West Coast Trip 2015 - Prep 2

Making Contact

["WW2 Navy boys played some ball in Comox, B.C., 1944-45"]

Prep work for a trip to Comox, on Vancouver Island, has begun. I've booked my May flights with West Jet because they land in Comox and I can cab to my accommodations in 5 minutes. Fun-tastic.

I've booked a cozy room in a solid house (via Airbnb) in Comox for the first half of the trip already, and a homeowner in Courtenay will book me into a room in his house once he's returned from vacation. Both homes are centrally located, minutes away from libraries and museums.

["Microfiche is on file at Courtenay Library"]

I have made one of three important contacts: Courtenay Library has microfiche records of WW2 era newspapers from the area and I simply have to call for an appointment once in town, Easy kap-easy. And I'm just waiting patiently for return emails from my other two connections.

["Library is open 'til 8PM. I'll be gone by 5"]

I have new travelling socks but still need new pants and shoes. I haven't organized a rental bike and if I don't start savin' up I'll be eating wieners and beans for almost two weeks.

So, there is still work to be done.

Link to West Coast trip

Photos GH

Gordie Boy: "I'm sure I winged 'em"

I learned early in life that it pays to be vigilent. Danger comes dressed in many guises and can leap at you at any time. And family and friends don't always pay attention to the lions hiding behind lawn chairs.

 ["Gordie Boy is ready for bear"]

To this day I thank my dad for giving me a trusty rifle when I was three years old along with - surely I was told - a few safety tips: Don't point it at your sisters. Don't look down the barrel. Don't fill the barrel with sand... or anything else. Lions and bears are everywhere. Shoot them on sight. Don't take time to ask questions. Aim for the kidneys.

I protected my family for an entire week one summer while vacationing at Turkey Point. Lions and bears and tigers and elephants and snakes roamed the yard, hid behind lawn chairs and tables and sheds and bushes.

["I winged 'em all and can sit for a few seconds"]

[Back row: Unknown, sisters Lannie and Dale Harrison

Front row: Gordie Boy, cousin Bernice Malcolm]

The beach was a particularly dangerous place and I went through ammo - pow, pow, pikoo, pikoo, shing, shing - by the bushel. And because I didn't understand how ricochets worked I was probably in as much danger as the wild beasts that lurked around every corner. I realized later in life I am fortunate to have lived so long.

I am vigilent to this day. And my aim is still pretty darn good.

Photos of old photos by GH

***

Point me toward a story about your childhood.

Please click here for more about Gordie Boy

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Photos from along the way (20)

[“I felt grateful on the day. When I asked if that was a hawser on his workbench Mr. Shafer said it was, so I didn’t feel like a complete goof. I felt glad to have spotted it and that it connected me - with the strongest of cords - to my father.” Chasing my dad Part 14]

Photos from April 26, Day 6 of my trip to Vancouver Island

Do you like museums? I do, especially ones with restricted rooms.

Shortly after leaving the Esquimalt Naval Base I entered the Maritime Museum of BC, only two blocks from my hostel. 

Though I was barred from one important room, according to a sign, velvet rope and black curtain, I found a way to sneak in (by moving the rope and slipping behind the curtain) and found many treasures.

For example, I found a WWII photo of a convoy forming in Bedford Basin, Halifax. My father may very well have been on one of those ships, as he was part of the first RCNVR class to be shipped overseas in 1941.

[“A bit of history about dad’s beloved RCNVR. He

didn’t sign up because of the pay, that’s for sure.”]

[“The rum tot reminded me of one of dad’s ‘Navy

Days’ stories published in our hometown paper”]

[“Dad mentioned that he trained at HMCS Niobe

in Scotland, circa 1942, in his Naval memoirs”]

[“I spotted a model of the Esquimalt shipyard locks;

I’d seen the real thing just hours earlier.”]

[“An old map of the Esquimalt Naval Base, the place I’d

tramped around in the morning, caught my eye.”]

After a late lunch I had a good tramp around Victoria and the nearby harbour.

More to follow.

[Photos by G.Harrison]

***

Please click here to view more Photos from along the way

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 14

[“I do not know the fate of the Silver Walnut but I do know for certain she was not sunk or in the words of my dad, “She did not go to Davy Jones’ locker.” And whenever I attend a naval reunion, talk usually turns to ‘those lucky guys’ who sailed aboard the Walnut and who called her home for three months.” Excerpt from Doug Harrison’s Naval memoirs, Chasing my dad Part 13]

Day 6 of my trip west to Vancouver Island

I have three pages of scribbled notes detailing some of the events of my sixth day away from home. When I wrote them I am not sure, though at supper time feels most likely, because after 11 lines of writing I include a reminder to “Email Michael, from Bard and Banker re Virago”, and I know I had supper at The Bard and Banker restaurant. (Photos confirm it, and I recently placed Michael’s business card atop my messy desk, or somewhere within reach.)

I have 157 photographs, as well, to help me retrace my own footsteps for what turned out to be a very, very busy and rewarding day. As I scanned the photos a few feelings of regret and surprise came to mind; I missed a couple of shots, so I’ll have to go back. I felt feelings of satisfaction too, because I’d jotted a few significant thoughts between bites of my supper and captured special shots in the midst of my busy day.

In my notes I recorded the following:

“Old buildings, a deep long dock (Lock?) for building and repair, a brig ‘no one can get in, or out’, an old stone barracks w metal hooks for hammocks embedded in the walls; stellar views”

["The Rigging Loft; enter, turn right to a fine workbench"]

Though I didn’t photograph the ‘old stone barracks’, I’m sure it is one historic building my dad would have recalled had he been there. He likely spent a night there, at Naden, as the base was known in the 1940s, before returning to HMCS Star in Hamilton for discharge on September 5, 1945, one day before his 25th birthday.

["The Rigging Loft's handiwork hangs everywhere"]

I’m very happy, however, I took a picture of a cluttered workbench just inside the front door of the Rigging Loft at Esquimalt. 

["This sturdy hawser reminded me of a story"]

It reminds me of the wonderful smells of the place. (When I told Terry Shafer, the boss and former journalist and a man my own age, that there would be some people who would want to work for him just to enjoy the smells of the place, he nodded knowingly.) The photo also focuses upon a thick white hawser (twined rope) and reminds me of a memorable story my dad told in his Naval memoirs. 

He wrote:

On November 11, 1942 the Derwentdale dropped anchor off Arzew in North Africa and different ships were distributed at different intervals along the vast coast. My LCM had the leading officer aboard, another seaman besides me, along with a stoker and Coxswain. At around midnight over the sides went the LCMs, ours with a bulldozer and heavy mesh wire, and about 500 feet from shore we ran aground. When morning came we were still there, as big as life and all alone, while everyone else was working like bees.

There was little or no resistance, only snipers, and I kept behind the bulldozer blade when they opened up at us. We were towed off eventually and landed in another spot, and once the bulldozer was unloaded the shuttle service began. For ‘ship to shore’ service we were loaded with five gallon jerry cans of gasoline. I worked 92 hours straight and I ate nothing except for some grapefruit juice I stole.

Our Coxswain was L/S Jack Dean of Toronto and our officer was Lt. McDonald RNR. After the 92 hours my officer said, “Well done. An excellent job, Harrison. Go to Reina Del Pacifico and rest.” But first the Americans brought in a half track (they found out snipers were in a train station) and shelled the building to the ground level. No more snipers. I then had to climb hand over hand up a large hawser (braided rope) to reach the hand rail of Reina Del Pacifico and here my weakness showed itself. I got to the hand rail completely exhausted and couldn’t let one hand go to grab the rail or I would have fallen forty feet into an LCM bobbing below. I managed to nod my head at a cook in a Petty Officer’s uniform and he hauled me in. My throat was so dry I only managed to say, “Thanks, you saved my life.” (page 25, “DAD, WELL DONE”, Naval memoirs of Doug Harrison, compiled by G. Harrison)

["An employee's boot was bronzed after he retired"] 

I can only imagine how my father would have felt after stepping through the sturdy front door of the Rigging Loft, taking his first deep breath of the rich aromas associated with thick twisted Navy ropes, then spying the thick hawser upon Mr. Shafer’s workbench. Would he have felt grateful? Grateful he’d once had the strength to climb one like it, grateful someone appeared on deck to help him off the rope, and grateful for his time on Vancouver Island in 1944 - 45 (“It was like heaven,” he wrote elsewhere in his memoirs).

["More climbing apparatus. What do you prefer?"]

I felt grateful on the day. When I asked if that was a hawser on his workbench Mr. Shafer said it was, so I didn’t feel like a complete goof. I felt glad to have spotted it and that it connected me - with the strongest of cords - to my father. I felt at home inside the workshop and happy to stick my toe into prohibited territory on a day when the Minister of National Defence was busy shopping for F-35s, so, no Navy brig for me.

["I was in and out in ten seconds flat! But I can't tell

you what I saw. M-I-L-I-T-A-R-Y S-E-C-R-E-T-S]

And the day only seemed to get better.

More to follow. (I told you it was a busy day!)

[Photos by G.Harrison]

***

Please click here to read “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 13

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 13

[“I’m sure I said, ‘lovely, lovely,’ several times before stepping down to put the hammock close to my face. I took a breath and caught the smell of motor oil, and hoped I hadn’t smudged my nose.” June 5, Chasing my dad, Part 12]

When Dad first went aboard the SS Silver Walnut in 1943 - a ship destined to circle Africa in about 90 days, too long for any Navy ship - he called it “a real dud.” He initial assessment may have been right.

In his memoirs, when he described stokers he met aboard the Walnut, he called them “men with brains bashed in,” perhaps a term he heard others use as well.

By the end of his tour of duty, however, and particularly as he recalled his adventures at a later stage in life, any ship was a mighty thing in his estimation. Stokers would have seemed brave men with good brains as well, I'm sure.

For example, he wrote the following in his memoirs in 1975:

"I do not know the fate of the Silver Walnut but I do know for certain she was not sunk or in the words of my dad, “She did not go to Davy Jones’ locker.” And whenever I attend a naval reunion, talk usually turns to ‘those lucky guys’ who sailed aboard the Walnut and who called her home for three months."

"I wish to conclude the story of the adventure aboard the Walnut with a poem which was sent to me by brother-in-law Arthur Catton. He served aboard a Canadian destroyer during the Korean War. The poem expresses my feeling about ships.

"I don’t care if it’s north or south, the Trades or the China Sea;

Shortened down or everything set, close hauled or running free;

You paint me a ship, as is like a ship;

And that’ll do for me."

And because Dad never saw a hammock, like I did just two short months ago in Esquimalt on Vancouver Island, that came from his ship (it included the names of all crew members, including his own), but only saw pictures of it, I’m sure, had he been there with me to smell the oil and the grease that marked the canvas (perhaps transferred there by Stoker Katanna, the hammock’s original owner), he would have felt I was holding fabric meant for heaven, and he would have called Katanna a saint, and shaken his head at the way he had described stokers when he was all of 23 years old.

He also would have been truly enraptured by the tour around the Esquimalt Naval Base.

Too bad I got to our ‘meeting up place’ 15 minutes late. I stood beside the wrong gate, about one kilometer away from the Base’s main gate, for 20 minutes or more, and would be standing there still if a young man hadn’t spotted me pacing about - as if lost and abandoned, which is only half correct.

After I landed at the proper gate, however, Intern Katie Brissard could not have done more to make me feel at home and like an honoured guest. Soon after Katie and I started our ‘walk about’ the Base, at about 10:15 a.m., April 26, I felt as happy as a clam. 

Little did I know that the ‘one-hour tour’ I had requested was a relatively flexible term, as far as my guide was concerned. I was happy, therefore, to march here and there and everywhere and look under almost every stone - for well over two hours. I have scores of photos to prove it.

[“My first photos were of the HMCS Vancouver,

a mighty ship, with a bit of rust”]

[“The ship’s insignia, spotted near the bow... I think”]

[“HMCS Vancouver and G. Harrison. ‘G’ for

‘Grateful I’m not still lost’. Peace to all”]

[“Intern K. Brissard in front of an old ship bay”]

[“The ship bay, useful and unchanged

for decades now”]

[“Many old buildings made me feel I was seeing

what my father had seen about 70 years earlier”]

[“A little old frame building made me think of

an important photo from 1945. See below”]

[“Six boys joined RCNVR together in 1941. They discharged

together Sept. 5, 1945, the day before my dad’s 25th birthday.

Dad, front row, center; in front of a white framed building”]

More to follow. 

***

Please click here to read “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 12

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 12

[“Day 5 was really quite the day, and my feelings can be described by a few short lines: Every dog has his day, and I had one of my finest... ” Chasing my dad Part 11]

Early on Thursday, April 26 (Day 6 of my trip to Vancouver Island), I went from very much asleep to very much awake by 6:00 a.m. 

Though Day 5 had been a fine day, finer things approached, i.e., a trip to view a WWII Navy hammock - stored at a museum and available only upon request - that had my dad’s name on it, among a few others.

“Showered, found Starbucks, answered emails and bussed to Esquimalt Naval Museum. I was on wrong bus but got it straightened easily,” says my journal, proof again that I seldom arrive anywhere via the most direct route. 

“Arrived at Museum early, met curator Debbie Towell in her office upon entering building. Went to side room (past cluttered hallway full of artifacts). Hammock there in plastic sleeve.”

[“Admin 20, home of the Museum curator’s office”]

Over the last 70 years, since the Silver Walnut’s slow and dangerous voyage around Africa to battlefields and D-Days in Sicily and Italy, no Harrison has seen the Navy hammock. 

My dad knew that it was in Esquimalt, had seen photographs of it, but, for whatever reason, had never stood where I was standing. I’m sure he’d wanted to, and as I looked at the hammock in its plastic sleeve I wished he was there too. 

Though dad had known about the hammock’s existence since the early 1990s, I’d known about it for less than two years. After returning from casting Dad’s remains into the Atlantic Ocean in June, 2010 and shortly thereafter learning he’d spent time on Vancouver Island (1944 - 45) training other young sailors, I dug deeper into his Navy history. I learned, among other things, about his time at Givenchy III in Comox, baseball games and dances in Courtenay (a nearby town), and that the hammock could be found in a particular Naval museum. I soon began to save up for a trip west.

[“I automatically climbed upon a chair.

Off to the brig?”]

When I stepped into the side room with D. Towell I patted my back pocket. My camera was there. I wanted 1,000 pictures. But first I was handed a pair of white gloves and, quite unexpectedly, told I was to help unroll the hammock. I happily obliged. My dad would likely have been even more eager had he been there. He would have pulled the gloves carefully over his crooked fingers and then used one to check the tears dripping from the tip of his nose.

The last line I wrote that day concerning the hammock reads, “I actually maintained my composure, though I broke military protocol by standing upon leather chairs in my shoes to take photos of the hammock.”

[“Among 17 crew members, Dad’s name appears”]

And I didn’t ask permission. Once the hammock was rolled out upon a table I noticed it wasn’t perfectly flat, so, to get the best possible photos I automatically stepped onto the nearest chair. The chair didn’t creak from my weight so I started snapping pictures.

I’m sure I said, ‘lovely, lovely,’ several times before stepping down to put the hammock close to my face. I took a breath and caught the smell of motor oil, and hoped I hadn’t smudged my nose. Then I took a deeper breath and wondered if I was smelling oil or grease transferred onto it by W.N. Katanna, Ldg. Sto. (Leading Stoker), because it was his hammock that had been passed along to Sub./Lt. Dave Rodgers when he came aboard the Walnut in 1943 - sans bed roll. (It was D. Rodgers who returned it to the Canadian Navy in 1986, with the addition of 17 names, including his own.)

[“Officer Rodgers listed the crew and painted

the insignia of the 80th Flotilla”]

["The insignia of the 80th Flotilla"]

Katanna, as a Stoker and one in close contact with motors, gears and fuel, would have lived, breathed and worn motor oil for much of his Navy career, and likely left his mark, so to speak (besides his stencilled name), on more than just his hammock. Dad, as an Able Bodied Seaman at the time, would have been familiar with most aspects of the ship and would have told me very quickly what smell was still attached to the canvas. 

[“Stoker Katanna stencilled his name twice on

this hammock, then gave it up to an officer”]

After I made my way to the other end of the table I stood upon another chair to take my last photographs. Navy protocol again flew out the window.

Fortunately, during my 30 minute appointment with the museum’s curator, I was not hauled off to the Navy brig, and when I stepped out onto the building’s front door I felt most welcome to return in the future.

[“I must bring Pat and the boys next time”]

I say now that I will, but not alone, for later that day I added to my journal, “The entire Harrison family, young and old, should tour the base.” 

And finally, “Wear sneakers.” 

***

Please click here to read “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 11

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 11

[“I rummaged for my toothbrush while looking forward to the key events of the day, i.e., landing in Vancouver, bussing to the ferry, ferrying to Victoria, walking to the hostel, enjoying a shower, taking a ‘walk about’, renting a car and finding a great spot for supper.” Part 10, Chasing my dad]

I was in a stellar mood after enjoying a shower at HI Victoria (Hostel International on Yates St.), because all memories of walking off in the wrong direction after leaving the bus station one hour earlier had circled down the drain and my watch declared I had a good portion of my first afternoon left on Vancouver Island for a walk about, camera in hand.

[“Lost in Victoria, but not for long”]

My refreshing shower, short memory and the island’s pleasant weather (I felt as if Mother Nature had laid out her red carpet for me) were not the only things that contributed to my positive outlook for the rest of the day. So many unique meetings with museum curators and guides and Navy veterans’ wives were already neatly arranged for the next two days and I therefore felt I had concrete opportunities ahead to learn about my father’s faint footsteps upon the ground around me.       

[“Would Dad remember seeing tall totems?”]

For example, a few weeks before I’d left London I sent short portions of my dad’s naval memoirs to Wendy Fried Ollsen, a museum curator in Courtenay. She’d shown them to a person in her community and a recent email from her was filled with promise. 

It read: “I just had a visit here at the Museum from Mr. Lawrence Burns who is a member of our local Heritage committee. He brought with him Dot (Dorothy) Levett, wife of the late Chuck Levett, who was in the RCN with your Father. He also wanted to show the pictures and snippets from your father’s naval memoirs to Maudie Hobson, wife of the late George Hobson. I hope that you don’t mind, I forwarded your emails to Mr. Burns so that he could share them with her. Dot just celebrated her 90^th birthday in February. Mrs. Levett met her husband at a dance in the Native Sons Hall. I cannot tell you how thrilled she was to see the pictures and read the snippets. She said it really was a walk down memory lane for her. She said she was going to go home and remember those happy times. Thank you for the gift you have given to them.”

I was to meet Dot the next day. With a new-found picture of her husband in hand, I felt our meeting would be a memorable one.

I left the hostel - happily smelling like a new boy - in shorts, sandals and a T-shirt, turned right and walked toward the harbour situated less than 200 meters away. Snap, snap, snap. Within minutes another collection of colourful photos joined my growing supply.

[“My first photo after leaving the hostel”]

Truthfully, I have no way of knowing if my father walked up and down the same streets as I did. Some things I will never know about his time on the island in 1944 and ’45 (Who among is not in the same boat?) but my impressions are, based on his memoirs and Navy records, he chiefly spent his time in Comox (working) and Courtenay (playing), two towns about two hours north-east from where I was exploring, and I was quite content to simply follow my nose to see what I could see, to reflect a bit on Dad’s history while creating my own. 

Victoria is such a lovely place, I thought. Won’t my own boys want to come here someday, to see what I am seeing and to connect with their grand-dad? And their dad? Time will tell.

My ‘walk about’ included several highlights:

I sat and chatted for a moment with city benefactor Michael C. Williams, 1930 - 2000.

[“Mr. Williams wears large spectacles too. Cool”]

I chatted with two young ladies inside Roberta’s Hats who were able to provide me with the email address of a high school friend who makes hats of the highest quality in Nelson, B.C.

   

[“The girls liked my story about Dot Levett”]

I found a lovely spot to sit down, rest my tired feet and enjoy a ‘nightly special’ that included a local craft beer.

[“The Bard and Banker Pub. Try their

pizza and pint special, $9.99”]

And, after sampling a second tall glass of the craft beer I was able to find my way home in less than five minutes.

[“Phillips Hop Circle. Two pints were plenty.”]

Day 5 was really quite the day and my feelings can be described by a few short lines:

The Beagle has landed (i.e., every dog has his day, and I had one of my finest)

I followed my nose

I could live here

Big day today, bigger day tomorrow

I slept like a rock


[Photos by G.Harrison]

***

Please click here to read “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad  Part 10

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Day 5 - Photos from along the way PT 2

Day 5 - April 25, 2012, From Vancouver to Victoria (“Shite! I’m late!”)

The ferry ride from Vancouver to Victoria was cool, crisp, foggy, misty, glorious... and if I hadn’t looked at my watch I’d still be on it.

[“Misty or not, the ride was memorable”]

[“Proof that I smile on occasion on foggy days”]

I thought I had plenty of time for lunch and a coffee. Plenty of time.

[“Spelt and Kamut salad, whatever that is, with

cranberries and sunflower seeds. Delicious.”]

I missed a garbled announcement about returning to my bus on the lower level of the ferry by 12:15, and when I casually looked at my watch and noticed I was late, I hightailed it!

[“Run, Gordie, run!”]

My first photo of the fine city of Victoria is significant. It proves I didn't miss the bus ride off the ferry. However, I was lost when I took the photo and didn’t know it. 

[“Such a nice city. Now, where am I?”]

How can that happen to a seasoned traveller? Well, did you see my map of the city?

***

Please click here to view more Photos from along the way and my handy, dandy map.

“GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 10

My mood, at the end of April 24 (Day 4 of my trip to Vancouver Island), is described by some of the last words in my journal for the day, written moments before I settled down to sleep - or ‘tried’ to sleep - in my Economy class chair: Dave Rodgers was the officer who returned the hammock!!

["Dave received the Navy hammock in 1943 aboard the

SS Silver Walnut; he returned it to the Canadian navy in 1986"]

["Dave and the crew survived engine troubles

and escaped the eye of enemy subs"]

I use double exclamation marks only on very special occasions. The night before, while reading a book on the train, two days before visiting the Esquimalt Naval Museum to see a WWII hammock with my father’s name on it, I discovered a paragraph about the officer who returned it to the Canadian Navy in Australia in 1986. I actually got excited for once in my life. !! My last words follow: 

That’s coincidence? NO. TWO capitals. So, shower or not, I’m a happy camper.

The next morning, however, my first recorded thoughts about Day 5 indicate I’d suffered a broken sleep and woke up restless. I listed several ‘quick thots’:

1. bad sleep in economy but enough

2. @ 8:03, very close to Vanc. Central, but VIA engineer has us sitting in boonies.

I must have been thinking that the earlier I got into Vancouver, the earlier I could catch a bus to the island and Victoria. Time was a-wastin’. I’m sure I felt like saying, let’s get a move on. 

Yes, I’m pretty sure that was what I was thinking. Fortunately, a few good thoughts entered my weary head and I jotted them down too for safe keeping:

["My journal reveals I maintained

a fairly positive mood at all times"]

3. good column re 2 coincidences

Apparently, I felt there was a good story in what I’d seen and read in the book ‘Combined Operations’ the night before and all I had to do was write about it, for which I’d get paid. Life can’t get much better than that, can it?

4. left message for Pat. not home. out with NICK.  

NICK is my wife’s imaginary boy friend, he has been for many years, and I refer to him often since it was i who had dreamt the guy up (it’s a long story), in a dream. Whenever I mention NICK, I’m making a joke. (And it’s often quite hilarious, in my opinion.) So, it appears I was in a good mood in spite of a bad night’s sleep during which I’d felt like a football cleat was jabbing into my back.

Before I started scrounging for breakfast and a place to wash up, I also listed two tasks I didn’t want to forget, as if on a to-do list: 

5. UNBROKEN: A WWII story of Survival, L. Hildebrand

This entry refers to ‘Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption’ by Laura Hillenbrand (author of ‘Seabiscuit’), a book recommended to me by a fellow passenger. (And I’ll look for it once I’m finished ‘Mortal Combat’, a history of WWII, and ‘Life in Nelson’s Navy’, a book I purchased a few days later in Victoria).

I also listed the name of a car rental agency I needed to call soon after I landed in Victoria so that I could make preparations for an upcoming trip to a library and archive in Courtenay.

["Lovely map to help me get to the hostel

on Yates St. Makes sense, right?]

Busy, busy I was, and I hadn’t even brushed my teeth.

I rummaged for my toothbrush while looking forward to the key events of the day, i.e., landing in Vancouver, bussing to the ferry, ferrying to Victoria, walking to the hostel, enjoying a shower, taking a ‘walk about’, renting a car and finding a great spot for supper.

Easy kap-easy? Stay tuned.

***

Please click here to read “GO WEST, YOUNG MAN”: Chasing my dad Part 9