Canadian Girl All the Way

Bacon and Eggs over a Campfire

 A few days ago I got into our car, and out of the corner of my eye I saw a rope hanging from the top of our car to the front of the hood.  Immediately I thought it was a canoe rope hanging from our rooftop, and our canoe was obviously tied to it.  In reality, this was only a trick being played on my eyes by the hot afternoon sun, and there was no rope, no canoe.  It made me think of how ingrained my Canadian roots are, no matter where I move and hopefully, no matter how long I live there.  I will never stop thinking about and loving the outdoors, especially the rugged Canadian ones:  camping, fishing, canoeing, hiking, biking, skiing, swimming in rivers, tubing, and the list goes on.

Canadian Girl in Training

Our family is preparing to head northward to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi in a couple of days for the Easter break.  Hopefully there we'll be able to snorkel and swim and maybe even go whitewater rafting. After that we hunker down for 2 more months and then we're home...6 weeks of west coast Canada (and a little bit of Alberta and even Idaho, USA too!).  I think that that was what was making me feel homesick the other day, just knowing that we're heading home soon.  Time will fly by and before we know it, we'll be in our old van driving down the quiet New Island Highway, windows open and passing the odd car now and then.

An image we hold fast to on hot, Indonesian days

I was thinking of all the things I learned growing up in a small forestry town, things that as I grow older and meet more people, I realize are truly unique.  I know I have a lot to experience in this world, and hopefully I'll have the opportunity to travel and learn so much more.  There are things that even my kids may never experience or learn because of their own circumstance:  their parents uprooted them from their semi-rural home, french-speaking school, and took them from their family, friends and even their corgi so that they could experience new things! gain new perspectives on life, to learn new languages and meet new people.  Although we've all settled into our Indonesian life here, there are things I will never, ever forget, and they will always make me the West Coast Canadian Girl that I am.

Canadian Girl with Canadian Boy 

I know how to identify some types of wood by the way they smell when they're cut***A toque is a knit, tube-like cap that sometimes ends in a pom-pom**dandelions bleed a white substance when cut, taste terrible when bitten, and when their stems are pulled apart and put into water, the stems will curl into pretty whirls that you can join together to make a necklace**pitch (Ontarians call it 'sap') is a great fire ignitor**salmon will swim great distances and through any waterway to return to the place they were hatched, to lay their own eggs...then they die**dead salmon lining the rivers are intriguing but very, very stinky**I know how dry a piece of fir firewood is by its weight, and where to hit it with an axe so that it'll split apart in--hopefully--one swing**when you put your bare foot into the dirt in the spring and the ground feels warm, it's time to plant (ok, you can use your hand but your foot is so much more fun!)**never, ever ride your bike blindly into a huge mud puddle because you a) don't know how deep it is b) don't know how sticky the  muck is at the bottom c) never know what living creature is lurking at the bottom!**it is possible to have snow, cold rain and warm sunshine all on the same day**I've skied down a mountain with just a t-shirt on (and pants, of course)**Whisky Jacks are little birds that are so brave they'll take a bit out of the sandwich that you are eating, WHILE you are eating it**black bears have set routes that they establish over time, and when you build a fence in your backyard it really confuses them**I've had a MARS water bomber drip water on me while it was ascending after filling up with water**huckleberries, salmon berries and thimble berries mushed together taste good to a 5  year old but become bitter as you age**the list could go on, and that's an excuse for another post...