Tag: nature

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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excerpt

…Michael, and John Harris, a journalist, travelled deeper into the tundra to
one of Keith’s remote summer camps. They took few supplies, expecting
to find food and warm bedding at their destination. When Ken assessed
the situation after the float plane dropped them off, he realized they were
ill-prepared for their stay, and the trek back to the lodge. The supplies
at the camp consisted of a boat, a tent with no tent poles, a large can of
dried mushroom soup, and a few bedrolls and fishing rods. To make matters
worse, the weather turned and the hot summer winds were replaced
with the chill of an early fall. The grays and greens of the tundra began
to turn scarlet and heavy rain fell, which then turned to sleet and later, to
wet snow.
Blindly, they putt-putted around the shore, searching for the river that
would lead them back to the lodge. When they found it, it was too shallow
to navigate because the waters had drained to their summer depth.
Resigned, Ken and John jumped into the water, one pushing and one
pulling the boat, while Michael walked along the shore searching for obstacles.
The cold, wet, backbreaking labour continued all day. In the evening,
they propped the tent up with paddles, lit two Coleman stoves inside
their shelter and fried the fish they had caught, augmenting the meal with
vile-tasting mushroom soup.
They pushed on for four days, the time collapsing into itself until all
they felt was cold, wet, and bone weary. When they finally made it to Ferguson
Lake they were as thrilled as though they had found the elusive pot
of gold. A helicopter circled overhead and a large boat motored toward
them. They were well overdue and Keith was relieved to find them alive
and uninjured.
When Ken got back to Toronto he had one priority. After showering at
the studio he called Karen, “How about supper tonight?”
In the week Karen had been back, she had filed for divorce. Ken told
Marsha the next day that it was over. When he told Diane about the situation
she quit her job.
Karen rented a house on Belsize Avenue off Yonge Street and gave Ken
a key. The chaos of broken relationships roared around him and he had
never been happier in his life. With Diane gone, Ken turned the entire
space into his studio and hired his lawyer’s sister-in-law, Elaine Ross, who
had a background in publicity. She skillfully kept contact with the media
who hovered constantly in the background like hungry jays.
Michael visited frequently and he and Karen became good friends.
Watching them together, Ken was often startled by the intensity of his
feelings. At times, he could hear the beating of his heart, pounding like a
steady and welcome ache in his chest.
Karen applied to write the bar exam for the Northwest Territories on…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562830

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Blood, Feathers and Holy Men

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The brothers replied: “Ad deum qui laetificat juventutem meam.” To God, Who
giveth joy to my youth.
Brown Bear strolled alone to the bluff overlooking the bay. High above green
waters and the multicoloured maples and birch on the far islands, he saw the first
arrowheads of honking geese. Three generations of large white birds announced the
coming snow and stirred the arrowhead of pain in Brown Bear’s heart. “My little
Namid, do you fly with Grandmother Snow Goose to the land of warm breezes? Or
does your spirit dance among your sister stars? My beautiful daughter, your father’s
heart still boils with anger for those who took you from your home and snatched
away your mother’s joy. It’s time, I know, my little Star Dancer, to take your bundle
to the resting place of our ancestors. But we cannot take you there until your brother,
Running Deer, and I make peace in our hearts, or else our anger will be carried with
your bones. We will not be long, my little one. Fly safely on. We will not be long.”
Though Brown Bear, Corn Mother and Running Deer had supported one another
as a bereaved family, Brown Bear needed to renew his own energy and that of
his family, within a village healing circle. As Sachem, White Eagle would organize a
cleansing sweat lodge, erected new for the occasion. The sweat lodge would be built
close to the stream, dammed to create a cooling pool. This work and the organizing
of a healing feast would be done by the women of the tribe.
All those who wished to join the circle knew they must make their intentions
known to White Eagle well ahead of time and prepare for the ceremony with fasting
and sitting apart in the forest. Brown Bear invited his friend White Bear, and
Running Deer invited Mountain Thrush. Kiche, Sky Spirit, also was invited out of
respect for his position among the newcomers. But Father Finten declined the invitation
when he learned to his horror the ceremony would take place in pagan nudity.
He forbade Brother Rordan to attend, but Mountain Thrush chose not to obey his
priest’s command.
Although she never attended the prayers of her companion Brothers, Ula felt
drawn to the Native spirituality and asked if she could be included. She wanted to
be closer to Corn Mother who had been so good to her when she was ill. Ula asked
White Eagle’s permission to be part of the healing circle.
Bjorn and Rordan knew that they represented the evil men who had brought pain
to Brown Bear and his family and to Grey Wolf for the loss of his ear and the pride
of his first kill. Now they’d listen and share with respect and truth and love, and help
in the healing of their new brothers and sisters.
In the days leading up to the healing circle, Bjorn, Rordan and Ula spent full days
sitting beneath single trees in the forest until they each came to know the individual
characteristics of their tree and how it was different from every other one in the
forest. The day before the circle, White Bear, Mountain Thrush, and Una, were honoured
with an invitation to the sweat lodge.
Drums announced the sweat lodge healing ceremony. The circular lodge, big
enough for thirty or more people, was built low into the ground with a framework
of twelve sturdy saplings and covered with woven reed mats and fallen leaves. The
tiny door, also covered with a mat, faced east, the source of life, power and wisdom.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562826

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763106

Redemption

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…dedicated themselves to the benefit of the people’s lives. Ah, my poor
motherland…”
“Yes, I know. But we’d better go now.”
“Yes, let’s go. We might take the other road over the small
marsh, and hopefully we could come across some ducks, then we
could go by my father’s greenhouse and see what he has accomplished.
Sounds okay?”
“Yes, let’s get going then.”
They followed the road to the marsh. There were a few dark
clouds on the north horizon, clouds that lingered in the sky, indecisive
clouds, unsure of where they’d like to run; there was light wind
blowing from the north, and the weather could change very quickly.
A fierce storm could come from the north, which will drench everything
in a matter of minutes.
“We’d better be quick, Uncle. I don’t like the looks of those
clouds.”
“I don’t think this weather is going to change any time soon,
Son. Why are you so concerned?”
But his nephew repeated,
“We must be quick, my uncle. I don’t like these clouds.”
As they entered the olive grove, Hermes caught sight of a wild
dove at the top of a tree. He aimed and shot, quickly and with confidence:
he succeeded. He reloaded and ran to pick up the bird, which
was still fluttering its wings on the ground. The dog reached the bird
first. He approached the bird to pick it up with his mouth, but when
he came close to it, the bird fluttered and scared the dog away, barking
and wagging his tail.
Hermes bent down and reached for the fluttering bird; he could
see the huge pain in its eyes. Suddenly, the strange shudder overtook
his body again, like when he was aboard the ship. “What is it?” he
wondered, and suddenly, he didn’t feel like hunting anymore.
The wind started blowing stronger now, and Hermes convinced
Demetre that they should head to his father’s greenhouse.

https://draft2digital.com/book/4172538#print

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1926763858

Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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They were marvelling at the line of diminutive Inuksuit that curved along
the water’s edge toward a far-off boulder that seemed to reach almost fifty
feet into the sky. The Inuksuit told a story, Ken said, and after a lunch of
fresh fried fish he led them toward the boulder. As they walked the boulder
diminished in size until they stood beside it and found it was about
three feet tall, pink, perfectly smooth, and resting on top of an immense
gray rock that had been partially heaved out of the tundra.
“This is a fishing Inukshuk,” he told them. “It tells you that this is a
good place to go fishing. How does it say that? If the fishing is good, the
Inuit take a stone out of the water and put it on top of another stone
with little Inuksuit leading the way. A passerby who had never been in
this land would know immediately that he could catch fish here. Other
configurations of stone describe what kind of fish are here. Essentially,
this is a language.”
He explained that the permafrost lurks just under the surface of the
tundra, and below that lay thousands of feet of ice. The ground above the
permafrost where the ice melted consisted almost entirely of rich humus
built up over eons by the tiny plants that grew and died there. An eightinch
tree takes hundreds of years to grow to that height in the Arctic’s
short season. The fibres of the humus stretched out along the surface and
down to the permafrost, siphoning the water from the ice and sending it
into the atmosphere. As the wind travelled across the surface of the land
in buffeting gusts, it created rudimentary magnifying lenses of the millions
of tiny water bubbles streaming into the air. The farther away you
were from an object the more lenses you were looking through and the
larger the distant object appeared.
That night after supper he walked down to the dock with a fly-fishing
rod. Arctic grayling congregated in the shallows here and after a few causal
casts, he landed a fine three-pound fish. As he unhooked it and slipped
it back into the water he noticed Karen sitting on an overturned bucket
at the far end of the dock.
“I’d like to try that,” she said.
He handed her the rod and described the process but even after all
these years he still had no idea how to explain that it was a line with no
weight and it needed to fly guided by minimal strength and energy, and
perfect timing.
She cast a couple of times and smiled. “I like this,” she said and while
the fly lay on the water, a large grayling took the bait. Ken disengaged it,
gave the rod back to her and left her to sort out the tangles and continue
casting. He sat on the overturned bucket at the far end of the dock and
watched.

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562830

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Swamped

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Eteocles has his slingshot with him. The tomato field
is a good half hour walk each way, and the path takes them through
an olive grove where Eteocles may be able to use his expertise in
shooting the round stones he carries in his pockets.
Anthony has his spade on his back but keeps watch for a good
target for his cousin, and just before they reach the beginning of the
grove he spots a skylark on the ground, more than likely close to its
nest. Eteocles sees it too and starts walking slowly and silently toward
the busy bird until he judges he is close enough. Then he aims, shoots,
and misses. The skylark takes off, chirping loudly as if mocking Eteocles,
but he doesn’t really mind. He enjoys the hunt even when it
doesn’t produce results.
“He’s still laughing,” Anthony says, referring to the skylark, and
both boys start laughing too.
They continue on their way and soon reach the tomato field. Anthony
goes to the edge of the field and opens the gate that lets water
into the first canal leading toward their tomatoes. Eteocles watches
the water slowly move like a huge, crawling monster little by little
taking over the dry soil and filling the ditch that runs alongside the
first row of tomatoes. Eventually the muddy water reaches the end
of the first ditch, and at that point Anthony directs the flow to the
second ditch and the thirsty tomato plants in the next row get their
share of Cretan refreshment. There are about thirty ditches to fill,
and the whole job takes about two hours, with two boys taking turns
in directing the water from one ditch to the next.
Halfway through they take a break to get a watermelon from a
neighbouring field. Anthony has his own special way of selecting the
best melon. He hits each melon with two fingers and selects the ripest
one by the sound it produces. Sure enough, when they slice it open,
it is deliciously ripe and full of sweetness. After sharing this treat, the
boys finish the watering, and around ten o’clock they go back to the
village.
It is almost time for their daily swim. All the village boys go to
the sea at least once a day. Everyone counts how many swims they
do, and the one with the highest number at the end of the summer is
written on a verbal log the boys keep in their minds…

https://draft2digital.com/book/3562976

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX

He Rode Tall

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Sure, he had been gone for many years and there was no doubt
that the Circle H held some harsh memories for him. At the
same time, there was no doubt about it: for him, Joel Hooper, the
Circle H was home. And if there was any doubt in his mind, it
seemed as if nature was reassuring him that he was home with a
magnificent display of a spectacular sunset awash in all kinds of
tones of baby blue and soft pastel pinks. This truly was the legendary
land of the living skies. Alive with all kinds of colors. The
kinds of colors that were capable of temporarily extinguishing
even the gravest worries from one’s mind.
Two days after his trip into Willow Springs for the mail, he was
back up in the hills, sitting on the big buckskin gelding surveying
what must be close to fifty head of Smith’s cattle helping themselves
to his grass. This time he could see where the fence was
down. The cattle had torn the fence down to get at the richer
grass in his pasture. Poor creatures, Joel thought. They must be
half-starved with the slim pickings they have in their own pasture.
With all of the land that Smith has, he must have some
better pasture to move these cattle to. What was he waiting for?
For their ribs to show? Heck, some of them were at that stage
already.
Joel would be the first to admit that he did not know much
about cows, but he did know enough to realize that this was a sad
and sorry lot of cattle.
Realizing that this was going to be more of a major production
than his earlier experience that involved only three heifers, Joel
rode the buckskin back to the ranch and solicited the help of
Harry and Tanya. Harry headed up to the pasture in the old
truck, which he had stocked with a few fence posts, a bale of
barbed wire, and all of the fencing equipment, including a wire
stretcher and post-hole auger. Tanya was just about to finish
working with her last horse of the day, a little bay mare, so she
rode her up to the hills alongside Joel on the buckskin. On the
way to the fence, Joel and Tanya started to round up the intruders,
and in the distance, Harry was busily repairing the fence.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0980897955

Arrows

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We followed the river until it converged with the same river
Guaire which ran the length of the valley.
We were one mile from our destination.
We crossed the Guaire from south to north, following the path of
those who had survived one of the two previous expeditions that
had made it this far. The Guaire was not deep, but, having lived all
my life near rivers, I knew how mighty it could become with the
proper amount of rain.
Soon after, we crossed a creek called Catuche, along which
soursop trees grew by the hundreds, hence the creek’s name, which
in Carib meant soursop. Tamanoa brought me one of its fruits and
ripped it open beforemyeyes. It was white, succulent and aromatic.
As the sun descended, the deep green of the cordillera mingled
now with soft blues and yellows. We had turned north and were
ascending the slope of the piedmont when Losada’s voice
resoundingly gave the order to stop. We had finally reached a
destination: the charred remains of what had been the settlement of
San Francisco, half-buried in the vegetation.
Francisco Fajardo had fled the settlement five years ago when he
knew the reinforcements he had pleaded for had been wiped out by
the Arbaco Indians of Terepaima. After painful losses, Fajardo had
divided his forces into two and fled in canoes and pirogues.
It was eerie being in that deserted place. The air smelled strongly
of rain, damp earth and plants. The howling monkeys, chachalacas,
parrots—they were all quiet. That night, as a full moon shone
through thick clouds, the ubiquitous night-song of frogs and
crickets was overridden by the deafening buzz of cicadas.
Losada paced nearly beyond range of the firelight, five strides to
the right, five to the left, hand combing his beard and moustache,
eyes fixed on the ground before him, his grizzled hair reflecting the
silvery moonlight. He anxiously awaited the return of the troupe led
by Diego de Paradas, who finally arrived after midnight, looking
seriously bedraggled.
“What happened?” asked Losada.
Diego de Paradas was wounded. Pánfilo spoke for him.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073522

Savages and Beasts

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They walked back into the emergency waiting room.
Nothing was different in there. They walked into the hallway
and reached the area where Dylan was kept. The attending nurse
told them to stay only for a few minutes since the patient was
due for a few tests. They nodded their understanding. Dylan was
breathing a bit easier since they had hooked him on an oxygen
tube. Upon seeing them he smiled.
“They’ll do a few tests soon, and then I’ll go back home,”
he mentioned.
“We’ll wait to see the results of the tests,” Anton said.
A few minutes later the nurse came back and told them to
leave. They walked out to the grounds again. They found a bench
where they sat. A multitude of birds were flying from tree to tree
from branch to branch making their presence known with their
fluttering and with their chirping.
Time passed with the bird chirps and the flying from
branch to branch, Anton and Mary enjoyed their morning as
they sat for a while, chit-chatted for a while, walked around for
a while, until an hour later they went inside to check on the old
man. He wasn’t in his partition, obviously having a test. They
walked to the waiting room again. Mary used the public telephone
and informed Sister Gladys about the progress they had
made up to that time. She told her that soon as they’d know the
results from the test she will inform Sister Gladys and then they’ll
return to the School. Sister Gladys understood and said there was
no rush for them to return before they would be informed about
the issues pertaining to Dylan.
One hour later the doctor came to the reception area and
called them.
“Based on your description of his symptoms, his own narrative
we suspected a heart attack in fact his oxygen level

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Ken Kirkby, A Painter’s Quest for Canada

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Excerpt

distance away observing him. When they saw that he had noticed them,
they came to sit beside him. The man said, “My mother says you are a
very quiet Kabluna.”
“Maybe all Kablunat are quiet,” he said.
The man translated for his mother and said, “She says that all other
Kablunat that she has known are noisy. They talk a lot.”
“Maybe I don’t have much to say,” he replied. “Maybe I don’t know
very much.”
When Ken questioned the old woman about the Inuksuit she told him
a story that began a long, long time ago when there were very few human
beings. They travelled over the vast land in small family groups, following
the herds of caribou that were the source of their food, their tents,
their clothing, and their utensils. They could not afford to deplete their
energy by chasing the food. Instead, they made stone human beings and
called them Inukshuk, which means, like a person or acting in the place
of a person.
The people placed the Inuksuit in V-shaped formations. The caribou
with their poor eyesight, thought the Inuksuit were hunters and so it required
only a very few people to herd them into a trap. The closer they
came to the end of the V, the closer together the Inuksuit were placed.
At the point of the V, hunters hid behind boulders while women
and children lay on the ground beside the Inuksuit. As the caribou approached,
the women and children jumped up, waved their arms, and
danced about, to give the appearance of many, many hunters. The caribou
would then stampede to the end of the V, which was usually at the
junction of a lake and a river. When the caribou plunged into the lake,
the hunters hidden behind the boulders would jump into their kayaks
and paddle after them, spearing them in the water. Then they would haul
them back to shore where the entire family, even the children, would
clean and gut the animals.
Inuksuit also took on many other shapes, the old woman said. The one
on the river’s edge where they were sitting was a fishing Inukshuk. She
knew this because it was topped with a smooth stone taken from the riverbed.
It indicted that the fishing was good here. Other shapes had other
meanings and the configurations of Inuksuit had meaning also.
To my mind, what I was hearing sounded like language but they didn’t
write the language on a piece of paper – they wrote it directly on the land.
And I was beginning to get the picture of absolute practicality. Here you
could live with minimum technology if you knew how. To think that you
could direct an entire way of life by putting a few stones together just so,
so that other people coming would be able to read the significance of these
things. The degree of sophistication of this began to seep into me and I realized
there was much to learn here. And this way of life was like the people

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981073573

Swamped

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He switched over to the local news: a serious accident on the road
down to the Second Narrows Bridge. He had better take Lions Gate
Bridge this morning. The pileup on the approach to Second Narrows
would make it impossible for traffic to resume for at least two hours,
according to the news anchor.
The phone rang. It was Herb on the other end. After the briefest
of greetings, he brought up today’s buy order. He told him that a man
he knew, someone who seemed to have good connections in Europe
and other places, had assured him this was a good one, Platinum
Properties Inc, to play with for the next few months. Eteo listened to
Herbert Swanson attentively, but when he expressed some skepticism,
Herb said he would pass by the office around ten to talk about
it. He smiled. Herb always had a link to someone with information,
and in the Vancouver Stock Exchange in those days, with its mining
fliers and dubious promoters, information was of great value. Even
if the information was often questionable at best, decisions were
based on it, and today’s bet that Herb had placed on this new company,
Platinum Properties, wasn’t any different from many others. For
years, Herb had worked his way around each and every regulation in
order to survive the debacle called investing in V.S.E. listed companies.
In most cases, they lacked anything of substance, yet they could
fly high for a few days, even a few months, before sinking into nothingness
or simply going out of fashion. Sometimes they were still at
the reorganizing stage, a lengthy process that provided a second
chance for companies that had been unsuccessful in proving the
value of their first mining asset and raising funds on that basis. This
involved a reverse split of their shares, or consolidation, in other
words, issuing new shares to raise new capital. It was usually an opportunity
to turn their focus to a new asset, sometimes even to
change course and concentrate on a new line of business. When a
company was in that reorganizing stage, it wasn’t unusual for it to
take a good twelve months to achieve its goal, and investors who
didn’t like to wait that long rarely invested in such a company.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08WP3LMPX