Duck?

The ringer on my iPhone is set to quack like a duck, and every time it rang the good people of Masset looked up in the sky to see the duck. I love that about Haida Gwaii.

Turn Right at Guud k'yuuwaas

Way down south in the North, far from the mainland but close to the pan handle, where there seems to be more eagles than seagulls, and a Chinese restaurant for every 300 people, is the town in which I have spent more time than any other place in our country outside of home. This town, (village really, because the population is only 900 people), is on an island called Graham, and is part of what was once called the Queen Charlotte Islands but is now called Haida Gwaii.

Masset is the town where military personnel lived when they weren't at the listening station, listening to the Soviets during the cold war. Masset is where a local coffee shop dug in it's heels against the might of the Starbucks Empire when Starbucks didn't like the name Haida Bucks. Masset is where, if you're lucky, you can catch a 300lb halibut or collect scallops on the beach. And just down the road from Masset is Old Masset where the street signs are shaped like canoes and only printed on one side, so you can find your way in but not out.

I still remember the first time I arrived in Haida Gwaii years ago and was shocked to find the locals already knew all the "secrets" about the project I was about to start. And when I rented a truck at the airport they told me explicitly not to bring it back with blood in it.

On my second visit I found Englehart's Oceanview Lodge and the Hidden Island RV Park, the best places to get breakfast and dinner respectively.

Now, three.

The Big Smoked

I'm back in the Big Smoke and "The Big Smoke" has gone teats up, which both saddens me and makes me concerned about the future of our domesticated animals.

Domesticated animals aren't like wild animals. If they were wild animals they could be released into their natural habitat, but they have no "natural" habitat. The natural habitat of a domesticated animal is human made. Livestock have been created by humans from wild animals for the sole purpose of feeding humans. If we do not eat those animals, humans will stop raising them and they will become extinct. It is very important for us to eat these animals to preserve their species. I don't care if you're a vegan, extinct is forever.

Like domesticated animals, humans also do not have a "natural" habitat. We do not function well in the forest which is why we convert the forest into cities. The result is a food chain basically like this: farmer grows grain, cow eats grain, farmer eats cow, grain eats cow shit. It is a simple food chain and it works for us. Don't screw with it by hunting; that is not our food chain. We don't live in the forest so we shouldn't get our food from it. Think about it, there are 1 million moose in Canada and there are 15 million cows; hunting is not sustainable at the earth's current human population.

We all must pull together to eat pulled pork and preserve the future of livestock and human kind alike. Support your local BBQ pit!