Wow, what an absolutely shitty summer. Peace.

Except that was Susan’s friend Steve from Barriere (which is apparently not entirely burned down yet) typing that so not so much.

On a slightly more serious note (well, as serious as it gets), none of us expected the Cannery to be such an amazing (and strange) summer.

Now that it’s over and we all made it back to the south, before we all head off in separate directions, the whole experience seems almost unreal.

Unfortunatly, not unreal enough that I would ever forget living next door to Susan.

And I’ll never forget what turned out to be the best summer of my life! With a lot of “Excellent!” and “No no no.” and “Minor details.” =)

I just wanted to say, that Steve is amazingly awesome. Like, wow. Susan wrote this with love and admiration.

Hence why Steve was very late adopted into the cannery family by choice. Now, let’s be honest here…cannery summer was wonderful. Filled with veggie burgers, Ice Age, and random dinner guests, I could not imagine a better more boring way to spend the summer.

Wait! We’re forgetting some very important Cannery events, like the time the fisherman turned up at our doorstep, and THE meeting……Together, we made a very (dis)functional herd.

None of us mysteriously disappeared in an abandoned building or had unfortunate meetings with bears or anything.

Although Naomi and I (Lu) did see a wolf, which was very cool.

And I made a lot of tourist laugh with my tours and the play. And of course there was hanging out at Safeway for half the day for its Wifi internet xD

CANNERIES ARE THE BEST!!!!!!!!! DOPE AS HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! =D =D =D

To be fair (an attempt to continue on a logical tangent from Steve’s hijacking), not all canneries all awesome I suppose. Just ours. And really just the people…I don’t believe that I could go back next summer simply because there is no way I could be as lucky with such easy going people. As in people who don’t mind if dinner is broiled, if they miss the bus, or really anything that does not actually matter.

Alright, I have been instructed to end this incredibly dysfunctional blog post. This is us, signing out. End of summer. Back to reality (or lack thereof) for now.

From the UBC Nude Beach,

Anne, Lu, Naomi, Paul, Susan (and the newly adopted Steve)

And since this was done on my computer I've promptly posted it a couple weeks late :P. Oh and I hope everyone liked their presents.

LAST POST EVER! (Unless someone decide they want to use this blog again)

I feel as though I should post

So I thought I would sneak in a brief post in between a dinner of wonderful Paul veggie stir fry and Lu's need to send an email. Aka I realized no one had blogged for a long time and felt like I should make a feeble attempt to appease the spirits. Hmmm...what has happened in the past few weeks indeed. Quick recap:

Susan has gone from eating individually packaged single serving yoghurt (and getting hell from me) to making her own! In a $2 thermos from the Sally Ann we put milk and a bit of store bought yoghurt and it turns into proper yoghurt overnight. Like magic. By the way...don't try it with almond milk. Verdict from the various liberal arts students is that there are competing bacterial cultures...some of which are orange. Business student verdict is "OH MY GOD ITS FREAKY." Nice to know we have a scientific conclusion. We've also tried making soft cheese...quite tasty... and I came home from work the other day to find homemade pickles. Which means I am making veggie burgers for everyone on Friday. Excellent.

Last week on my day off I biked out to Diana Lake, which is about 25km away, and spend the day absorbing sunshine. Of course the cannery is, yet again, in a mild(er) fog bank so the sun was very welcome. It only took just over an hour to get there, which surprised me, so I arrived around eleven, and spent the afternoon reading a book and jumping into the lake. Even made it home for dinner in time...which, let's be honest, is the important part.

The McBride Street Market, which is a classy corner store-esque establishment that resembles an abandoned attic or garage, has started selling fruit from the Okanagan so this means tasty oatmeal with peaches and almond milk! Anne would like me to add that it also sold the small cucumbers used for pickling, and stocks something called "east indian cucumber" that resembles a green churro. I have yet to buy one, as today I wanted to try vegetable marrow (squash?), and was lacking change. Just as with most upscale grocery stores, they only accept cash and did not have change for the $50 bill given to me by the ATM so I could pay Susan for my ferry ticket. FERRY TICKET! Excitement. Much excitement. Next week Susan and hopefully Sam and I are off to Haida Gwaii for a week of hiking and camping and trail-mix eating. We are too lazy to actually pack a stove or cookable food...so the trail-mix eating was not a joke. Our luxurious meal shall be that of pre-baked potatoes.

Alas, that is all I do have to ramble about at the moment...I look forward to a weekend of trail-mix cookie making, further attempts at cheese making and, of course, working at the cannery. If this is my last post then...well...Haida Gwaii is known for having the largest black bears in North America. And the most ferocious squirrels. Plus...my outdoor exploration partner is from Toronto. Enough said.

Being a Tourist

I have decided to post before I am chastised for not posting. It's best to stay ahead of these things.

At the end of June I went over to Haida Gwaii for a couple of days. Definitely one great thing about working here is that you are already in a place to go and see a lot of other things in the area. My trip to Haida Gwaii was pretty great. It's amazing what you can see in two days and I do love a ferry ride. And perhaps I should have posted sooner seeing as how this is something to post about. However, short of a step-by-step recap and a slide show it's best to simply say that it was a good trip and you should go.

The one topic I did want to cover is how it feels to work in the tourist circuit and then to promptly join in. It is odd. Waiting in the ferry terminal to catch the 11 am ferry to Skidigate I couldn't help but notice that I recognised everyone there. Including the one school group. I had seen them all at North Pacific. I had either given them tours, checked them in or sold them things out of the gift shop. When I did get on the ferry as groups started coming out of the vehicles and on to the passenger deck I recognised even more people. There was a lot of waving and "how are you?" and "Oh me? I'm just taking the weekend off," and general pleasantries. Even once I reached Haida Gwaii I continued to see some familiar faces around. Including a second school group that had also been through the cannery. It's certainly interesting how oddly predictable the whole tourist circuit is. Certainly we knew before hand that many of the people who visit it us are headed to Haida Gwaii or to Alaska, but it's an entirely different thing to suddenly jump in and experiance exactly what this means.

So, for anyone who has ever been on a trip and thought "we keep seeing those people, they must be doing a similar route," as most people have at some point. It's really not just you, and it's not just those people and you as well. Take a good look around you. Perhaps everyone has been doing a similar route and been through the same places. Just a thought.

As one side note about being a tourist in north coast BC. It is now mid July and foggy, damp, and rainy. For all those tourists that keep asking: Why yes, this is summer. Welcome to the coast, and I swear it is sunny sometimes, even warm; just not usually for long.

Anne

Bike Ride - July 7th

Right now I am sitting in Safeway using its internet xD
Well what do you expect with North Pacific Cannery's dail-up >.<

Anyway despite Port Edward's grizzly warning I rode my bike into town.

When Naomi goes on a bike ride with Susan, Naomi doesn't have to worry. She rides faster Susan so the grizzly would go after Susan first. Then we'll be rid of our fearless hyper leader XD

Oh but going out alone Naomi says it's important we don't sneak up on the bear as bikes are fast enough to do that...So her solution?

Sing off tune broadway musicals :D:D
Imagine the bear trying to cover its ears but it's paws not coming up high enough, so it rolls along the grass trying to cover it meanwhile escaping from the terrible noise XD

Well I on the other hand decided to completely confuse the bear by singing ゆいこ's Trust (youtube one put heavy emphasis on guitar). My new favourite song. So male singing female pitch, and in another language. Hopefully the bear would go o.O before it realize it can catch up to my and get me XD.

But it was my first bike ride since Port Edward got the grizzly warning. And boy it felt good!

And as I was about to get out of the forest road, flying down the last hill into Port Edward. I saw these guys.



They just turned around and watched me! I scrambled for my camera in my backpack and took a picture. All the time they just looked at me. I wish I could walk around and take more pictures. But I need to catch the bus.

So I resumed my flight. And as I neared them they decided to cross the road one after the other so I had to break to let them pass without slamming into them ^^;;;;

Great Ride!

And I brought my camera along. The scenery from Port Edward to Prince Rupert was as beautiful as ever.



Enjoying the sunshine!!!!!!!

Parallel Pain

雨のち晴れ - The After-Rain Sun - July 4th

Yesterday was simply pouring rain. Well this weekend has been pretty much pouring rain. And it has also been pretty dead in terms of visitors. Susan thought we would all be overwhelmed by the Canada Day, long weekend, Independence Day crowd, but that didn't appear at all. And with 6 people on yesterday, at least 3 of whom were stationed in areas where they could get no work done. So after one of the slowest day in weeks and most unproductive day since ever (I had my netbook so I was fine) the day finished just as we expected it to. Absolutely no problem because we had 6 people on. Everyone had extra time to stand/sit around. And most of that time was used doing nothing because we're not assigned to the station where we can do work. In other words, a failed work day.

This morning we were still sulking from that. And the miserable rain continued. But then I found a key and some money trays and a money box for the café And then Naomi successfully re-programmed the cash register. She was able to do this because she's actually been assigned to the station she's normally at! And we got to open up the cash register and change all its button labels so now it's so much more simple to operate! (Before we had to punch all prices in individually by their actual prices.) And it has a proper tray to hold money! And the café has a proper box to carry money with so it won't fall all over!

And the rain began to slow. Naomi went on her break. Lu came and not much for her to do but teach her the basics of the cash register and mop the floor. Then the first tour set ended, and people entered for dinner. It turned out it was one of those unusual (cold and miserable day where) almost all the guests came into the café so they can get a hot meal. One after another they ordered food, and just the first run it was 3 chowders, 1 tomato soup, 1 quiche, 3 salmon melts, 2 soup/sandwich/beverage special (they chose chowder/salmon melts/hot chocolate). So first run it totaled to 5 chowders, 5 salmon melts, 1 tomato soup, 1 quiche, 2 hot chocolate. And while Lu was busy taking orders making drinks and taking out food I was busy trying to make everything at once. Then more orders came in for 2 additional tomato soup, 1 veggie sandwich, 1 chowder, and 2 more hot chocolate (I think it was). Obviously it was impossible for me to make everything at once. Lu also didn't write down the orders so it was also confusing. Haven't quite finished her training yet. But anyway I put all my past kitchen experience to the test, and was preparing soups and sandwiches all at once. Luckily only a little ways in Naomi came back on break.

Quickly finishing 4 soups and their biscuits. I asked Naomi to take over soup, veggie sandwich, and quiche (stove/microwave) while I made salmon melts (toaster/counter). Had great fun trying and successfully making 5 salmon melts all at once. Well 2 first 3 later but in very quick secessions. Also cut up cucumbers and tomatoes and putting dressing on them for plate decoration for 7? different plates. Naomi was used to the mayhem and quickly got the quiche and veggie sandwich and most of the soups ready. Lu was great support in making drinks, putting out plates for us, and taking out the food. All in all I stayed a bit over an extra 15 minutes. But in that time we got almost all the food out. Everyone got everything they ordered within 20~ minutes of placing the order, with the first dish out by 7~10 minutes. This is (I think) acceptable speed even for Vancouver cafés, and great for us! And definitely worked only because I had stayed behind.

And I am happy. =) As I walked out the café, being complimented on my cookie by guests on the way out, the rain had stopped.

And while sitting down relaxed, playing freecell, and enjoying my break, I get a frantic knock on the door. First thought was "oh no, kitchen rush".
But no. It was some guests who wished to talk to me! And the guests was ACE BLAZER, fellow administrator on Creative Assembly's Total War forum, and his family! And they were the people I cooked for and they were the people who complimented me on the cooking! And it only gets better! I talked to them about me, about here, asked them about their trip, and invited them to watch SRS.



And when I went to the front to prepare for SRS, there was the lady who wrote the newspaper article I was in! And her children was there too! And I had a large crowd!

I was all energized and began my performance. The crowd was not the biggest I've performed for, but certainly the most reactive I've ever seen. Even in parts usually no one react to, they laughed. And the more the laughed, the more energized my performance was. And the more they laughed. It was just great!

And just when I thought it couldn't get any better, Susan told me that she had invited Ace and his family to dinner with us! We're all excited now! The sun was coming out! It was warming up too!

And Naomi was able to reprogram the cash register so it gave as an end-of-day receipt too. Now café stats would be SO much easier to track!

It was all sunny now and slow enough that I got everyone to take their break! Relaxing! And with Lu and the front desk, Susan giving tours, we were back to normal, productive setup! Productivity returned!

After work we quickly went into food preparation mode. Lu was main chef and cooked salmon and eulachon. Susan added to Naomi's veggie soup and made a salad. Anne and I set up tables. Then Ace and family showed up with broccoli and cauliflower and a desert pie which Lu stir-fried.
We had too much fun telling our guests about our time up here and watching their expressions. Ace and his brother Daniel was relatively quiet, but their facial expressions were simply too good to miss as we told them Lu and Susan's adventures in town, Lu's obsessions with rapists, Anne and her mom getting lost on the single road in Haida Guai, and many, many stories.

We took out the pie and divided it. There was three pieces left of the pie. And we saw two strangers on the boardwalks.
First Lu went over to tell them they can't be here. Then Susan, being even more hyper than ever, dragged them in to join us. 5 staff 4 tourists 2 Prince Rupert local kayakers had phone around a "ghetto" (as Susan would say) table, sitting on benches and old chairs, laughing at everything!

Had too great of a time that I forgot to take pictures :'(

It was sunny! I could see white clouds and blue sky! O(^^)O

雨後天晴 The After-Rain Sun. It's 雨のち晴れ Alicemagic Style =D

Oh yeah got these two pictures side by side. Saw them in this order too. Thought it was meaningful =)





Parallel Pain

Heaven and Hell - July 2nd

I got on the newspaper! Of course I knew that from quite some time ago but I actually got the article! Here it is =)

Of course it is a crappy article (unanimous agreement by all co-workers on this point) but at least I am in the newspaper! It said my performance in SRS was great! Oh and by the way this article, like all newspaper articles, obviously never bothered to fact check, because I didn't restore the script to its original version. I altered the version of the version handed to me and there was at least one or two versions before that one. Why are reporters so lazy?

But all that aside I AM IN THE NEWS PAPER I AM IN THE NEWSPAPER! =D =D =D

And today I gave another great tour! Even if I am telling the same jokes over and over it still makes me smile feel good when people laugh at them. And in my group was a drama teacher for Prince George. She said my SRS was great! It's always good when someone who actually knows what they are talking about told you you did a good job =D

And afterward I was informed that we got more salmon! Spider caught us an entire new salmon =)

Apparently he just brought the life fish into the café and Naomi almost puked on seeing it and had to chase him out >.<>

But we got the fish! It's a sockeye this time. And It was not gutted so I had to gut and cut up the entire thing.

And my lunch was fish liver, heart, and gale bladder. I forgot it's attached to the liver and just ate the whole thing. It was good until the gale bladder popped in my mouth. Then it was bitter all over o(>.<)o

And salmon roe XD

Didn't know how to prepare it so just ate it raw with cooked rice. Still good (at least I loved it!).

Speaking of food. Susan cooked eulachon today in 5 different ways. All were incredibly delicious! There was butter/onion, honey/sesame (oil?), ketchup, curry (o_o), and miso! (O.o)

But they were still all so good!

We were 2~3 weeks into the Spring Salmon and just 1 bag and a bit of it left to go. Then Spider gave us a large chunk of halibut. Then Anne brought clams back from Haida Guai. And then Steve brought us eulachon. And now another full sockeye salmon!

No need to buy meat for another month it seems~

If you actually want to read the hell part, read it here.

Parallel Pain

Major Catch Up

So. It's been awhile. That is why this is a post to fill in on the several occurrences that I had meant to recap shortly after but promptly went to bed.

The first was the day of fish. Horribly traumatic experience. It began as usual: oatmeal for breakfast, hanging out in the mess house all morning prepping for the day, finally getting customers for lunch when the site opens. In short, Spider (the winter watchman) walking into the Mess House kitchen asking if he should put the fish in the sink. I promptly turn around and almost puke as he is holding a VERY fresh (as in not fully dead yet and still twitching) sockeye salmon, meant as a gift for us tour guides. Now, I am not generally that squeamish of a person, in that we often have fish heads in the fridge here and such, but I don't do well with something like that sprung on me. Needless to say, I told him that this was not the best time/place for it, and he took it elsewhere. Luckily Sam was there to finish organizing the serving of most of the food as I was not exactly in a great state of mind for the next while. Also in that day, fish was taken out of the fridge to defrost and leaked fish juice on some of the vegetables (I evacuated the others and Anne helped me clean the fridge), eulachan (pronounced ooligan) was had with dinner (little fish with eyes that stare at you from the plate). All in all, not one of my best days. I had a salad for dinner.

Ok, now that you have finished rolling your eyes and saying "What a drama queen!"... (completely valid, I'm aware). We had our first dinner guests on Sunday! To be fair, we often had Steve join us for dinner when he was at the site working late to save him from the fine gourmet of granola bars, but these were actual guests! Someone that Paul had connected with via some online gaming forum but whom he had never met in person stopped by the site with his family that day and Susan, being Susan, invited them for dinner. It was actually really fun, although to be fair we are isolated and possibly anyone new would be excitement, but they were really nice and we made a ton of food, and they brought some veggies and a pie. Coincidentally they were from West Vancouver, and had gone to Sentinel for high school, so that was a bit of small world syndrome. Also, just as we were finishing dessert, there was a couple wandering down the boardwalk but we figured that instead of just asking them to leave the site, as we usually do, we invited them in to consume 2 of the 3 pieces of pie that were left! They were from Prince Rupert and just investigating our dock for possible kayak launching/access, and I did my usual quizzing them about Haida Gwaii (I do this to everyone who mentions they've been there...gathering knowledge for my plan to head over in August). Eventually everyone headed off, but all in all a nice endeavor!

Finally (now that your eyes have glazed over), I just wanted to say what a nice day off I had today. I woke up at 8 to call Mark from Cassiar Cannery (down the road), to see if he was headed into town (he said he'd call later), and drank my tea on the boardwalk in the morning sun as no one else was up yet. I lazed around until 9:02 at which point Paul ran downstairs to begin registering for courses via dial-up. I'm guessing you haven't noticed the problem here? Lucky. Phone line=internet access. Meaning that if Mark were to call I would not know...hmmm. I debated just hanging around until the bus at one, but I wanted to swim so I hopped on the bike and made it to Port Ed in 16 minutes...if that would not have outrun the grizzly I don't know what would. Plus, I sing (read:bellow) off-key show tunes when biking by myself, so that scares it away. Anywho, I went to the pool, bought some bulk chickpeas, cookies from the bargain store, deposited my cheque, and bought veggies from Safeway. Then, coming back on the bus at 2, I promptly took my books down to the dock and read in the sun (and fell asleep between 4 and 5). With curry soup, salad, and salmon berry sugar mush (Susan made "crisp") to finish the day, it was a good one.

That is all to report of note, on a work-related note I actually gave a tour for the first time in awhile this week, so that gave me a chance to enjoy the rain instead of hiding out in the kitchen. Hopefully the sun will stick around for a bit as I have Friday off as well!

Video Play Video

Worked 41.25 hours this week. Quite tired. But finally got time off!

I have spent the last few hours sitting in Safeway and using its internet to upload the video of my rough performance onto youtube. And it's finally done!!!!

HOW EXCITING! (Susan voice)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Everything has been running incredibly well. Restaurant, tours, play, schedule, tour groups, everything!

Can't wait to see myself in the newspaper. Should be soon. Steve promised he'll bring out a copy of it for us to see =)

As for us at the cannery. We have spent a weekend without Anne's manic laughter. Like when she's sitting across from Susan and Naomi frantically laughing at me taking a picture of my silly attempt at making sushi.

Feels slightly weird without she around laughing at random things. But she's coming back today! I'm going to try to attempt taro tapioca soup again. Hope it's better this time.

We made cake for the fisherman that gave us the salmon yesterday, and made another one which we gave to Mark from Cassiar Cannery for drying us into town. He drove us in today. We saw a deer stopping right in the middle of the road when we got into Port Edward. It just turned around and looked at us even as we stopped right in front of it. Then it walked away as if nothing happened. Sure was funny. Wish I had a picture of it.

The way Mark described his living to us was really fun. He bought the entire Cassiar Cannery for the price of a Vancouver appartment ^^;;;

Now he grab logs floating down river and phone a wood worker in Port Edward. The wood worker come and take the log to his mill and turn it into plywood. Then Mark fix up someone's something and gets a freshly caught fish in return. No even need for groceries!

Sure will miss all the laughter of this place when I go home. It's so much more bright and cheerful here, even though it's the rainiest city in Canada.

On another note, we haven't had sunny days for quite a while now and it's getting cold =(

Sure doesn't seem like summer. Hope it will warm up.

This is my first time posting here~

Visit my own blog at here !!^^!!

Parallel Pain

City Girl's Opinions on Wildlife

HELLO!!!

Ever since I thought about coming out to work at the Cannery, wildlife was a huge concern. Keep in mind, in Toronto, we have squirrels, the occasional skunk, and around York's campus, the rare fat groundhog...not exactly "wildlife".

So why do I wait so long to post about wildlife? Well, 1. I'm lazy and 2. Last time I thought salmon would be more interesting. However, a few days ago, Anne was walking down the road toward Port Ed to catch the bus when she encountered a small brown bear on the road, turned, and walked back. Turns out, said bear is a small grizzly and now the entire community is under grizzly warning. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!

Ok, so I'm overreacting a bit, but if you haven't noticed, I do that. A lot.

Anyway, since I'm posting about wildlife, I'd like to tell you all about two of the more amusing wildlife-related antics that just happened to happen to me.

One. The first time I took the bike out, I was about to enjoy a leisurely ride to the convenience store 6 km down the road to get a popsicle when I encounter Ed, one of the construction workers on site. Ed says to me "Careful of the wolves! I saw a couple down by the railroad the other day." Now I cannot tell if people are pulling my leg or if it's serious, so I say ok, wave, and try to leave. Then Bob comes along, and says "There are quite a few bears out there too." Ed says "Yeah, my llamas - he owns llamas by the way - chased a few up a tree once. It's the grizzlies you should be afraid of". Of course, now, I'm pissing my pants. Not literally. Haha. Bob then proceeds to give me his whistle, which I clip to my zipper, and I ride off in total panic. The popsicle was delicious, by the way. :P

Two. Anne and Naomi are always telling me "Don't get between a bear and its cub!" Apparently then they actually mull you, whereas if you're not between the bear and cub, they just sometimes mull you. Good times. So I'm riding to town, and I see a small, brown animal on the road. I panic because I think it's a bear cub, and that even though it's really cute, I'm about to die!!!! Of course, it was not a bear cub. It more resembled a large ferret, so it may have been a mink or a river otter. However, I don't realize until I get close, so when I do, I look at it, it looks at me, and we both take a deep breath and move on.

Anyway, there will definitely be more to say vis a vis wildlife at the Cannery. For now, I remain un-mulled.

Susan :)

PS. Sorry for the massive post!!!! Actually, I'm not really sorry, but I figured I'd attempt apologizing. :P

Swallows

Okay the post everyone expected from me. To be honest, I swear I don’t know my wildlife that well. I certainly spent a lot of time talking about it, especially swallows but that wasn’t so much knowledge as lack of knowledge. As everyone writing this blog knows, I spent a while wondering sporadically what sorts of swallows we had. Mostly because I wasn’t sure and there was variety. Obviously this means that I didn’t know that much about swallows. I just cared a little bit more to attempt to find out.

Summary of story: we have Barn Swallows and Tree Swallows at North Pacific. Barn Swallows are easy, I was just less sure of the Tree Swallows and unsure if there were other varieties. I think it’s just these two.

Barn Swallows, for those who care and those who expect it of me, have dark blue backs and reddy undersides. They also have notably forked tails, which most other swallows in Western North America, do not. And in comparison to any of the other swallows that could be here you would call the barn swallows tail forked and disregard the others’ as not really comparable. The tree swallows have green backs and white undersides.

The barn swallows tend to get into the main buildings quite a bit and they like to let you know with quite a bit of noise when they’re flying around in the rafters. Of course, they are barn swallows so checking out old buildings and probably nesting somewhere in them is to be expected.

The cannery itself is situated between two features that attract the Swallows, the water and a bog. Because of this Swallows are certainly not something to complain about, even when they’re mucking about in the main cannery. With so much insect habitat around the more swallows the better. As soon as you walk in land even a little bit, like say behind the buildings in the fire lane, the whole living on swampy ground thing is readily apparent. So here’s a post to the appreciation of swallows, their antics, and their diet.

And to finish up here’s one out of the three hundred pictures of swallows I took with Naomi’s camera. By the way that’s not an exaggeration; I took three hundred pictures of swallows.

Anne

Yes, me again.

I would like to preface this post by saying that I hate to post twice in a row (for both your sake and my own personal pride)...however the others are engaging in yet another episode of BBC's Horatio Hornblower (apparently quite good) and I was left to the task of relaying our conversation that took place while waiting for Anne's amazing apple and peach crisp...I almost omitted the peach part for alliteration, but what is a blog without honesty?

A recap: Cannery life as a horror film. Five young tour guides living in an abandoned boardwalk village, inhabiting barely a quarter of the rooms in an old hotel, six kilometers away from the five hundred member community of Port Edward. No cell phone reception, an older watchman living on the site, huge cannery buildings and many smaller ones are perfect for an epic knife chase or quiet hanging scene. There was much debate, but basically it was decided that Anne or Susan would die mysteriously, possibly followed by Lu or Paul, and I would survive until the end (unsure why, I was pouring my tea and therefore unable to argue this role). Spider, the watchman, would be the prime suspect, but in the end it would be happy go-lucky Steve, our manager, who would be found guilty. The tension of being the middle man between the tour staff and the board would be too much, or the lack of salmon steaks on the café menu a travesty too awful to bear. To clarify...none of us are living in the haunted room...and Spider hosts barbecues with fresh caught fish...and Steve and Liz have campfires with amazing food. So Hollywood may have to look elsewhere. But then again...

Moving on, I think I feel as though (for Laura, as she is reading this I am sure) I should hit some key points about today. Anne saw a light brown bear on the road this morning, I ate blueberry puffed wheat for lunch, Susan was overwhelmed by her protein packed meal, and it is now my bedtime. Oh, and yesterday I went on a biking/running/garbage hoarding adventure (Leah may understand...running always = garbage hoarding) that left me displeased with the concept of getting out of bed this morning. Such a nice feeling.

The sun is high in the sky, the clock has struck 8:23, the tide is heading out, and alas I bid you goodnight...or perhaps farewell. Who knows what the various cannery ghosts think about our screenplay?

Not quite the big city...

Naomi reporting from Skeena Drive
First of all, I would like to congratulate/thank my fellow cannery inhabitants for actually contributing to this blog and not leaving me looking like some crazy person who is bored out of my mind. I actually just spent the week at "home" (one of several, sorry mom/dad) in Vancouver. Got to spend the weekend hanging out with a bunch of my extended family, see my cousin Gabriel enter manhood, my brother enter middle age (21 is quite the achievement), and celebrate it all with some tasty food. Who does not like polenta hors d'oeuvres and mocha cheesecake? Not that I don't appreciate my current diet of lentils, oatmeal and rutabagas, but variety is always successful. Wondrous time. I believe that brings my total to 4 weeks spent at home since last September...but alas there are things to learn, hippies to commune with, fish to can.

As much as I enjoyed my sejour in the city (an actual city, as Lu can attest to), it was very nice to come back as well. I was happy to note that the cafe had not collapsed in my absence (although I believe Anne was very crazed over the weekend), World War III has not yet broken out among the staff due to close quarters, and the lovely blanket of cold mist from the beginning of May had returned to Inverness Passage. I got a nice recap of the various shenanigans I missed while gone, and tonight I got to cook some of the quinoa my lovely father bought for me in Vancouver (I chose the black one, it's very pretty as the tail bits are white, in case you are wondering). Who knew they had black and red quinoa? Obviously I am uncultured and need to break out of my shell. I spent the day today in the cafe making food for tourists, serving chowder, and prepping for the school group we have coming tomorrow...luckily not too big so it should be manageable.
If nothing else, to quote Anne, "We have good cookies. People always leave happy after a good cookie."

Beer Gardens

Before I start on my actual post, I just want to protest the use of the word "city" for Prince Rupert by my fellow bloggers. A cluster of buildings that can be passed over by less than 1/2 hour of walking does not count as a "city". It is a cluster of buildings pretending to be a city. Now that I've finished my little rant about the careless use of the word, I'll go on to my actual post.



So, Susan and I went to the Beer Gardens, sorry, "Seafest Gardens", on Saturday. We heard about it from Steve and Spider, our winter watchman, at Spider's BBQ. Anne didn't go because she was exhausted and Paul didn't want to go. Susan really wanted to go, but not along so she said "I'll go if Lu goes". Now I didn't really want to go, but I knew that if I said "no", Susan will look at me betrayed for the next 3 months. So in the interest of peaceful living for the summer I agreed to go.



We arrived at the party around midnight and immediately thought it looks like a school party because of all the girls wearing barely enough cloths to not be arrested for public indecency. There were definitely enough police officers for that - probably 1 in 10 people was a cop. That was our first clue that it wasn't a regular school dance. Our next clue was all the parents and grandparents sitting around looking at their grandchildren/children dancing on the dance floor to sounds that approached pop music often heard on the radio. It was quite awkward at the party for us because we didn't know anyone. Mostly we just stood, drank beer, and people watched.

We stayed till 1:30 before giving up (we were going to stay until 2:00 because we heard riots start then) and going to Lila's home to spend the night. Susan and I were going to share a bed because there was only 1 free bed in that house. We prepare to go to sleep and Susan falls asleep on her side. I'm just about to fall asleep when Susan starts to... wheeze... then gasp... then snore. I was going to kick her out of the bed when I remembered that Lila has a cat and Susan is allergic. She would probably die on the sofa, so instead, I moved there. I'm preparing to fall asleep on the couch when... tick tock tick tock... I hear the clock on the fireplace mantle. I don't know about you, but I can't sleep to the constant ticking of a clock, so I listened to it till about 3 something almost 4. I slept for about an hour when Susan decided to go to the bathroom. Of course this woke me up again and it back to listening to the clock. I fall asleep again at around 6ish, unfortunately... Lila decided to wake up at 6:30 and makes coffee in the kitchen beside the living room, so once again I woke up, but I refused to get out of my sofa. Lila leaves the kitchen at around 7. I loitered around in my sofa until my alarm at 7:30.

So I get up at 7:30, after about 2 hours of sleep, feeling "strong emotions" towards Susan, and seeing the rain. What a perfect way to start the morning. We decided to get breakfast at McDonald's because we didn't want to walk in the rain. Afterwards we go to the Civic Centre for the bus. The bus was late, and I said "it's Sunday, maybe the bus doesn't come in the morning"... We looked at each other... and decided to try to hitchhike to get back (btw this is the Highway of Tears we're trying to hitchhike on). At this point you might be wondering why we were so desperate to get back. The answer is pretty simple, we were working that day and only Susan has the keys to access the money. Besides we thought it would be cruel to have only 2 people running entire cannery and the restaurant and the tours and the play and the... well you get the idea. We get on the road and start sticking our thumbs out. We got soaked watching cars whizz past us. Time for plan B, we decided to call to the cannery to ask if Paul or Anne would see if Spider would pick us up. Susan called and got the busy signal. Tried again a couple of minutes later... no one picked up, so Susan left a message. And we tried the hitchhiking idea again. Anne calls back and promises to look for Spider and call us back if she does. We go back to hitchhiking. Once all our cloths were plastered on us, Anne calls us back to tell us Spider will pick us up at McDonald's at 10:00. We turn back to walk to the McDonald's and what do we see? Our bus... our very late bus...

That was our... what adjective should I use? Let's use "interesting", shall we? So, that was our "interesting" adventure in the "city" of Prince Rupert. May it never happen again, or I will not be responsible for my actions towards Susan. As for our shift that day? that's another story...

SALMON!

Hello World!

I am about to post about one of the most classic "life at the cannery" moments. Before I do that, though, let me introduce myself. I am the resident business student: you know, one of those people who prances around in suits and exploits single mothers. Also, I'm from Toronto, so this whole living on the water thing, a bit of a change for me. However, the life here has its perks, and salmon is definitely one of them!

So the other day, Lu and I go down to the dock to kick Steve - our workaholic, happy-go-lucky manager - off the site so that he actually goes home and eats a meal (quite the accomplishment for him, I tell you). Anyway, as we were doing that, we encountered these fishermen Steve was having a conversation with. They seemed pretty nice, so of course we stood around in the rain and chatted a bit.

Later on in the evening, after we finished watching movie 2 of 3 of the Bourne series - excellent movies, btw - we here an ominous knock on the door. Who could it be? The five of us live on a cannery in the middle of nowhere, and it's not like we have neighbours. As it turns out, one of the fishermen was standing there, holding this giant spring salmon, and offers to give it to us! So here we are, five tour guides, one large salmon.

They were nice enough to gut it for us, but we underwent the adventure of cutting it into pieces and sticking it into various containers to freeze - freezer bags, yogurt containers, peanut butter jars, jam jars, you name it, we used it. The result? Salmon for dinner every night!! Quite the deliciousness, and for a business student from Toronto, quite the interesting evening.

There, I've posted. Signing out from Safeway,

Susan :)

This is the introductory post for Anne. Despite what Naomi said I am a tour guide I just happen to also be Lead Researcher (just as Susan is Head Tour Guide, for those keeping track). Despite this vague and expansive title my first post is going to be about work in the restaurant. Why yes, as Lead Researcher and Tour Guide, I am also part of the group that runs the Cannery Cafe (Naomi and Sam are leading the effort).

Today, June 12, I spent the day managing the restaurant alone. Naomi is away and Sam has the weekend off and has returned to civilisation. For the most part making food in our cafe is slightly odd, as I have no experience in operating a kitchen, except, of course, for my own use. Before I go any further I should mention that I am certified to safely make food for people (hence how I ended up working in the restaurant). Actually making the food is pretty straight forward, but why anyone should pay me for this still puzzles me. Managing to serve people, make the food, and keep track of incoming customers by ones self can be a little difficult, but that's what a polite but somewhat urgent call over the radio is for, and before you know it Susan's there being frantic with you.

Starting today I also started a new daily task, one which I, or the current restaurant person, will start each day off with. So now, along with all of the restaurant tasks, we will also be checking the chlorine levels of the tap water to ensure they stay within range. There is always variety in the tasks we take on at the cannery.

Before I ramble my way out of this first post I am going to finish up with a mention of my mysterious friend the steel box from the kitchen. Our sanitizer in the restaurant, probably a dishwasher at some point, is a bit of an enigma. Like most dishwashing devices it is a box with a door that opens and trays that slide out to place dishes on. It's only control is an on off switch which is located on a control panel next to the temperature gauge. The control panel rests on the floor much of the time and often I will crouch down in front of the machine pick up the panel and perplexingly stare at the temperature reading wondering exactly what the machine is doing. The machine gets very hot and thus is useful but the methods of using it are very subtle. When it's on it runs at its own pace and it will occasionally act on its own accord when turned off. I have no doubt that it knows what it is doing but I still hope whenever I close it with another load of dishes that the power light will come on and it will start the cycle.

This has perhaps been an odd place to start my commentary on the cannery but I think it covers at least a lot of my experiences. Such as finding myself in charge of a small cafe and wondering a little bit as to why. Or staring at the needle of the temperature readings and wondering if its going up or down all the while being quite sure there is a better way to do this.

Anne

Wilp School

I had my first school group today. They ranged from toddlers to elementary school students. And they had a lot of questions for me! I took them through the can-making line, canning line, and the store. They had a lot of fun watching the machines run and learning how they work. They also really enjoyed seeing things in the store that their parents used when they were younger. They realized just how much life experience their parents had! And just how recent some inventions are. We also enjoyed making fish. We coloured them and stuffed them with newspaper; we made an entire school of salmon! My salmon, Sammy the Salmon, made some new friends that the kids introduced to him and some of his new friends stayed behind to keep him company. It was also really cute when I got a flower from a girl as thanks for the tour. I really enjoyed interacting with the kids and learning just how energetic they can be. I can't wait for my next school group next week!

From the middle of nowhere,
Lu

The beginning of the second month...

So, after a month of co-existing, we have decided to take the next step in our relationship. At least, I have...we will see if the others follow. Every so often something so ridiculous would happen and, as is the case with our generation, the cry of "what has this world come to" was generally followed by "we need to start a blog."

To set the stage (drama reference for Paul):

There are five of us (plus Sam, who lives in Prince Rupert, so she has maintained a level of sanity the rest of us have long given up on achieving)
We are living and working for the summer at a historic site in the form of an old cannery fishing village on the coast of BC.
This blog is likely to die within a few hours due to our dependence on dial-up internet, ridiculously nonchalant attitudes, and the fact that a blog is a very weird concept if you think about it. No one cares (or should care) about how Susan thought our dinner conversation about the game D&D was referring to Department of National Defense for its entirety. Or about my embarrassing wiring attempts at making dial-up internet work (which I will not describe to save my tech-savvy father's pride).

However, I figure this is a test...I have done the legwork of setting up a communal email and blog (which, by the way, took two Arrogant Worms songs and the opening credits of the third Star Wars just to load the four necessary pages). Tomorrow is Monday, and seeing as the museum is closed so none of us work, we all venture to the big city of Prince Rupert and can access wireless in the alcove of the Safeway exit. All except me, as I am laptop-less. If there is any chance that my fellow Tour Guides (and Anne, as Head Researcher) will join this online endeavor, it will likely be tomorrow. I will wait until then to properly introduce myself, as I refuse to blog solo and it has passed my 8:30 bedtime.

Dim stage lights with "Canada's Really Big" by the Arrogant Worms.

Naomi