Journal: New York to Boston

Semi-delirious from sleep-deprivation, exhaustion, and a wee puff , I waited in a ticketed-passenger lounge in Penn Station. Dispossessed stragglers roamed through the station corridors with no place to sit.
At 3 AM the train to Boston arrived and I boarded it for the last ride of the East-bound half of my trip. Typically, passengers who had boarded at earlier stops were half-asleep as people came and went. Not long after I had settled-in, the young lady across from me stirred. She became increasingly upset as she rummaged through her belongings and she quickly determined that her wallet was gone.
As discussions with other passengers and train staff ensued, it emerged that she had been caught by thieves with a recognized modes operandi. They take these late night trains counting on the probability that other passengers will be asleep. Then they exit at the stop before New York city. As they do, a team of two works the aisles looking for and snatching valuables from unsuspecting sleepers.
Her fate was somewhat mitigated by the fact that she would be met at the airport by friends. She was also able to immediately call her credit card issuer. I offered a few words of sympathy and fell asleep myself somewhere in Connecticut. But as always my money, traveler's checks, tickets and other essentials were kept on my person. Moreover, I am a rather light sleeper.

As I was beginning to see was customary, the train staff didn't seem much comfort.



(Journal will continue soon)

Greenwich Village Night Life

As much as I love the Robert Louis Stevenson story myself, I'd have to wonder about a gal who would look for a guy at a singles bar called Jeckyll and Hyde.






I shouldn't wonder what sort of fellow might seek companionship at a bar called The Fat Black Pussy Cat. Is this place an original hold-out or it is an ironic revival? It sounds like a throw-back to early-sixties naughty humor. Playboy magazine visits the Fat Black Pussycat.

26 November 2005

Surrealist New York

Washington Square Park


It was exceedingly strange that evening at around ten or eleven when I reached New York. I arrived at Penn station, checked my bag and took a subway to to St Mark's Place in the Village. There I was, instantly plunged into good old electric New York city with none of the customary nervous preamble. It was like surfacing in San Francisco after a BART ride from Berkeley. This is opposed to the familiar building tension, not to say terror, of coming in by car or by bus and seeing the endless highways, traffic, and buildings. If you are traveling into New York, may I recommend the train.








A shop window on Bleecker street.










(Journal to follow)

26 November 2005

Journal: Montreal to New York

This cold morning in late November, I walked downhill from from my hotel on Rue Stanley through the deserted downtown to the Montreal train station.

A striking replica of a building in the Vatican. I accepted the blessings of the skyline saints as I resumed my train travel.



















Nearing Lake Champlain
forest stands in floodwater
lake long as daylight










(Journal to follow)

Montreal Haiku

Snow in gusty bursts
manor room on mount royal
my roman a clef






In cafe windows
on Sainte Catherine street
a poet's white ghost






A book-of-hours sky
frames the city’s old quarter
buoyant in cold air






Animal figure
on snowy storefront sidewalk
empty winter street












In vieux Notre Dame
a double harpsichord fugue
wooden ships in mid-air






A maze of ice pools
surrounds the palace of ice
eerie alone there






Champs-de-Mars

Down from the old town
this terrace to the next train
no one knows I’m here






High rise ornaments
Christmas on other planets
the wreath of doom

November 2005

Journal: Montreal

Snow in gusty bursts
manor room on mount royal
my roman a clef







My hotel on Rue Stanley.

I learned about this place through an article on Montreal in the San Francisco Chronicle. It was fun and predominantly comfortable, but it was not without incident or issue. Nevertheless, beginning with Thanksgiving night, I spent two nights and part of three days there. It had been twenty-five years since I lived in a warm lamp-lit room with snow falling outside my window. There was poignancy in the experience. It was moving to revisit snowy climes in Winter. It was unlikely that I would ever live there again. It's the impression you have that you are saying farewell.





(Journal to follow)

The Palace of Ice

After I left Notre Dame I walked down to a deserted aquatic park. Here at the edge of the St Lawrence seaway I recognized one of the few sights I remembered from my road trip here in 1972. It was the geodesic dome visible across the water. When I first saw it it was a relatively recent hold-over from the Montreal Expo 67, a world's fair. Today it is an artifact of a lost civilization, a quaint relic of retro-futurist optimism.

I turned around and started back toward the skyline of the old town of Montreal. As I traced the deserted walkways toward its promise of warmth and food, I relished the metaphysical atmosphere alone in a precinct of ice.












A book-of-hours sky
frames the city’s old quarter
buoyant in cold air












A maze of ice pools
surrounds the palace of ice
eerie alone there






The Palace of Ice

25 November 2005

Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel

Pray for us

"And the sun pours down like honey on Our Lady of the Harbor,"

from Suzanne by Leonard Cohen

As I made my mental itinerary of a train trip across Canada, this location was one of the first to light up. It was an important station of my pilgrimage. My Mother's family were devout Catholics who emigrated from French Canada in the late 19th Century, after existing there for several hundred years. Her Father's family name was Audette and her mother's was LaCroix which means "The Cross". Without a doubt my ancestors had attended Mass at this sacred and beautiful old church. I felt grace as I approached and entered. A restorative conviction of living as part of the True Vine of which Christ spoke settled on me like a mantle of peace.

A group was making a video on the front steps as I approached. We saluted each other as we attempted to capture images that could evoke this chilly afternoon of precious sunlight in the ancient streets of Vieux Montreal.









If a viewer looks carefully one of the two harpsichords is discernible in front of the altar.

I was a discerning aficionado of early music and the harpsichord in particular when I hit town. So upon entering the chapel I was delighted to discover that it was not only a concert venue for early music in Montreal, but that the two artists who were performing there that night were about to rehearse the program.
It takes a certain level of familiarity for most people to fully relate to any musical performance. Harpsichord fugues are no exception. For this soaring double harpsichord concerto by Bach, I was most finely attuned. I recall what Dexter Gordon once said, "You've never smoked marijuana? And you think you've heard music?" At that time I was doing my best to maintain my own Brandenburg concerto of the mind.
The musicians were masters and the music was resplendent in this sacred place. It was a highpoint of my trip, one reached more or less by objective chance, by the grace of God.











Wooden ships bearing candles, symbols of the soul in prayer, glide serenely over us.










In vieux Notre-Dame
a double harpsichord fugue
wooden ships in mid-air









Jesus teaches in the Temple.
Truth upon beauty upon beauty in this holy place.









With a final veneration for Marguerite-Bourgeoys it was time to sortie.










View of Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours facing the harbor of the St Lawrence.
Come back from the wilds of Quebec for here is charity, here is peace.










Darkness descends on the old city, deepening an ambiance of peace and grace around this venerable and beloved church. It was the Advent of Christmas on earth.

25 November 2005

The Art of Canada

Rocky mountain oils
in gingerbread galleries
footprints in the snow
















Bylot Island by Lawren Harris
The Break-up, Mount Tremblant by Edwin Headley Holgate

In the tony Yorkville section of Toronto where I stayed, I discovered the Loch gallery. These paintings were among other wintry landscapes by Canadian artists. The images echoed the enormous distance I had just crossed by train. They expressed something essential about the many beautiful lands known as Canada.
People are scarce and the land is vast, monumental, and portentous.


(Specific information on these paintings to follow)

Toronto Haiku

Thanksgiving

The birds of winter
perch on a low cable
outside of the wind






Gingerly the cat
explores the hotel garden
now blossoming snow






Yorkville

Rocky mountain oils
in gingerbread galleries
footprints in the snow






Horseback statue hill
Queen’s Park robed in white sable
old world not quite real






Leaving Toronto

The gleaming city
where I slept over last night
seen for the first time

24 November 2005

Sioux Lookout

Blue-gray waterways
dreamlike through the deep green trees
meteor craters






The boy points to it
and I see the moose at last
flicker in the trees






Back of moose country
a sign says Bob’s Hunting Lodge
shack barely standing






The three little boys
with dad and first-nation mom
fly home from the train

November 2005

Journal: My Winnipeg

What visit to Winnipeg would be complete without a stop at the world headquarters of the Nutty Club?
The Canadian stops for a few hours in Winnipeg. I had learned very little about the place when I suddenly found myself there. It was noontime on a cold day with a sky that said more snow. A fairly large metropolis, it seemed uncannily vacant or else hidden behind dim windows. To the East were high rise buildings, signs of life, so I headed that way.
After a few blocks walk, I noticed a line of people on the sidewalk in front of an office building. They were wearing in-door clothes in between piles of snow. A few quiet emergency trucks parked nearby came into view.
A young lady directed me to a mall. At first I couldn't see where she's pointing, until I realized it was a subterranean deal. As with the deserted sidewalks, it's all about getting out of the North wind when it blows. There's a bustling food court inside the shopping bunker. There the lack of charm in a maze of small formica tables is compensated for by the large portions served.
Afterward I hit a few shops for small provisions. The clock was ticking toward train-time while I attempted to buy a few stamps. The counter-girl tried to send me to another place when I exclaimed, "I've got a train to catch... I don't want to have to spend the night in Winnipeg!"

My resonating faux pas notwithstanding, I enjoyed the visit. I made the train-time even with side trips for photos on the way back. As we slowly pulled out over its railroad bridge, I felt an odd warmth and an amusement toward the city of Winnipeg. I watch the temperature there in the newspaper these days, and I often ponder the place, its products, and personae.
I thought about all of this even before I discovered the intriguing films of Guy Maddin. His films are densely layered dreams of a surrealist conception of Winnipeg. They expand on my interest and my uncanny feelings about this primordially remote civilization in Mid-western Canada.

23 November 2005

Western Canada Haiku

Edmonton

Hologram city
seen across a landing strip
an indoor ocean







Saskatoon

Sleepy train station
sweet water fountain a smoke
no one notices







Winnipeg

White sky snow-packed earth
a train-stop in Winnipeg
bomb scare in progress






Nocturnal train stops
in faraway Canada
Winter’s hinterland

November 2005

Journal: Jasper to Winnipeg

Beyond Jasper, though I traveled on in solitude, I was never alone.














The world falls away
only railroad tracks remain
climbing ever on













Ghost riders in the sky.
Leaving the Rockies, we looked back and saw that the sky was ablaze. The flash bleached out the color but the camera managed to capture a strange moment in my trip nevertheless.








(Journal will follow)

22 November 2005

Jasper, Alberta

21 November 2005

It was around noon when we stopped for a few hours in Jasper.

Those are the blue Canadian Rockies; that's the train called the Canadian; and there are my train tickets in my breast pocket. The train staff told me this was a good clear day for this time of year. It might have been really frigid. So I was blessed.
The photo was taken by my train buddy, Evan Barnett. A Toronto native, he's been in school at Evergreen college in Olympia, Washington. We both ate a cannabis cookie before arriving and were all smiles the whole time. He stayed behind to try to find another young cat we befriended on the train to ask him to put him up for a few nights stay. I was a little too chilled and the air was too thin for me to consider staying on. I could have caught another Canadian in two days otherwise.
So we walked around the fairly deserted town singing, taking a few more photos, and contemplating 36o degrees of snow-capped peaks. This whole region has been called the "North American Alps." It had long been a goal of mine to see it for myself.
We sat inside the train station a while to warm-up. It was quaint and alpine like the whole town. But too soon the happy-sad moment when two train whistle blasts and a call of "all aboard" signal that the clock says it's time to go.
Adieu, Evan, noble companion of mountains and rails.



Evan.
For some reason he wasn't cold in like two jerseys and a sweater. He said he had an extra sweater for when the temperatures plunged at night fall.






Animal effigies abound in an atavistic form of sympathetic magic.



The lonesome traveler. Looking Westward, the way I had just come.






A local figure watches the Canadian head Eastward.
A fond farewell to Jasper.

Mount Robson

The train emerges
from the night's fathomless sleep
dawn’s silent giant





Small herd of elk waits
in a dim grove of pine trees
no one else sees them





Big woolly sheep graze
like white clouds on the ridge top
no town to walk to





A liminal point
when the train leaves the mountains
and enters the clouds

November 2005

Vancouver Haiku

In the spirit world

a wall of masks floats downstream

totem poles pile up

 

 

Sky train at dusk

stadium fills with liquid

melancholy light

 

 

Vancouver in fog

aboard maritime buildings

a steam-powered clock

November 2005

Journal: Leaving Vancouver

November 2005

Sunday, 2oth. As it does, Sunday rolls around. I sleep until after 11:00, then call down to say I'm leaving. Quick coffee with quiet Sunday TV. Gray sky over the nondescript high-rise and the backs of other buildings that comprise the view from this room. Nevertheless, it was snug. Dress and pack it up. They are unable to help me book a room at the Howard Johnson's in Toronto, no connection to them--franchise rivalry. The bus service had just resumed on Grandville after Santa's Parade downtown. I ride the bus down to Skytrain and off toward the train station. Little kids in antlers are in evidence. I can see floats and costumed people dispersing on surface streets below.
It's easy to hop off and cross a park to the Pacific Central station looking great, it's neo-classical colonnades softened by the persistent fog. People tells me fog like this is very unusual here, but that it is keeping the temperatures mild.
At the ticket window I must get the actual tickets for VIA the Canadian railway for the next leg of my trip. Amtrak issues the travel pass with VIA, then they only issue tickets for travel in the US. It's all booked but nothing is ever certain until a ticket is in hand. The agent starts the process and will have my tickets for Toronto and for Montreal for me this evening.
Naively, I ask the lady if she is French-Canadian after she speaks a little. She gets almost haughty in her European umbrage. Even tries a lame line about American accents with her co-worker. Of course, here I was getting a ticket for coach for three days so I had no additional costs. It was let's say the opposite of the "hey, big spender" treatment.
The option for privacy was always there and that came with the otherwise expensive dining car meals at no added charge. The booking agent said, "just tell the conductor," to change to a private car and hand over the cost.
Yet I am slightly concerned at what my hotels will end-up costing, and uncertain of the expenses to be incurred in Massachusetts. I was willing to take my chances in coach and catch up on sleep when stationary. With a companion I would really enjoy a private space, but alone it's too isolating to endure for days. I have enough solitude day to day at home.
So, I stay cool and her feathers smooth. I pay a small fee and she holds my big shoulder bag until train time tonight. Off I go for the day.
A request for spare change as I cross the park leads to a lively conversation with a young Canuck. I give him some coins and he says "I'd offer you some pot but you don't look like you smoke it." So I linger for more BC cannabis lore from him with his friend listening and agreeing. He is too talkative for me, and wanders onto US criticism. Now I hear my Skytrain coming.

And it's a short hop to my intended stop on the Skytrain loop. My third visit to Commercial street is so I can hit Sweet Cherubim, the natural foods place, for a meal and for provisions for the railroad.
Once I'm there, a lot of people collect at the #20 bus stop due to slow Sunday service and Santa's Parade. While waiting I strike up an acquaintance with a gal around my age named Phoenix. She is eager to help me get sorted out, even with regards moving to Vancouver when I mention it. She advises me against a bus tour of Stanley Park particularly with the visibility reduced by the fog. The bus comes and we board together. We are both heading for the same stop and some organic food. She suggests alternate ways for me to spend my afternoon but doesn't influence my plans-- there isn't time to do very much.
I order at the cafe and find an amiable middle-aged English guy sits with me. He notices me re-read sign and wonder where my chapati was (it's not included in my deal), so he insists on sharing his with me. Talk of Vancouver as a place to live comes round to the current US war climate again. I give him food for thought when I reply that I would not put past the present administration to green-light a terrorist attack. Phoenix, finished shopping, comes by to say good-bye. Smile and the world smiles back.
Same nice girl at the counter as last time, I notice the delicate pigment of her breasts. Then it's next door for a grub to travel on. Apples, dried cranberries, flat bread, locally-made organic chocolate. Little did I realize even at these prices I might have purchased much more to cover long days in cold weather with only expensive rail car prices and furtive train-stop foraging. The shops have an ambiance familiar to me and a minute later I'm in conversation with another, younger guy. I tell him that I've met a little anti-American feeling in Canada, mainly the guy at the greasy spoon in Gastown. I say, the guy moved to Canada a few years ago and is trying to make me feel unwelcome. My ancestors were in French Canada in the 18th Century. "So?" says my new acquaintance. "So fuck him," I say to what seems a general concurrence. This group already nodded familiarly when they heard I was from the SF Bay area. We live along the same Pacific coast natural food, anti-war, pot-smoking migratory path.







I make up my mind and it's back to Skytrain to ride it all the way down to the waterfront again. This time I bear left at Water street and soon come to the impressive Canada Place complex. It is the immense white building with fin-like turrets that resemble sails on a great ship. A goofy polar bear statue outside speaks to the goofy Canadian charm in general. I walk around to the starboard side to a remote bench to sit and have a smoke. The quiet ambiance is welcome-- I sense the water and land mass out there in the fog. Ferry boats come and go into it from this center. Construction goes on just up the coastline--I think it's for a twin building to augment this one. It's colder out than I'm used to but my outdoor clothes keep it viable.
There is an I-Max theater and other popular magnets inside, but I prefer to stay with the elements a while. I proceed to the best vantage points on the "prow" where I study the city and waterfront and exercise a little. People join me but rarely last long without enough warm gear.
Iuse my map to sit on the wet bench for some time but it is not very long before I retreat inside myself. Screens play industrial shipping scenes to scant attention. I use the nice restroom then go inside a sweet little coffee shop by the view. I put lots of cream and cocoa in the ample coffee I'm served then sit and start this journal. This is my last stop in Vancouver before making my way to the train station so I relax over the breew. a table of mature Hindu gentlemen ask my advice as to what size coffee to get. I show them my huge "regular." I'm a citizen of the world at home wherever I am, including this place for an hour or so.
At 4:30 I leave Canada place for the Skytrain and find myself at the train station again fast. In the dreary shops across the park I find some cheddar cheese for the road. A video crew is filming the red incandescent station sign in the evening fog. I try a photo too then head into the station where the same two gals ticket me and return my bag to me intact. Very sleepy after herb and coffee with heavy cream. I wait on the departure bench concerned that I could be coming down with a cold.
There is a currency exchange window across from me. Two First nation boys come there with US dollars, followed by their Grandma. I suggest that she sit with me and "let the boy wait in line." They concur. I chat with her and learn that they are from Oregon visiting relatives in Canada for the holidays, Thanksgiving included. Before they go I say to the older boy, "I should have said young man." We shake hands and smiles are all around.
Then the time comes for the boarding call and I hurry off with the small crowd that have collected with me, to board the "Canadian". For coach passengers like myself, it's a long haul along side the train in the dusky light all the way to a front car. A sort of race ensues which is odd because most have assigned rooms and don't go very far to reach them. I get an optimal seat with a nice expanse of uninterrupted window. But I almost changed it after a fuss-budget across the aisle looks like he might make me less restful on the long journey. But he settles down and I do too. The big gal takes my ticket and puts a tag over my seat showing I'm in for the whole trip to Toronto. The conductors, there's also a nice blond mustachioed fellow, get fairly well-acquainted with the passengers over the long night traversing vast unseen landscapes. It's an attractive train cabin interior and they arrange for us long-haul types to maintain two seats unchallenged attaching a stub above our seats.
The word was that the "Canadian" leaves Vancouver at night because many passengers become frightened if they can see the precipitous voids dropping away only a few feet from the tracks. You have to take the "Skeena" to Prince Rupert to see this route by daylight. I hope to ride it someday.
And then, after a long slow coast out of the yards, off we went into the vast darkness, one November night in the Rocky mountains of Western Canada.

Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, Vancouver

19 November 2005

Aqueous stained glass
prayer beads in remote churches
a pilgrim's progress

Journal: Vancouver, B.C.

November 2005

Saturday, 19th. There are weird sex talk programs and nude clips galore on TV. French stations with melodious cadences of forced jollity; weather channels in tones of seriousness if not dread that go all the way to the Yukon; and American news channels holding a ghost of cheer today that things may finally be unraveling for the current administration. There is roiling in congress as one member of the alleged "opposition party" has finally stood up against occupation. One of the reasons I am here in Canada is to see if I can imagine emigrating. My grandfather was a native of Quebec and an American of Quebecois descent can get help in gaining Canadian citizenship. All it would take would be one more US invasion, after the two invasions so far, the "patriot" act, domestic spying, restrictions on free speech, special rendition, Gitmo, and the political philosophy of "enhanced interrogation."

With these thoughts over coffee I gradually feel fit enough to hit the front desk. There I wrangle a free breakfast in the bar-restaurant deal--nothing like a deserted bar ambiance with breakfast. The juice isn't included so I foolishly pay a few bucks for what turns out to be a Tang-dynasty OJ. But the usual hearty, greasy victuals fortify for another day in the Great White North (not even there yet). Back up to my room to vaguely plan the day.
Right outside a bus stops and I ride it back to the Granville hub. A Saturday shopping scene prevails as I hit the sidewalk. Walk up Georgia to hit the post office--which is closed on Saturday, apparently a new development with a few gripes overheard. The lobby is open but it has no vending machines. Canada seems at times oddly old-fashioned, like the American middle-west. Nevertheless, I enjoy my brief visit to it's deserted halls, observing the utilitarian architectural design. And nearby is the public library building, which is sort of stunt architecture--a narrow high-rise shaped like a book. In a commercial mall on the ground floor, I find a Chinese chinch shop with stamps and suitable postcards for my stateside friends--three of Gastown, and three of the Rockies.
From there the heated indoors beckon so in I go, riding escalator and elevator to the top-floor. There I find Special Collections and take a look at the vitrines of native artifacts. Soon I'm chatting with the librarian who hips me that in Canada the term that is used is not Native American but First Nations. I since read that the name First Nations only really applies to the natives of that Northwest region of the continent. So she meant in this part of Canada.
Next down a floor to take a desk and write my postcards, letting friends far and wide know that I finally got off on my trip. One or two may have doubted I'd ever get started. I had originally planned to come this way last summer. But I had been struck by a car and I had to wait until my arm had healed enough. Hence the near-winter travel in a cold clime. As I reflect on it though, beyond the temperature constrictions, there were many good aspects gained by the delay.
Another librarian looks up the postcard rate to US for me--eighty-five cents! From there I walk around a bit taking in some of the view of snow-capped peaks and ocean bays from ten-stories up. But what I learn is unusual marine fog is creeping in and overtaking visibility. It resembles the SF bay fog I'm accustomed to, but that usually clears daily. This fog sets in and doesn't leave for the rest of my stay. A little more looking around but the fog increasingly enshrouds the island and its surrounds.



I take the tip offered by the first librarian and decide to walk down the hill toward the water. I soon gravitate toward a church. A dissolute fellow asks for spare change and I ask him if he knows if the church is Catholic. As he says he thinks so, I notice the Blessed Mother statue out front settling the matter. This is Our Lady of the Holy Rosary the first Catholic church in the city of Vancouver. I had read about it in a guidebook and thought I might check it out. And this is the somewhat sleazy Richards Street where I had even considered staying, but a Vancouver lady on the train advised me to stay in a better part of town. This denizen of the scene informs me that it was fairly over-run with the hard drug culture, he was himself an addict. His street-smarts come to my assistance when I mention I intended to go and have a smoke in the little park across from the church where youth were shredding on skateboards. He indicates that a car parked nearby contained a narc and I decide to wait. Just then the undercover car starts up and drives off abruptly and I go sit down to have my wee puff.
Then it's into the humble but satisfying church. There are some excellent stained-glass windows whose style and colors seem somehow local in flavor. I photographed four of them with the weak available light following a prayerful meditation and rest in the nearly deserted church.
Back on my walk down the hill. Another spare-changer, a lady worn and wan, gets a little more out of my pocket of unfamiliar coins. The original guy notices this and maybe to appeal to my sympathy tells me more of his story--he has aids, he is an ex-con, did time for trying to steal a two million dollar Stradivarius violin. There are a million stories in every naked city--and I've got to resume forward motion in this cold. I wish him better luck.

Down the hill toward a notable high rise with an observation deck. I try to avoid the elevator charge and still get a glimpse by entering another tower which is more of a private office building. The elevator doesn't respond until office girls get on and give it a code. I ride up but can't continue after they get off. I peer a bit through a closed travel office window at the sky-high view. Then I semi-alarm the girls by knocking on their closed door to ask how to get back down. I do get down and get a smirk from a guard at a desk as if children and old cheapskates make similar attempts all the time. The deck ride costs $8--for fog? I think not.






A short walk on downhill and I'm at the waterfront. A stroll to the right on Water street and it's the entrance to Gastown with its interesting sidewalks and shops. A block or so into it and I find the legendary sidewalk steam clock, the world's only steam-powered clock. There is a steady stream of snap-shot tourists around it as the cold day encouraged great enveloping clouds of steam. I take pains to get a good shot of this oddity, a photograph rather than a snapshot, and, naturally, to avoid having any people in it.





From there gravitate to a marvelous emporium of native arts called Hill's. Established in 1948, it purports to be "North America's Largest Northwest Coast Native Arts Gallery," and I'm inclined to believe it's true. With four other branches in BC, I have to assume that this was the flag ship with three floors of masks, totem poles, carvings and a multitude of indigenous craft work. Moreover it was friendly relaxed place that allowed photography.





I was jazzed to grab a view photos inside. The expressive free-style totemic carvings were new to me and I was impressed, of course, with the phantasmagoria of the masks. Newly carved unpainted totem poles were striking and strange. Everything had eyes. This was the closest thing to a museum that I toured on the entire trip, and it was fit. I still regularly recall how it felt to be in Hill's with its powerful animist objects.






Onward I go for the short walking tour of Gastown-- three or four blocks along Water street before turning back. Along the way I scout likely food places. I momentarily debate buying a Cuban cigar just to spite the right and support the revolution. But...I need my lungs in top shape--no tobacco for me. Several shops tout them on garish signs, intended I imagine for American tourists, maybe smugglers as well. Certainly not just for local cigar connoisseurs.
There does seem to be a sybaritic undercurrent in Canada--casinos, cigars, alcohol--desperate pleasures. Maybe the element of a less-puritanical society. Canada border cities like Mexico's to some extent, particularly in regard to some of the dry state West. (Nevada and California not withstanding.)
At the far end of the district, on a street parallel to Water, I see a sign for soup outside a little sandwich shop. It is beyond the upscale blocks and looks local, so I go in. The proprietor hovers and seems ill-at-ease, a little intense. Glowering in the window, is followed by a terse interrogation of what I want to order. Soon he's put me on edge too. I'm deliberately still talking to him instead of leaving, partially to annoy him. He gets even testier when I ask about salt in the soup.
He's thickly eastern European and undoubtedly has his annoyances bordering on some junk-sick looking blocks just beyond. When I ask him if he'll take a traveler's check or US cash, he goes full-tilt US hatred. He'd rather take British pounds or Mexican pesos!
Rather than flee I remain to mildly upbraid him before bidding him good luck. He returns the wish with even less sincerity.
So I fair hightail back to the place I saw first, Cafe la Luna with it great pottery moon medallion sign out front and another like inside. They are noted as a coffee roaster and I have one with a fine curried vegetable sandwich served by young hip lady at a counter. She appeared over-worked and down-trodden. My heart always goes out in such circumstances, I do my best to subtly imply respect and warmth for the person. I am not comfortable giving orders to people in service positions in general. When I see the entitled "haves" ordering around younger people who come from backgrounds with less resources, I don't find it a pleasant picture.
The girl says sure to my traveler's check but after I sign it I discover that I bear no driver's license. A few seconds of puzzlement and it is apparent that I left it with the receptionist at the compassion clinic yesterday. DANG!
I have just enough cash on hand to pay the bill with little more than $2US left. I go outside to a pay phone as she makes the food, but decide since it is mid-afternoon and I recall the dispensary was to be open today. To return there, I'd just go to the nearby Skytrain station after eating. Without the driver's license, I am in a foreign country with only a birth certificate. And I was scheduled to leave Vancouver the next day, a Sunday.
I didn't let that ruin my meal, naturally. It's good to eat and take meds. I enjoy sitting in the casual place observing the sidewalk traffic as the day grew somewhat dimmer, the November feeling.
Then off I go, off stopping a moment in a money-changer to convert the American bills to some ready. Confident in my used and somewhat stale bus transfer I just breeze into the Skytrain station, conserving my few Canadian coins. No sweat and the car for Commercial street is waiting at the platform of this terminus station. I ask a question of one and ladies young and old want to know about me and help. I hop off again and hike uphill to the...yes!..open clinic.
As soon as I enter and begin to speak the sweet middle-aged English lady says, "There you are!" and hands me the license. We chat a bit and I manage to resist the urge to go over to the counter for more herb. Right now I more need to keep stocked with enough money.
So it's off downhill to the station to return on the same route at the same time as yesterday. Nothing like the beginning of routine to make one feel at home in a new city.

At the Grandville stop, I detour on my way up the escalator into the Bay department store (Hudson's Bay). It is a maze of cramped aisles and not easy to find a cashier or an exit once inside it. I do accomplish my mission for toothpaste and puzzle my way out to the street. Low on funds until I cash a check, I decide to walk to my hotel.
It is a diverting tour indeed Saturday night on what may be the rock and roll strip in this town. Not just frequent rock clubs with bouncers already out front, but instrument store, record store, rock and roll clothes stores all interspersed with neon marquees, local shops and restaurants. Somehow it reminds me of Weybosset street in Providence in the nineteen-sixties, a lively downtown youth scene.

Weary but amused I reach my hotel and have the great feeling of coming into a warm bedroom after a day spent outdoors in cold weather. It had been long enough that I thought that this was cold--I was to be reminded what real cold felt like.
After a nap I went out for a bite, turning away from downtown I find a busy little pizza place in an area full of activity. This I learn is where Grandville meets Yale town. After eating I roll a blunt of this Fabled BC herb and head out again. A sweet return of Curtis the bellhop--earlier today he told me about a choice seafood at a Chinese place nearby Chinese place. This time I mention that I'm going to try some new med-can from the dispensary. He wants me to try his stash instead on the hotel's roof.
I have just finished wrangling with a Chinese dragon-lady at the desk. I wanted to use the traveler's check I had signed earlier today at the Luna cafe, but had been unable to use without my license. She tormented me a little with distrustful looks and comments, but ended-up accepting it.
Curtis is very cool-- cellist, about 21, First Nation blood, from the Yukon. Now he lives in Vancouver where he has a band, The Whiskeydicks. He says his stash is superior to the compassion club's--everyone seems to know everything that goes on here. He tells me a tale of island pot farms where the excellent BC strains were developed from seeds brought from northern California.
We climb ancient stairs into a wooden loft and finally up a ladder and onto the roof. It is wild up there with strange effects caused by the fog which has gotten heavy a the evening rolled up. The entire chasm of Grandville is on view with the neon marquees and other signs bleeding colors into the fog. He tries to roll a smoke under difficult circumstance s until I insist we go back a floor or two to my room and use sissors to chop the buds and do it right. He agrees and we do, lingering a while in my room. We do and the talk is rich, he really digs being shown a couple of my chapbooks of poetry. Back to the rook to partake where I find his herb is more or less comparable to what I had gotten. Curtis admits he had heard the compassion club had better cannabis now. I give him a book of papers and some vitamin C, had I remembered my camera I would have gotten his photo against the blurry neon strip--I just have the memory.
Then the angry dragon-lady pages him twice. He scoots.
I gear up and go back out. My walk toward the water is bootless--there is only a over-pass style bridge and no pedestrian-friendly area to savor. The Saturday night youth are sometimes rowdy. In front of the blues roadhouse-looking place The Yale a bunch of young guys coming the other way hog the sidewalk. Maybe I looked annoyed because a tall one reached over and clapped his hands near my head as to scare me-it doesn't. I stand on the ramp of the bridge a moment, then take a walk though Yaletown. Not much to see at night--there are plenty of revelers en route to clubs.
Next I circle back to order fried oysters at the place Curtis recommended. Earlier I had gone inside but I snubbed the menu when I saw it was all dishes not, for example, just fish. Glad I went back because the take-away menu is much better. I wait on a bus stop bench near the take-away window with a ring-side seat on wild-in-the-streets. Actually I am gradually coming o the opinion that old-fashioned fun is being kept alive here. It is certainly a different vibe than the Berkeley youth scene. At last the oyster bag is produced and I take them back to my room to devour. Desultory channel-surfing and a hot bath follow.