http://www.lundcommunity.ca/ESW/Files/Fall_2014-_online.pdf

Lund Farm Day Camp operated for three two-week sessions during the summers of 1973 and 1974. 25 to 35 kids in grades 1 through 8 from all over the district attended each session. The camp was headquartered at the old homestead on the Lund Highway owned today by Ed and Maggie Bereziak and at the time by Steven and Janet Marx, and previously by the Bleiler, Larson and Carlson families. Its original hand-adzed vertical cedar walls housed the cookshack for a logging camp in the 1890’s.

The camp’s activities included caring for a herd of goats, 35 chickens, a pair of ducks, two sheep, six rabbits, and a pig named Snorky Porker. Children also tended, harvested and preserved vegetables from a large garden and fruit from the ancient orchard, baked pies in the outdoor woodstove, built cedar-stave fences, sheared, washed, carded, spun and crocheted sheep’s wool, and dammed up the stream for a swimming hole. Recreational activities included a morning singsong, capture-the-flag in the pasture, writing and performing plays, swinging on a huge zunga and in a gillnet hammock, along with hiking and swimming.

Each day concluded with a gathering at which the children contributed reports recorded in a daily log. A sample: “We played on the big Zunga. Worked on the dam. Found a frog and three water snakes. Peter came and cut hay. Fred came to take pictures. One chicken got away and we caught it again. Chased Laurie and Steven with hoops. Mulched lettuce and corn. Cleaned up cubbies. Fed ducks. Baby goats nursed off Mama. Michael and Val clipped chicken wing. Flag making. Played drama games. Made birthday cake in Joanne’s loft. Waded in pool. Joanne drove Kent to hospital. Went to beach. Drank out of stream. Ken and Pauline learned to swim. Steven took a group to climb mountain.”

The camp’s emphasis was on teaching some of the skills required to live in the bush in an earlier era. According to an article in the Powell River News of July 16, 1973, “The first batch of children at the camp have almost completed a scale-model of nearby Craig farm. They were taken on a tour of the farm by its owner, learned its history and are now reconstructing the site¦”

Families paid $10 per child per session. During the first year students were brought to camp by carpool. The second year’s budget included a bus and driver for daily pickup and delivery. Each week included a one-night sleep-over, either on the farm or on Savary Island, transportation provided by local tugs and fishboats.

The original idea for the Camp was dreamed up by Janet and Steven in early January 1973, when their unemployment insurance ran out. It started to materialize as a result of brainstorming and collaboration with Kenneth Law, who settled on the farm in mid-February. It was funded by Opportunities For Youth, a federal program encouraging local community development.

In addition to the organizers, the Camp offered ten weeks of gainful employment to Gerry Karagianis, Laurie Derton, Joanne Power, Elaine Sorenson, Anne Wheeler, Pam Huber, Randy Mann, Mike Nelson, Rob Dramer, David Creek, Gae Holtby and Janet McGuinty. It was supported by the Powell River School District, the Sliammon Band and many community volunteers.

[click pictures for full size images]

Early Tuesday I got a ride with Keith, Sharon’s husband and Pat to attend the memorial in Vancouver. Kenneth’s first visit to Lund in many years came last summer to attend a memorial for the death of Mike, one of Pat’s sons, who had also worked at our camp. Soon thereafter Pat had lost another son. She bore the weight of these tragedies with great strength.

We arrived at the spare but stately old Vancouver frame house, the home of Willow, Ron and their children, with some time to spare. Ron had corresponded with me about the old pictures and journal excerpts they had read on this weblog, so I felt immediately drawn into the family. Ron and Willow disappeared, and I met Ron’s father Henry, his sister-in-law Rachel, her 15 month old son Dash, and her husband Cameron. She has a Ph.D. in English and he’s finishing one. For two and a half minutes we discussed her dissertation topic, the Semiotics of Multicultural Rhetoric.

In the midst of the hubbub, Sharon, whom I’d first met two days earlier, prepared me a grilled cheese sandwich with pickled green beans and a cup of coffee, and poured me a shot of her 25 year old prized Canadian Whiskey.

The Unitarian Church at 49th and Oak was packed with 250 people attending the memorial. We were greeted by a shrine outside and four kids handing out programs, two of them Kenneth’s adopted grandchildren, Sophia and Flynn.

The service began with a quotation from Mary Oliver:

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

The lay minister didn’t know Kenneth but was awed by the intensity and range of his legacy. The program included a harp introduction, recorded music, an operatic rendition of “Ave Maria,” and a beautiful piano and voice performance of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” by Ron.

There were three speeches, one by his professional mentor, one by a former lover, and one by his son-in-law. From these I learned that he worked with child protective services and in an alternative school for severely disturbed kids; that he founded and managed “After Hours,” a drop in center and hotline which became a Province-wide institution; that he organized teams and competed as a runner, a hurdler and a softball player in the Gay Olympics; that he was a textile designer; that he earned an M.A. from Pratt Institute of Art in New York; that he was a famous D.J.–“Poppalizard”– in young people’s clubs. Ron spoke of the way he remained as part of the family after Willow married: Poppa to the grandchildren, cook, party organizer, gardener and house painter. It struck me how many of these life accomplishments were there in germ during the time we knew him in his early twenties.

Following the three speeches and a candlelighting and quenching ceremony, Ron presented a DVD with musical accompaniment including a dozens of pictures and film clips of Kenneth from infancy to grandfatherhood.

At the huge reception afterward, I ran into Mara, Janet and Rhea, Lund people who now live elsewhere. I would have loved to stay for the roasts and tributes, but I had a plane to catch.

Gently wafting Knoll House breeze
Stirs the firs and arbutus trees
That frame the watery passage I see
Between the mainland and Savary
From the deck six hundred feet up
Where a fritillary flits by my coffee cup.

Speedboats enter from each side
Gash parallel lines before they hide
Behind green curtains lost from view
Their white paths fading back to blue.
Horizon clouds disperse to show
The glacial glare off Forbidden Plateau.

A loud leaf scrapes the greying shakes
Above soft sounds that birdsong makes.
The sun radiates my soles with heat
And puffs of wind aircool my feet.
Whiffs of fragrance richly vary
Shalal, peat, and huckleberry.

Writing makes my observation
Slow motion, line’s permutation.
Dancing fingers lead the pen
Across the empty pages, then
Leave a snail-paced slimey trail
Wormy castings endless tale.

Broken off by–of all things–
Yellow belly-throat, black wings
Crimson crown–an Oriole
Visiting this blessed Knoll.

August 1998

Elegy for Eric (1962-1985)

Now closer creep the shadows of the trees
The pasture’s morning mist makes squash leaves freeze.
The house without a fire’s a chilling place
Forsaken of the summer’s hot embrace.

A dullness weights the limbs, fatigues the mind
Acts fail, words trail, thoughts snap, ears seal, eyes blind
Alone sleep offers rest from fear and pain
But nightmares waken torments once again.

Bottomless and void, bereft of light
The sea has robbed us of a spirit bright
A man-child at the verge of fatherhood
Innocently searching for the good.

He dove below his depth alone for love
And left alone his loved ones here above
His friends, parents, lady and child-to-be
His boats, barn, his plans to farm the sea.

Without him we grow old before our time
But in our hearts he stays in youthful prime.
So let us gather now in deepening night
And sharing sorrow, kindle warmth and light.

I had been feeding the pigs extra ration all week to use up what was left of the Hog Grower. They sounded even angrier than usual on Saturday morning, when I didn’t stop at their pen on my round of chores. By the time I finished rinsing the milk strainer, Jonah had already belted himself into the front seat of the car.

I floored the accelerator for the five mile trip down the highway to his friend Jimmy Cox’s house, where I had arranged for him to spend the day. The inside of “the wagon wheel place” felt strange to me, its walls lined with trophies and racks of guns.

Back home, 1 started preparing. I redug the old fire^–pit in the backyard, split a good sized pile of dry cedar and alder, and scoured out the forty gallon drum. I set the drum over the pit, staked at a 45 degree angle against the heavy work table, so that we would be able to dip and pull while scraping the hides. As water from the hose slowly filled the drum, I kindled the fire. Then I went over to the collapsing root cellar and sawed off two maple branches growing through its roof. I sharpened them at both ends to make spreading sticks and placed them on the table next to the coiled ropes, the pile of folded gunny sacks, the whetted knives and the .22.

I was feeling anxious, but more focused than usual. I had to be ready by 11:00 o’clock, when Terry Kurtz, my experienced neighbor, was coming over to help out. As I had explained to our visitor from the city a few days earlier, slaughtering animals no longer disturbs me, as long as the process is carried out with order, precision and respect for the animal’s gift. (more…)

Peace, composure. Gladiola in the red teapot in the blue kitchen. Dahlia in the medicine bottle on the little table.  Pumpkins on the mantle.  Two days of being with children, processing food: apples, tomatoes, hemp. The plants watered, the dog sleeping by the stove. Cleaning house. The dust and cobwebs and foodstains are gone, the outlines of the furniture, walls, floor are clear not fuzzy.  It feels good to look around.

September 12

Shingles under the arms, face broken out, insomnia, stomach tightness, irritability, the desire to run away from farm, wife, child, Canada.  Moments of tenderness and intense communication.  Tears close.

Jonah’s crying interrupts my 10 p.m. reverie.  He is shaking in fright, counting “4,5,6,7, 8,10 Mummy, mummy.” Janet is in bed with the flu.  He wants her.  Her involvement with “A Taste of Honey” has been consuming.  For days he’s been shuffled around.  Neither of us have time for him. And he’s just starting kindergarten, a world of rules and crimes and older kids and bullies and beautiful powerful girls and a friendly but harassed authority, and another not so friendly authority. He’s just back from Denver, where his grandparents provided the life he wants.  Today in the car he said he prefers Vancouver to Lund and Denver to Vancouver.  He wanted to hear Lise’s letter and Henry’s story written for him last spring.

The child has such a tie with his grandparents.  If I could be more like them he and they would like me better.  They give lots of support”as long as there is enough money and some professional status.  I fear their loss.  Henry is 70, Lise 66.  I fear them dying.

Autumn blues; the fear is descending. Perhaps with my first week of classes, the first film, it will pass. Or perhaps not, until the play is over.  The potential is here for the order we seek.  The time for each other and our creative pursuits.  Will it come?

September 13

Indian summer has deserted us.  It’s grey and blowing hard this morning.  I sigh with anxiety¦and yet exaggerate.  Jan is under greater pressure and she sleeps.  I fear the chill. I wish to placate and propitiate. When is the day of atonement?

A coffee break between loads of dishes
Evening sun through a gash in the clouds
Goats moving in the rain
Grass green grows lush like June.
Cat Stevens scratchy record.
Jan and Joe iron initials on his new school bag.
Tomorrow the first day.