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Posts Tagged ‘British Columbia’

The health minister visits the hospital

Posted in British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, government, health, hospitals, New Westminister, Personal, provincial government, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Yesterday, I was sitting in the hallway of the emergency ward at Royal Columbian Hospital, waiting for a bed for a patient, when word came through that George Abbott, the BC Minister of Healthy, was expected through on a tour. “Trip him up and tell him you need a bed right now,” a technician whispered to me. That was about the only reaction to the news that I saw – and it wasn’t particularly busy, for once. But the episode strikes me as a good example of why voter apathy and cynicism are increasing.

First came Abbott and the member of the hospital board who was guiding him on the tour. For all I know, the board member is caring and dedicated, and has brought the hospital millions of dollars through his scrappy advocacy, but to my eye he and Abbott looked two of a kind. They both looked like middle-aged men used to authority. The only difference was that the board member was about fifteen years older.

Behind them came a woman with a hospital badge. From her stance and her dress, I suspect she was lower in the ranks than a board member. Behind her came three or four other men, non-descript except that they were younger and junior to Abbott. Possibly, one or two were bodyguards, but at least two had a clerical look. Bringing up the rear was a twentysomething man carrying a clipboard. He didn’t know what to do with himself and stood in a corner shuffling from one foot to the other, but, boy, he knew his job – nothing was going to make him let go of that clipboard.

The board member stopped the procession at the front desk. The nurses and the doctors nearby did not look up, and nobody introduced them. The board member explained what the list of patients on the white board meant, noting that those with an “A” beside their name had found a bed elsewhere in the hospital. This fact may have been meant to impress Abbott with the need for more funding, but, if so, it like failed. The minister only looked polite.

Then the board member invited the minister to see something in the back of the ward. Half the entourage hovered in place, while the other half straggled after the board member and the minister.

I don’t know what they went to look at, but in less than three minutes they were leaving, saying something about their schedule. All the while, the staff kept at their paperwork, or wandered off to see to patients. Clearly, they were unimpressed, and had no belief that the visit might make their lives easier. Nor did Abbott make any attempt to engage any of them.

Watching the parade and reflecting on the three hours I had been sitting beside a gurney, I had to wonder why anybody bothered with the whole episode. The health minister and his entourage could have seen nothing substantial in the time they spent in the ward, and must have learned less. Nor did they seem to want to. I would say they had done it for the publicity, except the only member of the press nearby was me, and I don’t cover politics. So what was the point?

The only conclusion I could reach – and, I think, the only one any witness could reach – was that the hospital tour was made because someone, whether the minister or some member of his entourage concerned with communications imagined that going through the motions would look good. How, or to whom, the person responsible probably couldn’t say, but the thing was done.

But I wonder if the tour did anything except to bring the routine of governing into contempt. After the tour had exited, you could feel the staff relax, but apart from a few raised eybrows and one shaken head, everyone had grown too cynical about such efforts to bother venturing any remark whatsoever. The tour was something inflicted on everyone, and, when it was over, people could get back to their routine.

[Update — A few weeks ago, Abbott was dismissing the claims of overcrowding made by a surgeon as “alarmist.” This pre-judgment, I suppose, goes a long way to explaining what I saw. I suspect that he wanted to say that he had personally investigated, but was determined not to let the facts get in the way of his position.]

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A walkway of cherry blossoms

Posted in British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, cherry blossoms, Personal, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , on April 5, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This time of year, one of the hidden wonders of downtown Vancouver is the Burrard Street Skytrain station. On the walkway above the ticket level, the cherry trees are blossoming. Overhead, the skyscrapers loom, and the homeless are huddled in blankets less on the sidewalks than a block away, but, on that walkway, both are hidden from view, and you might almost be in the country. As in a classical Chinese garden, the walkway soon makes you forget the urban setting.

Today, I took half an hour from my Saturday errands to enjoy the sight, despite the chill of the day. The cold spring we’ve had so far has stunted the blossoms slightly, but the white-laden branches still managed to leave me with a catch in my throat and an unexpected lightness in my chest. I never notice any particular depression during winter, but the blossoming of the cherry trees – the first signs of spring aside from the blossoming of the broom and the odd hawthorn – never fail to leave me in a hushed awe, and grateful for the sight.

And today, a white-mustached busker on the ticket level was playing Mozart on a violin, his echoing notes providing a plaintive background to the spectacle of the blossoms.

At first, I stood at the top of the stairs to the walkway, alternating my sight between staring down the archway of gnarled branches and blossoms and focusing on the individual blossoms closest to me and their delicate perfection.

In the mid-distance, a bridal party was having pictures taken. Even from a distance, I could see her bare shoulders were red with the cold.

When the bridal party was finished, I began to walk, slowly, and with much turning from side to side and, even once or twice, right around. If I wanted a change from the blossoms, I could gaze down into the garden at the ticket level and see the other flowering trees just coming into bloom.

At the far end, I climbed to street level, and walked back away I came. A few people were thrusting cameras blindly up at the blossoms, apparently hoping for the random luck of a good shot, but no one spoke. Even the two or three couples were taking turns photographing each other were silent and intent, although smiling. I considered a comment or two myself, but decided not to spoil the moment.

On my second circuit, I noticed that the heightened wind created by the skyscraper canyons was starting to shake off some of the petals. They drifted like snowflakes, moving sideways as much as down. They made me think of how short the cherry blossom season is – always too short – and the thought added sadness to the scene that added the beauty of the falling petals.

Finally, the cold of the day drove me towards my journey home. But even the downtown tunnel of the Skytrain and the dinginess of the car I traveled in could only lessen my mood a little. I had had one of the aesthetic highpoints of the season, and I was grateful and still carried much of the mood it created.

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Spring arrives in Vancouver

Posted in British Columbia, Bruce Byfield, Personal, running, spring, Uncategorized, Vancouver, tagged , , , , , , on February 22, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Looking at temperatures across Canada, I see a depressing number of minus signs. The sole exception is the southwest corner of British Columbia, where we are already enjoying temperature of 15 degrees Celsius. Several weeks ago, we had our last snowfall, but now we’re starting to see the first signs of spring. Does anyone wonder why those of us in Vancouver have a tendency to phone friends and family in places like Calgary and Winnipeg to have a nice, warm gloat?

Many city people probably pay minimal attention to the seasons. Except for short dashes to their cars, they spent most of their time in heated buildings. However, for those of us whose daily exercise takes them out into the elements, the coming of spring has a certain urgency – although far less, granted, than it does for a farmer.

For one thing, running or cycling on snow is either difficult or impossible. For a runner like me, it’s like running on sand, with every kilometer feeling like two or more. And, like sand, it’s hard on the ankles. Add unplowed sidewalks and the need to contest the streets with cars, many of which lack all-season tires, let alone snow tires (Vancouverites are almost in as deep denial about receiving snow as they are about rain), and getting any sort of exercise becomes an ordeal. The fact that sweat pants bind my legs is just a winter torture unique to me.

Then, for morning exercisers like me, there’s the dark. Cars full of sleep-deprived, caffeine-motivated drivers are dangerous at the best of times, but trying to dodge them before sunrise adds a new dimension of horror, especially when you suddenly find yourself tiptoeing across a patch of black ice, waving your arms wildly and trying not to scream in panic as you try to keep upright.

But, somewhere in the last ten days, spring has definitely gained a hold. It was like trench warfare for a while – a tiny advance here, followed by an immediate setback, then the cycle repeating somewhere else – but at some indeterminate point, winter lost its grip.

Now, the only remains of snow are the mounds heaped up by snowplows – and they are diminishing everyday. The sun rose today just after 7am, meaning enough light to see by (and be seen) exists by 6:30, and the roads and sidewalks were mercifully ice-free. Crocuses and daffodils are thrusting up shoots of desperate green on the grass. In Dunbar, the first buds are showing, which means that, around our townhouse, they will appear within a week.

I’m not a victim of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and of course Vancouver winters are laughable by the standards of the rest of Canada. All the same, in December and January, I had the sense of keeping my head buried in my work, hunkering down in our living room as though it was a bunker in a war zone and waiting for better days.

Now those days have come, I feel a sense of relief, and a renewed need to be up and doing. With all these first signs of spring, the first cherry blossoms should be less than a month away – and then I’ll know that winter is gone beyond any recall.

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A morning run through the snow

Posted in British Columbia, exercise, Personal, running, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 27, 2008| 1 Comment »

I woke this morning to a couple of centimeters of snow. Part of me was mildly outraged that snow should fall so late in the seasons. Snow may be continuing to fall in places like Calgary and Saskatoon, where they’re still experiencing lows of -20 or greater, but I’ve been running in shorts since New Years, and was starting to expect the first signs of spring in two or three weeks. Still, like most weather extremes in Vancouver, the snow is unlikely to stay for more than a few days. Meanwhile, this morning, it was enough of a novelty that I could enjoy the experience of an early morning run through it.

Speed, of course, is totally lost in the snow, especially when it covers a thin layer of ice, like this morning’s did. So, frequently, is balance and dignity – I fell twice this morning, although, with the feeling of an unexpected holiday that comes with snow in Vancouver, I took both with surprisingly good humor. But I was in no hurry, and slogged along, my ankles getting as much of an extra workout as they would have if I was running over sand.

The worst moments were crossing the roads, where the few cars on the road had stripped the layer of snow and left only black ice. I tiptoed with exaggerate caution over the intersections, arms spread low for balance and head high so that I could check for cars.

I’ve always enjoyed the sensation of being the only person stirring on a morning run, but the snow adds substantially to that feeling. True, even at sunrise, the tracks in the snow indicated once or twice that I was not the first person stirring. Yet for long stretches, mine were the first footprints in the snow. And even where I could see the signs of others, the sound-muting qualities of the snow were in force, and the quiet intensified the sense of solitude. Literally, too, I was one of the first stirring, with no more than a single car passing every kilometer.

I didn’t experience, as I have in other snowfalls, being the fastest thing on the road. This year, Vancouver has had enough snowfalls that most people were prepared for driving in the snow. However, the snowfall intensified before I had finished half my run, so I had a good twenty minutes of feeling that I was falling into an endless well of snow flakes.

Then came the welcome relief of a hot bath and dry clothes – to say nothing of the rosy glow of virtue that comes from finishing something difficult and mildly against my inclinations.

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A cuff of copper

Posted in British Columbia, First Nations art, Personal, Tsimshian, Uncategorized, West Coast art, tagged , , , , , , on January 17, 2008| 5 Comments »

I’ve always thought that Beau Brummel has a lot to answer for. He’s the one who, in the early 19th century, set the standards that reduced the color palette in men’s clothes to brown, black, gray, and dark blue and – even worse – restricted men’s jewelry to rings, watches, cuff links and tie pins. No doubt his look was an improvement on Prinny’s excesses, but what Beau did was to condemn us to drabness. And if, like me, you don’t wear ties or French cuffs or carry a wrist watch because you look at it every twenty seconds if you do, your choices are even more limited. But, yesterday, I found a way around these restrictions that nobody can find fault with: I took home a three inch West Coast bracelet.

I suppose I could have opted for the full Scottish effect for formal wear. Never mind that I don’t have the remotest connection to a tartan; kilts suit short-legged, barrel-torsoed men like me, and, like my late friend Paul Edwin Zimmer, I could have used an unclaimed one like Ancient MacAlpin. And Scottish regalia has the advantage of allowing you to wear more jewelry, although too much of it has banal thistle designs and you have to be careful that nobody that nobody calls your skean dhu a concealed weapon. But kilts are even more trouble than suits, and fabulously expensive as well.

I suppose, too, that I could have got a tattoo. But tattoos are too permanent for my liking, and good ones surprisingly rare. And why go through discomfort for the sake of mediocrity?

Instead, for almost twenty years, I’ve wanted a thick West Coast copper bracelet. At least in British Columbia, such bracelets are works of art, thanks to the fame of artists like Bill Reid, and nobody is going to make tiresome remarks about effeteness if you’re lucky enough to have one to wear (not that I would care if they did; my identity as a straight male is well-established, thanks very much). Not only First Nations men, but men of every ethnicity can wear West Coast bracelets and nobody thinks twice about it – everyone’s too busy envying them.

But most West Coast bracelets you see are in silver or gold, metals that don’t catch my eye nearly as much as copper, even if they are more expensive. Besides, although I know that modern West Coast art is a blend of First Nations traditions and modern metal work techniques, copper seems more appropriate because the local cultures did work copper before their first contact with Europeans.

Moreover, few bracelets in any metal are more than an inch and a half wide, and most are made for the tourist trade. What I wanted was an original work of art, on a surface whose size would do the design full justice, and a weight that I could never forget while it was on my wrist. And for years I couldn’t afford one, although I came close once or twice to placing an order.

But in December, I suddenly had the the spare cash. I had long since narrowed down the shops to order from to two or three that were far above the watered down traditions in the Gastown tourist shops. Further investigation showed that Coastal Peoples in Yaletown was the only shop among those known to me that would take custom orders, so I placed my order there.

My choices were limited by a lack of artists who work in copper. However, I did have three or four possible artists – assuming any were available for a commission. After careful consideration, I decided I wanted Tsimshian artist Henry Green. Not only is Green a versatile artist who works in several media – his carved masks are especially fine – but all his work had a strong sense of line that the others lacked.

The Coastal People staff were polite, but non-committal about whether Green would accept the commission. However, a few days later, one emailed to tell me that he could do the piece in about a month. I rushed to put a deposit down before his schedule filled.

Then came the design decision. Not wanting to be too exacting for fear of receiving uninspired or merely competent work, I diffidently suggested that the design include Raven and Mouse Woman. Raven, of course, is the trickster, while the lesser-known Mouse Woman is the keeper of tradition and domestic values, so I thought the combination an interesting contrast. So, apparently, did Green, since he told Coastal Peoples that he liked the idea.

We did bandy about the idea of receiving a sketch from Green of the design, so that I could approve it. However, when I learned that it would be only a sketch and not a finished design, I decided it was not worth the additional sum he would charge. I abandoned the idea and settled down to wait.

A month passed, and I heard nothing. I didn’t want to get impatient. Art doesn’t work well to timetables, and, besides, the holiday season had intervened, yet I was nearly shaking in anticipation.

Then, yesterday afternoon, I received a call that the bracelet was ready. I soon abandoned the pretense of working, and knocked off early to pick it up; one of the advantages of being freelance is that you rarely have to work to schedule.

The work was – overwhelming, in a word. Green had created not only an inspired work of art, but, between the size, metal, and design, a unique one. It was also a well-engineered one, since Green had chosen the gauge of the copper to be thick enough for strength, yet thin enough to be pliable and relatively light. Even the staff at Coastal Peoples seemed impressed. I told the clerk to tell him that I was extremely satisfied, and left wearing it.

I plan to wear it in the future whenever possible, until it becomes my trademark for the rest of my life. Living with art is always uplifting, and, while Green did all the work, as the patron of the work with my stipulations, I can’t help feeling that I played a small part in its creation. And to have waited so long to get something that exceeded my expectation means that I couldn’t be more pleased to have this cuff of copper on my wrist

Someday, I might get a matching bracelet for my other wrist, and cement my reputation for eccentricity. Meanwhile, I keep looking at the design of Mouse Woman in the center and raven below her, and marveling at the bit of metallic beauty that has come into my life.

Bracelet by Henry Green

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