North Island nosecount
Waltz Beats at 3/4 Time
by Michael McGovern
Victoria: Pro&McGo Publishers, 2023
[visit Michael McGovern’s website at https://www.agathist.com]
[Editor’s Note: This is an excerpt from Michael McGovern’s 2023 memoir]
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Trees, definitely just trees – those were mature cedar trees growing right there. That’s all I could see! Well, actually, I could see my vehicle, and dirt road behind and in front of it too, and I could make out a rocky slope rising just behind those trees. Remaining calm, I looked again, carefully. Back up the road a little I could make out the junction with another dirt road, and behind me was the little inlet – these were all the correct landmarks.
The day before, I’d driven up the length of Vancouver Island, checked in to a motel, and then fallen into troubled dreams of government agents being sliced up for fish bait. Was I not awake yet?
Census Day 2006, May 16th. I’d been sent to enumerate the population of Winter Harbour.
I spread out the official map on the truck hood. This map, supplied by Statistics Canada, was the size of a kitchen table and clearly showed a lopsided, triangular village, nine blocks long and five blocks at its widest, tapering to a point right here at this very spot. Houses, post office, bakery, hotel and hardware store were all marked. I was part of the team sent out to find the hard-to-find, and we’d been warned that some of them wouldn’t really want to be found. But this was just silly. Who hides a whole town?
I drove on. Over a rise I found a little post office beside a short ramp leading to an empty dock. Aha, a map co-ordinate at last! A few buildings stood about, but none where buildings should have been. There wasn’t a man-made sound to be heard.
My truck was stacked with boxes of forms of all sizes and colours, each column and each square of each one cross-referenced to some column or square of every other one. In case of any difficulties, there was a big manual to explain it all. The most reassuring line in that manual read, “Inform your supervisor the same day you encounter the situation. Your supervisor will tell you how to proceed.” That morning I’d begun at the north end of the paved road, driven west to the end of the public gravel road, and then south again on privately-owned, dirt logging roads. My cellphone just read “Searching.”
Finally, further along at the end of the road, I encountered three warm bodies. They were fishing guides preparing for the season to open at the end of May. This was indeed Winter Harbour, they assured me, but they three constituted the entire permanent population of the place. Not one of them could make any sense of the map I was carrying.
On the return I detoured through a nearby logging camp that also didn’t appear on the Census map. The camp office told me that forty-some people worked and lived there with their families. This place fit the description of an institution, as I understood it, so the company’s head office should have sent all the paperwork on to Ottawa. I turned back toward Port McNeill with great rock ‘n’ roll on the satellite radio but still no cellphone connection. Dusk dimmed to twilight and the mosquitoes feasted as I replaced a tire shredded by that infamous Winter Harbour road. My Census Day headcount total: 3.
Over the telephone my direct supervisor in Victoria and I looked at that same Census map. Unfortunately, someone higher up stopped her from sending me in a helicopter to search the islands north of Cape Scott for the mystery town. Instead, it was decided, I was to proceed to another of my census unit, Quatsino – for which there was no map at all.
First I had to find it. The Quatsino First Nation’s territory spans the north end of Vancouver Island and includes several communities. Locals I spoke with decided I must mean the “old Quatsino” of the Norwegian settlers – accessible only by water. The water-taxi office in Coal Harbour was able to supply a much photocopied, squiggly-line map of Quatsino village, but warned that it was out of date.
Two people who commuted from old Quatsino gave wildly differing estimates of the population: “about 40” and “about 150.” After much consultation, the Victoria office gingerly suggested I might have to overnight there. I ended up staying three nights, gladly. The mail boat dropped me on the dock of the only fishing lodge open before the regular season.
Four sunny days I spent bopping along a glorious shoreline, watching wildlife between listening to family stories. Since the last census five years before, the children of the original Norwegian settlers, by then in their nineties, had been keeling over in their gardens one by one. Kids had moved away for school while new people arrived. The residents seemed grateful to learn that there were ninety-one of themselves.
I drew up a new map and starred the post office ‘variable.’ The little shack was on skids and got dragged to the property of whomever won the annual postmaster contract. Much of the traffic along Quatsino’s eight kilometres of dirt road is ATVs, and they pick up hitchhikers. On day two, a family lent me their old pickup truck and in return I invited them to share my boat when the time came for me to leave. An unscheduled call for the water taxi costs five times that of a ride on the twice-weekly mail run, but the boat can accommodate up to a dozen people.
On returning from Quatsino I was directed back to Winter Harbour to map out the buildings that did exist there, and to enumerate the inhabitants of that nearby logging camp which, apparently, had not contacted Ottawa. By the time those things were squared away, the central ten-day phase of the census had ended. Following right after that came the extensive Census NRFU (Non-Response Follow Up) for which I was also based in Port McNeill.
All directions around Port McNeill begin from The Stump at the junction of Highway 19 and West Main. (Officially, it’s the World’s Biggest Burl, but I heard that locals just call it The Stump.) Logging trucks have the right of way on their roads, and there are lots of signs designed to scare off the tenderfoot. But the drivers are decent, and through their radios they usually know when anyone else is moving on the roads. One late morning I was headed into a corner on a treed section along the West Main just as a loaded logging truck was swinging into it from the other end. We saw each other at the last moment. It was impressive: a great monster beast shuddering to a stop, brakes hissing and all eighteen wheels steaming in the rain mist. The driver waved as my little quarter-ton scuttled by like an ant.
Over that time I think I ate in every restaurant in Ports Hardy, McNeill and Alice, and in Telegraph Cove and Sointula too. The most exquisite taste comes from Sointula, where the local smoked tuna is as delicate as the finest cheese anywhere. Most visitors go to the north island for the whale watching or boating or fishing. I did too – but also for the people, and I love to eavesdrop.
“Hey, Fred, I have a couple of logs for you.” Snatches of fishing talk, of whose boat is in and whose out, and reports of bear sightings, “We saw twelve up by Merry Widow Junction yesterday.” Friends greeting each other as the door opens and closes. It’s the rhythm of the small town cafe. Outside, continual beeps and whistles come from the log sorting dump.
“You be careful. I’m the one who kisses your lunch,” a waitress shouts after some young loggers who have been teasing her. They snort and carry on, but her fellow waitress and I just have to ask. Every evening she makes up the sandwiches, she tells us, and she kisses each lunch before it goes into the fridge. “My mother makes me do it to every lunch bag because it brings luck to the boys when they’re out there.” Man, I live for snippets like that!
Small-town life can be grand. Ports Hardy and McNeill are about thirty miles apart, yet two young hitchhikers I picked up in Hardy hadn’t managed to make it all the way down to McNeil for some time: one for eight years and the other for five.
Tree trunks have a grey cast to them, so bears are easy to spot at great distances through the springtime green because nothing else is so intensely black. Perhaps that comes from a lack of oil on the coats during the early spring. Every day they could be seen foraging alongside the highway, usually alone or in pairs. One afternoon, four bears feeding along a raised bank were nicely aligned for a photograph, so I pulled over and hopped out. The three smaller bears kept on ripping up long dripping jaws full of succulent grass, but the big mama bear stood tall staring, moving her snout back and forth. I was still fiddling with the camera battery when an enormous male ambled out of the bush right beside me. I didn’t stop to get the picture.
In other places I’ve met mother bears with three cubs. A carved mother bear and two bear cubs walk across the top beam of the “Welcome to Port Hardy” sign at the turn-off to Bear Cove. Originally there were three cubs, but somebody stole one of the carvings almost as soon as they were put up. The remaining carvings now have large bolts passed through them and welded into place.
On one of the first census mornings, in anticipation of lots of walking and talking, I scarfed down great amounts of bacon and eggs. Then I absent-mindedly wiped a greasy hand on my trousers. Well, the dogs loved me that day. They spent all their time sniffing my right knee and wagging their tails. It’s so much easier to talk to people when their dogs like you. So from then on I deliberately dragged a bit of bacon across my shoelaces each morning.
Given the human love for gossip, an outsider is best for gathering personal information in small communities. Many passing faces came to look familiar as time went by, and many recognized me, but I really had no recollection of names, addresses or details. I was a curious man with an I.D. badge that said I couldn’t be turned away, but I wasn’t interested in the individual details beyond getting them down on paper.
Answering the questionnaires could take as long as both sides wanted. The ‘long form’ went to every fifth house, in strict sequential order. Those in between received the eight-question ‘short form.’ The primary resident was ‘Person 1’ and the name, age, sex and marital status of every member of the household was sought. A separate question asked each person if they were living with a common-law partner (either same-sex or opposite-sex). Another queried each respondent’s relationship to ‘Person 1.’ The seventh asked which childhood language was still used. The final question was, “Does this person agree to make his/her 2006 Census information available for public release in 2098 (92 years after the census)?” Very often, that question brought out a long, reflective sigh before the answer.
The long form added questions about physical abilities, ethnic and immigration status, income and education, amount of care given to infirm relatives, physical details of the home, and where each person had lived one year before. The long form contained sixty-six possible questions for each person, but the first answer in most categories could allow us to skip over many of them.
Each census questionnaire provided spaces for five residents. Often enough we had to use two for a family. One night, during one of those west coast rains so heavy there’s little room left over for air, I sat out in his driveway with a man as he listed those inside. We filled one short form easily, then a second, then started a third. Until that moment he had never noticed that thirteen relatives lived in his house.
Happy hour could be anytime, it seemed, and offers of wine and beer were common. The smell of marijuana was frequent and called for a soft entry. I would make it clear that I had absolutely no interest in recreational matters, just statistical data. Sometimes it took a gentle reminder that the Census had the power to call in the police in cases of non-compliance. Without that bit of leverage the census task would have been a lot more difficult.
One hard-working, hard-playing couple was only too happy to comply, just so long as I sat with them among the wine bottles on their mattress in the living room. Filling out the questionnaire took a lot longer than usual – and I had to refuse a toke in between every one of the questions on their long form. I found income to be a poor predictor of family pastimes.
The difference in feeling between homes astounded me. The contrasts stand true in trailer parks as well as the towns and suburbs. Trailer parks contain neighbourhoods, I discovered, and are as varied as the wider cities. In the houses I saw stuffed and carved fish, moose, minks, wolves, bears, cougars, and birds of prey. West coast homes so often reflect the outside, just as many in Alberta are decorated with tumbleweeds, and in the Rockies with skis and snowshoes. The homes I most often found to be soulless displayed store-bought sentiments such as “Welcome to our Nest.” A sign announcing a “Secret Garden” must be a special type of oxymoron.
Working on a census is another opportunity to learn patience and to not jump to premature conclusions. For one reason or another, repeated visits are often required. One woman disappeared after agreeing on the phone to be at home at a certain time. Several weeks later she explained, “Right after your phone call came another saying my son had fallen down and broken his neck. I guess we were on the chopper heading for Vancouver by the time you were here knocking on the door. Gosh, I’m sorry for any inconvenience to you.”
One weekend I went back to complete some information a wife couldn’t supply. A drinking party was raging in the backyard when I arrived. At the sound of my truck, a man’s flushed face popped above the fence, grimaced, and ducked down again. Minutes later a squeal of tires came from the other side of the house. But his wife told me where he was sure to have gone, so I followed him out to ‘the A-frame’ on a nearby spit. About a dozen men were gathered around a hissing bonfire in the rain, most with a rifle or shotgun slung over a shoulder and a beer in hand. These boys were loaded for b’ar, and some were quite loaded. They knew who I was: I was the Government hounding them in their clubhouse. No one spoke as I approached.
To establish some ground, I started to ask them, in turn, “Are you local?”
“No, sir. I’m from Port X.”
To the next one, “Are you local?”
“No, sir. I’m from Y River.”
And so on, “No, sir. I’m from Z Bay.”
Around we go again: “Okay, I’m looking for Buddy Smith. Are you Buddy Smith?”
“No, sir.”
Silence.
“Okay, are you Buddy Smith?”
“No, sir.”
Silence. Sigh; change of tactic.
“All right,” I announced, “I’m looking for Buddy Smith. Who here is Buddy Smith?” Finally, slowly, one man admitted that he was Buddy Smith. We stepped aside to talk.
“Jump in the truck,” I suggested.
“I’m not gettin’ in no effin’ truck,” he snarled. That bleary-eyed refusal was his last bit of fight.
“Fine.” I climbed in. After all the drama, he meekly answered all my long-form questions while standing out in the drizzle.
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People fascinate me. Taking the Census allowed my most sustained, intensive look ever at how we live and love. The oldest person I enumerated was a woman of ninety-six. When I noted that her husband was only ninety-two, she smiled coyly and admitted she had always liked younger men. The youngest person didn’t officially exist for census purposes because she was born two days after Census Day. But her proud six-year-old brother gave me the information, so I wrote her in with a big star by her name. At the other end of things, an old bachelor died only minutes before I arrived. The ancient anguish in his neighbour’s eyes as she waited for the coroner to arrive stopped all questions.
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The north island looks and feels now a lot like the south island did fifty years ago: primary industries, gravel roads and boys with big toys. Over that summer I worked my way back down through Vancouver Island, one census unit at a time. But the north end was where I stayed the longest, and the area I enjoyed most.
Each year, thousands of visitors travel thousands of miles just to see the region, many on their way to or from the ferries at Port Hardy. For those two months I got to stay where there are probably more bears than people, and the work environment can include forty seals playing in a bay while eighty bald eagles swirl and chitter overhead. At least a dozen times each week I travelled that highway between Ports Hardy and McNeill, and always there was something new to see.
The first flowers to jump out of the tree line were the fat, happy white stars of the thimbleberry. Then all at once came the lupines; vivid purple suddenly lined both sides of the road for mile after mile. Next, white clover appeared, and much later the red. Wherever sunlight touched it, the bush was dense and matted. Inside, in the shade of the trees, multiple varieties of flowers held up delicate bell clusters on tall stalks. Each time I entered the woods the colours and shapes of the petals were different. Everywhere, life and death lay strewn across the mosses and pine needles as ragged bundles of feathers or shredded fur.
On my first arriving for the census, the fiddlehead ferns were only inches high, but beefy and virile like curled workingmen’s fingers. As each day passed, they grew visibly and opened further. Within weeks they were waist high, and as delicate as music stands. At any breeze they shimmied frantically in unison. Every shaded hollow became the string section of a green skeleton orchestra.
As the grasses along the roads grew taller and more coarse, they gave protection to the buttercups on tough, tall stems and the gangling daisies growing among them. By the time I headed south again, Queen Anne’s lace and scotch broom lined the highway and salal was beginning to grow tall between the trees.
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That first map sent out with me on May 16th? I finally found out it was submitted in 1913 as the first proposed site for Winter Harbour. But in 1914, with the start of the First World War, many settlers returned to Europe and so building that original town was abandoned. The map has been hanging around haunting Stats Canada through every census ever since.
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Born in Scotland, Michael McGovern has taught English on four continents and been a carpenter on five. His first piece appeared in the GuangZhou Morning Sun, where he worked as a proofreader. Now retired, he works to decipher his old travel journals. A number of his stories and poems have appeared in Island Writer Magazine.
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The British Columbia Review
Interim Editors, 2023-26: Trevor Marc Hughes (non-fiction), Brett Josef Grubisic (fiction)
Publisher: Richard Mackie
Formerly The Ormsby Review, The British Columbia Review is an on-line book review and journal service for BC writers and readers. The Advisory Board now consists of Jean Barman, Wade Davis, Robin Fisher, Barry Gough, Hugh Johnston, Kathy Mezei, Patricia Roy, and Graeme Wynn. Provincial Government Patron (since September 2018): Creative BC. Honorary Patron: Yosef Wosk. Scholarly Patron: SFU Graduate Liberal Studies. The British Columbia Review was founded in 2016 by Richard Mackie and Alan Twigg.
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