Sunday, November 16, 2008

Victoria report

A very fine weekend in Victoria. The Jailbreaks launch was well-attended and well-received on Friday, as was the Rocksalt launch on Saturday. Alas, I left my recorder at home for the latter event. It was good to meet some people I'd only, heard of or emailed in the past, including Steve Noyes, Iain Higgins and Don Denton.

It was better yet to spend some time with my old friends Mike and Natalie, and their delightful two-year-old girl Anna. On Saturday morning, Rachel, Kaleb and I joined Mike and Anna for an expedition to Goldstream Provincial Park to check out the chum salmon run. I'd never witnessed this awesome phenomenon before. The creek was thick with spawning salmon, as well as the eyeless corpses of those who'd done their duty. Gulls splashed about in search of unpecked eyeballs; the stink of rotting fishflesh permeated the air; eleven eagles sat in the bare branches of a tree on the bank. Really amazing.

Spent a lovely mild afternoon on Saturday walking around Victoria with Steven Price and Esi Edugyan, with whom we've become friendly since we moved out here. Victoria's a bit--a lot--too twee, but I kinda like it. Reminds me some of Halifax.

Saturday night, after the reading, Patricia and Terence Young had people over to their gorgeous home. Had a few good conversations before calling it quits and driving back out to Langford, where we were staying. We loitered around downtown today before driving out to the ferry. All in all, a very good weekend.

Next up for me, I'm Greyhounding it up to Prince George on Tuesday, for a reading on Wednesday at UNBC: 10:00 - 11: 20 a.m. – CFC 6-205. (I don't know what that means, but presumably if you're familiar with the UNBC campus, you will.) I daresay I won't be reading for the full 1:20 minutes. That would be good for no one. But I reckon there will be some discussion going on too.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Halifax is about to become a little less twee, as the provincial government has sided with a developer to replace a block of historic buildings with office towers (where the Sweet Basil was).