November 23, 1999

Women of Bamfield

(I had written this last summer, and had decided to work on it some more before posting it. In reality, I probably won't work on it any more, so here it is. It was an attempt to capture the feeling of a small coastal town, and the ways it has been changing. (Bamfield is a small community, tourist-focused with many elaborate second homes, on the southern shore of Barkley Sound, on the West Coast of Vancouver Island, BC.)
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Ebba's husband died a couple years ago, after selling his machine shop to a guy new to Bamfield. The new owner tried to scab some apartments onto the top of the machine shop without getting permits, and got hit with a cease and desist order. Ebba's reaction: "You'd think he'd learn!"

Ebba's been in Bamfield for fifty years, the daughter of a man who came there to work on the cable station, when there were no roads to Bamfield. There's a road now, but it's still a tough journey, because the road is rough gravel, with heavy industrial logging traffic. The road used to be a two mile walk away, across a suspension bridge spanning the Pachena River. Beth, now living in Astoria, OR, remembers the walk, because her father had to walk it every day to reach his pickup -- on his way to a logging job. Beth was ten or eleven when she left Bamfield in 1963, the year the road was extended to Bamfield.

Ebba says Bamfield was a nicer town then, dependent on the commercial fishing fleet, now entirely gone, a casualty of overfishing and the market forces of economy of scale. Walt's machine shop was an important cog in the machinery of the community, repairing dragger gear and logging equipment. That's gone, but Ebba still has her house, extensive gardens, duck pond, and dock on the inlet. One daughter does pottery in a tiny studio summers. Both daughters visit then. Tourists, do, also, and buy the pottery.

Irma is across the inlet, on the shore of Bamfield (Bamfield "West," actually) which still has no road access. That side is the locus for the hospital, the coast guard lifeboat station, the post office, a general store, and The Boardwalk. The school was over there, too, until a few years ago, when a bigger, uglier one was built on Ebba's side of the inlet.

The Boardwalk was the dominant access to homes years ago -- a crude path of gravel and boards above the tide linking commerce and lodging. Now there is a network of rough roads behind the boardwalk, connecting all behind the scenes. A few vehicles are there, barged across the inlet, but most folks walk.

Irma is in a double wide, playing her piano as we arrive. Does she remember Beth? Sure, she does! Irma and her late husband ran a store years ago, and lived in a different house on the double wide site, but "that house was too old," she says. Irma agrees to pose for a picture, smiling radiantly at 80. Beth's Mom still corresponds with Irma, and will appreciate the picture. Wish I had a smile like Irma's.

Irma and Ebba seem content and at ease with life in Bamfield, though they both agree it was better before the road. We are enriched by knowing them, but can not appreciate how life has changed for them.

That's the way of change.

Liz represents that change. She is Bamfield Kayak Central, renting kayaks and leading trips to local beaches and caves and arches. She speaks softly and smiles easily and wonderfully. Women like to hire her to lead yak trips. Liz does not lock up her shop, but has a note on the door to call her if you want to rent boats. She shares space on the float offshore with the lodge next door. When you call her on the phone, she sounds as if you brought her back from an ethereal dream. I think she is lost in the mileau of time that wraps Bamfield.

Her daughter loves it there. Wonder if in fifty years Liz will be in a double wide, with her daughter doing pottery, summers, in a little shop in the back yard.
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Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 1999 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Originally posted on Paddlewise mailing list on 11/23/1999.
Republished here with permission.