Travels With My Friend
I was supposed to be travelling back from Nova Scotia today.
But I’m not. Instead, I went in early August. And instead of going to say good-bye to a close friend in person, I went to celebrate her life after she was gone, along with her family and friends.
These are hard words to write. You always think you’ll have more time. My friend thought she had more time — it was her suggestion I come see her in September, when all the tourists would be gone but the weather still like summer. She herself had a busy summer planned — travel, time with family, time with other visitors — and so I took the early-September slot.
I knew it wouldn’t be a normal visit. I knew she was much weaker than I’d ever seen her. I knew it would likely be the last time I could see and talk to her in person.
You always think you’ll have more time.
This is my travel blog. So why am I writing about the loss of my friend?
Because she was the best travel companion I’ve ever had.
I suppose that’s not a surprise. When you travel with your best friend, a person with whom you share so many of the interests that make travel so memorable — art, architecture, music, literature, good food — it makes travelling together so easy. Maybe it worked so well for us because we lived on opposite ends of the country, and so our periods of travel became our time to reconnect and to nurture our friendship.
After she was gone, I counted up how much of my travelling involved her.
Seventeen. Seventeen trips. Some of them as long as two weeks, others as short as a weekend.
It all started with a road trip. At that point, we were casual acquaintances, part of a crowd of thirtysomethings who hung out together in Toronto. One of my roommates was dating one of her roommates. We went to the same parties, had brunch together on Sunday mornings after church.
She told me about her upcoming trip to New Orleans. A mutual friend was driving her down for a job interview she had lined up with the New Orleans school board (she was a newly accredited teacher at the time, eager for a full-time teaching position when those were hard to come by). The two of them were also planning to go to the New Orleans Jazz Fest.
“I’ve always wanted to go to New Orleans,” I said.
“Why don’t you come with us?” she replied. It wasn’t an idle invitation — I could see she meant it. I had lots of flexibility with my time that year as I was finishing off a master’s degree while launching my freelance editing career. I was making slow progress on both at the time, so it wasn’t much of a decision for me.
“OK,” I said. “I’m in.”
I learned a lot about her on that trip. We enjoyed a memorable evening of live blues on Beale Street, saw Graceland, and had a bizarre three-hour tour of a Mississippi plantation where our tour guide looked old enough to have fought in the Civil War himself and we were the only tourists in sight.
What impressed me most about that trip was watching how my friend faced her fears. She was terrified of snakes, yet insisted we go for a long walk along creaky boardwalks through a Louisiana swamp. As we tramped along, she jumped at least a foot in the air at every little noise, convinced she would step on a snake before the walk was over. But she refused to turn back.
That road trip was the beginning of a friendship that lasted a quarter century. She introduced me to New York, a city she loved, and we went back several more times. The winter I spent in Paris, she joined me for Christmas and New Year’s. She couldn’t believe I had never tasted coq au vin, and so she insisted on teaching me how to make it. Chicken stewed in wine? Yes, please.
Another year she invited me to join her family in Florida for New Year’s. There were weeks in London and San Francisco, and a ski weekend in Whistler. We kayaked the Broken Group Islands (twice!) and Desolation Sound.
Kayaking in the Broken Group Islands, British Columbia
The summer she spent in Siena studying Italian art, I was in Prague on a writing course. We decided to meet up afterwards — or rather, I invited myself to stay in her dorm room for a few days before I had to travel on to Amsterdam to meet up with my father.
I tagged along when their entire class went to Padua to look at frescoes. We booked ourselves into a hotel room for two nights, along with some of the friends she had made on the course, intending to spend the next day in Venice. Being summer in Italy, it was hot, so we got an early start. By late afternoon, we were all knackered. There were five of us in total, and we decided to take a gondola ride. That led to beer and pasta with our gondolier. And that led to some of us sneaking out to smoke a joint along the canal with said gondolier. (You all know where this is going, right?)
To keep it short: we missed the last train to Padua. Five Canadian women looking for hotel rooms in Venice, at midnight in the height of tourist season. It wasn’t pretty.
But that mishap led to a lovely bonus day in Venice, and three of us decided to go to Murano, one of the islands adjacent to Venice, for lunch. My friend urged me to order the Caprese salad as I had never had it before. I was converted.
In addition to all of our, ahem, travel adventures, there were the numerous times she opened up her home to me whenever I was in Toronto. I would do my rounds of networking, as I called it, with clients, but I always had lots of catching up to do with my friends from when I lived there. She told me I was the perfect guest because I was never home, but, in truth, she was the perfect host.
Because of that hospitality, I always gave her first dibs whenever I lined up a home exchange, and she never said no. She joined me for 10 days the summer I was in Amsterdam — scheduling her time with me in between the chemo treatments for the disease that would eventually claim her life. I marvelled at how well she was doing. I could not keep up with her as we walked through the city’s streets. One day we cycled 20 kilometres to Haarlem and back. It was her idea to bike and that was the only day I could see she wasn’t 100 percent. She was close to collapsing when we pulled up to a café alongside a canal.
“You go sit,” I said, pointing to an empty table outside the café. “I’ll lock up the bikes.”
We spent another day in Delft, one of my favourite Dutch cities. It also happens to be where my friend’s father was born. She told me stories of childhood visits and we went looking for the house where he had lived. I’d met her father only once or twice, which is maybe why I could easily picture him as a small school boy running at top speed alongside the canals.
Interacting with the Dutch wildlife
In 2018, we spent a week together in San Francisco. We cycled across the Golden Gate Bridge to Sausalito — that time it was my turn to almost collapse at the end of our ride. And she joined me for a weekend in Montreal where I had another home exchange arranged. That was 2019. I had no idea at the time that it would be the last time I would see her. How could I? The pandemic kept us apart after that.
My friend was a high school photography teacher and she showed me the best places to catch that unique photo. Like the Eiffel Tower from a side street I would have never found on my own. We both loved taking photographs in old cemeteries, and so, on one of my visits to Toronto, she showed me the Necropolis, which has some of the city’s oldest graves. It was a warm summer evening, and we soon lost track of the time. Or maybe we didn’t know that the gates would be locked at 8 p.m.
Ever struggle to climb over a wrought iron fence in a short skirt? She had a good laugh that time — at my expense.
She never said a word about my photography skills until I asked her for feedback. “Well,” she said slowly. “Your horizons aren’t always level. And check your corners. You want to edit out any distractions.”
Needless to say, every time I edit my photos, I’m checking my corners. And thinking of her.
Photographing Gertrude Stein’s grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris
She was a far better friend to me than I was to her. There was one travel dream I had, a trip I haven’t yet taken and likely won’t, and years ago, when I first brought up the idea, she had mixed feelings about whether she wanted to join me. But later she told me about a conversation she had had with her mother. “You know,” she told her mom, “I really have no burning desire to make that trip. But it’s important to Elizabeth, so that’s enough of a reason to go.”
Who does that? Not me — that’s for sure.
I’m shattered I didn’t get one last visit with my friend and a chance to say good-bye in person. But I am so incredibly grateful she was able to spend her last years in Nova Scotia, surrounded by her family and by so much love. And I’m so grateful they shared her with me for so many years.
I will miss her more than I can say.
Having a bit of fun at the Vermeer Centrum Delft
Supply Chain Issues
Supply chain issues seem to be a fact of life these days. Whether it was the lack of flour and eggs in our grocery stores back in March 2020, the recent shortage of infant formula in the United States, or (my latest issue) having to wait up to two months for a backorder of my preferred brand of cat food — all these things make us stop and think, “Wait a minute. What’s going on here?”
I learned on my last visit to Galiano Island that freighters like to park themselves just off the northern tip of the island while waiting for an empty berth at the Port of Vancouver. English Bay always has a number of waiting freighters as well, but when the bay is full, those ships have to look elsewhere for a place to anchor and wait. Vancouver is Canada’s largest and busiest port, with 3000 ships arriving every year. That’s a lot of ships and an awful lot of waiting time.
But while on Galiano again last weekend, I was surprised to learn that often these ships are waiting for what seems like an awfully long time. The container ship in this next photo? It was sitting off the north end of the island for three weeks.
I can’t see any way that a three-week delay to offload a fully loaded container ship from Asia doesn’t add to our supply chain problems. Not to mention the cost of goods.
Or the seafarers stuck on board. Waiting.
Happy Canada Day!
It’s been a while since we’ve been able to celebrate our national holiday together. This year is the first in three years that we can gather in large crowds again. I went down to Canada Place this afternoon to have a look. It’s almost other-worldly to see so many people all together in one place.
Typically, on Canada Day, I post a photo of the Canadian flag. We call it the Maple Leaf, our flag, and we’re rather proud of it. Last year, however, I just couldn’t do it. It wasn’t the pandemic or the fact that we couldn’t celebrate together that made me reluctant to post about Canada Day.
No, it was because of the grief. And the horror.
The horror was learning, only a few weeks prior to Canada Day, that there were more than 200 unmarked graves at the former residential school at Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc, near Kamloops, BC. In the year since, many more unmarked graves across Canada have been detected using ground-penetrating radar — and many more will be in the future.
Indigenous peoples have always known about these graves, but, sadly, it took other Canadians — those of us who chose to come to Canada or were brought here by others — a lot longer to accept that truth.
And that was the root of my grief. How is it our country went through an entire Truth and Reconciliation Commission and I still didn’t understand that children had died?
So that’s where I was a year ago. I wasn’t sure how or even if I should celebrate a country that exists because it colonized, exploited, and murdered other peoples.
A year on, our country is fumbling its way towards acknowledging the truth part of truth and reconciliation. And many communities across the country found ways to celebrate Canada Day while honouring that truth in our path towards reconciliation. Today’s festivities at Canada Place were planned with the Indigenous peoples of Vancouver on whose unceded and ancestral territory we live: the Squamish, the Musqueam, and the Tsleil-Waututh.
We have a long ways to go, but it’s a start.
I’ve been thinking today about that Canadian flag we’re all so proud of. It’s become a symbol of the so-called Freedom Convoy that occupied and terrorized Ottawa last winter for several weeks, and is trying to again this weekend. When I saw a car drive by me this morning with two small Canadian flags attached to each window, my initial reaction was to cringe. Because the flag in Canada has become a symbol of protest.
And so, this year again, I was wondering how to celebrate our flag and this day.
But then I listened to the Canada Day message of our Prime Minister. He made a point of talking about our Canadian flag, the Maple Leaf, and reminded us that it is more than a symbol. It is a promise: “a promise of opportunity, a promise of safety for those fleeing violence and war, and a promise of a better life.”
I thought about all those people who have come to Canada on the basis of the promise that they could be free. That includes the most recent refugees to arrive — from Ukraine, from Afghanistan, from Syria — as well as the many others that came before them, for generations.
A few years ago, I had the honour and privilege to witness 57 people from 18 countries take the oath of citizenship and become new Canadians, including a dear friend of mine. The citizenship judge had a lot to say, but these words I will remember forever:
Canada didn’t happy by accident.
Diversity is our strength.
If that judge’s words aren’t a much-needed antidote to current world events, I don’t know what is. And so I will once again proudly celebrate Canada Day, and our flag, while acknowledging that our country is a work-in-progress.
As all countries should be.
Through My Lens: Delphiniums
Summer has finally arrived in Vancouver. Better late than never, I say. We had our first hot stretch this past week and I tell you, it was glorious.
Two nights ago, I headed over to the Stanley Park Rose Garden because I knew the roses would be in full bloom. And they were. So beautiful.
But what really grabbed my attention were these delphiniums. I could not get over the vivid blues and purples.
Stunning.
Juneuary
I know, I know. I keep saying I won’t write about the weather. And then I do.
It’s just that … well, when you live in Vancouver and the weather is great, there is nowhere you’d rather be. But when you live in Vancouver and the weather is awful, there is literally anywhere you’d rather be.
Such has been the case these past few months as we endured the coldest spring in 77 years. That’s quite the record.
This month, we’ve been enjoying a typical “Juneuary.” Every June, a low pressure system moves in over the Lower Mainland and hangs around for most of the month. Cold days, colder nights, and rain, lots of rain. It’s been the wettest June in 30 years, and on June 9, the 26.3 mm of rain that fell made it the wettest June 9 since 1937.
We skipped Juneuary in 2019 and 2020, but it was back with a vengeance in 2021, although most of us quickly forgot about it as soon as the heat dome rolled in. Thankfully, it doesn’t look like we’ll have to endure one of those this summer.
The good news about the cool temperatures is that the unusually large snow pack is melting slowly. We don’t want — or need — any more flooding in this province.
And apparently summer temperatures are just around the corner. I cannot wait.
Here’s a photo of the barge that came ashore last November on the beach at the end of my street. It’s still here, seven months later — no longer an oddity, just an eyesore.
Not to mention a constant reminder that nothing is as it should be with our climate.
Through My Lens: Portico of La Madeleine
When I’m photographing my European churches, I’m always on the lookout for an unusual angle. Here’s one: from the portico at La Madeleine.
Through My Lens: Kinderdijk Ponies
Who of you needs to see a photo of some ponies? Or a windmill?
I took this photo while exploring the windmills at Kinderdijk with some friends a few years ago. It didn’t make it into my earlier post because most of the mill is hidden.
But I really do like the ponies.
Happy Easter!
Église Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, Paris, January 2011
The Beginning of the End?
Look who’s back!
Yesterday, Vancouver welcomed its first cruise ship in 891 days. Holland America’s Koningsdam stopped for a day at Canada Place, after spending Saturday in Victoria. If ever there was a sign that we are past the pandemic, I’m thinking this is it.
Except we’re not past it. Not really. A sixth wave is on its way and those of us who are immune-compromised or work in health care or have friends or family who are immune-compromised or work in health care or are not yet eligible for vaccines (think babies) know there are still lots of risks. There has been an awful lot of talk about how we have to learn how to live with Covid, which doesn’t seem to give much consideration to those still at high risk of dying of Covid.
That aside, tourism is a billion-dollar industry in Vancouver, and those of us who work in tourism and hospitality welcome the news that our city is once again a safe destination for anyone who wants to visit. The Port of Vancouver has offered shore power to cruise ships since 2009, which means that 60 percent of the ships that dock here can run on lower-emission electrical power while in port instead of their diesel-powered auxiliary engines.
While I was taking this photo, a so-called Freedom Rally was gathering behind me to protest vaccines. I’m not sure what their issue is at this point since all of BC’s remaining restrictions concerning Covid-19 were lifted last week.
As I watched the protestors for a moment, a young man walked past me, wearing a black sweatshirt with the word “Ukraine” in large blue and yellow letters. The irony of the moment made my head spin.
There and Back Again 