The B.C. Memory Game in Invermere: Day 1 Journal - May 2, 2010
Here is my first trip journal for The B.C. Memory Game. A dedicated website is coming soon. For now, read about the project, view pictures, make comments, and share your stories at: www.facebook.com/thebcmemorygame
May 3, 2010
I just had a beautiful magic-hour walk, punctuated by flushed-out duck couples, and the white rears of Invermere's roving Mule Deer. Most of the deer in the groups had soft, velvety antler buds-- young guys just hanging around. I had my very first sighting of a mule deer licking its anus! Coincidence? After travelling across Canada with a carload of men, I think not. (Note: The Fugitive men don't actually lick their rear-ends, in public. I'm making fun of them in a sexist way. Shame. Shame. The Fugitive men are better people than me, they would not stoop to this...).
I found an irritating sports bar to have a beer in. It used to be called The Station Pub, because it's housed in an old railroad station building. Now it's called Ray Ray's Beach Pub, "where the girls go." Tonight it's mostly young men, with just a couple of girls. There are more than four board shop\beach sports apparel stores in town. I think I'm hanging out with their clientele. Golly, where would I go to buy my skinny jeans and little scarves? I would perish here, I know it.
Listen, I'm just being nasty, because there are speakers blaring bad radio in every corner of the place, and I'm sensitive to that, because I recently had romantic moments with mule deer and loving duck couples. I'll get over it.
Before this, my walk was the kind of peaceful, aimless walk I've been craving for the entire month on the road with The Fugitives. It takes the band about 20 minutes to make the decision to leave a room, then another 15 to actually do it. When I said goodbye to my billets this morning-- a very sweet couple in Cranbrook-- I felt a giddy rush. "I'm about to be alone. Wow. Maybe I'll walk places without having to debate about it."
I walked up and down the railroad tracks, skirted the edge of the river, read informational signs about wetlands and the hundreds of dragonfly species that make them their homes. All under the shadow of mostly empty resort home condo complexes. Big, brutal things that make me feel grateful to be here before the Season. At this time of year, Invermere is the kind of place where you can jaywalk without even pretending to check for traffic. There is one main drag that SUVS take fairly quickly, but once you're up the hill and downtown, the streets are yours.
I saw a man walking along the railroad tracks with his camera. I left him more or less alone. For a second, I felt like it was my job as a temporary pseudo-journalist to try and interview him--get his personal stories about the valley. That's what I'm here for, after all. Fortunately, my moral impulse as a human being kicked in, and I applied the Golden Rule. If anyone wearing a small scarf and skinny jeans had come up to me on this walk, and asked me to tell them about the town, I would have punched the welcoming smile right off their face.
I said "hi," and made a comment about the light this time of day,then left him with, "I don't want to waste your light." Walking back towards the vacation homes, which sit on the edge of the marsh, all three stories of them waiting to be filled with summer weekenders, I thought, what I really mean is, "I don't want to waste your time alone."
Photos of the condos and other wonders of Invermere (which, let's face it, is absolutely gorgeous, otherwise no one would want to build condos in it), are up in the mobile uploads album.