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From Main Street to Mayne Island (New Star Books, Transmontanus $19)
In stranger on a strange island: From Main Street to Mayne Island (New Star Books, Transmontanus $19), city boy and novelist Grant Buday describes how he made the leap that many of us dream about: trading frantic, traffic-choked city life for an idyllic Gulf Islands existence.
[Here we cue some gently lapping waves and a close-up of gnarled arbutus trees.]
Buday moved with his wife Eve and their young son Sam from East Vancouver to Mayne Island initially for economic reasons. His teaching job was gone, and $600 rent will get you a three-bedroom house perched above Active Pass. Their move came during the dog days of summer, which then transformed into the gloomy gales of fall: numbing isolation, power blackouts (unprepared, they had no candles or lamps, and a serious lack of flashlight batteries) and a growing compulsion to hoard firewood.
There's not much call for a novelist on Mayne. Buday manages to survive by stitching together odd jobs, including hooking up with an all-rounder named Evan who can fix motors, run a fishing boat and build almost anything. One of their first jobs together involves retrieving an illegally moored fishing boat on a rainy winter day, then re-locating an uncooperative float and ramp away from lashing winds.
Our greenhorn narrator doesn't have a clue, and isn't dressed for the job.
"My wet denim stuck to me like depression,"; he writes. "My pale and pink hands resembled bled pork, my back was in spasm.
"As for my teeth, I was clenching them so tightly against the cold that I feared for my dental work. Evan was carrying on quite nicely in all-weather gear.";
The two men come to an agreement: Evan will trade his know-how and survival skills for a word-of-the-day from his bookish colleague. They begin with sprezzatura which means, "grace under pressure,"; something Buday sees and admires in Evan in spades.
Eventually Buday lands a part-time job at the local recycling depot, and this makes him "feel as though I'd established myself, however modestly, however humbly, however grubbily. Within days of starting, I was transformed into a recycler.";
Buday learned a lot about his fellow islanders from how they separated their plastics, and the number of scotch bottles they left behind. He also learns the mysterious ways of the B.C. Ferry service (a classic love-hate relationship, but necessary to cross the "watery divide";), how to earn the trust of quirky and eccentric island neighbours, and how to understand where one fits into the island's social hierarchy.
"Only newly-arrived ourselves, we were rated slightly higher than the week-ender."; Tourists occupy the bottom rung, mocked because they tend to, "drive along at one-and-a-half kilometers an hour, wander the roads three and four abreast, or halt in the middle of the street to snap photos of deer.";
Mayne Island life includes the intricacies of what Buday calls non-verbal communication. When encountering another driver on the road one can simply nod or flash a peace sign. That's just for starters. "Some people thrust their entire arm out the window and flap it around, the equivalent of a slap on the back and a bellowed: "How are you?";
Sometimes this communication smacks of show biz. "Some do what I call the Wayne Newton: this is a four-part greeting that consists of a point, wink, then a cluck of the tongue, finishing with a rakish, Vegas-style smile."; And they warn us cell phones are distracting?
Island etiquette also frowns upon walking past a person without acknowledging them. City dwellers may find this awkward, being more accustomed to ignoring people. There are diversions into the joys of stacking and burning firewood (fir is best), how to tame a chainsaw and a mesmerizing whale watching excursion with his young son Sam.
Buday's funny bone reverberates throughout this slim volume, and sometimes he veers into fictional waters. HMS Plumper charted the region in the 1850s, attaching crew members' names to islands, channels and coves at places like Bedwell, Pender and Mayne. At one point Buday fashions a tale that weaves together the exploits of Lieutenant R.C. Mayne-the island's namesake-and a pompous ship's surgeon named Billings, and a cocky island raven.
Leave a novelist on an island long enough, and he'll find his ground.
9781554200573
Mark Forsythe is the host of CBC radio's
BC Almanac.
[BCBW 2011]
[Here we cue some gently lapping waves and a close-up of gnarled arbutus trees.]
Buday moved with his wife Eve and their young son Sam from East Vancouver to Mayne Island initially for economic reasons. His teaching job was gone, and $600 rent will get you a three-bedroom house perched above Active Pass. Their move came during the dog days of summer, which then transformed into the gloomy gales of fall: numbing isolation, power blackouts (unprepared, they had no candles or lamps, and a serious lack of flashlight batteries) and a growing compulsion to hoard firewood.
There's not much call for a novelist on Mayne. Buday manages to survive by stitching together odd jobs, including hooking up with an all-rounder named Evan who can fix motors, run a fishing boat and build almost anything. One of their first jobs together involves retrieving an illegally moored fishing boat on a rainy winter day, then re-locating an uncooperative float and ramp away from lashing winds.
Our greenhorn narrator doesn't have a clue, and isn't dressed for the job.
"My wet denim stuck to me like depression,"; he writes. "My pale and pink hands resembled bled pork, my back was in spasm.
"As for my teeth, I was clenching them so tightly against the cold that I feared for my dental work. Evan was carrying on quite nicely in all-weather gear.";
The two men come to an agreement: Evan will trade his know-how and survival skills for a word-of-the-day from his bookish colleague. They begin with sprezzatura which means, "grace under pressure,"; something Buday sees and admires in Evan in spades.
Eventually Buday lands a part-time job at the local recycling depot, and this makes him "feel as though I'd established myself, however modestly, however humbly, however grubbily. Within days of starting, I was transformed into a recycler.";
Buday learned a lot about his fellow islanders from how they separated their plastics, and the number of scotch bottles they left behind. He also learns the mysterious ways of the B.C. Ferry service (a classic love-hate relationship, but necessary to cross the "watery divide";), how to earn the trust of quirky and eccentric island neighbours, and how to understand where one fits into the island's social hierarchy.
"Only newly-arrived ourselves, we were rated slightly higher than the week-ender."; Tourists occupy the bottom rung, mocked because they tend to, "drive along at one-and-a-half kilometers an hour, wander the roads three and four abreast, or halt in the middle of the street to snap photos of deer.";
Mayne Island life includes the intricacies of what Buday calls non-verbal communication. When encountering another driver on the road one can simply nod or flash a peace sign. That's just for starters. "Some people thrust their entire arm out the window and flap it around, the equivalent of a slap on the back and a bellowed: "How are you?";
Sometimes this communication smacks of show biz. "Some do what I call the Wayne Newton: this is a four-part greeting that consists of a point, wink, then a cluck of the tongue, finishing with a rakish, Vegas-style smile."; And they warn us cell phones are distracting?
Island etiquette also frowns upon walking past a person without acknowledging them. City dwellers may find this awkward, being more accustomed to ignoring people. There are diversions into the joys of stacking and burning firewood (fir is best), how to tame a chainsaw and a mesmerizing whale watching excursion with his young son Sam.
Buday's funny bone reverberates throughout this slim volume, and sometimes he veers into fictional waters. HMS Plumper charted the region in the 1850s, attaching crew members' names to islands, channels and coves at places like Bedwell, Pender and Mayne. At one point Buday fashions a tale that weaves together the exploits of Lieutenant R.C. Mayne-the island's namesake-and a pompous ship's surgeon named Billings, and a cocky island raven.
Leave a novelist on an island long enough, and he'll find his ground.
9781554200573
Mark Forsythe is the host of CBC radio's
BC Almanac.
[BCBW 2011]
Submitted on September 1, 2011 in By David.
