"Fishing with John" by Edith Iglauer

No, not our John, even though we do go fishing with him. When I can't be at my float cabin I like to read about people from Coastal BC. Fishing with John is a book I read some time ago. It was also made into a movie.

Edith Iglauer was a journalist with The New Yorker who came to Coastal BC to get a story about salmon fishing. What she found was more than a story. Fishing with John chronicles meeting and later marrying commercial fisherman John Daly. For four years they traveled and fished along the coast on his boat the MoreKelp. Through Edith's eyes the reader experiences the difficult yet sublime life on a trawler. John was typical of the many self-reliant people who live and work in Coastal BC. He was more comfortable by himself working in close proximity to nature. Edith first admired and then came to love his eccentric and philosophical approach to life. This story has it all - adventure, love and vivid descriptions of the beauty that abounds along our coast.

Each time I pass Pender Harbour on the Sunshine Coast I think about this book and Edith's story. She came to love the BC Coast almost as much as the man who drew her here.

The movie wasn't as good as the book, but it's worth watching if you read the book first. The title was changed to Navigating the Heart with Tim Matheson as John and Jaclyn Smith as Edith. The book and DVD are both available at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. You can also find Fishing with John in most British Columbia bookstores or in BC Ferries gift shops. -- Margy

"Nature BC" Guide by James Kavanagh

Living at our float cabin inspires us to learn more about nature. As we observe birds, plants and the occasional animal, we like to identify them. Because we don't have an expert background in biology, we use several nature guides to give us a hand. We purchased one of our first guides at Canadian Tire. It's called Nature BC: An Illustrated Guide to Common Plants and Animals by James Kavanagh with illustrations by Raymond Leung, Linda Dunn, Horst H. Krause and Marianne Nakaska.

This is a great little guide with illustrations (rather than photographs) and brief descriptions for the novice or casual observer. The descriptions include a distribution map and information including the common and scientific name, size, habitat, key field marks for easy identification, behavioral characteristics and points of interest. What I really like about this book is that it includes mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, shorelife, trees, shrubs and wildflowers all in one 175 page book. It has durable pages and binding, and is small and light for carrying in a backpack or the car. It is my first choice before going to my more technical guides. The only categories missing are insects and spiders, but I guess you can't have everything in 175 pages.

If you don't have a Canadian Tire Store handy, you can find Nature BC at Amazon.com and Amazon.ca. I'm always looking for good nature guides. Do you have any favourites? -- Margy

Chippewa Bay

In the northwest corner of south Powell Lake you will find Chippewa Bay. Chippewa is well known for several reasons.

One -- It has a large dock and booming area for loggers working north and west into the Bunster Hills. Logging equipment comes up the lake on barges and booms of logs are towed back in the opposite direction. So, if you arrive by boat, it is best to come on weekends when logging is usually not active and you can explore on your own.

Two -- You will find a natural forestry museum up Museum Main. This logging road runs near two historic steam donkeys with lots of interesting items strewn across the forest floor. One is near the main, the other is about an hour hike from the road. If you arrive by boat, it's a long walk up to the first steam donkey. If you arrive by quad from Theodosia, it's easier. Well, relatively so. It's an all day ride over Heather Main, but well worth it.

Three -- In the summer Chippewa Bay is great for swimming with warmer water than the rest of the lake. This is probably due to the shallower depths. In the middle of the lake it is over 1000 feet deep, and that can keep it pretty cold all year long.


Four -- CB CB'ers, Chippewa Bay Cabin Busters are strong northwest winds that often follow major storms. They swoop out of Chippewa Bay and blast down the lower lake, trying to level everything in their path, including unsuspecting float cabins. This is one reason you will find some of the heaviest protective booms around cabins in this area.

Up the Lake has a chapter about Wayne getting caught on the lake in a CB CB'er. Click here to read the chapter for free and find out more about life on Powell Lake. -- Margy

Thrifty Tip

I love to browse through thrift stores. In Powell River, my favourite is the Hospital Economy Shop off Alberni near Scotiabank. They have a great selection that changes constantly, their prices are the best, plus I always bump into my friend Carol there.

Here are some of my best finds. There was a new Catalyst cap for Wayne for $.25. He doesn't work at the mill, but lots of our friends do. I found a toaster oven for $5.00 with a five day guarantee. That was a nice benefit, except I immediately voided the warranty by stripping out all of the wires to make it into a stovetop oven for my wood stove. I found a large pot for $1.00 to use to heat water for our new bathtub and I even found Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat for my collection for only a quarter.

We like to keep a fire extinguisher near our woodstove. You never know, you might need it quickly in case a bad spark, or worse yet, a chimney fire. But our fire extinguiser is round on the bottom. For years we left it lying on the floor behind the stove. Then one day while I was cleaning I stuffed it into a boot to get it out of the way. Wow - what a great idea! Not wanting to tie up our regular boots, I did the next best thing. I found a pair of colorful rubber boots at the thrift store for only a $1.00. Now our extinguisher is handy and "attractive" in a functional sort of way.

Do you like to shop at thrift stores? Where are some of your favourite stores? What have been some of your best finds? -- Margy

2007 Retrospective from Powell River Books

2007 was a great year for Wayne and me, and, of course, Powell River Books. Here are a few of the exciting moments:

January - Our cabin survived the worst Coastal BC wind storms in years and I start experimenting with wood stovetop baking.

February - We go to California to see Mt. SAC host PCIFA and Stick (our cat) flew north on Alaska Airlines to live with Mom in Bellingham.

March - We explored our new U.S. home base in Bellingham before heading back to Powell River. We planted our floating garden and it was immediately attacked in the "Junco Wars."

April - The PRB Blog had it's 1000th visitor and I start Float Cabin Living, a series to tell readers more about off-the-grid life.

May - Our Piper Arrow 997 returns us to Powell River to enjoy spring up the lake, but so do a woodpecker under our roof and a bat in our propane storage shed.

June - Up the Strait (the fourth book in the Coastal BC Stories series) is launched at Marine Traders, Halcyon Days heads back to the chuck, and Stick takes his first trip to the cabin.

July - "Mr. Float Cabin" makes an appearance at the Sea Fair parade and we see our baby tree swallows take first flight.

August - I trade in my trusty Honda 250 for a Kodiak 4X4 and we cruise the Georgia Strait in Halcyon Days.

September -The PRB Blog is highligted on Sunset.com and TheSunshineCoast.com, and 997 wings us south on Victor 27.

October - The Powell River Books Blog has its first birthday, it wins a second "Blog of the Day" award, we set up a book booth at the Powell River Newcomer Social, and fly 997 to Eugene for USC Football.

November - Powell River Books is honored at the Horizon Business Awards, a woodrat devours our garden, and we enjoy early snow.

December - The holidays kept us away from our beloved cabin and leave us BC Dreamin'.

It's been a great year for us and I've had fun sharing parts of it with you. Wayne and I wish you and your family a happy new year. May it bring you peace, love and contentment. -- Margy

Woodstove Drying Rack

John's not only our good friend, he's also the "father" of our cabin. He almost single-handedly built it from the float up. It isn't the first one he's built, nor will it be the last. But if you ask us, it's the BEST!

John is a wizard at making something out of nothing. Our woodstove drying rack is a case in point. We first met John after purchasing the cabin when he stopped by to meet the "fool Americans." As he walked around the deck, he pointed out several features that were unique or special. When he came to the woodstove, he pointed to the rack on top and said, "You never know when you might need to dry a pair of gloves or socks." And he was right, we just didn't know it at the time (it was the middle of summer and we were city-folk extraordinaire).

Here's what he did. He went to a junk yard (or one of his brother's houses) and got an unwanted oven rack. The rack was exactly the right size to sit on top of the wood-burning stove. The metal projections below that once secured the rack in it's baking position made perfect legs to keep it about one inch above the stove's surface. He used a hack saw to make two cuts on one side so he could bend a portion of the rack up to allow it to wrap around the stove's chimney pipe. In his wisdom, the now vertical section protects objects from touching the hot pipe.

So with a little effort, and probably no cost, he made a valuable tool that we use frequently during the winter to dry our wet gloves and socks, just as he predicted. But you still have to be careful! Constant turning prevents burning. Wayne has a melted pair of slippers to prove that! -- Margy

Meet "Captain Bob"

If you've been reading my blog or any of Wayne's books in the Coastal BC Stories series, you know who John and Bro are. But some of the other names in my T'was the Night Before Christmas rendition may not have been as familiar. One of those was probably "Captain Bob." Bob is a good friend and fellow quad rider. Bob has a cabin "up the lake," but is probably best know for his skookum boat. Like many other Powell Riverites, he is very self-reliant and able to build anything. He started with a sturdy aluminum hull and custom made the cabin to create his own classic work boat.

You can always tell when Bob is heading up the lake because his boat is one of the biggest and definitely has the largest aft deck. In it he can haul lots of logging equipment and workers, tree planters or students heading to Rainbow Lodge for a outdoor experience. You can also tell it's Bob's boat by the prominant red Zodiak perched on top.

To those of us who ride quads, we also picture Bob's mightly boat hauling bikes to the head of Powell Lake for an excursion to remote spots few others get to see. Wayne and I were fortunate enough to meet up with Bob and some of his friends on one of those trips. Bob can fit quite a few quads and bikes in the back of his boat for such a trip. As far as a barge carrying eight quads, I used a little poetic license. But I did see another boat heading up the lake last summer doing just that.

Bob is just one of the great people who live in Powell River. Want to get to know our town and its people a little better? You can read the PEAK online to see what's happening. Maybe you'll read a story by Jeremy who just joined the PEAK staff. Go to YouTube and see some pretty interesing (if not unusual) videos. Or get one of the Coastal BC Stories books. I recommend Up the Lake. It is the first book in the series and has the most stories about my favourite place in the whole world, Powell Lake. -- Margy