Barometer
Going down to the planet
Starting last spring, I had the opportunity to travel often from my home in the Skeena Valley: north to the Nass Valley, south to the Kitimat Valley, and east to the Bulkley Valley.
It was exciting and liberating and enlightening to get off the beaten path of Highway 16, turning left or right to a new vista. I felt like a member of the “Away Team” on Star Trek when they decide to go down to the planet.
I had only traveled as far as New Aiyansh (“fertile valley”) and Canyon City (Gitwinksihlkw, or “people of the lizard’s habitat”) on the Nisga’a Highway before last spring. Every time the lava fields appeared ahead, it was a spectacular sight. From having a cliff on the right and water on the left, to entering a broad valley filled with moonscape rocks with far-off mountains, was always a delight.
But this was the first time I ventured beyond Canyon City, on to Greenville (Laxgalts’ap, or “village built on a village”). I found the lava field ended as abruptly on the northwest as it started in the south.
I soon became disoriented: the water was on the right and the cliffs were on the left. And it felt…Rupert-ish, downright coastal, like the drive from Terrace to Prince Rupert, but with the water on the wrong side. Like the planets explored in Star Trek, the place looked familiar, and at the same time strange and new.
Kitamaat (“people of the snow”) is a coastal village on the Douglas Channel. The twisty, turning road from Highway 37 to the water encouraged slow driving, all the better to enjoy the panoramas as they unfolded.
Down at the waterfront, a single straight road took me past the seaside soccer field to the health centre, store, seafood cafe, and finally to the dock. On the other side of the road are houses with wonderful views. The vehicle traffic is very light, and very slow. Small children played in the yards, beside the road, on the road, and on the beach.
A young woman took a leisurely bike ride along the road, her puppy on a leash keeping up nicely. A little girl on a tricycle pulled a wheeled toy dog, which had some difficulty with this arrangement and kept falling over sideways. A couple pushing a stroller walked by; three boys pushed their toy trucks across the road to an inviting pile of sand on the beach.
On a warm spring Sunday afternoon, it seemed like a dream: a science fiction TV-series hologram, perhaps, complete with a seafood platter waiting at a sparkling waterfront cafe.
I went to a meeting in Hazelton last spring, where people introduced themselves by name and where they lived. I was confused, because I had always assumed there were only three places: Hazelton (aka “Old Town”), New Hazelton, and South Hazelton: the Hazeltons. As a visitor from another planet, I didn’t realize that what I thought were neighbourhoods were actually separate places: Two Mile, Hagwilget, Gitanmaax, Kispiox and Glen Vowell.
Three rivers converge: the Bulkley (Watsonquah) joins the Skeena at Hazelton where the Ksan (“misty river”) Museum is located, not far from the well-preserved riverside main street. The Kispiox enters not far upstream, at Kispiox Village,
Hazelton was the big city in the northwest in the olden days—as far upstream as paddle-wheelers could get. The historic downtown with its multi-storied buildings and neat, narrow roads is like stepping into the old west. Now I really was in an episode of Star Trek—the time-travel one where they go down to the planet and find they have been transported to the past.
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