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We woke up around 8am after some good sleep and prepared for our chores. David treated us to a great breakfast at Marj’s café. I had some fantastic potato pancakes. Over breakfast, we all shared our great feelings about this magical island and cool community. Sheila walked in and started chatting with us. It was nice seeing her again after a few days in THC. I told her about our bear sighting this morning on our way down from the beach. We saw a black bear cross the road near the former military area as we were driving into Masset. It was a great sight for all of us. I tried to photograph it but it ran off into the woods. I was glad it ran off. Those bears with fear of us tend to live longer. David took us down South of Tlell to the beach and dropped us off for an hour or so to pick lambs quarters, a type of green that grows on the beach and is tasty in salad, and to collect garbage bags of seaweed to use as garden mulch. The day was beautiful and the sun was shining its way through the clouds, a nice change from the previous days of rain. After we filled up many bags, I snapped a couple photos and sat on a log to continue my writing. It was a peaceful time by the ocean, listening to the sounds of the water break on the rocks, hearing the loud raven calls from the trees and above, seeing bald eagles soar majestically along the coast. So far, the day is looking awesome. I took a nice walk on the beach and shortly after returning, David showed up with a film crew! They were going to be following us around throughout the day, as David would talk to them about these parts of the Island. They are filming a documentary on the visits of the Governor General, which will be called Coast to Coast to Coast. At the beach, we packed David’s van full of the bags of seaweed and lambs quarters. You could hear all the sand fleas jumping against the inside of the bags trying to escape. The full van now smelled like a stinky wet dog. We rode over to a gift shop near Tlell and David got some coffee beans. We checked out a cool tree house that was not actually in a tree, but was a huge tree stump that had been hollowed out and was large enough to have space inside for a few people to comfortably hang out in. The roof was very cool too, and made the whole thing look like something straight out of a fairy tale story. We continued our ‘tour’ and went to Port Clements to Myrna’s who is an older woman full of energy and runs a garden. Kevin, Miel and I picked peas while David hammed it up in front of the camera picking rhubarb and beautiful flowers. We loaded up the van with the goodies from the garden, including huge tasty raspberries. We stopped off at St. Mary’s Creek where if you drink, legend says you will come back to the Islands. I took a couple of handfuls of the fresh water, as did the crew and everyone else. We finished up at the hummingbird café in Port Clements and ate some soup and sandwiches. We returned to Masset, to David’s home, and the film crew got footage of us unloading everything from berries to bags of seaweed. We spread out the seaweed on one of David’s garden plots and then he let us loose in town for a while. I went to the grocery to get some goodies for a coconut Thai soup for tonight. When I returned to David’s, he put me to work on the compost pile. I layered up heaps of organic material in a new pile and took away some junk as it began to rain a bit. I was pretty tired after I finished and I went inside to relax and do some writing. We started preparing for dinner after a while. David got out some salmon and put it in a coconut milk marinade. I fixed up my soup and Miel and Kevin prepared the peas and lambs quarters and salad. In the end, we had quite a feast with more visitors. Gwaii and Michelle stopped by for dinner and conversation. Gwaii is a jewelry craftsman and carver. We finished off the feast with tea and cut up peaches and raspberries and then headed to the cabin on the North Beach, near the Moon Over Naikoon Bakery, to crash.

Peace

Dave

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Pic: Lamb's Quarters growing on the beach near Tlell

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Pic: Miel, Kevin and I packed up garbage bags full of seaweed from the beach to be used as garden mulch.

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Pic: A Canadian Coast Guard vessel passes by

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Pic: Now thats what I call a tree house!

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Pic: Another view of the tree house

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Pic: A van full of goodies from Myrna's Garden

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Pic: Part of Myrna's Garden