Country roads

Most mornings of a recent three-week visit to Saltspring Island saw me on one section or another of this road, part of a seven-kilometre route near our place in Vesuvius.  I've walked it for years, but especially appreciated it after months of avoiding city crowds in the Covid era. The blue water in the distance is St. Mary lake. 

As you can see, most of my companions are trees: no need to wear a mask here.

I’ve walked the same country-side-road route on Saltspring Island off and on for 20 years, appreciating it sometimes more than others. It’s narrow, hilly, tree-lined, and in the depths of deserted winter, can make a lone walker feel like the last person on the planet. But in summer, especially this summer, after months of Covid restrictions in the city, ah! 

The shade of the trees eases the grade of all those up-and-down hills. The blackberry-lined meadows bake golden in the heat, and the air smells of sweetly drying plants and salt-water ocean. The sounds of triumphant roosters, mildly discontented sheep and dogs disrupted in their sleep drift on the wind. A rustling in the bushes nearby usually means deer: ballerinas of the animal world, they leap from their cover and dance across the road, feet barely touching the earth. (Alas, their grace is no protection from speeding cars, and deer corpses are common along Saltspring roads.)

As for people and their houses, they're few and widely spaced. On my two-hour walks, I'd often meet only two or three people, and their properties are big and tree-surrounded. No masks, no crowds and plenty of room to play; it's easy to forget the pandemic here.

For anyone who didn’t get a chance to walk a country road this like this this summer, here are some scenes from mine. All photos were taken by my partner John Denniston.

Near the beginning (or end) of my walk, depending on the direction I take, is this road running past Meadow Lane and Sugarland Farm. Further on, there's a driveway called Serenity. Surrounded by names like that, who can think bad thoughts?

Blackberry bushes, meadow, a touch of ocean and mountains beyond -- this little glimpse of rural paradise has always been one of my favourite parts of the route.

All along the route are these plastic boxes for newspapers, but most seem to have been unused for years. John was fascinated by this visual reminder of an industry changed forever. Plus, the light and front yard were great.

I watched this rock wall, which to me looks like a sculpture unto itself,  being built many years ago. The lot remained empty for a long time afterwards, except for a big pile of boulders near what appeared to be the housing site.  I wondered if somebody had spent all their money on that wall and had none left for a house. But this summer, there it was -- a modern Frank Lloyd Wright-style house overlooking the ocean. The boulder pile is still there, curiously well-suited to the house and now planted artistically with flowers. The owner has given good value to the neighbourhood, providing a sculpture we can all appreciate as well as a mystery that intrigued us for years.

I saw this house being built last year, and cringed at the amount of concrete being poured. Unlike the house above, it bows not to its rural island location; it could be in any city suburb anywhere.

 Work crews were busily digging up the area in front of this house when I first walked past it at the start of my three-week holiday. Days later, they were gone, leaving behind this clean-lined fence and level gravel area. I didn't appreciate it until John stopped to take this picture, but the changes emphasized the beauty of the two evergreen trees left when other bushes were cleared away.

But, I have to say, this is a more Saltspringy -- and typical -- kind of entrance-way. Narrow tracks through the woods leading to who knows what kind of structure?

There are many ways to display your address, and trust it to Saltspringers to find an unusual one. Discoveries like this tap support-post are what make walking -- and photographing -- in an unfamiliar area a pleasure.

A perfect stretch of Saltspring country road on a summer day -- something to remember in the city in the rain this Covid winter.

Any walk, or bike ride, on Saltspring involves many hills of various degrees of steepness. This spot, at the top of a fairly steep hill about a kilometre from the Vesuvius ferry terminal, is known locally as Breakup Hill. It seems that by the time cycling couples have hauled their bikes -- overloaded with camping gear and sometimes kids -- up the hill from the ferry to a pullout near here, they're ready to call it quits. For some reason, many people still don't know that Saltspring, with its narrow, no-shoulder roads and steep hills, is not a biker's paradise.

For the same reasons, some might say it's not a walker's paradise either. John catches me trekking up one of those many hills. I was in better condition at the end of the holiday than at the start.

But for every up hill, there's a down, and at least there are no crowds, few cars and plenty of open space. 

John took this picture because it's a journalistic no-no. Only small-town papers run photos of people pointing at things, so here I am posing at the spot of a dramatic incident that happened during my walk a few days earlier. An RCMP truck passed me as I was descending a hill; then I heard the crack of a rifle."Likely a deer," said a woman who happened to be getting into a car at a house I was passing. "They have to shoot them if they're hit by cars." When I got to the spot, a man was leaning over what I presume was the deceased deer, while the officer was standing nearby. Unjournalistically, I didn't stop and poke around, but days later, I was willing to play small-town voyeur.