Author: Paula

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Wolves and dogs in Tofino

Wolves and dogs have com­plex re­la­tion­ships. At times, they ig­nore each oth­er, play to­geth­er or even mate. But, more of­ten than not, wolves at­tack dogs, in­jur­ing and even killing them.

That’s what happened on middle Chesterman Beach over Labour Day week­end. Located a scant six kilo­metres from Tofino and ad­ja­cent to Pacific Rim National Park Reserve (PRNPR), the beach is rimmed with stately homes, va­ca­tion rent­als and anchored at the north­ern end by Wikaninnish Inn. It’s a pop­u­lar spot for loc­als and tour­ists vis­it­ing Vancouver Island’s rugged west coast.

Wolves can move through the land­scape sound­lessly and of­ten only re­veal their pres­ence to hu­mans when they want to be seen. Photo cour­tesy US Fish and Wildlife Service.

The tracks in the sand and marks on the me­di­um-size dog in­dic­ate it was prob­ably at­tacked by two wolves not far from home. While re­search­ing Return of the Wolf, I talked at length with Bob Hansen, cur­rently with WildSafe BC and Todd Windle, hu­man-wild­life co­ex­ist­ence spe­cial­ist at PRNPR. They told me that con­flicts with wolves were neg­li­gible pri­or to the late 1990s. But now wolves in the re­gion at­tack about a dozen pets – dogs and cats – per year.

In the last three years nu­mer­ous dogs have been at­tacked and two killed. In 2016, a man walk­ing two ap­prox­im­ately 36 kilo­gram (80 pound) dogs near the Kwisitis Visitor Centre was forced to seek sanc­tu­ary on the closed centre’s deck and call 911 due to one or more wolves stalk­ing his leashed dogs.

Two par­tic­u­larly bold wolves were killed in 2017. Although there were still wolves in the area — they were of­ten seen on trail cam­er­as – at­tacks on pets ceased.

Many people be­lieve that wolves at­tack dogs to pro­tect their ter­rit­ory. This is true, but wolves also see dogs and oth­er do­mest­ic an­im­als as prey and kill them for food. Hunting wild prey re­quires a great ex­pendit­ure of en­ergy and, in the case of hooved and horned or antlered an­im­als, is fraught with danger. Even so, a single wolf can take down an elk or moose. In com­par­is­on, do­mest­ic an­im­als are the equi­val­ent of a per­son pick­ing up a take-out dinner.

So, why would any­one let their dog lose in wolf coun­try? In PRNPR and ad­ja­cent areas, one reas­on is sand. Vast ex­panses of it are dog heav­en when it comes to run­ning and who doesn’t want to see their dog get a ton of ex­er­cise and have fun?

Bailey had the time of his life run­ning off leash in Pacific Rim National Park Reserve in 2012. I had no idea at the time how dan­ger­ous that was. Photo cour­tesy Doug Tracey.

I know, be­cause I’ve let my dog run free on those beaches in the past. Granted, I had pep­per spray and an air horn. But the real­ity is, most of the time, Bailey would have been too far away for me to in­ter­vene if a wolf went after him. Wolves can reach speeds of up to 60 kilo­metres (37 miles) an hour when tak­ing down prey. And no do­mest­ic dog, be it 100-pound Rottweiler or ten­a­cious pit bull, has a chance against a wild an­im­al that kills its food to survive.

Another reas­on dogs roam free is con­veni­ence. When we stayed in a beach­side cab­in near Tofino and Bailey needed out in the middle of the night, I simply opened the door and whistled him in a little while later. I would nev­er do that now. My heart goes out to the fam­ily who lost their dog last week­end. I know how dev­ast­ated I would have been if some­thing had happened to Bailey.

The safest place for a dog out­doors in wolf coun­try is on the end of a leash close to the per­son hold­ing it. Although not al­ways the case, there’s a good chance that thin piece of leath­er or fab­ric and prox­im­ity to a hu­man will cause a wolf to re­as­sess the situ­ation. And if it doesn’t, a per­son armed with bear spray or an­oth­er de­terrent has a chance to pre­vent an attack.

If you love your dog, leash it in wolf coun­try. That skinny strip of leath­er may save the life of a wolf, as well as your can­ine companion.

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Rides That Way by Susan Ketchen

Sylvia is gal­lop­ing through life as only a four­teen year old can do. At school there are friends, bul­lies and worse. Dinner with her par­ents is like sid­ling through a field of land mines. And all of a sud­den she’s Keeper of the Secrets: her own, her grandpa’s and her rid­ing coach’s.

Then there’s the whole hor­mone thing. Those mys­ter­i­ous en­tit­ies that surge through a teen’s body mak­ing them emo­tion­al and af­fect­ing their bod­ies in very no­tice­able ways. Only Sylvia isn’t hav­ing that prob­lem. She has Turner Syndrome, which means she’ll al­ways be short and have to wear kids’ clothes the rest of her life be­cause her body will nev­er de­vel­op. Unless she wears es­tro­gen patches and she’s not sure about that.

In fact, the only thing Sylvia’s sure about is that she loves hanging out in the barn, lu­cid dream­ing and do­ing the for­bid­den — gal­lop­ing her horse, Brooklyn. Well, Logan Losino, the cute guy at school, is pretty dis­tract­ing too.

Rides That Way is funny, warm and per­cept­ive. An un­pre­dict­able plot keeps the read­er turn­ing pages as Sylvia struggles to come to terms with be­ing a teen and hav­ing Turner Syndrome. No mat­ter what, she’s de­term­ined to be her true self and find ac­cept­ance on her own terms.

Rides That Way is the fourth book in Susan Ketchen’s Born That Way series. Each book delves into the life of Sylvia as she nav­ig­ates the chal­lenges that re­la­tion­ships with people and an­im­als present. And, al­though the books are stand-alone reads, once you’ve sampled one, you’ll be eager to ex­plore more of Sylvia’s world.

Although typ­ic­ally classed as young adult nov­els, Ketchen’s char­ac­ters gen­er­ate fan mail from read­ers age 12 to 82 cre­at­ing their own niche as fam­ily fic­tion. Gently pok­ing fun at the quirky thoughts and ac­tions of people at every age is one of the things Ketchen does best.

Ketchen, a former mar­riage and fam­ily coun­sel­lor, lives in Courtenay, BC on a river­side farm along with her hus­band, two cats, a multi-trick pony and a flock of geri­at­ric chickens.

For more in­form­a­tion vis­it www​.susanketchen​.ca.

       Ketchen will be sign­ing books at Laughing Oyster Bookshop in down­town Courtenay on Saturday, September 30 from 1:00 – 3:00 pm. 

Ketchen and her horse, Lolli, who knows more tricks than most dogs.

 

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Writers, words and time

Words and time are some­thing every writer wrestles with. Two truths sum up the dilemma:

  1. There is nev­er enough time to write.
  2.  When you do write, you nev­er pro­duce as many words as you’d like.

Professional writers and those who are ser­i­ous about writ­ing, even if they have oth­er ob­lig­a­tions, such as day jobs and or young fam­il­ies, learn to set aside time every day – or at least every week – to prac­tise their craft. And it’s called prac­tise be­cause, just like play­ing the pi­ano, the more you do it, the bet­ter you get.

But what con­sti­tutes a reas­on­able writ­ing prac­tise? Many pro­fes­sion­als set them­selves a min­im­um word count each day. According to “The Daily Word Counts of 39 Famous Authors,” Ernest Hemingway aimed for 500 words a day while Sophie Kinsella man­ages 1,000 and Stephen King av­er­ages 2,000.

Once, I con­duc­ted a 30 minute phone in­ter­view and com­pleted a 1,000 word art­icle with­in two hours. But most non­fic­tion pro­jects – es­pe­cially a book – rarely move that quickly. What seems like a simple sen­tence can lead to hours of fact-check­ing or track­ing down elu­sive sources.

So, in­stead of set­ting daily word counts, I don’t con­sider my work day over un­til I’ve put in a min­im­um of five in­tensely fo­cused hours on my book. That can in­clude in­ter­views and re­search, as well as writ­ing. In fact, re­search can make up as much as 75% of the time I spend on a non­fic­tion book.

At the end of five hours, I may have writ­ten five pages, five para­graphs or five sen­tences. I put in the time but the words — and re­search — set their own pace. In an in­ter­view by Alan Twigg pos­ted on BC Booklook, the late Al Purdy, poet ex­traordin­aire, noted that he wrote the title poem to Caribou Horses in 30 minutes while an­oth­er poem, “Postscript,” took sev­en years.

When you write can make a dif­fer­ence too. In “Famous Authors Routines: Rise Early, Work Early, and Count The Words,” David Paul Kirkpatrick ob­serves that many fam­ous au­thors get up early – even be­fore first light — to write.

I must con­fess, the sol­it­ary si­lence of early morn­ing is my fa­vour­ite – and most pro­duct­ive – time to write. The house and neigh­bour­hood are quiet, it’s highly un­likely the phone will ring and my brain is un­sul­lied by the chat­ter and oc­cur­rences of the day. That’s when it’s easi­est to lose my­self in my work.

A computer generated collage by artist Bev Byerley. www.bevbyerley.com
A com­puter gen­er­ated col­lage by artist Bev Byerley. www​.bevby​er​ley​.com

Occasionally, I even flip the angst of in­som­nia into cre­at­ive en­ergy by get­ting up to write. Tiptoeing to the com­puter with mug of tea in hand feels slightly naughty and I know I’ll sur­render to sleep at some point in the day. But in the mean­time, I’m dis­trac­ted from whatever was keep­ing me awake…and, strangely, the words seem to fill the page faster than usual.

I nev­er take my work (or self) too ser­i­ously at 2 am so that may ex­plain the tsunami of sen­tences. But part of the ma­gic, I’m sure, comes from be­ing some­where between con­scious­ness and sleep, that dreamy, half-awake state that shuts off the in­ner cen­sor and al­lows the muse to creep in.

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Four writers, four questions #4 Rick James

The last in­stall­ment of Four writers, four questions.

What are you work­ing on right now?

For the past five or so years, I’ve been im­mersed in re­search­ing and writ­ing about West Coast rum run­ning, a fas­cin­at­ing top­ic which soon be­came an ob­ses­sion. In January 1920, the National Prohibition or Volstead Act was of­fi­cially de­clared in the U.S. of A. Meanwhile, voters in British Columbia de­cided, that after three years, they’d had enough of their government’s own failed at­tempt to cur­tail the con­sump­tion of al­co­hol and brought it to an end in a plebis­cite that year. As a res­ult, with li­quor leg­al on one side of the bor­der and out­right il­leg­al just over the line, rum run­ning into the United States from British Columbia soon proved an ex­tremely luc­rat­ive enterprise.

My primary fo­cus has been to ex­plore how rum run­ning was op­er­ated out of British Columbia and down along the U.S. coast and even into Mexican wa­ters. Basically, my goal is to provide not only a com­pre­hens­ive his­tory of the vari­ous ves­sels and char­ac­ters in­volved in the mari­time li­quor trade, but also to ex­plore the ma­jor eco­nom­ic and polit­ic­al con­sequences of what quickly proved a very re­ward­ing en­ter­prise for all in­volved. 

Why is this mean­ing­ful to you?

018Maritime his­tory has al­ways been of par­tic­u­lar in­terest to me es­pe­cially hav­ing been born and raised on Canada’s West Coast and spend­ing a lot of time out on the wa­ter ever since I was a boy sports fish­ing with dad on south­ern Vancouver Island. For most of my life, I’ve lived, worked and con­tin­ue to ex­plore this unique coastal en­vir­on­ment. In the late 1980s, I delved deep­er into these wa­ters by re­search­ing our coast’s mari­time his­tory and at­tempt­ing to identi­fy the fas­cin­at­ing col­lec­tion of fif­teen old ships that made up Royston’s hulk break­wa­ter. (Up un­til the time, nobody had kept a re­cord of what was bur­ied there were.) This soon led to vari­ous re­search and writ­ing en­deav­ours first ap­pear­ing in the Victoria Times Colonist and Western Mariner magazine.

What is your process?

A good por­tion of my re­search time is spent in vari­ous archives thumb­ing through old news­pa­per mi­cro­films at­tempt­ing to un­ravel coastal tales and mys­ter­ies. I think the key to my suc­cess is that I’m some­what of an ob­sess­ive com­puls­ive in­di­vidu­al when it comes to re­search. God only knows how many hun­dreds upon hun­dreds of hours I’ve spent fer­ret­ing out ori­gin­al, primary source ma­ter­i­al or flip­ping through reels upon reels of old news­pa­per mi­cro­film chas­ing down a first-hand ac­count of ship’s sink­ing. I’ve also spent one heck of a lot of time search­ing through lib­rar­ies and archives all the way from the read­ily ac­cess­ible B.C. Archives in Victoria, the Vancouver Maritime Museum and right down to the J. Porter Shaw Maritime Research Centre in San Francisco.

Then there’s the ac­tu­al pro­cess of sit­ting down in front of my key­board and mon­it­or and sort­ing through the mess of pho­to­copied re­cords and news­pa­per stor­ies all stacked on my desk and try­ing to bring some semb­lance of or­der to it all. (This part of the pro­cess has al­ways been a prob­lem for me since I’m some­what of a hy­per per­son­al­ity and find it hard to re­main seated for any length of time.) But once im­mersed in a tale that grabs my in­terest, I’ve learned over time that I can really pound out text; es­pe­cially when I’m onto a real good story line.

 Why do you write?

I still think of my­self as a stu­dent rather than as a ‘his­tor­i­an’ and my greatest re­ward is learn­ing about dif­fer­ent events, many of which are fast dis­ap­pear­ing from loc­al memory. But when comes right down to it, be­ing able to piece a story to­geth­er and then share your sleuth­ing re­search with oth­ers via pub­lic­a­tion really keeps me in­spired. And many a time, fol­low­ing a stor­ies pub­lic­a­tion, I’ve re­ceived a phone call or a let­ter in the mail from an old salt to say he really en­joyed the story, but just wants to set me straight re­gard­ing a fact or two. I find that par­tic­u­larly re­ward­ing. But still, as all writers know, see­ing one’s cre­at­ive en­deav­ours out there on news­stands or in book­stores to be read by all, is per­haps a bet­ter re­ward than the cheque re­ceived from a publisher.

Rick James’ work has ap­peared in nu­mer­ous peri­od­ic­als in­clud­ing British Columbia Magazine, The Beaver: Canada’s History Magazine, The Sea Chest: Journal of Puget Sound Maritime Historical Society and Western Mariner. He is also the au­thor of Raincoast Chronicles 21: West Coast Wrecks & Other Maritime Tales and the Underwater Archaeological Society of B.C. pub­lic­a­tion: Ghost Ships of Royston, as well as co-au­thor of  its Historic Shipwrecks of the Sunshine Coast, and Historic Shipwrecks of B.C.’s Central Coast re­ports.