a valley. For someone who has worked in the event industry in the past, it was surprising to see how "messy" the place is and yet no one pays any attention to it. The decorations, in the light of day, all look a bit cobbled together. As if they had been painted and built by a group of hippies who had camped there in the past. But I have to admit that once night falls, thanks to the lights, the whole site comes to life! It goes from a cheap and abandoned Alice in Wonderland setting in the middle of the day to the fantasy world of Avatar with its neon and electric colours.

I was also lucky to discover it in an "intimate" version this year, with far fewer people than the annual festival. That's probably also why this village, dotted with oddities in every corner, seemed quite uninhabited during the day. Usually there are about 17,000 participants, but this time there were 1,500... John, who has been there before, kept saying that it was so strange because it was so empty.

Finally, I have to admit that in view of Covid that was starting to circulate in the city, I was a bit afraid of being singled out for having "dared" to have fun for an evening and maybe taking the risk of bringing this damn virus back to my close community. It took me several days to put this idea into perspective, as the pressure is sometimes unhealthy, between the vaccinated, the unvaccinated, those who still don't live their lives normally and those who have resumed a quasi-normal life. It's been a year and a half since I last participated in any event of this magnitude. A year and a half that, like many of us, I have been trying to be careful, to respect the rules while trying to find a balance that allows me to be happy. Many times this has led me into spirals of insurmountable anxiety, so for one evening I took back my rights and went to take a breather once and for all. And in the end, although many of our friends got Covid at this event, John and I emerged unscathed! Which let me pretty proud of the precautions we took all night, as they worked :)

And to top it all off, after weeks of fire and smoke, heat and no rain, stress and pressure, it was on this night that the rain finally came. It was like a reward or a shower that would wash away all our troubles for one evening. It made the scenery and the moment even more magical, and it is sure to remain engraved in my memory forever. I was over the moon and I'm really grateful to John for the experience he gave me by staying by my side!

TOAD MOUNTAIN

Once the Shambhala rains had passed, the smoke had almost disappeared in the area. This gave us two last weekends of possible exploration in the close region.

So a fortnight ago, despite a weather forecast announcing constant showers, we ventured with Jo and Meg to the top of Toad Mountain. This mountain is just behind the town. After an hour of driving on a forest road, it was impossible for Copine to go any further. So we parked the car and continued on foot to the start of the hike. The idea of an off-trail adventure was much stronger than walking on a gravel road... So it was through the trees that we set off in search of the much hoped-for path. It was a lot of fun for Jo and I, who are always up for this kind of expedition and bush walking, but it was enough to make Meg hate us a little bit... We had to struggle through this Canadian jungle for a total of one hour before finally reaching the trail.

Although the idea of exploring Toad Mountain was mine, I must admit that after an hour and a half of walking, I had no mental strength left to reach the top... The clouds kept covering the view... So I was too lazy to come all the way up there and maybe not see anything. To be honest, I just wanted to sit on a rock and wait for my friends to go up and come down. But, after a boost from Meg, I got re motivated and in the end, no regrets as the view was breathtaking! Nelson looked very small there in the distance. And the mountains all around, which usually seem rather average to me, suddenly seemed much more imposing!

MOUNTAIN BIKE LOVE

Dernier weekend du mois d'août, dernière aventure : une escapade VTT de montagne sur l'une de mes pistes favorites à Nelson (Very High et Fairly High). Si je n'ai pas eu l'occasion d'escalader autant que ce que j'en rêvais cet été, je peux au moins me réjouir d'avoir repris cette autre passion ! Je dois avouer que cela m'aura définitivement permise de me reconnecter avec moi-même et de me redonner un peu vie après ces mois de montagnes russes par lesquels je suis passée. Qui plus est, le fait de pouvoir aussi partager une passion estivale avec John aura définitivement apporté d'autres sujets de conversation entre nous et ça, c'est vraiment chouette!

Bon et puis la vue, depuis le sommet, m'a fait prendre conscience qu'en dehors des périodes de fumées et de mes états d'âmes personnels, Nelson est vraiment un endroit magnifique sur cette planète... non ?!

COPINE OF ADVENTURES !

In a few hours I'll be on my way to a 2 week holiday on Vancouver Island and around Squamish. I can't wait because I've been needing a break for a long time, a real break!

So for the past two weeks I've been working on turning Copine into a real adventure buddy. I designed and built a modular platform with storage modules, to install a bed and be able to camp inside. From cutting the wood to making the curtains and installing little details like fairy lights, I had a lot of fun once again. All that's left is to try the experience and see what grade I'll give Copine at the end of this trip!

I'm sharing with you a first glimpse of the creation process, but I'll share more with you when I get back, and I'm sure I'll have lots of pictures of the road trip to share too!